The Milestones You Never Read About

Posted November 26, 2007

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"Oh God oh God oh God," Ben cries from the backseat. "I think I'm going to barf! I'm barfing! Blauughhhhhhhh." When I crane my head around, Ben's eyes have gone horror-movie wide and there's a saucer-sized puddle of vomit sitting chunkily on the Magic Treehouse book in his lap. The Magic Treehouse library book. Now Birdy is yelling -- "Me too! I'm totally barfing! Blaaaaghhhhhh! Byuch! Khuuuuuuuu! Ben give it to me! Bluug." -- and when I crane my head back around, there's a saucer-sized puddle of vomit sitting chunkily on the fleecy sleeve of her jacket. The kids are dying. These, their laughter announces, are the funniest children that have ever lived. This, their laughter insists, will never get old. "Oh no, not again!" Ben cries and grabs the vomit from Birdy's arm and plunks it onto his own.

I understand that "Purchases Gag Throw-Up with Own Saved Allowance" is not on anybody's list of childhood milestones, but it should be. Even Ben himself said, at the toy store where he was picking scientifically through the display of packages to find just the right ratio of plastic chunks to plastic liquid, "It's crazy! I remember seeing this last time we were here -- and I don't even think I wanted to buy it." That is crazy. Although this time it was between the vomit and an air freshener that was both shaped and scented like a frankfurter.

I was 8 once too. I remember ogling the back pages of my Archie comic books, longing for exactly such things. X-Ray Glasses! Snapping Gum! Disappearing Ink! But back then, you needed a money order to send away for them. Which meant involving your parents intimately in the details of your preposterous longing. Which was just too much to bear. "Mom, can you spend the afternoon walking to the bank with me and then walking home again and helping me fill out this order form and then walking out to the post office so that I can set in motion the procuring of a plasticized dog turd with which to appall you?"

Milestones are never exactly what you think they're going to be. Like with potty training -- you foolishly imagine that the big moment is when they're 2 and they thunk their first something into the plastic bowl. Yay! You cheer and congratulate each other. You don't realize that the bigger moment is when they're 5 and they finally start wiping themselves reliably and no longer need to yell out towards your dining guests: "Finished pooping!"

Or you think that talking is the big thing, and you don't realize that it's really sarcasm. On our way to the children's grandfather's wonderful performance of The Gondoliers yesterday (and because you may not know my father, my tone-deaf father, you perhaps cannot appreciate the humor of leaving ambiguous which grandfather I'm talking about), we popped into a Starbucks so that I could grab a quick eggnog latte, and Ben -- Ben who has been forced to listen to my nattering lectures about shopping local and independent since he was old enough to poop out his own meconium -- cried, like an emcee, "Meet my mama -- supporter of chains!" I called him a rotten child and then called him a rotten child again an hour later when the eggnog latte was no match for the cozy, lulling warmth of Gilbert and Sullivan and I woke myself with a start by dropping my program clatteringly to the floor. Ben turned to me, raised his eyebrows, and whispered, as spare and zinging as a teenager, "Nice."

Birdy, meanwhile -- well, she's working on her own goals. Like the correct telling of the banana/orange knock-knock joke, which remains currently unmastered. "Banana you glad I didn't say ... Wait. Wait. Banana you glad ... Wait. Banana orange you glad? Hold on. I'm starting over."

Or there's the perceptiveness milestone: Birdy has suddenly noticed, 4 and a half years into her time here on earth, that the neighbors have a plaster lawn ornament. "You know what?" she said, as we walked past it for the dodecahillionth time, "I think that owl might actually be a pretend owl!"

I am conscious, even as I'm writing about these personal milestones -- to say nothing of the rubber-thumb magic tricks and the playing of Sorry and the fart jokes and the barfing (for real) into a bucket instead of all over your hair and comforter -- that maybe your child is grappling with real, actual milestone challenges: walking or holding up her head, feeding herself or talking. But in a strange way, it's the same, isn't it? The things that strike you, that fill you with gladness or disbelief, are not necessarily on the books. It's development unfolding in its own way; it's human life, like a snowflake settling onto a cupped hand: fragile, unique, and completely amazing.

"Is she comparing rubber vomit to snow?" you are asking yourself now -- and yes, I suppose I am.

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The Milestones You Never Read About

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CatheriNewman says:

November 29, 2007

It's funny, how many people here and at wondertime.com have mentioned SLEEPING as the big milestone. So true, isn't it? I mean, that and playing Othello, of course.

I wanted to update the gag column with a little tip that combines my world-famous Thanksgiving expertise with my family's current scatological preoccupation: prick a sweet potato and bake it on a cookie sheet in a hot oven, and by the time it's cooked it may have extruded a large black lump that (Hello, Dr. Rorschach!) looks astonishingly like a cat turd. I cannot, however, recommend trying to cover it in ModPodge.

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BJCuatroCinco says:

November 28, 2007

Hey- I can never comment over at W-time, so I have to leave my comment here for Kira K, who left the interrupting cow joke over there. My kids loved the joke. I told it to them before school, and when they came home, my six year old had a version of his own: Knock knock. Who's there? Interrupting kid. InterruptÂ?? Hey Dad!

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KerynPage says:

November 28, 2007

Catherine, this is one of your best, I think. My very favorite big-kid milestone has been the sleeping late. But still I long inexplicably for another baby. *Sigh*

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by Catherine Newman

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The Milestones You Never Read About

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