One Thumb, One Thumb, Banging on a Drum

Miles is crazy for drums, a passion sparked at or near his first birthday by the gift of an actual drum, and by a book called Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb, which is about all these beatnik monkeys (with sideburns!) who play crazy rhythms on drums they wear around their necks. Starts with a single monkey beating out a rhythm with his thumb, then evolves to a thunderous chorus created by thousands of monkeys all playing at once. The book itself has a great rhythm. All the way through, meter like this:

One thumb, one thumb,
beating on a drum
dum ditty dum ditty
dum dum dum

Amy and I have fun riffing on this. The drum mallets, of course, don’t confine themselves to the drum head. Mallets on sliding glass door, mallets on daddy’s head, mallets on other toys. Crazy rhythms everywhere.

He’s also way into climbing now. Started with small footstool, then climbing on the drum, now climbing chairs and surfing the arms, riding Simone’s hobby horse every way but the way it’s meant to be ridden, using his schooldesk chair like an acrobatics prop. Seems to be made out of rubber, and is an excellent fall-er. Some bruises, but they don’t deter him, and no really serious ow-ies yet. He’s also taken to upturning chairs (including his high chair) from below, just to hear them thud.

Now that’s he’s moved pretty much fully from jar food to finger foods, cleaning up after his meals has become a home improvement project in its own right. This task consists of the following subroutines: Shake foodstuffs out of his clothes and hair, then wash his his face and hands in the sink. Scrub down the bib, sponge out the high chair, use a broom and dustpan to clean up the wreckage of his meal in a 6′ circle around the epicenter, then sponge same area clean with the “dirty sponge.” Finally, put away all the components of his meal – bean container, cheese block, cracker box, melon half, and so on.

This is why Amy has hung a picture of the wreckage of the 1907 San Francisco earthquake above his high chair.

Music: Garaj Mahal :: Gulam Sabri

3 Replies to “One Thumb, One Thumb, Banging on a Drum”

  1. >This is why Amy has hung a picture of the wreckage of the 1907 San Francisco earthquake above his high chair.

    Your wife has a slightly twisted sense of humor. I love it!

  2. Scot wrote:
    …clean up the wreckage of his meal in a 6′ circle around the epicenter

    The “epicenter” :) That’s a perfect way of putting it! I have some first birthday video of my son stripped to his diaper in his highchair in the kitchen eating cake. Man, it was usually like feeding time at the zoo, but this was a whole ‘nuther level of chaos…

  3. I’m a tidy person. A very tidy person. And I once shared a house with a couple who had two babies that went through the same things with food and climbing and noisemaking. I loved the kids but hated the mess, noise, chaos, din, confusion, looney-tunes-on-benzedrine maniacal zaniness. All that I ever wanted, sometimes, was a moment’s peace.

    But, dude. You’ve made me realize I miss all that. It makes my heart break to remember.

    Right on with that. Thanks again.

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