Sweet Monday

Forgive me. I try not to be your typical mommy blogger, going on and on about the adorableness of her child. But, tonight, after a lovely weekend away with my two guys, I can’t help but tell you that I think my little boy is about as sweet as the cupcakes with sprinkles he and I made for my birthday. (He can’t stop talking about those cupcakes.)

So, I’ll make it sweetly short.

Saturday night, I lay next to August in a room he wasn’t used to after he’d woken himself up from a bad dream: “The clown has scary eyes,” he’d said. (Is there anything scarier than a bad clown dream?) He wasn’t falling asleep after fifteen minutes of my best bedtime songs and I told him it was time for us to lie still and be very quiet. I guess I’ve been his example of what to do when you’re lying in bed waiting to fall asleep. I’m constantly playing with his hair when it’s bedtime, smoothing it from the part over to the ear. He took a cue from me and as I lay beside him, he played with my hair: those little fingers sometimes yanking, but mostly just combing it down over my face. I was thinking: I only have ten years before he can’t play with my hair again until I’m on my deathbed. Enjoy it.

Today as we left the vacation home of Chris’ great aunt and uncle, who are leaving soon to do some work in China for for a few months, I said: “Have fun in China!” All the way from the door to the car, August called out, “Nice to meet you! Have fun in China! Nice to meet you! Have fun in China!” He, of course, has no concept of China, whatsoever.

In the car on our drive home, I offered August a ziploc bag full of grapes. About halfway through his snack, he cried a little and tried to communicate something to me he couldn’t quite get across. “It’s hot honey!” he said.

“What? Oh, your grapes taste like honey? Yeah, they’re sweet. So they taste like honey,” I said.

He thought about my reply for awhile but wasn’t satisfied. He took another bite, yelled, then said: “Mama, the honey is hot!”

Chris was our interpreter of the toddler mind at that moment and realized, “August, is the grape sour? The sweet tastes hot?”

Yes, August was satisfied. “Sour?” he asked a few times, mentally installing that particular concept in his brain. Sour: when the honey is hot. Of course.

Tonight, my husband read August a story before bed. The page they were on said: “When you catch a fish, you make a wish.” Chris said, “August, do you know what a wish is?” He didn’t know. “It’s when you imagine that something wonderful happens. What do you wish for?”

August said, “I want to catch a fish in the water.” (My father will be so happy to hear that.)

All done with the mom gloating. Go have a lovely Monday. Stay away from hot honey.