A Monkey with a Knife

I gazed down on my beautiful boy with his smooth skin and clear eyes.  He grinned up and reached out to my face.  How sweet, I thought as I leaned down to give him a kiss.  Instead of allowing me to smooch his forehead, he grabbed my hair with both hands and yanked with all of his strength, flexing his baby muscles.  When I squealed out with surprise pain, he laughed in delight.  

He had just peed all over himself, his changing table, and of course, all over his loving mother and pile of diapers which led to the complete mid-day wipe down, diaper and outfit change.

“We might as well brush your hair while we are here,” I said to the naughty baby.

His hair was a soft, light brown fluff, like the down of a baby duck, straight the middle of his head, worn off on the sides and back.  Thankfully, it was still dry from the recent golden shower.

While keeping one hand on his chest to keep him from unexpectedly rolling off, I pulled his tiny hairbrush from a hanging pouch on the back of the door that also kept his nail clippers, extra bibs, thermometer and other random baby items.  Eyeing the brush, he reached up for it with both hands.  This will be a good sensory experience, I thought, and rubbed the bristles against the back of his hand.  

“This is the handle and these are the bristles,” I explained flipping it from one end to the other.

He grabbed the brush from my hand, immediately wrapping his monkey fingers around the handle and began brandishing it like a sword.  Woe be to his invisible baby foe, as his hairbrush-swordsmanship was remarkable.  He spastically thrust left and right, high and low, it was impossible to see where the next blow might fall until he smacked himself in the forehead.  He dropped the weapon/brush and began to wail.

Of course, I should have known better; it follows the logic that if you give a mouse a muffin, he will ask for a glass of milk.  If you give a baby a hairbrush, he’s going to use it as a sword.  And if he uses it as a sword, he’s going to smack someone with it.  And if someone gets smacked with it, its most likely going to be him.  And there’s going to be crying.  Lots of crying.