While I was cleaning up for the family to come over for Easter (pretend this is being posted last week) I did a little sweeping and a little dusting. Some of the dusting (but by no means most of the dusting) was in the family room where we have a ledge or shelf running around the room where that part of the house is sunk down into the ground and halfway up the wall it’s foundation, and then it goes to a regular wall, and where the two meet, there’s a shelf or ledge that runs around the room. Got it? Good. On this shelf (or ledge) we proudly display pictures of our lovely progeny. Also, the cat walks around on the ledge to get from the kitchen to the couch. Does she walk across the kitchen, down the steps, across the family room and then up onto the couch? No way! Dogs do it that way, so the cat has to be different. (Incidentally, she hardly ever knocks anything down.) But about those pictures-
There’s a couple pictures that really capture the kids. Not like “in a cage or snare” because I think there are rules against that. It captures their essence in an artistic way. (I took two semesters of photography in college, so I got the whole “artistic picture taking” stuff down. I could take pictures of naked people and it wouldn’t be smut, it’d be Art. Smutty Art, but still…)
The picture of Soupo was when he was about two. I’d say he was very two-ish in the picture. It’s a nice picture, it’s all sepia-y. We shot a roll of black and white film and then had the pictures printed on color photo paper (at Target) because getting them printed on black and white paper costs more and takes, like, two weeks to get back. When you shoot black and white film and get it printed on color paper, you get a nice sepia-y print out of the deal. (This is how they did it in the olden days. Only it took more than an hour to get your whole roll done.) Soupo and this girl (who is the daughter of friends of ours, he wasn’t picking up chicks at two) (he was picking up chicks at two anna half) are sitting on a park bench (duh, it’s a bench at the park- the very definition of “park bench”) and he’s letting her have a drink of his Icee. If you knew Soupo back then, you’d know what a big deal it was he was sharing his Icee. It was even a cherry (red) Icee, but you can’t see that from the photo. You just have to know that part. Soupo and the little girl (she’s about six months younger than ol’ Soup) are sitting on the bench and he’s holding the Icee over so she can have a drink. It’s a cute picture.
The picture of Katcha was also when he was about two. But it’s just a regular color picture, not all sepia-y. And there’s no food anywhere near him. He’s sitting in his highchair with his bib on, but there’s no food. He’s already eaten it. It’s really just a white piece of paper and we tell people it’s Katcha eating food. “But where’s the food?” people ask. “He’s already eaten it,” we answer. “So where’s Katcha?” they ask because some people can’t see anything coming. “Well, he already ate the food,” we say, “so he left too. You don’t think he’s hanging around where there’s no food, do you?” And then we laugh and laugh.
Ha ha! Actually everything from “It’s really just a white piece of paper” is a big fat lie. But it was funny (to me) so I threw it in at no extra cost to you.
Katcha’s sitting in his highchair with his bib on and you can tell he’s just eaten because his face… he was never a dainty eater. His hair is either sweat-soaked and plastered to his head or just flying away at random odd angles and he’s just laughing. Just a grubby little kid desperately in need of a bath, but his tummy is full, so the world is his oyster. It’s a good picture of him.
The third picture is one of Soupo again. (He was the first kid, so naturally we took more pictures of him. It’s just the way things go.) He was about nine or ten months old and we (he and I) were playing his favorite game, Burrito Boy. It was a great game before he could walk. I’d take him and lay him in the middle of this big blanket. Then I’d wrap him all up and leave him. He’d crawl and grunt and haul himself out, and then he’d laugh. So I’d stick him back in the blanket and he’d do it all again. He was good for five or six bundlings before he got tired and it wasn’t fun anymore. The last picture is him pulling himself out of the blanket. He has his face all screwed up with effort. He looks like Popeye. That’s why the picture is so good, my boy looked like Popeye with his mouth twisted to the side and one eye closed.
He looked like Popeye, only without the pipe, because nine month old babies shouldn’t smoke.
-Rue.
