Lijah's flaws
Lijah is a pretty good kid, but in the interest of full disclosure I have to reveal a couple of flaws. One I remarked on again this evening is that he's a total sandbagger when it comes to eating. Most of the time he makes like he doesn't like eating food—like the very notion of taking nutrients in solid form is repellent to him—but then when there's cake in front of him the mask slips.
cake coma
To be replaced, I suppose, by a mask made of frosting. (At the community dinner this evening he ate his own whole piece, and I had to fight him off to keep some of mine for myself.)
It's an excellent strategy overall, his apparent disdain; often we're so desperate to get non-nursing calories into him that we'll give in to his outrageous requests for, say, chocolate chips first thing in the morning. Or at least Leah will.
His other big issue is his out-of-control covetousness. It's not that he hoards toys—he can't, he can't think of holding more than two things at a time—it's that he only ever wants things that other people have. Never mind if he has an identical item in his hot little toddler hands, it's the one he can see someone else enjoying that he wants. And he wants it now! He'll never be happy again, ever, unless he can get it!! So powerful is the force of his desire that even our stubborn Zion often gives in, if only to shut him up. And then as soon as he gets... whatever it is, he immediately tosses it aside and moves on to the next thing he can't live without.
That would be annoying enough in a typical American household—there's a lot of yelling involved—but it's even more specifically galling for us avowed anti-capitalists. Here he is enacting the ritualized play of consumerism, repeatedly allowing himself to be swept up by desires whose fulfillment offers no release from the cycle of need. Its a total rejection of all we believe in!! But then, I suppose it is nice for him to get all that out of his system early.
(That he's a terrible sleeper is a flaw too, but it's one that's too raw—much too raw!—for us to talk about here.)