Mama, you tell me "no" most every day
About how I'm not supposed to play
With cat food, cat litter, or cat tails
With glasses, glass bottles, or glasses of ale

You tell me "no" when I try to run
Out into the street with the cars, so fun
You tell me no when I try to dance
With water in puddles when wearing clean pants

You tell me "no" when I reach for sharp things
Or try to tangle myself in strings
I just want to explore everything I can
So I can grow up to be a big man

So why is it, when I say "no", you sigh
And make me try food that I don't want to try
And insist that I wear clothes I don't want to wear
I'm telling you, Mama, it just isn't fair

Why is it when I say "no" you say "yes"
And insist that I walk with you under duress
Dragging me with you when I want to stay
And explore all the things we find along our way

Why is it when I say "no", you complain
That it's time to stop dancing out in the rain
Or that it's time to go change a diaper of pee
I'm fine being dirty, you're just not letting me

I don't understand this double standard
Why you can say "no" even when I get angered
But when I say "no" you deny me my wants
And insist that I wear both my shirt AND my pants

I don't understand that me just being me
Is considered being "persnickety"
And when I'm just trying to play and amuse
You mumble something about "terrible twos"

I don't understand, Mama, why you get to say
Just how I should be and how I should play
I just want to tell you, to make sure you know
That when I say "no", that's how it should go!

Crumbly goodness

Mama seems to think I spread food all over the place just because I'm messy. But what she doesn't understand is how improved the taste of food can be just by spending a mere hour or two on the floor. That special sweetness that a Craisin obtains from resting on the carpet for a few hours, the savory sumptousness of a Goldfish cracker that has been aging for 3 days hidden under the coffee table. My Mama and Dada are all about letting their wine aerate or eating aged cheese -- don't they understand that is all I am doing? But of course, as usual, they just don't understand, they complain and use the vaccuum to suck my culinary delights away into oblivion. They don't understand that when I throw the food off of my tray, it's not ONLY because they are spending too much time talking amongst themselves instead of witnessing the brilliant wonder that is me, but it's also so that I can experience what a hot dog, or a spoonful of sweet potato, tastes like after being left to mature for a certain amount of time. Of course, Mama always has to clean the floor right away, so I never do get to explore the piquant pleasures of an aged macaroni noodle. Something about it being "unsanitary". You know, I could be the next Food Network star like Andrew Zimmern. "Bizzare Toddler Foods with Destructor". I could be -- ooh, stale pretzel. Nom nom nom.

Slave to the rhythm

I am a prodigy of percussion. I am a master of meter, the titan of tempo, "le roi du rythme". I am the captain of cadence, the boy with the beats. And I know, I really do know, that the best way to express my art is to hit everything upon everything else all the time. The ring of my wooden screwdriver upon the air conditioner, the pleasant knocking of toy trains on the table, the timbre of a cast iron pot banged on the floor, these are sounds the world needs to hear, and understand, and appreciate.


And yet, Mama and Dada and AuntK just don't understand. They fail to appreciate the perfection that is pounding a wooden spoon on the table leg, or a sippy cup upon the chair. They don't seem to understand the joy of experimentation that comes from testing what noise a toy car makes when it is hit against the stove, or the soothing sonorousness of pretty much anything hit against the floor. Yes, I know we have downstairs neighbors. Yes, I know it's 7 am. They love me for my art. I'm sure of it.


You see, Mama, Dada, AuntK, these "noises" as you call them are not just bangs, not just crashes, not just booms or clangs or clanks -- they are a part of the music of the ages, the primal beat that rumbles so softly in my psyche and must be released for the world to enjoy.  These are the sounds of my soul. And every time you tell me "STOP BANGING!" in that tone that only just hints of exasperation, know that you are not only stifling my creative instincts, but that you are robbing the world of the craft of my composition, a symphony of such sublimity that even if I had the words, I could just not express it. Sigh. I am a virtuoso of vibrations, unappreciated in his time.