We lay together at night in your bed, right after I’ve read your story and turned out the light, and you talk to me about things. You still don’t quite get my questions about your day, about school, or your friends, but you are definitely trying to tell me stuff – like how you see the sun and the moon up on the ceiling, and aren’t they beautiful? And let’s run, mama! Run, run! and we pedal our legs and run, lying horizontal on the bed. Sometimes you will say “Kiss, mama!” and you’ll grab my face with your hands and kiss my cheeks and forehead and hair and everything, just like I sometimes do to you when I’m stealing a good night kiss. Sometimes you will say “I hold you, mama” and then you’ll climb on me like I’m a mountain and lay there like a baby, sucking your thumb (you are forty pounds). Sometimes I nestle my forehead into the small of your back, and we lie like that for a while.
I love hearing all the things that go on in your mind, things I didn’t put there. I especially love to watch you play with your stuffed animals and toys – you make up the most grand and silly adventures for them, and watching you be creative with them is so awesome. They always go through something terrifying or stressful, and it’s hard to hold back a laugh as your eyes widen and your voice goes into the stratosphere and you screech in Bear’s voice and then holler in Other Bear’s voice and then they both go marching down the back of the couch together on some terribly important errand.
You are still a super big brother. The other day I left you alone with Liam for two seconds, and when I returned, you were feeding him his yogurt. Also, choking him pretty badly with the spoon, but it was still pretty cute. You still insist that the baby be involved in everything – if we have Mardi Gras beads on, then I need to find some for the baby. If we’re going on a walk, then I must “get the baby chair” and “put da baby in da wagon.” “wet’s go, baby!” You’ll never let us forget him.
You loved the Mardi Gras parades, and kept asking to go see pwade, mama, wet’s go! Get in da wagon! You aren’t really taking no for an answer, and of course there are no parades around. I’m kind of going through parade withdrawal myself. You love Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies, and you love Thomas the tank Engine, including this floor puzzle that I think we’ve done a million times. You know all the trains’ names by heart, which I can’t seem to master myself. We are trying to potty train you using Thomas underwear. You love to wear it, but still aren’t quite mastering the potty bit. We can hear trains from our house – there is a train track a couple of blocks from here. Whenever we hear them, you say “too -too! It’s a too-too!” You get super thrilled.
Sometimes, you will demand a walk – we go stroller? We go on walk? You are getting super bossy these days. I try not to let you be impolite – and you’re delightfully polite most of the time! You just learned to say no thank you and yes please. It’s way cute. Those are my proudest moments, when you say please and thank you to my friends. Today we went to Tulane Law School’s spring fling, and you went up to a totally strange girl and just sat on her lap. It was pretty cute.
Just now I tried to put you both to bed without me in the room, and you were hysterical and kept patting the pillow next to you and saying “Time to go nigh nigh, mama, time to go sweep, mama, pweese, time to go nigh nigh!” I’m not sure what the right thing to do is. Because frankly, I usually don’t much feel like lying next to you at night – I want my adult time at the end of a long, child-wrangling day, and when I fall asleep next to you I never get it. But then whenever I do lie down, and we go up the stairs, or swim, or run, when we look at the moon, and the sun, and the stars, when we talk about crabs, or bears, or applesauce – in short, when we follow your little almost-three-year-old imagination down whatever paths it wants to take, and we chat and play and cuddle – I always love it. And I think – this is better than any adult time. And I think – he is growing so quickly. And I think – we are best friends, we two, and this will only be so for a short while. It pains me to think of you choosing friends to play with at the park, instead of wanting me. It makes me tear up when I think of you one day being ashamed of me, when now I am your greatest treasure (Dad and me). This is the way it goes, and I’ll go along, I’ll push you there if you hesitate, but sometimes I’d love for you to be this age forever. My little buddy. My best guy.