Mayhem

November 9th, 2021

“The horror! The horror!” – Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Asher is large. At eleven months of age, our grandson is a rapidly growing boy. He’s sturdy and solidly built. He is round in the middle, with broad shoulders and remarkably strong arms. Asher has the physique of a sumo wrestler, or perhaps a linebacker. There is nothing frail about this lad.

Sometimes he wrestles with me on the floor. He fights dirty. He likes to grab my right ear and bite it. He is toothless at this point, but he can still bite hard. He likes to rip out handfuls of my beard. He is also fond of twisting my large nose. He’s going to be a terror on the playground.

Asher likes to eat, pretty much any time, pretty much all the time. It was simpler when he just took a bottle. Now, since we introduced a variety of solid foods into his diet, things are more complicated, and significantly messier.

Asher is getting good at handling finger food. His fine motor skills have developed to the point where he can pop blueberries into his mouth without much trouble. Bananas are problematic because they are slippery. They usually wind up on his lap. Grapes are like that too.

The boy is only willing to be fed with a spoon for a while. Then he wants to take over. Without warning, he will grab for the spoon with the speed of an attacking mongoose. He gets it in a vise-like grip in his chubby hand, and he won’t let go. He’s strong. I generally let him have the spoon before its contents are splashed all over the place. Asher smiles once he has the spoon. He eats what is on it. Then he casually holds it over the edge of his high chair and lets it drop to the floor. For him that’s a victory.

Last night, my wife, Karin attempted to feed Asher some beets, and then some peas. Both the beets and the peas had been through the blender. Asher was uncooperative. That was odd since he likes both those vegetables. Asher fought off Karin’s efforts to get the spoon into his mouth. By the time he was done with the beets, the kitchen looked like a scene from a low budget slasher film. Everything was spotted red, and Asher’s mouth and hands appeared to be covered with gore.

After a hasty clean up, Karin tried the peas. Basically, she had the same results, just in green. Asher had his mouth full and managed to emit a fine spray of pureed peas in Karin’s general direction. It had that Exorcist look to it. Very disturbing.

Rather than hose the kid down, Karin chose to give him an immediate bath. She used his baby tub, which Asher has almost outgrown. I wiped down the kitchen while Karin washed the boy. Things seemed to go okay. The boy was finally going to be clean and fresh. Then I heard Karin call from the bathroom.

“Fraaaaank!”

That’s never good.

I went to bathroom. She cracked open the door. Karin looked worried.

I asked her, “What?”

“Asher pooped in the tub.”