A game that Will particularly likes to play at the moment is the game in which I talk utter nonsense, spouting verbal salad like a patch of mint. For some reason, I have no inhibitions about producing these nonsense syllables. For some other reason, Will can tell that they’re nonsense — that they’re not the sort of thing (equally incomprehensible to him, no doubt) that I say when I’m changing his diaper, for example. I changed his diaper six times this afternoon, and we both had so much fun at it that I began to feel quite unhealthy. At one point, in fact, I worried that I was morphing into the Witch in Hansel & Gretel. He was such a plump little fowl! I bent over and asked, “Shall we stuff you with mushrooms or onions?” His mother laughed, thank heaven. So did he.

But he didn’t laugh as heartily as he did when I spouted nonsense. How can he possibly have a sense of nonsense? I’m not going to claim that he does. Maybe he just thinks that I make funny faces when I talk nonsense. When I ask him whether he’d prefer to be stuffed with mushrooms or onions, he cocks an eyebrow, a would-be stichomythic. When I burble, in contrast, there’s no critic in his look; I’m just being silly. How does he know about silly?

***

We had talked about going to park, either Carl Shurz or the much-closer Ruppert. But since the weather wasn’t very nice, and Will had been up all night with congested sinuses, Megan thought that Metro Minis would make a better outing. We didn’t get round to going until late in the day. I hailed a taxi easily enough, but when we tried to turn left on Lex, the traffic cops wouldn’t permit it, and the same prohibition was in effect at Park Avenue. Megan promptly decided that, whatever the explanation, she didn’t want to be caught in some sort of bad late-afternoon traffic thing, and she begged the driver to turn round and take us back to Yorkshire Towers. She had to beg, because the driver was full of enthusiasm for finding better routes, circumventing what he called “making a movie.” In the end, I had to insist. My instincts were the same as the driver’s — we’d find a way. He and I were both unhappy with the idea of a fare to nowhere, even if the driver was going to be paid for his pains. But I saw in a way that I have never seen it before that the mother’s wishes must be paramount. Generations of gentlemen have known as much in their twenties. Why didn’t I know about safe?  

 

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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