It was a typical morning.

The plastic penguin was drinking out of the cat bowl, my coffee table was covered in trucks of various size and ability, the CDs – well, most of the CDs from the bottom rack were missing completely. When I’d asked Isaac where he might have left them, he just shrugged his shoulders, palms upturned. “Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Where?” was all he offered as a clue.

Currently, that same petty thief I call my son is planted on the floor in front of the bookcase speedreading through my Russian literature collection. One after another he absorbs and discards the classics, pulling a book off the shelf, flipping through it, then tossing it over his shoulder with a cry of “All done!” The Complete Works of Nikolai Gogol. “All done!” Doctor Zhivago. “All Done!” Pushkin, Lermentov, Tolstoy. “All done!”

Shh! We have to be very quiet. Penguin is taking a nap. He is swaddled in a blanket that covers him completely and is snoozing soundly in the colander on the kitchen floor – an improvement over his other common nap space, the refrigerator, which is where he spent the better part of yesterday.

In the outside world, I imagine people purchasing new bed clothes, bunches of bananas, talking amiably with store clerks, listening to the news, showering. Sometimes I wonder what the mailman thinks glancing into the window – sill lined with boxes of baby wipes, cheerios and mis-matched socks. But most days, I’d much rather be completely ignorant of his thoughts.

Isaac escapes a diaper change, sliding expertly off the bed and racing through the house barebottomed calling “Nun! Nun!”

Penguin has awoken from his nap and is being alternately cradled and bitten by my son, who finally throws him passionately onto the floor. Penguin rocks briefly on the spot where he’s landed, then stills and remains there, facing the wall.