I’m not going to say my son’s a genius.

I’m going to type it: MY SON IS A GENIUS.

Let me be clear: at my son’s young age, there is a lot he doesn’t know. Hell, at my age, there’s a lot I don’t know. But while my son is still figuring out how to feed himself, he’s been picking up all sorts of other knowledge and skills at an incredible rate.

So I thought I’d start posting about the new things he can do. In list form!

Assorted Stuff My Kid Can Do

– he can quack like a duck
– he can “ho ho ho” like Santa Claus
– he can bark like a dog
– he can howl like a wolf
– he can walk like a man (a drunk man)
– he can talk like a man (not true)
– late December 1963 was a very special time in his life
– he can say “thank you”
– he can use “thank you” preemptively in order to acquire what’s in your hand through the sheer force of his anticipatory gratitude
– he can take the TV remote and point it at the TV
– he can take the TV remote and hand it to you and then point at the TV until you make Elmo appear
– he can climb stairs
– he can dance
– he can slow dance
– he can dance like no one’s watching (but he prefers an audience)
– he can dance like David Silver
– he can follow some basic commands (including “come here” and “sit on my lap” and “bring me that book” and “puff puff give”)

– he can sign a few words (including “more” and “eat”)
– he can say “hi” and “bye”
– he can say “no”
– he cannot stop saying “no”
– he can shake his head “no”
– he can push food away while saying and/or shaking his head “no”
– he can loudly and violently refuse food only to accidentally eat it and discover he loves it
– he can point at the food he only recently despised and scream if it is not immediately placed in front of him
– he can soon be studied by psychologists because he is clearly batshit insane
– he can pick the food he doesn’t like out of the food he does like, even when all aforementioned foods are in his mouth
– he can throw those foods on the floor
– he can laugh maniacally while displaying the previous skill on this list
– he can continue to laugh maniacally as you swear and clean the floor like some kind of fucked-up male Cinderella (pre-slipper incident)
– he can sweep the floor (not a Karate Kid-style euphemism; we’re actually training him to sweep the floor. In lieu of rent.)

– he can “read” (i.e., he can leaf through books)
– he can take the Bose remote and damage your eardrums by turning the speaker on with the volume set incredibly, painfully high
– he can hold his yogurt pack by himself and suck it dry and toss it on the floor with contempt when it’s empty
– he can pour his milk all over the rug
– he can blow kisses and he does so without discrimination
– he can comb his hair
– he can attempt to put on socks
– he can locate and push my bellybutton
– he can say bye with such repetition that it becomes painfully obvious that he would really like you to leave
– like, leave right now. I said get out of here!
– he can hurt my feelings. 🙁

Despite the fact that my wife forwards me the “Your baby at XX months!” emails every week, I have no real idea if my kid is acquiring his many, MANY skills at a highly accelerated rate or if he’s merely acquiring them at a somewhat accelerated rate. I’m not a scientist. And you already know how I feel about benchmarking your kids.

But I am incredibly proud of my son for the things he’s learning everyday, even though most of his learning so far is pretty much instinctual and/or imitative. I’m just really annoyed I have to force myself to stop swearing so much, lest the kid start cursing out strangers rather than blowing them kisses.