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It could have been worse: Mommy might have insisted on his being given a Mohawk like unto the Nature's Mohawk he was sporting when he came off the plane back in March of aught-aught. But Adrienne's natural antipathy to hair took over and she allowed the Drill Instructor/barber to give the boy, in essence, a buzzcut. Then she looked at the barber conspiratorially, pointed in my direction, and said: "Now him." O, Reader, forgive me; I did not put up a fight. I went gentle into that good depilatory night, and now, in the harsh morning light, I feel cheap and hate myself.
I promised the Boy I wouldn't tell anyone that he cried throughout his entired haircut ordeal if he didn't tell anyone I did. (Evidently, I was lying, because I think he's kept mum about my girly-tears.)
Actually, the only reason he cried was because the DI/barber put him in a booster chair with no straps, no arm rest, nothing to secure him in his place as he sat up on high other than the limited prehensile capabilities of his little butt-cheeks. Now, his butt is talented in other ways--indeed, it is a veritable mass production factory and an object lesson in the economies of scale--but its ability to latch on to objects is severely limited...yet, it would seem, also over-rated in certain DI/barber circles. Yet he managed to hang on. His reward? To be made to look like a recent ROTC recruit. Perhaps his uncle Matty will give him tips on how to go AWOL for 15 years running.
People ask us all the time what he wants for Christmas. And I tell them: Beer. (They don't believe this because they are not nearly as stupid as I look.) So we tell them he has been experiencing Christmas for the past six months as he re-discovers--or, in truth, discovers for the first time--the many toys that were showered on him when he first came here from Korea, and the many he's gotten since then. When he first got here, it wasn't just his little butt that lacked prehensile skills: his hands were not yet able to grasp much, either (he could, f'rinstance, barely hold his own beer bottle (he loves beer if you're stuck for a gift to get him for Xmas...still not buying this...?)); so all those toys he had that involved pushing, pulling, grasping, yanking, etc., were a mystery to him and of little interest unless they--or part of them--fit in his mouth. But he's into them for the intended reasons now. In fact, our living room floor is littered, every day, with toys he has recently re-discovered and learned how to work. Most of these are both sharp and voluble: while piercing the skin on the sole of the foot, they helpfully inform you in a sing-song voice that "the wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round..." (Someone should invent a children's toy that, when stepped on, informs you--to a Bo Diddley beat--of basic first aid techniques:
Such a toy would be a best seller for both Toys 'R' Us and Sam Goody.)
However, El Boyo did already get his present from Pop-Pop and Grandmother: a toy chest--much needed. First thing he learned: how to fall into empty toy chest, head first. Second: how to put toys away. Third: how to overturn toy chest for easy access to all toys at once. (Two out of these three lessons stuck and can be repeated at will by the Boy.)