Atticus the naturalist

Yesterday, Atticus broke a stick-of-gum-sized piece of plaster off of the bottom corner of our living room wall. Though I did not observe this, I did see what happened next: he stuck it in his mouth, like a lollipop. I scurried over, yanked it out, and told him firmly NOT to eat the wall. When he has children, I hope their growth is not stunted.

This morning, Atticus was in a destructive phase, probably because I had been making lots of calls and writing lots of emails and trying to figure out what to do about my foot, which probably is suffering from acute metatarsalgia. He unplugged the modem, which meant I had to restart the internet. He climbed up on me and tried to jerk the phone away, and then pulled my hair. He began eating my breakfast cereal. Just pulled it right over from my empty seat and began contorting his mouth around my large spoon, slucking up the cereal. In other words, he was saying "Hello, Mom! It's me, Atticus. Stop ignoring me! I can obviously make your life much more difficult if you continue to ignore me! Watch!"

Well, he's right. I gave up and began doling out the pistachios. His new favorite food is a pistachio. He has been pining away for pistachios for three solid days. I mean it! How do I know? He says "stachio." Honestly. Over and over. And over. So, yesterday, I finally went shopping and picked some up. I think he's already eaten half a pound. Okay, that's exaggerating. But, enough to produce an impressive heap of shells, which were promptly thrown off the table. Fortunately, Atticus is very good at cleaning up his messes. I simply gave him a bowl, asked him to clean up, and he cleaned up every last shell, without any supervision to boot!

Warning: the following two paragraphs contains graphic content, including the word "poop" and the word "eggshell." Not in the same sentence, of course! However, if you find the words "poop" or "eggshell" offensive, you should stop reading right now. So. Atticus appeared to need to go number 2 today. With high hopes, I whisked him off to his potty (which he's practiced sitting on, but never used), removed his diaper, and told him to sit. He kept standing up and trying to open the bathroom cabinets, so I incentivized him with...pistachios. He had put a very small amount of number 2 in the potty, and I was elated! He stood up for a minute, and I pointed it out to him. In my excitement, I did not notice that he was finishing his business on the bathroom rug. A lot of heavy dooty business. Poor, forlorn, Atticus. He was standing there with unsavory stuff on his legs and in his pants, and on the floor. I was thinking of calling Merry Maids, but decided that even they would be more grossed out than a Mother, so the job fell to me.

Atticus loves eggs. Anyone who has ever allowed Atticus to peer in while opening a refrigerator with eggs inside knows this basic fact. No, I don't mean he loves eating eggs. In fact, he refuses even the tiniest bit of cooked egg. No, his love for eggs is purer. He loves them for who they are, or rather, for their outer shell. He bleats "o! o! o!" (Romanian for "egg") whenever he sees an egg--in a book, in the store, in the fridge, on my lunch plate this afternoon. Once, Walker gave Atticus a raw egg while he was standing, bibbed, over the kitchen sink. He was in reverential ecstasy. In toddlerese, this means he was smiling in pure triumph. For a few minutes, he held the egg and shook it up and down. This, of course, was followed by testing the egg's surface on that of other hard objects, namely, the kitchen sink. When the egg cracked and the yolk and white slipped out, he was rather at a loss. He played with the shell for a while, but then wanted a replacement egg, which was not in the cards. His egg obsession has not lost any vigor, though. For example, this afternoon, as we were eating lunch, I left the table for a few minutes. When I returned, Atticus was holding the cobweb of eggshell that was left after I had eaten a hard-boiled egg. He was crunching it in his hands. I figured nothing would be hurt by this. So I went into the kitchen for a few minutes. I poked my head out a few minutes later. The eggshell had disappeared, but it wasn't on the floor. Hmm. I heard Atticus chewing on something very crunchy sounding. Oh, it must be his....yogurt?!? I peered into his bowl of yogurt. There, crushed right in, was his precious little eggshell. He was eating them together. Yogurt-eggshell crunch. Very high in calcium. And comic value.