Our son has a fascination with food now. If he hears chewing or crunching or sipping or swallowing his eyes immediately find our mouths and he stares wide eyed at this new phenomenon. He has, of course, seen us eat before. He has become more aware of his surroundings now though. A while ago my wife caught him staring at an avocado she was eating and, after he truly expressed interest in it, she went to mash some of the substance up for him to try on a spoon. He put it in his mouth, got a yucky face, and tried to get it out of his mouth. We learned that he wasn’t REALLY interested in food yet at that moment.
Recently our son has had a fascination with my tea drinking habit. This habit is truly a habit, some would call it a vice (but, you know, it’s just tea). When my wife and I made our big move last year to a new place my wife knowingly gave me an entire cupboard to support my tea habit. Call it a “consumable collection” or something sweeter (or more sinister) but I truly do enjoy tea. My daily intake of fluids is obtained primarily through tea. It also helps to calm the nerves.
His fascination with my tea drinking actually extends to a particular vessel I use to consume my beverage of choice: the snowman mug. Since I enjoy tea so much one of the things I tend to receive as a gift (for any reason) are mugs and cups of all sorts. When I worked in the business world people would give the gift of a mug filled with tea bags and I couldn’t have been happier.
My son, for some reason, particularly identifies with the cup. Long ago I sat with him, in the early morning hours, describing the phenomenon of the snowman with charcoal eyes and the carrot nose as I pointed to the images on my cup. He paid attention and seemed to enjoy the story (despite his lack of understanding the words). Now he has started to reach out and touch the snowman. The snowman, though, filled with hot tea is HOT. While this is certainly less dangerous than putting my son next to an open flame he’ll probably grow up with a weird idea of snowmen being dangerously hot to the touch. What can’t be denied, though, is that my son (by the day) becoming more interested in the objects that surround him on a daily basis. He’ll probably start playing with boxes in no time. For now I’m glad that he really enjoys my cup. We’ll share morning tea in the future. That’s something I look forward to.