Love letter

For the past few weeks, Ethan has frequently woken around 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning and come padding into our room. "Daddy?" he whispers, and Noah leans over, picks him up, and plops him in between us.

At first I barely slept, but now I hardly notice the windmill arms and dancing legs (I think he suffers from Ron Swanson's sleep fighting), and waking up in the morning with my butt being used as a pillow is no longer unusual.

Yesterday I slept and slept and then in the afternoon I took a nap, so when Ethan came in at 4-something this morning, I couldn't go back to sleep immediately. "Bring Daddy back," he whispered when I got up to pee. Noah was already shaving. "I wanna say bye bye," he whispered mournfully when I came back alone. "You will, sweetheart."

I lay next to him, my hand nearly able to touch finger to thumb around his calf, my nose buried in the tangled nest of his surfer-kid hair, and right then I decided we'd have a Mommy-Ethan day. No school for him. I've come to love the hours he spends in our bed asleep, because I can take all the cuddles he no longer gives during the day. Then I started to drift, mentally translating the ABC song and "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" into French (?), and before I knew it I was asleep again.

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"Mommy, are you going to miss this place?" he asked last week.

"I'll miss some things about it. What will you miss?"

"The beach," he said, which is no surprise, since he's been known to scream "I love this beeeach!" as the surf crashes over him in his daddy's arms. "And cherry yogulette."

"Sweetheart, I can get you that cherry yogurt at home. But I'll miss the beach, too."

"I wish we had a beach by our home."

Other things he's thought native to Florida: libraries, Noah's new Skyrim video game, antiques stores.

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On the windshield.

A primer for Ethanspeak

prince-ells = pretzels
strawl = straw
recognize = organize

He talks and talks and comes up with so many ways to say new things.

"Is today is today," he authoritatively begins many phrases now, and I figured out he means "Today is the day."

He brewed his own cup of Tetley tea in a plastic mug of hot faucet water. 

"Because I'm imaginin' and I'm really smart," he responded once, when I asked where he got an idea. He has all sorts of ideas, like this one: "Daddy, here's my idea. We're going to sneak into the shop and get the net and take the sharks...wait, why you laughin'? Except we have to figure out a way to get the fish." (That larcenous little scheme referred to a beach shop that has a tank of two bamboo sharks across from our favored beach entrance.)

"You rock, man," he said to his father one day as he played guitar.

"Yes sir, ma'am!" he said to me one day he was feeling cooperative.

"Can you come handle this? Are you sure? It's pretty hard," he said to me recently.

"Hey Ethan, can I take your picture?" He nodded. "But first I'm watching my show. You can take a picture of my back. How 'bout that?"


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Every night Noah and I tuck him in before we go to bed. We usually have to rearrange him to keep him from flipping off the end of the bed or smacking his head on the window frame.

Changing him out of a damp pajama shirt is what I think it must be like to try and catch a dolphin to give it an enema: floppy, slick, and uncooperative.

The other night he groped around among his animals looking for Big Bunny. I handed him Bunny, but he tossed it aside and kept groping. I handed him Bunny again, and again with the tossing and groping. Then I realized: It was the wrong Bunny, and he knew even in twilight sleep. I found the right one and he immediately settled.

He doesn't remember us coming into his room, making sure he's comfortable and safe, kissing his warm pillow of a cheek and whispering love into his ears. But we do it, and we will continue to for as long as we possibly can.