Look at the Birdie and Smile

            As my loyal readers will most certainly recall, last week my seven-month-old daughter was sick with a cold. 

            This week, my seven-month-old daughter is still sick with a cold.  This, I am told, is normal.  Kids get colds.  But now there’s a new development:  the R.P. is now also afflicted with a cold that he undoubtedly caught from that same seven-month-old daughter.  This, I am told, is also normal. 

            But this column is not about the Recent Paterfamilias.  This column is about his beloved offspring. 

            Truly, it must be admitted, my little urchin is a trooper.  She maintains a good spirit even as she crawls through the viral trenches of her own snot.  And this said snot is considerable, as the very S.K. of SKART (ie. the business proprietor of this blog) can attest. 

            S.K. was recently in my part of the world, and she was spending some time with the Wife of the R.P. and the Daughter of the R.P., although not with the R.P. himself.  While accompanying the R.P.’s people home after a few hours of people-watching and whatnot around the Upper West Side’s Columbus Circle, S.K. apparently, reportedly, allegedly, witnessed a…what shall I call it?...she witnessed an instance.  While headed north on Broadway, strolling beside the Child of the R.P. (who, at the time, was strapped to the chest of the Spouse of the R.P. in a chest-borne baby carrier), S.K. saw the Child of the R.P. blow a snot bubble.  According to those on the scene, it was a bubble of significant size.  Apparently, and I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot lately, but apparently, it, the aforementioned snot bubble, was literally, not figuratively, literally the size of the infant in question’s head. 

            Nobody wants a daughter who blows snot bubbles the size of her own head.  Nor does anyone want a daughter who does so without any acknowledgment of said bubble, bouncing along as if all is right with the world, noticing nary a whit of that growing protuberance floating about in front of her adorable little face. 

            And then it happened.  At 63^rd and Broadway, the inflatable was spotted.  At the corner, while waiting on a walk signal, a young boy’s eyes widened, his gaze did not falter, he got his mother’s attention, and then…he pointed.  And then another little boy pointed.  And then another.  And then a young girl joined her peers.  And then, I am told, a pigeon turned its head to look, too. 

            And there she was, my baby, with a public snot bubble big enough to be pointed at.  Ahh, this is how proud fathers the world over must feel upon hearing of their respective offspring’s accomplishments. 

            So, I have decided, in the future, when my daughter (the snot bubbler herself) is waiting hand-in-hand with me at a street corner, any street corner, waiting on the Don’t Walk Signal to change to the Go Ahead and Go signal, when she, my daughter, turns to notice a snot bubble blowing from the nostril of some anonymous infant on some anonymous street, as she, my daughter, raises her arm, in order to so rudely point, I will not slap her hand back down, I won’t hinder her, I won’t correct her, no, no, no, instead, I have decided, I will encourage her—in fact, I will start pointing, too, just so some other father, some other future anonymous Recent Paterfamilias, won’t miss out on the feelings that this Recent Paterfamilias is feeling right now.