Godzilla
I call him The Creeping Thunder. The dogs call it just plain
unnecessary.
It started benignly enough. I thought he looked cute sitting in the
slightly used baby walker with the duct taped seat. Besides, at four
months old Tyler wasn't sitting up well enough to play with his toys,
and the walker had this little tray on the front to keep the plastic
keys, rattles, and stuffed dinosaurs within his reach. It worked
too. He would sit for hours and delight at my retrieving the
toys as he gleefully flung them to the floor... again. (I tried to
train my dogs to pick up them up, but they both claimed the toys were
too slobbery to put in their mouths.)
Then at five months old my son discovered that thing had wheels. The
reign of terror had begun. He was mobile. At first he could only move
on the wood floors. Since the dining room is an island of wood in a sea
of carpet he was contained in his own version of the invisible fence
(minus the shock collar). He would roll to the beachhead facing the
living room and look longingly toward the dogs lying peaceably on the
carpet by the patio doors. The dogs would glance back just to make sure
he hadn't bummed a cracker off anyone and return to sleep.
But soon he grew weary of sucking the backs of the chairs and smearing
baby drool on the wallpaper. All the good stuff in the house was on the
carpet. So, with his feet in their best Fred Flintstone form he
strained at the rug until he broke the barrier. He seemed rather
surprised at the development himself as he looked around to locate his
audience. As his eyes met mine he proffered a grin that I probably
won't see again until he's old enough to ask for the car keys.
He took a couple of steps in each direction to kind of get the feel of
how his new wheels handled. Then his eyes lifted and he scanned the
room. His face brightened as he locked his radar on my 90 pound
slightly arthritic retriever. His arms began to flail in time with his
stomping feet. The warm-up complete, he set off across the room in a
manner strangely reminiscent of Godzilla squashing plastic tanks
through Tokyo.
The dog opened one eye to see what the ruckus was about. Her eyes kept
getting wider as the creeping thunder approached. She looked
plaintively at me as if to say, "Hey! I didn't think he could do that!"
Then she decided that whatever the maniacal child was up to it wouldn't
involve her. Faster than I've seen her her move in years, she bolted
for higher ground just as the walker bumper thunked off the patio doors.
The dogs spend their time in the window of the raised entry way
now. Believing the two steps will protect them now as the
carpet had before. And it will, as long as The Creeping Thunder rolls.
But soon, he will crawl.
