The Peek-A-Boo games of 2009

Greetings

Peek-a-boo is a right of passage for an infant. It is step 1 on the road to other games such as hide-and-seek, tag, and hit-and-run. Not until one masters the art of peek-and-boo can one become a toddler.

Jack is 4 months 3 days old. Over the past 4 months and 3 days, we have introduced him to the various aspects of peek-a-boo using a scientifically calculated phased approach. We did some peeking. We did some booing. We did some a-ing, which we agree is the least signicant aspect of the game but is important nonetheless. We tried various combinations such as "peek then boo" and sometimes "boo then peek". It was a strict yes playfull regiment that, I'm happy to report, has finally come to fruition.

Today, Jack and I engaged in a hearty game of peek-a-boo. There were no shortcuts, exaggerations, favors or help; it was a formal game of peek-a-boo as defined in the Peek-A-Boo Handbook ((c) 1937).

Jack was laying in his bed on his back. He was smiling. He is, afterall, my son. Of course he's smiling. I laid a blanket over his body and over his face up to his forehead. This is common. Per usual, I expected him to bat his arms to take it away, at which point I would reapply said blanket to said fore head. Then repeat until one of us has a seizure or falls asleep.

But that didn't happen. Oh no. Today was to be a day of days, a benchmark in the history of jack and, dare I say, of the game it self. Contrary to my expectations, he grabbed the blanket in his little jack fingers and pulled the it off his face; he didn't bat it away, he moved it. We applauded for him and smiled. He smiled back, then moved the blanket back to his face. Then he removed it again, deliberately, and we clapped for him again. A fluke? An accidental baby coincidence? There are no flukes or coincidences when it comes to peek-a-boo, and jack proved this by continuing the cycle. Every time the blanket came off his face, he looked at us expectantly waiting for the "boo!" and the applause. Judy and Gina tried to keep him going as I raced around the house looking for the video camera. By the time I was ready, he was starting to get bored with it, but he did a couple more less enthusiastic cycles. But he did it MANY times before finally deciding to move on to eating his hand.

It really was something else. It was a game in which we could all participate. Jack plays a lot of games, but this is the first time we were cooperative participants. (His other favorite games include "pee as soon as the diaper comes off", "eat my hand", "drool all over the place like a rabid hyena" and, his favorite, "scream like a banshee for no apparent reason".

Now that we're playing the game, I expect him to make great strides and possibly, if he's up for it, join an intramural peek-a-boo league. Maybe that's too ambitious; I don't want to make a child star out of him. But, if its something he's interested in, then there's nothing wrong with him embracing the comraderieship of fellow peek-a-boo'ers.

Tomorrow we're going to start him on Monopoly.