a million dollars

my little benefactor counts his dollars.

from time to time, when john gets a case of the "i wants" -- you know the drill, "i want to go outside. but i WANT to. i WANT to go outside." -- i have a stock answer for him. i will say, in my most empathetic voice, "my love, mommy wants a million dollars but we can't always get what we want. i'm sorry."

this morning's case of i wants wasn't too bad, and it passed with barely a blip in my brain. within moments it was in the past and soon forgotten.

or so i thought.

when john woke up from his nap, he was in a particularly cuddly mood. nana and jean jean and daddy were all at the store (nana and jean jean drove down from tennessee to visit this weekend) so it was just me and the bug, and we snuggled in his chair for some time.

then his eyes lit up. he looked at me with big bright serious baby blues and said, "mommy, you want a million dollars?"

i said, smiling, "well, yes, baby, i sure do."

he climbed off my lap and walked to his closet, where he pulled down his snowman piggy bank.

"you open the top for me?" he asked. so i popped the top hat off.

he reached inside and carefully pulled out three crumbled dollar bills, the only bills in a bank full of change. he plopped them carefully in my lap.

looking up at me with those melt-worthy eyes again, he said so earnestly, "that's my million dollars for you, mommy! it's for you. here, take it!"

i am not ashamed to say that i cried big fat pregnant-lady tears of appreciation in that moment, as i held him close.

"thank you, baby," i told my generous little man, who would give me the only dollars he owned, "that is definitely worth a million dollars."

Comments

on lullabies

i am not a singer. if you've sat behind me in church, you know this to be true. (and i'm sorry.) a musician, yes. a singer no. and yet i find myself singing to john almost nonstop. and the beauty is, he seems to actually like it! (there's no accounting for taste. he also thinks i'm the most beautiful woman in the world. i'm no ogre, but i'm certainly not winning any beauty contests outside of my son's brain!) and actually, i've written some lullabies for john that are pretty nice. and it made me think: did your parents sing to you? do you remember what they sang, and better yet, if you have kids, do you sing the same songs to them? reply in the comments!

pull up your big boy undies

"what time is it? mommy? what oclock?" john's teacher told me something amazing today. "you should bring me some big boy undies," she said, "i haven't changed john in weeks." it seems that at school, since they check in with him periodically to see if he has to potty, and since his very smart teacher has noticed his (very regular) bowel movement schedule, john is potty trained. at 9am at 2pm, she plops him on the toilet. he might sit for 20 minutes, reading a book. when she checks on him, he says, "i just poo-pooin', miss meka." and when he's done, he's good and done. we're not quite that far along at home, but tonight we go shopping for big boy undies. and i'm sure we'll have a few accidents, but that's just a part of the process ... and soon my little boo will be in big boy undies full time. and ... it's a great time for him to be out of diapers. because good lord willing and the creek ...

i'm furberizing my baby

ok, let's get this straight right off the bat: i don't know if i am literally following dr. furber's methods of sleep training. there are so many versions out there. but saying we're furberizing john is WAY more fun than saying that i'm letting him cry his little lungs out in an attempt to teach him to sleep on his own. it's night two of our efforts. he went right to sleep last night, which was great. and he slept for 5.25 hours (!!!!) before waking up at 2:30 a.m. when he woke up crying, i let him cry for 5 minutes before going in to soothe him. (the soothing barely works at all, by the way, but it's what i'm supposed to do ...) then i let him cry for 10 more minutes before going in to soothe him again. next on the agenda was a 15 minute stretch of crying - but he fell asleep after 8 minutes. so a sum total of 22 minutes of crying. not too bad for night two. i've heard night three can be the worst ... so we'll hold on to our hats tonight. mean...

john's mom works

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