Wednesday October 27, 2010

“Can you tell me a story, Mommy?”

Some days it’s fun. But some days, it feels like the most exhausting thing in the world to conjure up a good story. Read one? Any time. Tell one … with all the fun dynamics … not quite so easy.

Adam loves to hear stories almost better than he likes being read to. So whenever we’re somewhere without books, mostly in the car, he starts begging for stories. And no matter how many times I’ve told him about the time I was climbing a tree and reached way up over my head and squished a worm or the time I took lemonade to Grandpa when he was on the tractor and stood right in a hill of fire ants, he will never get tired of hearing about it.

He always tries me first and if he can’t win there, he begs David. Sunday night I realized we’d both been saying the same thing a little too frequently the last while, “Not tonight, Adam.” And in response to the whine, “The world does not revolve around you. You need to learn to entertain yourself or just be quiet sometimes, too.”

No, it doesn’t. But it doesn’t revolve around me either.

I told Adam we were going to try something new. Instead of me telling him a story, we were all going to make one up. You know, the kind where one person starts the story, gets to an exciting part and stops and the next person picks up for the second installment. He giggled with enthusiasm. I couldn’t wait to see if he could actually pull it off.

Our first story was a bit blase.

The second one got a little better and the third one went like this.

Me: One day Mommy, Adam and Liam went to visit Daddy at work. We drove to his job site and walked around to find him. To surprise him, we brought …

Adam: A sweet tea and a Coke …

Daddy: I said, Thank you very much. So I was doing a lot of sipping at work and that made me have to go to the bathroom a lot. ..

Me: On the way home, Daddy was thinking about it that he should surprise Mommy (nothing like a hint, huh?) with something so he stopped and got …

Adam: a lemon for your sweet tea (so after expecting flowers or chocolate, David and I both laughed), but then when he walked in the door he said, “Oh, I forgot to bring it home.”

You have to know David and his incredible short term memory issues to get the significance of this joke. But all three of us were absolutely shrieking with laughter so much that Liam joined in just for the fun.

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Adam is going on his first school field trip today. Excited is the key word around here. They had to be at the school house by 7:10 so I told him I’d wake him at 6:10. I knew he was paranoid about being late because they apparently told them yesterday that if they are ready to go and people aren’t there, they will have to leave without them. (That’s his version. I’m sure it wasn’t some serious to the minute threat.) He got home from school with his Parent Gram and said, “Ok, Mommy. I want to wake up either a little before midnight or right after midnight.”

“Whatever for?” I asked him.

“Because I am not going to be late for the field trip.”

David came to wake me with a cup of coffee (the new morning ritual at our house — is that not THE sweetest thing ever?) at 5:30 and told me Adam is downstairs in the kitchen fully dressed. Sure enough, I heard the doors to the cereal cupboard banging around as he started to fix his own breakfast.

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Liam’s newest favorite play is to ride around on the big dump truck and methodically fall off so that I “wooo wooo wooo” around the kitchen and stop to pick him up like a crane. His giggles are like a shot of Prozac. I guarantee the thing I will miss most about not having little children is the spontaneous laughter about the tiniest things. That and the soft, kissable cheeks that make you just go on and on kissing.

And the way they process life so transparently. Like this.

Liam came downstairs one morning saying, “Me darving.” (starving)

I gave them breakfast and for once, Liam ate very well independently.

“Liam, you did a GOOD job eating all by yourself.”

Adam: “Mommy, did I do a good job eating all by myself?”

Me: “Yes, you did, but that isn’t really a compliment for you.”

Adam: “I know. …… But it just makes me kind of jealous.”

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The first few days after Adam went to school Liam would walk around the house saying, “Me miss, A’am, Mo’ ‘ y.” Over and over again in the saddest voice a two year old can muster. He still says it every few days but he’s not repeating it thirty-seven times a day anymore.

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I kept wondering if Liam caught on the day I had my fender bender. Adam had just turned two when we flipped our truck and trailer and he talked about the wreck for months and months. He would replay the wreck with his trucks and to to this day he has a super fear of being unbuckled in the car (he was safe in his car seat and not hurt during the wreck). Liam doesn’t talk as much, probably mostly because I don’t talk to him as much. And I didn’t realize until later that I never explained to him exactly what happened. But sure enough, a few days later he was driving around on his dump truck and said, “People not ‘it (hit) me. People not get ‘it. People ‘ust (just) do (go) bye bye.”

And in much the same way as Adam mimicked sounds so perfectly and sent us into gales of laughter, he drove a little further and said, “Me ‘ave (have) my ‘ights (lights) on.” and clucked exactly like a turn signal.

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Maybe there is spilled milk and rice that seems to fly everywhere at the table, but there are some pretty significant perks to having little people in the house. And I, for one, am having fun.

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