The mobile

The other day when Joseph was working on his obligatory daily task of ripping apart the house, he once again came across his old mobile. He used to love his mobile with the cute ocean creatures. His favorite was the octopus. Long before he could communicate other than screaming (well, not that he doesn’t STILL do that), he would watch and anticipate when the purple octopus was about to make its way into his line of vision. I swear that before that kid knew how to breastfeed correctly he knew that the octopus came after the turtle. But now, it no longer resembles a mobile as he has taken the entire thing apart. But that doesn’t mean that it’s no longer fun. He likes to prove that an object really is more than just the sum of its parts. The little animals don’t hang from anything. They just sit on the ground attached to a piece of cloth with little strings. Joseph doesn’t care, though. He still thinks it’s fun. He likes to point to the animals and ask me what they are.

“Dis?” He says.
“Turtle.” I answer.
“Dis?”
“Octopus.”
“Dis?”
“Fish.”
“Dis?”
“Seahorse.”
“Dis?”
“Turtle.”
“Dis?”
“Octopus.”
“Dis?”
“Fish.” …

It’s a fun game.

Or he might enjoy taking the plastic piece that is meant to suspend the mobile over the crib and push it around the house like a metal detector.

That’s a fun game, too.

But the other day he was interested in the little piece that actually plays the music. He brought it over and handed it to me, so I turned it on. I actually hadn’t heard it in such a long time. It’s not original or anything. It only plays Brahms’ Lullaby. But the little clanking sounds of the mobile are such a sharp contrast to the bleeps, blops, and flashing what-nots of his current toys. All of a sudden I had such a flood of memories. Mostly memories of a little tiny newborn lying in his crib, so tiny that the crib seemed to swallow him up like a huge swimming pool of blue sheets. And for the first time I really grasped what we are getting into again. For the first time this felt real.