uncle freddy

uncle fred here, stepping in for some late morning, early afternoon max time and letting kelli sneak off to work for a couple hours. he was all smiles and quite proud to show his approximation of standing when i first showed up. just how much kelli is relied on here was made clear when she stepped out and fiver started wimpering. anytime fiver wimpered or max cried the other one showed concern and, it seemed to me, kind of blamed me for it.

after some time spent quickly moving max between his different stations, taking wild guesses each time that that's what he was asking me for, he started to cry and i quickly smelled his reason. the diaper change didn't go well, i admit. he stopped crying once he was no longer sitting in his problem, and he even laughed at me the first time i got the diaper wrong; but by the third or fourth time i got it wrong, when his entire unitard was soaked in urine and up somewhere around his forehead, he was flat-out bawling, and fiver had only condescending looks to give.

max was a man of fewer smiles the rest of the time, alternating between ideas of sleep, images of teletubbies or the street below, and, i imagined, wondering where his parents were; but nor was he complaining or ornery—just more relaxed and inquisitive. for a time, his favorite thing appeared to be watching tv while being propped up to stand, which he does with wide eyes and a forward lean, his legs very deliberately straight. he wasn't so much passively watching tv, as much as he was absorbing it, advancing in it like a superhero to the sky.