Hitting the Bottle

Today I was unloading groceries with John playing behind me in the kitchen. I turned around and, poof!, he was gone. As a first-time mother of a newly mobile baby, the experience of not being able to spot my son is still unnerving! I poked around and discovered him in the recently cleaned-out pantry, fiddling with the liquor bottles.

"How much have you been drinking, son?!"


A few days ago I played for John for the first time Serge Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. I remember this delightful orchestral story from my childhood and a few years ago my dad gave me a new CD of the recording. John has not yet shown much interest in music, beyond the fact that it calms him in the car and he screams if a radio commercial comes on. However, when I put on Peter and the Wolf, I sat John in my lap and he sat transfixed as each character (the duck, the cat, the grandfather . . .) was introduced by instrument. This boy is not a lap-sitter, but he sat on my lap for five minutes staring at the stereo from which the music was emanating and looking back at me as I commented with enthusiasm, things like, "That's the duck!"