A few moments in March

Henry called me in to be with him tonight while he was falling asleep. No doubt I would be wise to consistently refuse these requests, since sometimes, all I really want is for him to put himself to bed and leave me be to watch half an hour of some 1980s British costume drama on Netflix streaming before I go to bed myself, but then other nights, I cannot resist the sweetness of these summonses, and the sleepy conversations that ensue.
So tonight he was almost asleep when he lifted his eyelids for a moment. "I was just thinking, Mommy," he confided, "about a football player." The eyelids dropped, and then reopened. "With a claw."
For the last 3 or 4 weeks, he has been talking about thinking things, or dreaming them, "in my head." He seems to understand now that he can deliberately conjure up ideas and images. If he is angry about having to go to bed alone, for instance, he tells me that he will think about witches and ghosts and scary things, even after I remind him that he could try to think about nice things, like Mom's cat, and ice cream cones, and tractors. 

**

In James's inner world, meanwhile, humor is blossoming. A few weeks ago, he made his first joke, when he picked up a sock and draped it over his foot. Then he lifted his foot up and transferred the sock to his head. We agreed this was hilarious. Lately, he reduces himself to helpless giggling by waggling his foot under my nose while he is nursing, prompting me to make a face and tell him his foot stinks. He is also, within these past two weeks, truly walking, not just tottering for a few steps at a time, and his two top front teeth have just come in, bringing the grand total to four.

**

Saturday afternoon, Mom & I took the boys to the library bookstore. A man, perhaps 60 years old, was standing nearby, talking to a woman about the recent death of his mother, age 85. I heard snatches of the conversation while I was hunting for children's books. Yesterday, Henry told me, casually, that he had heard "a man" talking in the library.
"What man?" I asked, not thinking much about it.
"A man talking to a woman about his mom," he said.
"Oh!" I remembered. "You mean, the man who was telling his friend that his mom died?" Henry nodded. "Yes," I said, "I heard him too."
"I think he was telling his friend," he said, evidently working something out. "I think he was telling that woman so he could go and live with her, and she can be his mom."