Spare Parts

The following post was previously published June 8th, 2007

Friday, June 08, 2007

Got Any Spare Change?

Above: Perfecting the Elvis snarl... 

Last week’s photos of the Mountjoy Spawn, and in particular, Spare Mountjoy, reminded me of what a remarkable little person my younger son is, and as a result, here is a profile of the little bloke, punctuated by lots of oh-ah worthy photos for gawk at.

Spare is the black sheep of my family. He possesses athletic skill and co-ordination that neither my, nor Lady Mountjoy’s bloodlines have any history of. Until a year ago, Spare was an avowed carnivore, devouring meat on his dinner plate in copious quantities. To the Spare, all meat is “chicken”. This is a side effect of life in Taiwan, where almost all flesh servings larger than a matchbox was chicken. Recently, he has gone off meat, preferring to eat, well… nothing. I am amazed that a growing child eats so little. The scrawny little bastard is almost Belsen-like, with visible ribs, and stick arms and legs. I went to pick him up and sit him on the kitchen bench this week, and he weighs barely more then the princess. Or at least it seems that way.

Spare has an ear for music. His nursery in Taiwan was our Japanese room (a common feature over there: a room that has paper walls and a table in the floor that you can sit around), and as a two-year old, he would, after being put into his cot and the lights turned off, regularly respond “No, No!” each time he heard the phrase “Won’t Get Fooled Again” at the start of CSI Miami through his paper walls. These days, he has a taste for dinosaur rock, with The Police (Message in a Bottle) and Cheap Trick (Dream Police) having captured his imagination.

Renowned for embarrassing questions, it was Spare, not Heir, who kept asking to see “the hole where they took [Princess Mountjoy] out of mummy’s tummy?”, or who reefed his genitalia tight and exclaimed “look how purple my penis is!” as he left the shower recently. Another party trick (untaught) was for him to emerge from the toilet, naked from the waist down, enter the room, stop and turn around, bend over as though to touch his toes, but pull his cheeks apart and ask “Is my bottom clean?”

In as much as Heir is a Mini-Me of Mountjoy, Spare seems to have fallen not far from his mother. Thankfully he has not displayed any “middle child” symptoms yet, he is in love with his little sister – who loves him back with interest, possibly because his facial features resembles his mother’s. With a wicked grin, and big brown eyes, Spare Mountjoy is anything but spare, and has helped me learn that despite the huge love you feel for your first born, you will love your second and third just the same.

Heard On Mountjoy's Car Stereo: Steely Dan - Do It Again

Posted by Mountjoy at 10:04 AM