“Eye,” the baby says, shoving his chubby little finger into my eye socket.  “Eye!”

I grab his finger and gentle-up his prodding.

“Yes, eye,” I say.  I point at mine.  “Mommy’s eye.”  I point at his.  “Meyer’s eye.”

He smiles with pride at his accomplishment.

“Where’s mommy’s nose,” I ask.  “Nooooose?”  Drawing it out, inflection dipping and rising like a roller coaster.

He reaches out with all the gentleness of a baby Bruiser, pushing the tip of my nose almost against my cheek.  I deflect by turning my face to the side while holding his wrist — a motion that’s become second nature to me now that I have two boys.

But still I smile.  “Good!  Where’s Meyer’s nose?”

He touches his own nose and grins.

With this, his knowledge of  body part names ends but he’s clearly interested in continuing his eduction.

There comes the finger again.  I wait as it comes towards my face with force but also seemingly in slow motion, like a battering ram in a climatic movie scene.  There’s a moment where I can’t decide whether to bob and weave or gracefully accept the probe and then his pointer finger is on my lips and past them and touching my teeth and past them and wiggling around in the full cavity of my mouth.

I grasp his wrist again and gently pull it back, tapping my  lips and saying, “Yes, mouth.”

He’s pleased with this new acquisition because for the next ten minutes or so, while I think we’re focused on playing with miniature farm animals, he performs random sneak-attacks on my tonsils.

I hold up a plump white plastic guy and say, “Sheep.  Baaaaaaaa.”

Meyer laughs delightedly and rams his finger into my mouth.

Finally, he yawns.  I need no more encouragement.  I scoop him up and carry him into his room for a nap.

From the doorway, I see that our dog — prone to acting out when she doesn’t get enough attention — has left a message for the stealer of this attention on the nursery rug.  Her version of a horse’s head in his bed.  Not a package from Brown but a brown package.

Worst yet, I can tell that I have not been the first one to find it.  It’s no longer in a pile but broken up and spread around the rug by indelicate little hands.  And fingers.  And…

Excuse me while I go gargle with Lysol.


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