Good Luck to the Guck

I think we need to get Jim the Baby Nephew looked at. He’s just not landing his double axel, and the last time I was home I addressed him at length about the efficient nature of the upgraded delta wing sensors onboard Discovery, and he just looked at me.

He is walking now, albeit like Dr. Evil. The upper body does not move. I believe he has inherited his aunt’s penchant for never doing something simply when one can make a production of it, as every time he falls down he does so with a mighty wind. “Unnnh!” he exhales upon wheels down. He pauses for effect, then springs back into action, for somewhere out there is an untoppled trashcan to which he must attend.

"Mommy, the scary pale thing is following me again."

I have been working on vocabulary expansion, which is frustrating, because apparently all the world is a guck. “GUCK!” he pointed out when I pushed a little toy truck at him. Yes, truck! Good job! Now, look at the train with the non-chokable culturally diverse figurines on board! Train? Can you say train? “GUCK!”

He has in his possession a picture book featuring many gucks, all of which must be thoroughly examined and exclaimed over upon each reading. Look, it’s a fire engine! Fire engine! The very same fire engine we saw four seconds ago and 1.5 million times in the past hour! Fire engine? “GUCK!”

Yet the light flickers. A week after I went back to Florida, he busted out his first sentence. My mother plopped him down on a concrete step he was attempting to scale, and he assessed the situation for a moment, then announced: “I sit.”

“I sit.” Now that is my godchild: Subject, verb. Proper first-person context and conjugation. He sits, therefore he is, and a better grammarian than some of the near-engineers in my class who are of legal drinking age. Facta, non verba, Jim.

barbie dance party! at mb@blondechampagne.com