Sunday 27 November 2011

little friends



At least once a day I show Leonard my collection of animal salt-and-pepper shakers. He loves looking at them and seems to find them even more hilariously amusing than all the other things in the house that are funny. I call them the Little Friends. Look at the little friends, bubbie, look at those crazy little baby friends!

It's not clear to me whose friends they are, exactly. Are they his? Mine? Ours together? Each others'? Lenny loves his life but he hasn't really got any friends. I feel sad for him when I think about that. He'll get some when he's a bit older, though. I hope.

The friends are sitting on a shelf set into the fireplace stone surrounds about a metre off the floor. He used to just stare at them delightedly but lately he reaches out for them with the same urgent gesture that he reaches for everything that interests him; coffee cups, milk cartons, mobiles, lamps, and above all, iphones. But alas, Leonard's hands and these little porcelain figures can never ever meet. So I don't know why I keep showing him them. I guess it's probably going to end badly, like Hamlet.

14 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

He does look faacinated though. Good luck in keeping them safe from inquisitive hands.

antikva said...

He looks like he's plotting to do a swing & snatch using your hair, so cute :)

Helen said...

Don't worry about friends, babies don't care. You and Dorian are enough for now. Babies don't miss what they don't know. And later on, child care or Kinder - or a mixture of the two - and/or playgroups - will do the job.
If you go the day care or Kinder route, try to get it near home rather than near work, because we have met some lifelong local friends that way, kids still friends at uni/post school *blub*!

Helen said...

Oh, I sounded like the Womansplainer there. Don't worry, I couldn't take a university lecture if I tried :-/

Mindy said...

Every first birthday party I have ever been to has had guests who are friends of the child's parents, and sometimes their children. Don't worry you have plenty of time.

lucy tartan said...

Yes, mummy's hair is not for abseiling down.

No Helen, you don't sound like the Womansplainer :) just a helpful parent who's been there. I know it's daft to feel sorry for Len not having friends, or not being able to talk etc; it's only ever a very brief bit of feeling sad.
He will be starting a bit of child care when he's about 1 1/4, and I hope it'll be the one at uni, which seems fantastic. I hope to be able to stay in touch with my mothers' group and Len will know those kids as he grows up.
Someone he really does take a very strong interest in right now is Basil. That could also work out pretty bad....

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

"I guess it's probably going to end badly, like Hamlet."

--- !

iODyne said...

Hamlet? end badly? the start and the middle weren't comedy either.
Len E, on the other hand, is just brilliant, and Baz is cool enough to avoid disaster.
Animal shakers cool also. I have a poodle one, but alas no pair for it.

Anonymous said...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8934293/New-portrait-of-Jane-Austen-reveals-her-true-feisty-character.html

X X Brownie O'Dyne

Friends of Mine said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Ann ODyne said...

Hope LEJ's first Cwismas was awesome for you all X X X

Elisabeth said...

A late late comment here, but one worth offering I hope. This wonderful/awful baby baby baby time is irreplaceable. the analysts talk about maternal reverie. No doubt you're in it and everything else falls by the wayside.

I feel like an old trout talking like this but I remember months, no years of not writing once in the thrall of my beautiful babies.

Lenny is lovely. Congratulations.

I once heard an interview with Thea Astley in her later years and the interviewer asked her which of all her books she considered her greatest achievement.

'Not my books,' Astley said. 'My greatest achievement was the birth of my son.'

Unknown said...

little friends like little ambitions little fight little sacrifice for each others .

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David said...

I would so much love to come here sometime and see something new. I am not sentimental as a rule, but... they were good times.