toby of the day, 6.18.2008

For most of the past 11 months toby has been quite brave. Well maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but he’s definitely not been especially fearful and responds to most things one of two ways: either with complete indifference, or with an uncontrollable urge grab and eat them. At least until today. Before he was born, we received a mobile as a hand me down. It’s got crazy colored animals and plays Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart through a tinny speaker. Pretty much it’s what happens when science meets capitolism, I imagine the box for it must have oozed with exclamations about all the ways this would make your baby smarter. In any case, Jon and I thought it was ugly and since we didn’t have a crib to hang it from at the time anyway, we dropped it in the closet. Well, today we unearthed it when we went to reclaim some closet space, so I pulled it out to show to toby. He’s recently been adding sidestepping and walking backwards to his repertoire and at first I thought he was incredibly enthusiastic about the mobile as he stepped excitedly in all directions while it played its jangly version of fur elise and spun the tacky colored animals around and around. But it then became clear that he really just wanted to touch the giant plastic screw that was holding it in position but every time he got close one of the crazy animals would drift near his head and try to eat him or steal his soul or whatever it is that scares the pants off an 11 month old and he would frantically move his chubby little legs in every direction trying to get clear of the swinging monstrosity. I guess it turns out that toby is as frightened of ugly toys that clash with any reasonably attractive room décor as we are. We’re so proud of him.