He spent half of last night crying and ending up falling asleep next to me watching The Simpsons at three in the morning. He waddles in at strange times and looks at us in a way that suggests he is curious and slightly amused by every little thing. He is the silent little fact at the dinner table of noise and arguments, a calm little centre to everything that now and again erupts into a fiery, uncontrollable rage. Waking, at four this morning, to see his head lying on the floor next to his fold out couch like a drunk, blanket covering part of his foot, snoring as only babies and old men can, I began to re-evaluate my littlest Little Mango.
I often wonder what's going through his head, as I suppose every parent does about their child. He seems to be caught up in this busy little work-a-bee life all of his own. Sometimes that means interacting with others, sometimes it means going out as a lone wolf, sometimes it means being the loudest in a loud car, or slapping his sister in the head for no particular reason. Whatever he is doing, he seems to have a plan and a look in his eye that lets us know this. There is a hint of a smile, a glint in his eye and the vaguest idea that he has big plans for us and world domination.
One of the thing that makes me think this is that he has figured out at this early age, with his two older siblings and us at his beck and call, ready to help him learn and live at any particular moment, that he doesn't really have to learn how to speak. He's actually got all of us trained well enough that all he needs to do is point at something to get a response. Point: “IDENTIFY”. Point: “ACQUIRE”. Point: “REMOVE”. Point: “I WISH TO CONSUME!” (Whatever it may be at the time). What I like is that I suggested to the kids that they teach him words associated with what he is interested in. So now Little Mango 3 has learnt a great new game of pointing at every little tiny thing in the room just to keep them all speaking for him. “Puppets!”
Although if he is keen on getting on top of the world, then he should probably get a bit better balance to be honest. At the moment, I think microbes knock him over. I kid you not, I have on a few occasions seen him standing perfectly straight and still, and the next moment be on the ground with no discernible reason for how it happened. And he doesn't fall in the fashion a normal person would where they go front-first, arms out to stop them as they go. Nope, he's much more keen on making his falls as spectacular as possible so that not only can we fail to comprehend how it has happened, but also how to retrieve him from the position he's currently in. It's almost worth taking a moment after he's fallen to take a picture, get some engineers together and study closely over the predicament at hand before attempting to remove one thing or the other. “Yes, I think if we dig under him and extract him from beneath the pile of pine cones it would be best. We certainly cannot remove that part of a bike wheel – that's a load-bearing wheel.” Although, I think far from getting over his clumsiness, he's probably just going to take it on head first.
One of his favourite games at the moment is running around the trampoline while the kid next door attempts to knock him over. And I don't mean by gentle bounces of the trampoline to put him off balance – no, I mean pushes, tackles, crash-dives, whatever the situation requires really. Little Mango 3 takes it like a front rower, laughing all the time, and keeps going. What I find most interesting is this relationship he's developed with a ten-year old. Inside Little Mango 1 is playing with his three year-old counterpart, and Little Miss Mango is playing with her seven-year-old counterpart (they're in swapped positions which is strange) so all that is left is the big 10-year-old from next door and 18 month-old Little Mango 3. And they make an amazing team – I think possibly because my son is attempting to soak in as many dare-devil tactics as he can before his time comes – it's actually quite worrying, because going back to that look in his eye.... well, sometimes it can be confused, or possibly swapped, with a portion of pure outrageous insanity as well.
He has this look when he tries to ride Little Mango 1's bike without training wheels, or when he rides side-saddle on his sister's quad bike, or when he's swinging from the second story of the cubby house with no net and no fear. He cannot be told no to something, cannot be denied his chance, and if was given it, would climb to the top of that two-story spider-web playground structure and fight off anyone else that attempted to mount it. He's had to fight for everything so far in his life, and isn't afraid to keep it up for the rest. I supposed it comes down to this, to the fact that he has had the least attention (due to it being shared with the rest of the tribe); to the fact that it's a good way to get attention, and possibly because he knows we don't want him to do it.
Whatever it is, there's that look again – staring at me as if he's curious as to what I'm doing and whether it was at his instruction or not. He points at me, at the screen, back at me. “FINISH!”
It shall be done.
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