April 16, 2002 - Tuesday
Did I not hear what I think I didn't hear this morning? Harry often wakes up sooner than Jeremy and some mornings he needs a diaper change more urgently than others. And, since these days we keep the diaper changing table and supplies in Jeremy's bedroom, we've often had to bring Harry in there with the faint hope and plea that Harry keep quiet enough to not wake his sleeping brother. It has yet to work. I'd always thought that Harry's lack of effort in that cause was just his normal two-year old aversion to the diaper-changing process in general and his young attention span running its fragile course long before the change is done.

This morning, however, when Harry woke up early and came into our room with a special olfactory morning wake-up call, I suggested we retrieve the diapering supplies from Jeremy's room and change Harry in our room. His mother took him into our bathroom to suppress the expected objections to the process, but surprisingly few were heard. I first thought it must be the simple distraction of a new place for an old habit, but then I began to wonder. Since we were away from Jeremy, we pleaded to Harry much less to be quiet and he didn't really ever start his regular auditory ritual. I might have let it go, but shortly after the change Harry's mother brought him into the hall and downstairs for breakfast, going right past Jeremy's door at the top of the stairs. And, as they passed that door and his mother's entreaties of silence ultimately emerged, there came the measured and experimental hoots and caws that we react to so quickly during those early morning changes in Jeremy's room.

I'm thinking he's toying with us.


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