Listen here: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/birdsofafeather.mp3 or read on…

Fifteen-month-old Reed walks shoeless on the Arabian rug, stepping gingerly over the power cord that leads to the computer on which I am writing this. The cord hurts his foot, should he step on it, so he avoids it.

He mouths sounds that are words and thoughts to him but only guesses to us.

He reaches out to touch the Graco Pack-Play Totyard that’s set up in the dining room writing room where I’m sitting, he gently pushes on the brand-name lettering and looks through the mesh sides to see what’s within this childhood prison compound.

Then, merrily talking with himself, he wobbles slightly bow-legged into the living room where his young parents are conversing and casting attentive glances at him to make sure he’s ok. He circles from the living room through the kitchen, where his grandmother and her best friend are cooking and talking, and they greet him and chat with him as he walks past them into the foyer and then back into the dining room where I am.

He again steps over the power cord, goes to the window where the air conditioning system is blowing the transparent curtains around, looks out, touches the curtains, then heads back to the Graco Pack-Play Totyard, this time running his fingernails over the mesh, which makes a most satisfying noise.

Then, he is gone again.

Earlier, my son-in-law and I rescue a bird that has fallen from a nest in the front yard, place it back into its little home, and hope that the nearby nervous parents will take it back and begin nourishing it again. The little bird has made a foray into unknown territory, had an adventure in which two giants carried it about and brought it back home–a story to tell to parents who probably will think it’s all exaggerated.

Mosquitoes attack us and we spend a few minutes scratching and talking as if we’d never experienced mosquitoes quite this vicious before, but of course we have short memories, and anyhow it’s more pleasant to talk about that than politics, taxes, and how the world will end.

Merry, chatty voices from the kitchen mingle with the voice of Reed, who is making up stories to tell to his usually tired but happy parents when the times comes to make his words understandable to adults.

Now, Reed is sitting on the kitchen floor, banging a Tupperware bowl with a wooden cooking spoon. At times he forgets to pound the bowl and instead tries to fit the small end of the spoon into the mouth of the bowl, as if he’s carefully disarming a bomb, his concentration unbreakable for about forty seconds.

Then, it’s back to pounding that thank-goodness-it’s-soft-plastic bowl with that thank-goodness-it’s-wooden spoon.

All-in-all, it’s quite a productive afternoon in our little household. Reed goes about the business of being Reed, Little Bird is trying to figure out how to leave the nest safely, adults go about the business of being grownups who enjoy the presence of Little Birds and Little Reeds, and the world for at least a few hours cannot intrude its dispassionate self upon our family

–Jim Reed (C) 2012 A.D.