EE: if i’d known you were curious, i would’ve dug out the albums! john’s baby pictures are organized into several large volumes, which i store at an undisclosed location. he doesn’t seem to like it much when i take them out to show guests, but i’m sure he’s just embarrassed about what a well-behaved sweet potato he was as a baby.
EE: as it is, let’s see if i can pick out a good one from the collection i keep in my wallet…
EE: ah! this one is one of my favorites!
EE: the little scamp wobbled a bit out of frame at the last moment, but as you can see, he just loved playing with my hats.
EE: we really liked to play peekaboo, too. i’d put a hat on him and it’d flop right down, and it was lights out! where was daddy?
EE: and i would whip the hat off, and every time he just laughed and laughed, fit to burst!
EE: if i left the hat on too long, he’d flop over and go to sleep, just like a parakeet.
EE: i wonder if that still works…?
EB: dad, please! oh my god! they do not need to see this! no! not the wallet pictures!
EE: john, your friends asked to see some baby pictures, how could i refuse? i was just telling them how we played peekaboo with my hats
EB: daaaaaaaad!! XO
EB: no more stories! just— no!
GG: don’t worry john, i’ll go next!
GG: but, um, sorry, i don’t really have many baby pictures or stories or whatever. :(
GG: bec is pretty much the smartest dog, but i guess he didn’t really think to take any pictures? and grandpa was never really into photography….
GG: usually if he wanted to remember something, he’d stuff it and mount it on the wall……..
GG: i don’t remember much from being a baby, but i do remember that i spent most of my time with bec!!
GG: we’d explore all over the island together! which, in retrospect, was probably a reeeeeally dangerous thing to let a baby do, but i know i was always safest when i was with bec.
GG: hehe, he probably let me crawl around so much on purpose, so i’d go to sleep faster!
GG: maybe it’s dumb, since i can’t really remember it, but i think i was a happy baby!!
BB: okay prepare yourselves for a baby blitzkrieg alright
BB: let me tell you baby dave wasnt some egbertian stroll through the park oh no this infant was the iron man competition in the middle of the carpathian mountains during a typhoon
BB: he had a personal vendetta against furniture and was determined to smash it into splinters using only the softest parts of his stupid fucking skull
BB: any consumption of food was preceded by a mandatory redecorating of the apartment in a fine layer of mashed veggie particulate matter
BB: even at a young age he showed massive talent for being a massive pain in my ass and getting away with it scott free because what was i gonna do he was just a wiggly throw pillow wearing a loaded diaper you cant fight back against that you just have to roll over like a bitch and hope they dont pop awake as soon as you fall asleep and wake the whole building with their otherworldly devilscreeches
BB: god when he was teething the thing he liked best was the neck of an ice cold beer to gum on
BB: hold on i have pics
BB: gonna send em in to corona and live off the royalties
TG: thats pretty much the best picture thats ever been taken of me
TG: shit look at the way the light plays on my fat rolls
TG: glorious
LL: I believe Rose is left?
LL: Well, in contrast, Rose was an extremely quiet and withdrawn baby. She rarely had any troubles that didn’t resolve themselves. She was well-behaved, dignified, and mature, even as an infant.
LL: And also extremely portly.
LL: I accurately documented most of Rose’s holidays as a baby. Halloween, I believe, was her favorite.
LL: I certainly enjoyed picking out her costumes. I think the most successful one was the year that she went as a genius female scientist with impeccable taste in fashion and avant garde house design.
LL: You can see that, despite the layers fleece and the nice, soft, tailor-made cloth wig, she was in fact quite rotund.
LL: And although she has now bloomed into a slender and developing young woman, Rose will always be mummy’s little butterball.
TT: Mother, what a heartwarming statement.
TT: Might I beg the favor of a copy of this tenderly preserved photograph, so that I may have it enlarged by several magnitudes and installed in a gilt frame?
LL: Of course, darling. Allow me to pay for it.
