Flogger Blogger Wednesday: Peekaboohoo

It's already week 4 of Flogger Blogger! I'm gonna screw this up any day now.

I shouldn't have to begin by telling you that I love my son, but let me stress that I love my son. And now let me stress that babies are so boring. Like booooh-ring boring.

Of course Pork Chop is a joy and the love of my life and blah de blah blah blah, but he thinks the ceiling fan is a miracle machine. He loses his mind whenever the dog licks herself. His favorite pastimes are throwing and crying.

Experts say that most kids under the age of 3 engage in "parallel play," meaning that they don't play together so much as they play side by side. Parallel play helps to develop language skills in children. It also prepares kids for staring at smart phones in unison during social activities, like concerts, parties, and dinner.

What I'm getting at is that Pork Chop wants me around, but he sucks at entertaining me. Mostly, he wants me to entertain him. How many times can I hide my face under the damn dish towel before he realizes that I haven't disappeared? The rest of my body is still there. How does he account for that? Why isn't he concerned that my most important part is missing? Why, in fact, does he find it funny? He won't think it's funny if my head stays disappeared. Good luck opening the canister of apple puffs, kid. But I can't just sit under a dish towel all day to teach my 1-year-old a lesson, right? (Right?) So, over and over, it's "Peekaboo!" and my head makes its triumphant return and Pork Chop cackles and then it's back under the towel and so on and so forth. I can participate in this ridiculous charade for about 5 minutes before I need a coffee break. Pork Chop, however, never tires of the lie; he's the ultra-marathoner of peekaboo.

And can we talk about VTech? I want to hatchet murder every single person who has ever bought my son a VTech toy. In theory these toys will teach Pork Chop the alphabet, numbers, colors, even a few token words of Spanish. In reality, they play CIA torture music. If I hear "Welcome to My Learning Farm" fewer than 50 times in a morning, then there's a good chance my son is stuck under the leg of the breakfast table again and can't reach his VTech activity board. Pork Chop isn't interested in hitting the keys that play a quick musical note. He isn't interested in tapping the buttons that light up and count to 3. He is, however, interested in taking a wooden spoon and smashing the activity board as it plays "Welcome to My Learning Farm." One day soon, I'm gonna to burn that farm to the ground.

Pork Chop also enjoys being held. Don't get me wrong -- a good snuggle is a good snuggle. But that's not the kind of holding I'm talking about. My son mostly wants me to hoist him up on my hip and cart him from window to window so that he can point at things. At a year old, he has an impressive little vocabulary, but most of the time, the things he points at are simply "dadaga" or "shmegaga." I pretend to respond with wonder and delight: "You got it, buddy, that's a tree," or "Uh huh, I see another tree in the yard" or "You're right, that's also a tree next the tree." But, like peekaboo, the novelty of our "conversation" wears off pretty quickly. And my kid is heavy. And my hips hurt. And boooh-ring.

How many times a day do I hear the siren call of the Internet or the TV? How many times have I thought, "Can we please just take a vacation from this Learning Farm?" And how often will I one day look back and wish I could do it all again? When will my kid be so busy with friends and school that I'll have all the time in the world to read BuzzFeed? To paint my nails? To take a nap? To be boring all by myself? To think, he used to find me funny? To think, he was just here, now where did he go?