Some objects with magical powers
To the right are six objects which can at times distract Adam from the urgent business of screaming like a baby fox caught in a leg-hold trap. This is his main talent, and few are the things that can deter him from following his calling. But these things can, sometimes for as much as forty-five seconds at a stretch. No, I exaggerate. These objects do actually engage him more than somewhat, on a good day with the wind behind him. First we have the monkey. Physical placement in this composition is not in order of chronology nor effectiveness. The monkey is actually quite new, and also quite effective in causing Adam to forget that he was screaming only seconds ago when he hears the siren song of the monkey’s squeaking head. Bonus points: the monkey also rattles. This creature, which like Adam features a tiny ass-crack, came from his loving cousins, aunt & uncle in Blue Hill, Maine. Adam is just now really getting into the monkey, and it looks to be a long-term favorite. Not really relevant: Adam’s father isn’t crazy about monkeys. I just have a thing about them. I think it’s the feces-hurling, though I suppose I had better get used to that.
Moving right, there’s the newest arrival, the duck from Adam’s youngest uncle, Tomek in Toruń. The duck has the very real virtue of being easy to dangle nearly anywhere with the handy golden loop through his forehead. We mostly hang him on the voziček, though in theory we could hang him even from our own foreheads if necessary. This is a good one, and well-sized for portability.
Next in row one is the helicopter picture I painstakingly plagiarized. It was originally a sort of faux-stained glass thingy on the door of the hospital room Magda and Adam occupied shortly after his birth. I really dug the helicopter for some reason, so I photographed it and reproduced the picture. We hung it next to the changing table (aka screaming station) and it works pretty well at limiting the din.
Bottom row: yogurt container with jingle bell. A brief fad whose bloom has faded.
Next is Adam’s very first distractor, his jolly zajček rattle. First and still the best, from his Dortmund auntie.
Last, but a perennial favorite, is the random spot between the lamp and the fake Mondrian painting. He can stare at that blank spot for hours. Anyway, three minutes with no howling feels like hours.
Ultimately, though, there is only one thing that can stop the shrieking with any real reliability. Three letters, and two of them are ‘T’.
