A Blog by Gail Cushman
I haven’t been around a lot of babies since my youngest grandchild started thinking like a teenager, when she was almost two years old and asked if she could borrow my car, but this week, the cowboy and I have been around Baby Sawyer, a one-year-old wonder child, as precocious a baby as I have ever met. He is the size of a baby, but don’t let that fool you, he has the will of a hurricane, the wisdom of Solomon, and the cuteness of two puppies wrestling with each other. We were visiting family in Texas when this little bundle of energy showed up. He isn’t quite walking yet, so crawls about a hundred miles an hour, faster than Cody chasing his tail. Sawyer and Cody had a couple races, which Sawyer won, and promptly sat down, raised both hands in the air, shook them, announcing his victory by declaring a few sounds. He was saying, “All done,” according to his mother.
I have worked for well over three-quarters of a century trying to learn to multitask, but so far, I have been a dismal failure. In his short lifetime, Baby Sawyer has acquired skills that put me to shame. He has the uncanny ability to scream in dissatisfaction and laugh at the same time and does it often. Tears and smiles. Add to that his uncanny ability to manipulate: in a mere millisecond, he has his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, plus me, a person he has never seen before, in his clutches, fawning and fetching, so that all his needs are met. He only has to point, and he has three grown women jumping to their feet, giving in to whatever demands we thought he had. It was like we were racing to a sale at Macy’s.
After all this activity, Sawyer became hungry and, of course, his wish was our command. His mother put together a grilled cheese sandwich and cut it into pieces the size of blueberries. He once again demonstrated his multi-tasking duties, stuffing pieces into his mouth with both hands while peppering the floor with small pieces for Cody, and occasionally crammed a few down his diaper, to later surprise his mother. Cody thought that playing pick-the-sandwich-from-the-floor was a grand idea and chased around lapping up the goodies, until Sawyer once again shook his hands at Cody, “All done.”
You forget how much fun they are, as they entertain you with giggles and wiggles, trying to figure out the world. Everything is new, and needs to be looked at, thought about, and stored in their tiny brains for future use. You also forget how much work they are, and I remembered the reason that babies are given to people in their twenties and not their seventies. My babies are in their fifties and their babies are all driving now, but I don’t remember my own kids or grandkids being this much work, (but I’m sure they were). It was a joy to spend time with Sawyer, but at the end of his visit, I raised my arms in the air, shaking my hands, “All done.” It works!
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