Fetch. Also, Noisy.

I tried to teach the boy a scaled-down version of catch this afternoon. I rolled him the ball. "Roll the ball!" I said. When it gently nudged his foot, I said, "OK, now roll me the ball! Roll it! Roll me the ball!" while making various gestures indicating motion in my general direction. He looked at me. He looked at the ball. He looked at me. "Roll me the ball!" I encouraged.

"Ball?" he asked?

"Yes, ball. Roll me the ball!"

"Danku!" he said, picking up the ball and carrying it over to me.

"Thank you!" I said. "OK, I'll roll you the ball!" And so forth, and so on. I affected my most enthusiastic tone. I rolled. I encouraged rolling. When he accidentally dropped it, I praised him shamelessly. "Yay! Good roll!" To no avail. My first game of catch was really a game of fetch.

"Danku!"





I vacuumed today. The boy lost his mind. I guess that's testament to how rarely I vacuum. I think the last time I did so, his grandmother (affectionately referred to by the boy as "Mungo") was here, and she took him for a walk outside while I cleaned. That may have been as much as 6 weeks ago. It's amazing how much stuff he finds to eat on the carpet.

So I vacuumed. He freaked out. I only did one room. I stopped frequently to reassure him. "It's OK. It won't hurt you. It's OK. It's just noisy. It's not going to hurt you." And then I vacuumed again.

By the time I finished the one room, he was sobbing. And shaking. Seriously. Visibly trembling. I reassured him again. And for some reason, of all the words I used, he latched on to "noisy."

"Nosy?"

"Yes, it was just noisy. It's not going to hurt you. And it's all done."

"All done?"

"Yes, all done."

Etc., etc. So for the rest of the day, he's periodically looked toward the closet where the vacuum is stored. "Nosy? All done?" He said it for Aerie when she got home, too, and it seemed apparent that "Nosy?" is about the cutest damn word he's ever squeaked out. I think I'll torment him again tomorrow with another room. I'll tell myself I want to desensitize him to the vacuum so that it doesn't traumatize him so much, but really, I just want to talk about the Nosy some more.

All done!