M A C V A Y S I A

Saturday evening Leen and I went to a wedding at the Armada Hotel in PJ. It was the wedding of my former colleague, Nadzrah, to a really tall French guy named Olivier. Just before leaving for the wedding, we discussed whether or not we should bring Alisdair along. Should be no problem, I said. Besides, I said, if we don’t bring him, we’ll find everyone else brought their kids, and everyone will be asking why we didn’t bring Al. So we brought Alisdair along. What a silly thing to do.

Alisdair was very charming at first. Smiling, laughing, running here and there. Yes, it was all charming at first. But after a few drinks of the very sugary syrup drinks being handed out to guests, the laughing and running were amplified exponentially. It was pointless to explain to him that he was not meant to be the centre of attention, that such an honour was reserved for the lovely couple wearing fancy clothes at the head table. Alisdair seemed quite happy to be the centre of attention that night. So happy, in fact, that he seemed intent on sharing his glory with his father. Look! There’s little Alisdair, running around the tables. Look! There’s Jordan, chasing after him. Oh look! There’s Alisdair climbing up the steps to the pelamin. And look! There’s Jordan, turning quite red as he tries to coax his screaming little boy back down. Oh, my former colleagues — there were quite a few in attendance — must have found it so entertaining.

An attempt to take Alisdair back to our table resulted in a screaming fit, so I took him out of the hall to try and calm him down. I kept trying to explain to him that he needed to be a good boy, but everything I was saying clashed with his idea of a good time, which involved lots of running and screaming and jumping. His frustration was made worse by the fact that he hadn’t had his afternoon nap. So he was tired, cranky, full of sugar, and two years old. If that’s not a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is.

Those of you who are or have been the parents of toddlers are probably familiar with the toddler’s weapon of last resort. If they don’t get what they want, they’ll cry. If they still don’t get what they want, they’ll cry more loudly. If that doesn’t work, they’ll scream and thrash. If that doesn’t produce the desired effect, they’ll do their best impression of Linda Blair in the Exorcist. At first that will merely involve more forceful crying and thrashing, and perhaps an attempt at spinning the head all the way around. But eventually, they’ll break out their ultimate weapon: they’ll make themselves puke.

Having failed in all his attempts to get his way, Alisdair switched on his barf cannon and fired a pile of hot, syrupy vomit all over my shirt. The only good thing about such an event is that it almost invariably ends the stalemate. The focus of both parties switches to the task of cleaning up, and also of consoling the distraught toddler (one of their main reasons for resorting to the technicolor yodel is almost certainly the fact that it gets them plenty of sympathy). The bad thing about this particular stomach bombing was that it only ended the stalemate for a short time. Eventually we went back into the hall and everything continued as it had before, except that now my son and I smelled like vomit. The only thing that saved the evening was my camera. I handed it to Al and he went around taking pictures, which was much more charming than the raging monkey routine he had performed for much of the evening.

Last night one of Leen’s colleagues came over for dinner, along with her husband, their son, and a friend. Just as we sat down to a lovely meal (Leen’s delicious mee hailam), Alisdair got into a tiff with our youngest guest, something involving the toy cars the lad had brought along. Once again he puked, but this time Leen was his victim. And boy did he spray her good. They both had to have a shower. I sat at the table and smiled feebly at our guests. Their kid is almost three. It’s okay, we understand, said Leen’s colleague. We really understand.

The good news, as the title says, is that Alisdair is cute. He’s smart, he’s funny, and he’s doing great with his potty training (I never thought I’d be so happy at the sight of an O-Henry-bar-sized log in the toilet). I just want to squeeze him. Of course, sometimes I feel tempted to squeeze him really, really hard. Just have to count to ten first, I guess.