Part 1 (2/2)

Sam would say, IT'S BECAUSE I WAS LOOKING AT THE PICTURES ON THE WALLS, AND I FORGOT TO EAT! which sounded like a very long, very loud ”Waaaaahhhhh.” And his mom would sigh and take him back to the rocking chair and feed him again. She was a pretty good sport about it, except in the middle of the night, when occasionally she grumbled a little. And once, in the middle of the night, she fell sound asleep in the rocking chair. Her arms became limp and Sam had to say ”WAAAAAAAHHHH” very loudlya”more loudly than usuala”because he was afraid she would drop him on the floor.

He wasn't often worried about that though, not the way he had been at first. No one ever dropped him. Not even when they gave him a bath and he was wet and slippery with soap. They held him good and tight. Even Anastasia had learned to hold him tight.

Sometimes Anastasia took him outside for a walk. He liked being out in his carriage because he got to look at trees and their moving leaves. The pan tree had no leaves, which was puzzling (he thought the pan tree was very weird compared to the outside trees), but finally they hung something over his crib. It had colorful things dangling from it, and if he bounced in the crib, the colorful things moved. He liked to look at that now and thena”for about two minutes, no more. After that it was boring. When it got boring, he yelled, I AM BORED WITH LOOKING AT THIS THING OVER MY CRIB, which was a slightly different sort of ”Waaaahhhhh.”

The only bad thing about going outside was that dumb hat. They always put the hat on him when they took him outside, and they wouldn't take it off, not even when he yelled I HATE THIS HAT for a long time. So he concentrated on getting his hands to work better. Any day now he would be able to take that hat off; and when he mastered that, he would never ever wear that hat again.

There was a whole lot of stuff to learn, and it took a while. First he had learned to bounce himself in his crib, so that the hanging thing would move and be interesting for two minutes.

Next, there was the whole diaper-changing thing. After the soft-feeling powder got sprinkled on his bottom, which he liked so much that he always smileda”and they loved it when he smileda”then his mom would put the dry diaper on. Thena”this was the best parta”before she pulled his nightgown down, she would lean forward, put her face on his tummy, and go ”Blur-ble blurble” with her mouth, which tickled so much that he would laugh out loud.

But when his dad or his sister changed his diaper, they didn't know that they were supposed to do the blurble blurble thing. So he had to teach them.

He taught them by yelling DO THE BLURBLE BLURBLE THING, which sounded like ”Waaahhhh,” after they changed him.

Then they would say, ”Why does he always cry when we change him?” as if their feelings were hurt.

”I don't know,” his mom would say in a puzzled voice.

IT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T DO BLURBLE BLURBLE, he yelled, but they didn't understand him.

Finally a”it seemed to take forevera”one day, his mom said, ”I bet I know!” And she explained to them about the blurble blurbling.

Sometimes they still forgot, but he reminded them each time, and they were learning.

Now and then they left him all alone, lying on a blanket on the living room floor. He wished they would hang around and make faces at him, but he understood that they had other stuff to do sometimes. And he liked the time on the blanket. He kicked his legs a lot and looked at the living room stuff. The curtains were nice, and the pictures on the walls were interesting, and sometimes they even left the TV on and he liked the voices of the TV people, though not as well as he liked his family's voices.

One day, when he was alone on the blanket on the living room floor, he leaned hard on his side and pushed with his arm. Arms were great pushers, he had discovered recently. He could use one arm to push away the spoon when his mom tried to make him eat oatmeal, which tasted disgusting.

”Sam, stop that!” his mom would say when he pushed the spoon away. So he would answer, OATMEAL IS DISGUSTING, which was a wonderful thing to say with his mouth full, because it sounded like ”Phhllllt” and made oatmeal fly out of his mouth and onto his clothes. Then he could grab it with his hand and put it into his hair, which felt good. Even though he hated oatmeal, it was always fun to be fed oatmeal because he could smear it around and push the spoon and stuff, and sometimes it meant he even got a second bath, which he liked.

But on this particular day, lying on the floor, he wasn't thinking about oatmeal. He was thinking about his arm and about how it pushed.

He pushed harder and harder, leaning on his arm, and suddenly his whole body tipped over. He had started out on his tummy, and now he was on his back. He had also gotten a clunk on the head, but he didn't even care about that because it was so interesting, what pus.h.i.+ng would do.

He began to wiggle and push again. It was harder, starting from his back, but he worked on it for quite a long time, until suddenly: clunk. He had done it again, and now he was on his tummy, but he was off the blanket.

Now he was on the living room rug, a place he had never been before.

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