Pudgy and Precocious - The World of Baby LeRoy

by David Bolton

Me and my friend Bumpy, the Koala

  María, my shapely Mexican nanny, is really cool to have around in general, but sometimes, she riles me up. Like today, when I was in my high chair and she was feedin' me my Gerber chicken dinner (my favorite, by the way).

  Takin' Bumpy (my stuffed koala) out of my hands and puttin' him on the nearby kitchen table, she said:

  "Voy a poner tu osito koala aquí en la mesa, para que no lo manches con la comida."

  Rough translation:

  "I'm gonna put your little koala bear over here so you don't slop your grub all over him."

  This bothered me in more ways than one.

  First of all, I guess the news hasn't spread to Mexico that koalas aren't bears. But then, now that I think of it, I've heard Mom call 'em koala bears, too, and she's American, so I guess that news hasn't spread all through this country, either.

  Second, she knows his name is Bumpy, so why doesn't she call him that? I mean, suppose she were talkin' about me to Mom, and said in her strong Mexican accent:

  "Meeses Sprrenkle, I'm gonna put yourrr leetle human in hees bed now."

  Mom would think she's really weird, and might even end up firin' her!

  Third: Bumpy doesn't like to be called "leetle", or "little" either, for that matter. For a stuffed koala, he has a pretty respectable size, and he's proud of it.

  Anyway, koalas aren't bears. They're even better than bears, 'cause they're not only cute, but they don't get too big, and they won't maul you if you cross their path at the wrong moment. They won't steal everything in your picnic basket, either, unless you've got it stuffed with eucalyptus leaves, 'cause that's about all they eat.

  Koalas are harmless, cute as can be, and won't steal your grub−- what more do you want in a wild animal? Koalas rock! You just gotta love 'em.

  They also live in trees. That seems to me to be a pretty ecological thing to do, if ya ask me. (Hey, maybe I should send an email to Al Gore and get him to do a documentary about koalas!)

  I started lovin' koalas soon after I saw the light of day (that's a poetic way of sayin' "when I was born").

  Some relative had sent me a stuffed koala as a present. I don't know which relative it was, since I was too little to register what was goin' on around me at the time. But whoever it was, I'll be eternally grateful, since my koala soon became my best friend.

  Yeah, sure, I have other stuffed animals: a teddy bear, a dog, a rabbit, and even a monkey. They're cool, but Bumpy beats 'em all hands down.

  I gave him that name myself. I called him that 'cause it looks like he has a couple of little bumps on his head, one on the back, and one just behind the left ear. (I guess some Chinese lady was drinkin' on the job when she stuffed the stuffin' into Bumpy and sewed him up.)

  But hey, nobody's perfect, and those little bumps don't bother me at all. They make him seem more individual, like somethin' special. After all, would you want your toy koala to look exactly like every other one on the planet, right down to the very last detail?

  Of course not. Dare to be different, as I always say!

  Now, at the beginning, Bumpy had a problem. He was naked as a jaybird!

  It was kinda embarrassin'. I mean, after all, it's not very civil to run around naked, is it?

  True, Bumpy couldn't really run around; I had to move him around and pretend. But whenever I did, I felt really bad for him. Poor thing, not a stitch of clothing on him! I'll bet he turned red in the face (of course, with all that fur coverin' his face, I can't be sure about that, but wouldn't you turn red in the face if you were always naked in front of everybody?)

  Well, as soon as I managed to type out a sentence on my Dad's desktop PC while he was holdin' me on his lap one day (back then, I didn't have my laptop yet), I wrote this:

  "Hey Dad, could you tell Mom to please sew some clothes for Bumpy? Maybe a pair of overalls, just like I wear."

  Dad was beside himself with enthusiasm − he was almost jumpin' with joy!

  "Wow", I thought, "I guess Dad was embarrassed about Bumpy's bein' naked all the time, too. He seems to really like this idea!"

  Later, though, I found out that he was so happy just because it was the first time I had ever typed anything into his PC. Imagine, before that day, Mom and Dad thought I was really dumb!

  Well, he plopped me down into the playpen to go get Mom. When they came back, she seemed a little mad at him. Apparently, she thought he had been drinkin' again.

  Dad snatched me up and sat down at his computer, me on his lap, and said:

  "Go on LeRoy, show mommy how you can write."

  I was tempted to just act dumb and gurgle a little, since I knew she'd get even madder at him then, and watchin' a good fight can be entertainin' at times.

  But no − Bumpy needed some clothes.

  "As I was sayin' to dad..." I began to type, and then she flipped out too.

  They were ravin' about me, and it was startin' to really get on my nerves. Sure, they were pleased, and were pourin' the compliments on me, callin' me "their little genius", and stuff like that.

  But I wasn't gonna let 'em change the subject: Bumpy needed some overalls!

  I wrote a few more lines, insistin' on their attention in this matter, and finally, I got her to promise:

  "Oh, of course, LeRoy, I'll sew Bumpy some overalls this weekend!"

  "Make 'em brown," I typed, "blue would make him look like a farmer."

  Nothin' against farmers, not at all. In my opinion, they're the unsung heroes of history. But Bumpy doesn't know squat about plantin' corn, or anything else for that matter, so I thought brown would be more fitting.

  Well, to make a long story short, Bumpy got his brown overalls, and they fit like a charm, even better than mine fit me now (I guess that's because Bumpy doesn't gain any weight, and doesn't get any taller, either.)

  Where I go, Bumpy goes: he sleeps right next to me in my crib, and spends the day with me in my playpen.

  Sometimes, I imagine a whole grove of koalas... no, a whole country where koalas have their own towns, and everything. And I imagine the other koalas: Bumpy's friends, and a bunch of other ones that he doesn't know yet.

  Hey, you know what? I think maybe I'll start to write a book about 'em. Who knows, Yours Truly may end up writin' the first Great Koala Novel!

  You gotta think big, as Tony Robbins would tell you. (And that guy is 6'7", after all!)

  Angry Afterword

  Just as I was gettin' all excited about writin' a great novel about koalas, my bubble got burst big time. Doin' a few minutes of research at Amazon,com, I saw that some rascal beat me to it: there already is a koala novel, called "Koalaland, or The Great Koala Novel" - and even more aggravatin', is that there are five volumes. Hard to compete with that! Oh well, what can ya do? After a little more research. I discovered that there's a site where you can get Volume I totally free: www.dboltoncreations.com . Well, need I say that I downloaded that book quicker than dad and Maria close those porn sites when they hear Mom walkin' into the room?

  I'm already half way through Volume 1, called "Koalaland, The Making of a Kingdom", and I'm more envious than ever − why can't I write that well?! But I gotta love it, especially since one of the characters in it is named Bumpy, and wouldn't you know it? His personality is just like my stuffed Bumpy's! I guess there's more in a name than that Shakespeare guy realized. Anyway, if you want to escape from cruel reality for a while, and enjoy a really good read, download it right now, for free. Just click on this link: "Koalaland, Volume I: The Making of a Kingdom"

  I find my true Love - NOT!

  I'm mad at María, my shapely Mexican nanny. Really mad. You wanna know just how mad? Just look at this picture!

  No, it's worse than mad. It's sad. Disappointed. Melancholic. In despair.

  Pained − like I just fell outta Cloud Nine and landed on this guy's head... that's how much it hurts!

  Lemme tell ya what happened today. My shapely Mexican nanny, Mar�
�a, woke me up for breakfast at 11am, as she always does, and she smelled so nice!

  I think it was because she wasn't wearin' that cheap perfume that she bought on her last trip to visit her family in Tijuana.

  Anyway, she picked me up, smilin' that leg-weakenin' smile of hers (and my legs are weak enough already − must be because I can't walk yet), put me in my high chair, locked the tray in front of me, then smiled at me again, this time with somethin' tender in her eyes − or was that just my imagination?

  I think it was that second smile that made me realize that some things in life just shouldn't wait. Live the now, right?

  I've liked María ever since Mom and Dad hired her, fresh off the bus from Tijuana, or at least, that's what she said. I don't know what it is, and you may think I'm really strange, but there's somethin' about a dark-haired, 19-year-old girl, slender in the right places, and kinda puffed up in some other right places, that makes me wanna stare. I guess it's because the view from the playpen doesn't usually offer me much to look at, so I'm glad to get an eye-full of somethin' new, no matter what it is.

  Anyway, I liked her from the get-go, as I was sayin', and things only got better.

  She fed me without gettin' mad when I slopped by Gerber chicken dinner all over the tray, and only laughed when I threw my bottle at Clarence's head, and hit him square between the ears. Mom gets really piqued when I do that, but it's too much fun not to!

  If María's high anger-tolerance level hadn't already been enough to win my heart, that strong Mexican accent sure would've been. As a