Tricks

I’ve always hated the idea of baby tricks. I think it’s demeaning to sit your baby in front of people and shout over and over, “How big are you?” I think it’s how stage freight is born. Babies aren’t put on this earth for our amusement. They’re put here to eventually learn how to mow our lawns. But I’m starting to change my tune of late because, well, Elijah has a baby trick. Clapping.

If the stars align and Eli is in the perfect post nap mood and you say, “Clap clap clap!” He’ll clap his little hands together. At which point I fall over from cuteness. He really gets into this clapping thing. Mostly because it gets such a positive rise out of his parents. But I’m getting the feeling he also claps when he approves of something. I caught him clapping while I was doing my Funky Robot dance the other day. Diana and Grover were not clapping, by the way.

Elijah also has a new disturbing trick. It appears that the boy is double jointed in his thumb. If he opens and closes his hand in the right way his tiny thumb pops. Ew. I have gone on record many times against double jointedness. I hate it. It gives me the creeps in the same way people who turn their eyelids inside out and World Record Holders for fingernail length.

So Eli will be sitting in his highchair chattering away, and then he starts gleefully popping his thumb. I scream and cry and run out of the room. Which makes him laugh. And pop his thumb. I crawl along the ground, holding my stomach, whispering, “Clap clap clap.”