My Son Mordecai And I Read Proust
It was a Tuesday morning and as I sat down to the computer, a mug of kombucha tea steaming at my elbow. I had made a breakfast ragout of autumnal vegetables (squash, pumpkin). The wife had taken our incredibly self-satisfied dog Leslie out for a walk and my four-year-old son Mordecai was in the other room, reading the Wall Street Journal "Puh-pah," he said, "when I'm in ur gardenz, prunin' teh plants, am I a hedge fund manager?" Smart kid!
My wife walked in, carrying a dozen madeleines she had picked up at the bakery. From the other room Mordy called out, "Ooh madeleines, Poppa, want to come read Du côté de chez Swann with me?" Themed eating! I entered, a warm madeleine in my hand. Mordecai had turned to page 63 and began reading, "Et dès que j'eus reconnu le goût du morceau de madeleine trempé dans le tilleul que me donnait ma taint—
"Taint?" I asked. "I think you meant tante. Taint is something else entirely."
The little angel looked up at me, embarrassed. His blue eyes were teary. "Papa," he asked, "you aren't going to blog about this in ways that portray me simultaneously as precious, precocious and a little bit autistic" Mordy began to quake and quail with the thought that I might be leaving a well-documented record of all his embarrassing youthful missteps. A wet spot began to form on his corduroys. It soaked the pages of Proust.
"No," I assured him. "That I would never do."
