State of the Porter

Well, in case you haven't heard, it's a new year, and with that, my paternal responsibility as patriarch of my family is to provide you, faithful readers, with the State of the Porter address.

Porter is now three months and has gone from a wrinkly-little-old-man-who-sleeps-a-lot-but-is-otherwise-only-interesting-to-his-parents to actually developing something of a personality. The highlights are:

Ambidextrious - While, according to experts, it's too early to tell, Porter has not decided which thumb he prefers, left or right. He generally leans toward the left, as it has a pretentious bouquet, but is suitable for most cuisines. However, sometimes the right serves as a back-up when the left can't be found. In some cases, both hands are used to make certain neither thumb can get away from him.

We Don't Like Wet - Porter isn't certain who keeps getting his diapers wet, but when he finds them . . . well, they called down the thunder and now they've got it. Hell has no fury like my son with a wet diaper.

Temper Temper - The kid clearly has both his parents' propensity for going from 0 to homicidal in .6 seconds and the lung capacity of whale. If he starts laughing we know we've got five minutes or less before the smiles stop and the PUNY-MORTALS-YOU-DO-NOT-YET-KNOW-THE-MEANING-OF-PAIN stage.

Criss-Cross Will Make You - Olympic High Jump? NBA All Star? Professional Beach Volleyball? International Gymnastics Champion? We're not certain which route Porter will take, but suffice to say the boy loves to jump. He'll even help, and let you know when you're not doing it right. His current prefernce is to jump on someone's lap while facing away from said spotter so as to not miss a moment of the action.

Classic Toons - Two words: Bugs. Bunny. That's right, Porter is an afficionado of the Cary Grant/Humphrey Bogart/Groucho Marx successor. Personally, that waskily-wabbit still entertains most triumphantly. He's also way less evil than Ernie.

And that, my fellow Americans, is the State of the Porter entering 2008. We know there are a great many challenges to face us, but there are also a great many triumphs to be had. We must go forward, not backward. Upward, not downward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling.

Or in Porter's case, jumping, jumping, jumping.