... of Cotillion

Did you do Cotillion growing up? I didn't. But I had friends who did and it baffled me. Why on earth would some kid from Fort Collins, Colorado need to know how to dance the Foxtrot or learn how to properly greet people of various ages or distinguish between multiple forks at dinner? Multiple forks? Whoever heard of such a thing? Didn't you just lick your fork clean and set it aside for the next course? And by "course" I mean turning your plate from the salad to the meatloaf.

At any rate, I never learned these things. But watching Downton Abbey recently has made me wish that I had not only learned them, but was actually able to use them. This was not supposed to be a post about Downton Abbey, but while I continue to ramble on about it we are on the topic , it's a really good show that makes me absurdly think that it would be more glamorous to live in wartime England rather than my own millennial life. If you haven't seen it and you are a person, you would probably like it. The only exception might be a man-person who normally chooses to watch nothing but Sports Center on repeat. Or my husband (ie. a hater-of-television person). Those people probably shouldn't even think about watching it. The rest of you, give it a thought.

This was supposed to be a post about Abram's new found interest in learning to use a fork. We've given him baby forks to see if he'll figure out how to feed himself, but he always hands it to us to "load it up", then asks for it back and takes a bite. Or he holds the fork in one hand and uses his other hand to actually feed himself. But today, he picked up my fork from the bowl of food that I had been eating and spent the next 20 minutes silently and diligently attempting to stab pasta and feed himself. He was quite (surprisingly) patient.

This is a video taken toward the beginning of the 20 minutes.

I think he got a total of 6 or so pieces of pasta actually in his mouth by using the fork. He eventually and understandably got less patient and it degenerated.

Mostly into picking up the pasta and trying to stick it on the fork.

Sometimes successful, sometimes not so much.

But it was a good learning day! The learning continued as I had him hang out with me in his room while I went through his 6-9 month clothes to store/give away/sell. I also sorted through all his blankets and stuffed animals and shoes and toys. We are having a garage sale next weekend and I wanted to make sure we hadn't missed anything. So he pretty much just entertained himself around him room while I folded and sorted and took pictures. We ended up with two Boppys from when he was new and I found this one in a corner of his room and sent it out to take it out to the garage.

I didn't think he would care much and then I looked down and he was coming over for a few seconds just to lounge in it and return to what he had been doing.

He did this about four times before getting distracted by something else.

I thought it was pretty funny, but I'm wondering if he is going to do the same thing with the Boppy when we have it out for Selah when she arrives. Hopefully he won't get possessive and try to lay on her while she's in it. That would be unfortunate. And not very proper of him.

Maybe he will need Cotillion after all.