The Singer and the Thinker

For two years, I've woken up to cries, sometimes intermixed with groans and shouts for "mama". This morning I woke up to the beautiful sounds of my two year old son singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I stayed in bed content, listening to him trying to remember the words, one ear out for the gurgling cries of our little one. Then I realized that the more I waited, the more prone he was to wet the bed and rushed out (two weeks ago this resulted in a break - my fate seems to be, one child, one broken foot- thankfully I'm a biped). I was overwhelmingly pleased to discover a dry bed and we had a successful potty mission (I've learnt that as much as all I want to do is crawl into bed and cuddle with my son when he entreats me to do so, I must yank him out and drag him to the potty to prevent a disastrous deluge). Next came debating breakfast. He insisted on cereal and milk, but since he's had that the past few days, I wanted to revert to oatmeal (we like to mix it up) and he next shifted to banana and milk to which I met him in the middle with oatmeal, banana and milk. As the water was percolating and my son was playing with his trucks (his avowed second favourite toys, this bookworm's heart melted when I heard the other day that his favourite toy were books!), the Little Tyrant demanded a morning welcome.

The Little Tyrant is now four and a half months and is communicating his needs very well. My husband noticed that when he goes out to rock to skip a feeding at night, he sometimes points to his mouth and refuses to sleep and sure enough, a hungry hippo is brought to me. He also recognizes his name now. His favourite toy is an activity elephant with bright colours and lots of threads and balls for him to tangle and grip. He is also quite enchanted with the jungle mobile and when he spots it, he looks to us and squeaks out a command that we have come to understand as putting the jungle musical into action. Then he spends about ten minutes (as he is doing right now) giggling as he watches the animals twirl, wringing his hands with a pensive, almost imperious gaze which if it usually did not end in a cascade of excrement (from either side), I would wager were the beginnings of putsch (certainly he has puissance in this household).

And there it is... the grumblings and bicycle kicks of a job well done and mobile time is over... time for books!