Muzakal Wisdom of the 1-Yr-Old

I took the boy to Cora's for breakfast, after a rather difficult school drop-off mawnin'. Usually, it's the sisters having a hard time of it, but today, it was the lad, usually pliable enough as I put him in the snowsuit and then the car seat, who stiffened and protested with an indignation that signalled whole new parts of the brain had just come online.

And rather than eat, he mostly wrecked the joint, eating crayons and spiking food, and wanting to handle an open cup of juice HIMSELF, and as I wolfed down the food I'd bought for us both, I thought, well, I still look like kind of a progressive Dad-dude, right? Even layered with ransacked booth and dirty parka and inner strata that included the hollandaise-daubed shirt I slept in. Right?

Why, sure, and anyway, wait, that's not supposed to matter. Yeah man, I'm not defined by what others think of me, nice matronly server, scowling arm-bandage lady, despondent skipping stoned highschoolers. Food-sending-back family.

Yeah.

When unhelpful thoughts depart, I find some form of enlightened experience occurs, with magical immediacy.

And literally, the second I stop freaking on every half-grape the young man salivates upon, half-chews and discards, I am given to realize he has an intriguing musical taste, demonstrated by his uncanny, locked-in bopping to select numbers emanating throughout the joint, between ads and pithy deejay observations, on BOOM 97.3.

Oh, he's broken it down before, mainly to the carefully curated custom selections at home.

But presented with Toronto's Greatest Hits, he points me to the true cream.

Witness:

The Boys in the Bright White Sports Car / Trooper: no reaction. Almost as though nothing is on. Maybe the vacuum...without the excitement of having one to chase.

The Logical Song / Supertramp: a middling curiosity, and then concerted grooving to that middle part, with the keyboard and sax. Then, back to mere curiosity and his dry cup of O's. The existential yearning of the chorus moves him not one bit.

My Girl / Chilliwack: Just digs the beginning part, with the gone-gone-gone a capella caveman rumblings. Then he agitates for a knife.

Out of Touch / Hall and Oates: I'm shocked. The vocal gymnastics, wordplay, glockenspiel, even? Nothin' doin'. I'm singing along as I shore things up a bit in the now-slovenly booth and await the bill, but he's just watching me. Can one-year olds do disapproval yet?

Hold Me Now / Thompson Twins: this is, unmistakeably, and mysteriously, The One. He is utterly delighted by everything in the song, including, possibly, the lyrical content, at least of the chorus.

The Twins, calling out across three decades through a hairstyle and a hit or two, have his full attention. He kicks, moves his torso with an abandon reserved for Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and squeals with delight at the backing vocals.

I'm tempted to buy the song, why the hell not? Put it lovingly on his own li'l playlist, begin chronicling the serendipitous hot traxx of his early life.

...give the young man something I never ...had...wist, wist...

The Home Show ad. This is the moment; the moment to pack him into the coat, leave the detritus in the booth with the tip, and tie him down in the car for his own safety.

Gone gone gone, it's almost naptime, almost time for me to hold him now.