Joshy and Boo

“Mommy, you’re making chicken! He he he. Mommy’s making chicken, ” giggled Boo, finger in mouth.

“He he. Mommysmakingchicken,” echoed Joshy with wide grins.

And there they stood beaming at Mommy through the kitchen window, little faces uptilted, a little pair with fingers in their mouths on the same side.

Joshy was born when Boo was 18 months old. From the beginning, you could see the difference between them. Joshy was a very calm baby, all pink and white with downy brown fuzz covering his baldness. He loved the good life—to eat and sleep and lie content. Boo bounced all around the edges of his existence, always red in the face, either with temper, or, to Mommy’s great comfort, more often with laughter. High-pitched chatter filled Joshy’s ears whenever he awoke, and thick black curls were often pressed affectionately to his face.

As they grew, Joshy began to toddle about after Boo. This was fun. Boo stood on the coffee table in her favorite Hawaiian dress with the stretched out elastic, and spun herself around and around until she fell and lay on her tummy on the table, laughing. Joshy pushed Boo’s plastic shopping cart full of toys round and around the table, singing a little song softly to himself. Then Boo put the favorite Hawaiian dress on Joshy and draped a towel over his hair. Beautiful!

Joshy and Boo loved the beaten up couch with the orange and brown plaid. When Mommy brought out the vacuum, they would race to it, shrieking and squealing, and settle in to watch the show; their little feet didn’t even come to the edge, but oh! the thrills when the vacuum passed before them! “Ooooo!” Shudders. “Vacuum-zhoom!” Joshy loved to climb up next to Boo as she sat on the couch, rocking herself. Wham! wham! went Boo’s body against the back. “Eighty-four. Sixty-two,” went Joshy’s little voice. Best of all was when they had each drunk a full glass of milk. Now they both rocked. They looked over at each other, giggling and smiling as they felt the cold milk sloshing against the sides of their stomachs and heard the delightful gloomp! gloomp!

Boo and Joshy loved to wrestle with Daddy. They tried to team up on him. Joshy sat on Daddy’s chest as Daddy laid on his back, and tried to pry the quarter out of his tightly closed fist. Boo climbed up onto his bent knees to slide down behind Joshy—woops! Down between his knees she fell! “Camow! Camow,” they would beg then. Daddy got on his hands and knees and Joshy climbed up and hung on his neck. Boo crawled on behind and clung around Joshy’s waist as they set off—whoa! Camels are difficult to ride. Boo and Joshy nearly slid off many a time.

In the kitchen there were good things. One day, Daddy had a videocamera. Joshy did not like this thing pointed at him. Boo did. Boo tried to earn a cookie—”I wanna cookie! I wanna cookie!” she squealed in her high little voice, jumping up and down, looking up into Daddy’s camera with her finger in her nose.

But Daddy wanted Joshy to say something. “Joshy, you wanna cookie?”

“Nee-oooo,” frowned Joshy.

Joshy and Boo each got a cookie. “April, you like the cookie?”

“Yesh!” Boo said, beaming, bouncing up and down.

“Joshy, why you take the biggest cookie, huh? Is it a good cookie?”

“Hm!” said Joshy, jerking his head down in one emphatic nod.

“Why you got your finger up your nose?”

Food was a frequent point of contention between Joshy and Boo. Mommy spooned half a can of fruit cocktail, one big spoonful of warm corn, and half a can of the best food in the world – beanie weenies – into each wee separated plate. “Joshy got more cherries than me!” shrieked Boo. Mommy took Joshy’s extra cherry and ate it. Boo felt that this was somehow unfair. Joshy counted the frank slices in his beanie weenies. “Nine,” he pronounced. Fortunately, Boo had nine as well.

They would have contests, too. Upon finishing their toasted cheese sandwiches, they raced to see who could down their little yellow plastic bowl of tomato soup in the smallest number of spoonfuls. Boo got to eleven once. Probably Joshy beat her. When they got sherbet they stirred it with their spoons to make a gray sludge. “You have to eat your medicine now,” Boo would croon. They both slurped up their medicine very slowly.

Once, Joshy poked his fork into Boo’s cheek. He didn’t mean to. Boo stared in the mirror at the four little holes and felt queer in her stomach. Mommy gave her a prune to eat and Boo liked that well.

And nearly every day, Boo and Joshy fought over something or other. Boo was violent and pushed Joshy down. Mommy and Daddy warned Boo. “You’d better watch out, ‘cause Joshy’s going to get bigger than you some day and he’ll get you back.” And one day, he did.