Missed Opportunities

Over the last week, there have been two memorable photo opportunities that we've failed to capture because we didn't have the camera at the ready when they happened. But, through the magic of words, I'm going to share them anyway for everyone's edification and enjoyment.

The first happened yesterday while Gabe and I were playing in the yard and falls into the category of Nature Photography. Specifically, it didn't involve Gabe, just nature doing something naturey. But AMUSINGLY naturey, I thought. I know this breaks from the general theme of this site to have something non-Gabe related, but I thought it was a wonderful moment and truly wish it would have continued happening long enough for me to run in and get my camera (which I tried to do, but not nearly fast enough).

We were sitting on our back patio and I was trying to teach Gabe about weeding. Our brick patio in our backyard is prone to terrible weed growth. Sadly, for the sake of keeping my back straight and my fingers from getting dirty, we have to hand pick all of these weeds instead of just spraying them all with some noxious chemical that will lay waste to everything it touches. We do this because, in between the bricks, we have a struggling moss growth that Libby swears is worth nurturing despite its ridiculous effort (and despite the fact that, being in Kansas, the stuff really only gets to grow for about two months of rain in April and May before the inevitable drought and strangling heat sends it into dormancy where it will stay until the following year).

Anyway, Gabe took to weeding like a duck to pocket billiards. When I sat down in a particularly weedy spot and said, "Gabe, can you come help me pull up these weeds?" and illustrated what I wanted him to do, he walked over, bent down, and half-heartedly pulled one leaf off a promising sprout, threw it in the yard, then left me to my work without another thought. But he stayed close enough for me to see him for another few minutes, so I continued to clear off a ten inch square of space (which is about as big a portion of the patio as I can clear before losing interest anyway) when something caught my eye.

About five feet away, a quite pretty butterfly landed. Or maybe it was a moth. I have no idea. The only moths I can readily identify are the little dusty white ones we call "millers" around here. I can readily identify them because once, when I was in high school, as I was walking through one of my family's alfalfa patches, a miller swooped down from the sky and shot straight up my nose. After taking a moment to boggle in terrified surprise (was it going for my brain? was it laying eggs in there? what the hell was going on?), I plugged the opposite nostril and "farmer blew" the thing back out. It shot out like a dart and flew off, never to be seen again. Needless to say, I don't exactly trust millers anymore. I suspect they have an agenda of some sort. And this "butterfly" wasn't a miller, but it also wasn't colorful, as I often assume butterflies should be. It was spotted and brown, so it probably was a moth of some sort, but I'm going to call it a butterfly anyway because that word has a much pleasanter ring to it, which is important for the juxtaposition that I'm about to establish.

The butterfly--this delicate, beautiful little creature--had landed on a fresh squirt of bird shit and was going to town on it, and, for some reason best left for a therapist to decipher, I found it impossibly amusing. Probably, the subtle perceived irony of the moment is completely lost in my description here, too, which is too bad. I really wish I could have taken a picture to share it with everyone.

The second missed opportunity involved Gabe directly, so it's probably more relevant to this blog--though it was probably even more inappropriate for entirely other reasons.

We give Gabe a bath every other night, unless he's been outside long enough to make a complete mess of himself, of course. Bathtime is Libby's arena. After dealing with all of his other menail cleaning tasks throughout the day, I have very little interest in making his bathtime an enjoyable experience. When I do have to give him his bath, we tend to be in and out as quickly as possible, and he tends to do a fair amount of spluttering and coughing because I'm pouring water over him to rinse him off as fast as I can. Libby lets him linger and play with his toys, though, so he has a lot more fun when she administers bathtime.

Since very early on, Gabe has recongnized the word "bath," and he tends to get very excited by the prospects. If he hears the word, he immediately stands by the gate into my office (which leads into the bathroom) and shrieks "bath! bath! bath? bath!" until I open the gate and let him run into the bathroom where he'll immediately try to climb into the tub, whether he still has clothes on or not.

As such, we tend to spell out "b-a-t-h" whenever that time of the evening approaches, and then I'll start his water and Libby will keep him occupied elsewhere while it runs. Every once in awhile, for reasons I cannot fathom, shortly after I start the water but a few minutes before it is ready, Libby will tell Gabe that we're running a bath and get him ready by stripping him naked in the living room.

Once, as I believe I mentioned in another post, this led to him peeing on the gate into my office, but usually he just runs around like a streaker with motor control issues. The other night, however, he did something new.

For about a month now, every once in awhile, Gabe will put his head down on the ground and stand up on his feet so that he can look between his legs, upside down, at the world behind him. Sunday, this led to him pulling off his first moderately successful, if somewhat unplanned, somersault.

On the evening in question, Libby had stripped him down for his bath. As usual, he ran around the dining room table three or four times giggling and slightly dangling for everyone to see. Then he went back into the living room and, facing the couch, he plunked his head down on the ground and began to watch the TV through his splayed legs.

But there was something in the way of the TV! Yeah, that. He stared curiously at his own junk, in its new perspective, for a few moments. He even gave his legs a few experimental jiggles and watched it, transfixed, as it responded. Libby said, "Oh my god! You have to get the camera!" So I did, but the memory card was still in the reader. And, by the time I got everything set up and made it into the living room, he was finished.

It's probably just as well that I didn't get a picture of that one as a picture like that might get me in some trouble with some authority or other. But it almost would have been worth it just for the sheer embarrassment factor of showing it to his signficant other here in another 15-20 years. And, again, I was reminded that I need to keep the memory card loaded in the camera and keep the camera close at hand, because ANY moment could lead to something that will embarrass him at some point in the future, which is really the greatest privilege of being a parent.