sketchblog

Chas is now walking across rooms. On Friday he began practicing in earnest, stopping only to eat and sleep, but today he feels he has mastered his first footed gait and is scrumptiously sleeping now in his bed, smiling and dreaming and proud of himself. His reddish hair is rumpled around his head, tired and wasted from a day of hustle-bustle, not just from walking but from climbing up and down from Ford’s booster seat in the middle of the living room floor. Chas looked like a finicky dog, spinning and adjusting, around and around for fifteen minutes atop the miniature seat, before sitting, sighing and smiling in satisfaction. And then clapping! And then he proceeded to traverse the house once more, clap, and repeat. Again and again. And again. Again. Again. again.

Chas would very much like to walk, minus the falling down part. In the kitchen we were captive audience this afternoon. He would get up, look at us as if to say he’d just been given a $1000 gift certificate to Design Public, step step step witholding breath, then plop halfway surprised before looking up at both of us in pride, clapping his hands loudly and vigorously, grinning and soliciting our applause. At times like this I think he is entirely happy-go-lucky, just riding this whole walk-tease phase out; other times I perceive him as fiercely opinionated, like when I try to rescue my delicate cell fone out of his grasp and am met with the ringwraith scream, eardrums shattered and eyelids peeled back in strain. He’s a soft, snuggly bundle of conflicted joviality and frustration.