My son has developed new and original ways of asserting himself. Parenting books call this a child’s ‘burgeoning push for independence’. Irish people simply call it being ‘bold’. Bold, as distinct from its English usage, is a term for childhood bad behaviour that doesn’t have a like-for-like translation. It is roughly analogous to ‘naughty’ or ‘mischievous’ only, unlike those words, an Irish person can call a child ‘bold’ without sounding like an elderly dowager reprimanding her dachshund.
If we give him a book, he throws it on the floor. If we offer him food, he pushes it around the plate or tips it on the ground. More specifically, he becomes especially bold any time he sees my wife and I kiss or hug. I want to make it clear – OK, my wife wants me to make it clear – our house is not some satyr’s palace of erotic delights. I’m not talking about anything too scandalous here. A peck on the cheek or a genial hug is enough to send him crawling toward us from the other end of the room. Like a scandalised nun separating two overzealous teens at a disco, his reddened face screams, ‘Leave a bit of room for the holy spirit, you two!’ any time we get within smooching distance.
Stranger still is his fondness for sticking the bin in the bath. Around 7pm, when he should be reading his last book before bed, or doing a spot check to make sure his parents aren’t holding hands, he drops everything once he hears me running the bath and crawls up the stairs at a speed that would dement a corgi. Once there, he grabs the little wicker bin, raises it above his head and plops it into its watery home. He does this every night, not with glee or delight, but rather a madman’s sense of urgency, as if the entire rigmarole is undertaken with a sense of duty.
Neil deGrasse Tyson says all babies are born scientists; we just educate them out of it. I’d like him to say that to my face as I pick cotton buds out of my plug hole for the fifth time this week but, to be honest, he’s right, and we haven’t tried to train him out of it yet. There’s little to clean up anyhow, since we have long since stopped putting rubbish in it. The wicker bin is his, free for use in this bizarre nightly ritual.
If nothing else, our bathroom waste has been reduced to whatever can be collated into a plastic bag affixed to a doorknob. Perhaps that was his point all along – to promote more ecological behaviour among his parents, like some kind of toddler Greta Thunberg, but one who doesn’t eat his dinner and hates public displays of affection. Gazing at our little eco-warrior, as he stares in turn at the wicker bin floating in the bath, my wife and I feel a surge of confusion, pride and love. It would be nice to hug right now but, perhaps we should quit while we’re ahead.
Follow Séamas on Twitter @shockproofbeats
