my day, all my days, narrated

Beck woke up at 5 am and I brought him into our bed. I don't see how I will ever give up morning nursing because it affords us glorious hours of sleep. He rose from our bed today around 7. Sometimes I luck out and he demands only "Dada" but usually he demands me. And also Dada. The life of an only child is chock full of parents, one and all devoted to your happiness even at 7 am. Except, of course, that the secret is that I sneak back to bed once he's engaged in morning play and breakfast with Dada. He doesn't really notice. I get another 30-60 minutes of sleep. Wes is in his blissed out Daddy mode and doesn't seem to mind. And there's that amazing little voice, that lilting little, "HI, Mama!" when I come downstairs at 8:30. He greets me with such joy, and with a bit of wonder. A bit of, "OH! Mama! Fancy meeting you here in the kitchen!"

How is summer going, someone asked. I was so nervous about it, right? I hated leaving him last fall. Then I hated the idea of not working as we headed into summer. I was scared of losing my alone time. I thought all day baby was going to be a bit much. I was wrong. Maybe some other baby would be a drag. Not my baby. Summer all day baby is perfect. I am loving my days, all the more tolerable in their slight mind-numbing quality because they are limited. An end is in sight, far enough away from where I sit in mid-July that I don't have to fear it and yet there in the distance so I know that I don't have to worry about growing bored with the routines of toddler days. Summers off is the most perfect schedule ever, people. Also? My child is just a joyful ball of love and I can't get enough of him. How's that for gross and gushy? Yum.

Today Jennifer brought her twins over and we played in the basement playroom for what was entirely too short a period for the girls' taste. Beck's attention span, especially during his sleepiest window of the day, is fickle. He loves the playroom and runs to reach it. Then he suddenly dashes for the stairs in favor of something else. TV or a snack, usually. Or a particular set of blocks we keep in his room. The girls were perplexed by this but we bought them off with Elmo crackers and a Sesame Street episode while Jennifer and I gossiped. We took zero pictures of the occasion because someone always needed something and even as we talked, we had children climbing us and toys that they needed, "HELP!" with.

Beck insisted on a nap an hour before they were going to be leaving. I really wanted him to stay up but he really, really wanted to go to sleep, grabbing his blanket and heading for the stairs. I nursed him down but failed in the slip away and he wailed. He never did take a real nap. It was a nap fail day. Even so, he spent an hour in his crib, wailing for a few minutes and then talking to his Sesame Street dolls, doing his impersonation of the Count's laugh ("Nuh, two, free, fo, fi…AAHH HAA HAA!") and singing little songs. I let him play for a while after they left and then decided to brave the grocery store.

It takes twice as long to shop with him but today that was OK. I forgot the Ergo carrier and so, for the first time, I let him walk next to me. He never lasts long in the cart. He galloped through the produce section charming people with his, "BOCOLI! Mmmmmm!!" and chose the best red pepper for me. I felt like I was getting a glimpse of my future, of the days when an outing with him will be that kind of easy, those glorious few years between, say, 4 and 8 when children like their parents and want to help sometimes and are old enough to walk without the potential of a grocery cart running them down. Still, he was adorable in his enthusiasm today. It was worth the scary cart risk to see his love of fruits and vegetables at work.

The second half of shopping was a study in the bribery of the iPhone. We have four toddler games that he loved and then grew bored with. He knows all his letters and shapes and colors and today, for the first time, when the little voice would ask him to "Touch the Letter P" he would give me this devilish smirk and purposefully touch all the other letters before touching the P last. Then he would touch the home button, which he knows gets him back to all those cute icons. And then he would practice scrolling back and forth with his finger. And then he would use the seach function to search for some arrangement of letters, the significance of which he kept a secret. Whenever I would try to reclaim my iPhone for a moment to be sure he hadn't just, you know, erased my blog or something, he would scream, "NO NO NO! My phone! My phone!" At one point I grabbed it back and said, "Whose phone?" with more malice in my voice than I would have liked, as he shrieked in fury. When he calmed down, he said grumpily, "Mama's phone." I grudgingly told him I could share but he had to be nice. "Say please," I instructed. "Peeeeez," he echoed cutely. Then I handed it to him and he said, "My phone!" and smirked. Some woman was watching me. I pondered whether she saw us as cute and funny or the downfall of civilization, us overindulgent mommies with our techno babies iPhoning before age 2.

He fell asleep in the last 3 minutes of the drive home. Of course he did. I carried all the groceries in, trusting the kindness of my neighbors to guard him as he slept in the car across the street, and then carried him in and plopped him on the couch. He slept on. I unpacked all the groceries and then took the teenager's food up to his top floor apartment lair. Beck slept on. I prepared chips and guacamole and YES a beer as a snack for myself and sat and ate it next to his head while I watched the news. And he slept on. Finally I cooked his dinner and brought it to the couch. I woke him gently and he ate scrambled egg while cradled in my arms and watching Yo Gabba Gabba. He turned down the beloved "bocoli" and I didn't insist.

He watched two more shows as I cleaned up before heading up for bath, where we filled the tub with bubbles using the jacuzzi function and he placed some on top of his head and watched They Might Be Giants "Fake Believe" on the office computer.

I read him Bunny, My Honey for the 5th night in a row and he nursed to sleep. I sang him his lullaby, "Sing" from Sesame Street, which I sing every night as he gets drowsy. I fell asleep in the Womb Chair of Exhaustitude. I woke up about 30 minutes later. He was fast asleep but woke upon transfer to crib and screamed bloody murder as I left him. Three minutes later he was singing to himself. I clearly heard the telltale, "La la la la la" of "Sing." Now he is asleep.

He hugs me all day long. There are more smiles and hugs than could ever be properly documented.