Picked a hand, and he opened the other, which had an M&M in it, and giggled and giggled.  And then proceeded to close his hand, and ask me to pick again.

I picked again, this time picking the hand he had just shown me had an M&M in it, and he excitedly opened the other hand (which also as it turned out had an M&M in it) and giggled and giggled.

Pretty slick. If he’d thought to pick the same color M&Ms for both hands I might have even been fooled.  But even so, it is so cute it makes me want to just eat him up.  Or, the M&Ms. 

Until the obsession with Elmo began in earnest.  She’s always loved that furry little red guy, but recently she has become downright obsessed with him.  And then she started pointing at him.  First the stuffed animals, then a little play-plate set we have with Sesame Street characters on them, and then in books.  And then she’d make *us* point at Elmo and happily scream “ELMO!  ELMO!”.

And that quickly led to her pointing at other things we asked her to.  From sheep to cows to bears to mice to balls and more, she points, she identifies, and she “helps” you point.  The sweetest thing ever was watching her with her brother this morning looking at a book, and he would ask “Where’s the ball?” and she would point and yell “BAAA!”

Then yesterday it magically stopped.  He cleaned things up, didn’t whine, and was generally a much more pleasant little guy to be around.  After a while I dared to ask why, and he says “Miss Sally (his teacher at school) told me to stop saying that.”

Not that I didn’t tell him to stop saying it 500 other times or anything…

The magic of teachers. 

So, my husband’s not that in favor of it.  Not a fan of mess.  But play with it we do.

Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time), pieces escape our notice and fall behind something or under something.  We try and find it all and put it back in the containers, but hey, we’re not perfect.  CJ came across one of these pieces a few days later, and of course, it was hard and brittle.  He got REALLY excited and brought it to me and exclaimed “My Play-doh!  It turned to wood!!”

I’d have called it stone myself, but it did make him really happy. 

The tricky part is, now that she can ask for things (not everything, but many things), she thinks if she asks, it must be obeyed.  Even if she’s already had 3 bananas, she’ll ask “Nana!  Nana!” and expect one to materialize.  Oh wait… did I say ask?  Demand, more like. 

On several occasions, I have been lax enough to let us run out of something because I was not aware there would be a marathon of consumption.  Like… bananas.  or apples.  Or granola bars.  And then?

Well, there is no wrath like an Alexa scorned.  lol.

Of course, this is a momumental event in terms of my life.  It is not that I have been immune, thus far, to personal tragedy, but before this, every event had at least one more degree of separation from me than this does.  My 5 year old cousin passing away two years ago shook me to my very core.  But again, it was another degree of separation from my own very nuclear family.  This is somehow decidedly different.

Today would be my parents’ 38th wedding anniversary.  Earlier this week was my seventh.  I found myself looking at wedding pictures, seeing my father in them, and being at the same time, glad he was alive then to see my wedding and the addition of my darling husband to our family, but also, thinking “What if you’d known you had less than 7 years to live right then?  What then?”

I think the time demarcation might last in my life for a long time.  Maybe forever.

I also now find myself wishing time away far too much.  This has to stop.  But I find myself impatiently waiting for 3:30 pm every day, for that is when my mom gets home from work.  I want to, no need to, call her every day and make sure things are okay.  That she’s handling things, or that i can help her, and just, honestly, make sure she’s still there.  I leave for work at 4:15pm, so there is only a little window to do so each day.

In that before time, I talked to my parents on the phone quite often.  Usually 3-4 times a week.  It is not unusual that I talk to my mom every day.  But I know it is my own need to connect and feel “normal” that is driving it, now.

But I do need to stop wishing all the time before it away in my head, and start enjoying the time I spend from morning to afternoon every day as well.  I do enjoy the time, some of it, but I do catch myself clock-watching far too much.  Lucky for me I have kids to snuggle.

Happy anniversary, mom and dad.  Except today it isn’t really very happy.  So what do I call it?

—————-

“CJ, please put your clothes in the hamper”

“But Mommy, I am too sick!”

—————-

“Mommy, I want to play my Wall-E game.”

“But CJ, aren’t you sick?”

“Not *THAT* sick, Mommy!”

————-

Heh.

But not when he picks up his own toys, takes his own clothes to the laundry, puts his own dishes in the sink, or generally, cleans up after himself.  That just makes me smile.

It is good to be 4.  For the mommy, at least. 

CJ had gotten his quarterly progress report from school while I was gone.  He has 4 goals for this year as far as communication, and three of them he got “Satisfactory Progress”.  Which is excellent.  But even more excellent is that the remaining goal is now labelled “Mastered”.

Mastered:  CJ will produce 3-5 word utterances including articles, pronouns, aux. verbs, and descriptors.

Report:  CJ’s utterances are age-appropriate including appropriate word order, vocabulary, and grammatical forms.

A very sunny spot in a very dreary week for me.

My kids called him Poppa.  Well, CJ did.  Alexa wasn’t really saying much, even last Christmas.  I always spelled it Papa, and he always spelled it Poppa.  And really now, it doesn’t make much of a difference at all.

Honestly, I’m heartbroken.  And too shocked to completely feel it.

the one thing I will always, forever remember about my dad is how proud he was of me.  I was his little girl, who in her own mind didn’t always amount to much, but to him, I am a superstar.  He always supported me and thought I could do anything, even when I didn’t.

He loved his son-in-law, and his grandkids, and sharing his spirit with them and me.  He was always the life of the party and fun to be around.  He was the guy everyone knew and everyone remembered. But mostly, he was my dad.

Goodbye, Poppa.  We will all miss you.