Monday, May 07, 2007

Sweet Parenting Dreams



Tonight Michael and Isaiah and I had an incredibly fun time playing before we put the little guy to bed. We were all playing in our room after Isaiah had taken his bath, and I was chasing him around on the beds and tickling him. Then in the crevice between our bed and Isaiah's, I found the "Wild Animals" book, which had been missing for a few weeks. Since I was supposed to be calming Isaiah down for bed instead of winding him up, I decided to read it to him. I was absolutely floored to discover Isaiah knew almost all of the animal sounds in the book. It turns out he had been listening to me the entire time and quietly remembering how to make each animal sound. He even did the same motions I did when I read the book. He pretended to be galloping when I pointed to the zebra; he stuck his arm out like a trunk for the elephant; he wiggled his hand like a swimming fish; he even opened his mouth big and wide for the hippo and pretended to eat my arm. It was pretty darn cute. He made monkey hoots and lion roars and tiger growls and crocodile hisses and giraffe chomping sounds and rhino snorts. I am so proud of him.

Then because I was so impressed by his knowledge of the animal kingdom, I decided to have him point to things to see what he remembered. He got his head and his ears, which I already knew he could point to, but then he pointed to his nose when I asked, which he had never done before. Then he proceeded to point to his feet when I asked, and then his daddy and then his mommy and then his tummy, and then his mouth. Then I asked him to give his mommy a kiss, AND HE KISSED ME! He did it for Michael, too, when I asked him to kiss his daddy. We both got such a rush from our little boy kissing us so sweetly that we made him kiss us three more times before we just began playing again. We ended the night by tumbling around on the bed pretending to be horses and then turning out the big light and just having the camping lantern on, which fascinated Isaiah to no end. Then we turned that light off as well and snuggled together as Isaiah nursed to sleep.

I kept thinking that this night was the kind of night parenting dreams are made of. The sweet moments of Isaiah's snuggles and the beautiful sound of his laughter seem almost delicate as a memory. I don't want to alter nights like this in my mind or let the vividness diminish. I just want to preserve these times perfectly because I know that for years I will think back to tonight and feel content remembering how very right the world felt when Isaiah drifted off to sleep in my arms and Michael breathed steadily beside me.

I am so blessed to have Michael - the perfect husband and father for our family. I was reminded the other day of how wonderfully we fit together. I have gotten into the habit of making mildly amusing/highly annoying noises throughout the day in order to entertain Isaiah. The problem is that when I'm around other adults, I sometimes forget to stop it. So it was one afternoon that as I was putting on Isaiah's pants, I was humming "My Ragtime Gal" to him. Actually, I wasn't humming it. I was singing it by way of making annoying nasally "waa waa" sounds at the top of my lungs. I "waa waaed" my way through the first verse when I realized the Michael, who was in the next room, must be so annoyed with me he was on the verge of tearing off his own ears. So I stopped singing. But then, I heard Michael pick up where I left in the song in the same nasally "waa waas" without a trace of annoyance in his voice. It made me feel really good to know I have a husband as dorky as me. It's as if we were made for one another.

Of course, that means Isaiah doesn't have a snowman's chance in hell of being anything other than dorky like his parents. That's alright with me too, though. In my opinion, if you aren't at least a little dorky in some area of your life, you're probably kind of boring.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Atomic Fireboy




This has been yet another adventuresome week with Isaiah. He has learned a few new words, his favorite of which is "shoe." Every morning the highlight is putting on his shoes.

"Isaiah, we have to put on your shoes." "Shoe!" "That's right, your shoes" "Shoe!" "Yep, now what goes on your little foot?" "Shoe! Shoe! Shoe!"

He also likes it when I put on my shoes or let him play with my shoes or when I say "sure" because he thinks I'm talking about shoes. I didn't realize my love of shoes would rub off quite so quickly. At least I have a very happy shoe-shopping partner, though.

He has also begun to really get into brushing his teeth. Every night when it's tooth brushing time, Michael and I sing the Raffi song about brushing teeth that goes,
"When you wake up in the morning, it's a quarter to one/and you want to have a little fun/you brush your teeth/ Ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch...."
Now whenever we get out the toothbrush and toothpaste, Isaiah pretends to brush his teeth with his finger and makes the "ch ch ch ch" sound. The other day, he got a hold of my hairbrush and did the same thing.

We went to the Mall of America the other day and I bought a dress at American Eagle. Little did I know they sometimes give you candy when you buy clothing there. Maybe it was my prize for having a really cute kid or something. Whatever the case, the saleslady put a little box of jawbreakers and two little boxes of Atomic Fireballs (basically red-hot cinnamon flavored jawbreakers) into my bag when I wasn't really paying attention, so I didn't even know they were there. Later, though, I was browsing at a booth in the middle of the mall, and Isaiah was bored, so I let him play with the American Eagle bag. After a minute, I heard a rattle and saw little red balls rolling across the floor. I turned to Isaiah and saw that his mouth was stuffed with no less then five Atomic Choking Hazards...I mean Fireballs. So I had to go digging in his mouth to get them all out before he inhaled them. I fished around until I felt satisfied that I had gotten every last one and then threw the candies away and chalked it up to a novice mom moment. Fifteen minutes later, though, Isaiah spits out a tiny, sucked down Atomic Fireball that he had been happily sucking on the entire time. He must have grown some kind of secret pouch in his cute chipmunk cheeks that he hid it in. You win this time, Isaiah, but next time I'm packing a dentist mirror.