More words

It's hard to convey the effect of richocheting through a day from Precious Moment to incandescent rage (never mind whose) and back again, perhaps ten times or more before lunch. I only mention it because when I tell stories about dear things James & Henry do--by far the easiest sort of vignette to write down quickly during a rare moment of quiet--I am leaving out SO MUCH--good, bad, and ugly. (This is very good on the subject.)

So, for example, in between this morning's two blog posts, Henry spent 20 minutes first shrieking, then subsiding into a long, slow whine because I used his spoon to stir James's yogurt. He also tugged so hard on a curtain that he bent the rod irretrievably in two places, and he is currently lobbing wooden blocks from the front of the house against the back door, which I am (obviously) ignoring. I haven't yet had the stomach for suggesting he get dressed, which inevitably leads to tears and raised voices. But five minutes ago, when I went to check on them, the boys were sitting on the floor, heads together, lining up all the train cars and giggling.

So anyway, that happened. And then this happened:

Henry helped me make Super Jello for breakfast this morning. Afterwards, I found him curled up on a sofa cushion, pretending to be asleep.
"Tired, sweetie?" I asked.
"The applesauce was soporific," he said.
I laughed so much he didn't stop saying soporific for the next 10 minutes. Thanks again for the laffs, Beatrix Potter.

Inclusive language

Henry: I'm making a little nest for Jamie & I.
Me (scandalized--where does he pick up this language??): You mean "for Jamie & me"!
Henry: OK, mama, you can be in the nest too.

What does that make you?

Another bedtime chat with Henry last night:

H: What are these things in the corners of your mouth?
Me: Umm, I don't know. What are they like?
H: They're... (enlightenment strikes) hairs!!
Me: Oh. Yep. Hairs.
H: They're your moustaches!
Me: Hahahaha
H: Mommy, you look like a goat!

Poised for action, with a fistful of seaweed.

I'm calling it

As of two days ago, James's first word is [Ba]nana.
Although, as soon as I said that was his first word, officially, I realized he's been saying "up" (minus the p, but still) for months. He also says "Na na na na," irately, for no, and he barks and meows like a champ
Nevertheless, I stand by banana. Like many, many of my experiences of motherhood, things that seemed perfectly straightforward before I had children  reveal themselves to be a little murkier in their outlines than I could have conceived: How exactly do you define "word," and what, pray tell, do you mean by first? First said by chance, one off? Or what?
In any case, he has already added to his repertoire, with dog (minus the g) and ball (minus the ls).
I can't wait to find out what is next.

loving and learning

Last night, Henry says to me: "Mama, don't wash your feet tonight." (Washing was, on the face of it, strongly indicated.)
"Why not?"
"Because I love you the way you are, and I love dirt."

***

This morning, my sweet naked Henry, with his knees wrapped thickly in surgical gauze, after he skinned them yesterday afternoon while gamboling at the cemetery with Peter) caught my eye in the bathroom mirror and said, "I'm trying to not make you put me in the green room, Mama." (Yesterday morning I popped him in the green room for what I suppose is in fact a time out, although I reprobate the term. While there, he found Peter's phone and called Susan in San Francisco.)
Experiencing indefinable pangs of something--motheguilt-- I said, "That sounds good."
"Because," he went on, "You really need to learn not to do that. It makes people cry."

Comforting the wounded with Sesame Street.

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."

Very nice

Breakfast this morning:
Henry requests toast with jelly. I slice up a banana for James. Henry immediately runs over to James's place and holds his hand out like the tax collector, demanding that he share. James resists. Henry persists. His hand is extended in front of James's nose, wherever James turns.
At last, James puts a gummed banana round into his brother's palm.
Henry crows delightedly: "He did it! He shared! James is a very nice man!"