January 10, 2022
I would normally take this opportunity to fold laundry or finish dinner or play Fishdom over a tall Vodka Press (because I have NO BREAKS so do NOT judge me) but she has been known to fall asleep in the tub. It’s warm, she floats, she sucks her thumb, hums a tune and her eyes grow heavy. The telltale silence provokes panic if I’m not in the room and therefore I sit on a small folding stool, leaning over the tub, just in case.I’m not have a Houston/Brown in my house.
So Middle Child is soaking and surrounded by 1/3 of the toys contained in our house. She playfully pretends her dolls are slipping down a water slide and then emerge from the bubbles with cheer. She could play in the tub all day by herself and be content.
Between conversations in which Barbie is scolding a dinosaur for not cleaning its room, she sings a song.
“Momma. Do you like that song?” she asks.
“Oh yes, that was a good one. Did you learn that in school?”
“Yep. I learned it from my music teacher, Mrs. Bryce,” she replies.
“Is she really nice?”
“She is very nice. And very pretty.”
“Oh yeah? Is she prettier than Momma?”
“She’s WAY prettier than you, Momma,” Avery replies without looking up at me and starts to detail the ways in which this woman outranks me.
She pauses and reads the look on my face.
“Momma, it’s just because of her hair. She has red hair and she curls it. She told me she curls it every day! You don’t do that with your hair. It’s nice but you don’t curl it.”
“Uh huh,” I reply, slowing rising from the small step stool. “You’re on your own now, kiddo.”
“Momma.”
“Momma.”
“MOMMA!”
“What?!”
“You know how we’re watching The Flash on TV,” she asks.
“No, I don’t know,” I reply and continue reading my book.
“Well, Flash – the kid in the show – he KILLS his mom, Mom!”
“Well that’s not very nice,” I say.
“No. Not nice at all.”
A brief pause ensues because I know the kids will get bored with me and walk away if I don’t respond.
“Mom?”
“Momma?”
“Yes, Honey?”
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you, too, honey.”
“And I will never kill you,” she says while backing out of my bedroom, closing the door behind her.
“Let me hug my one-year-old,” I state while forcing affection onto my squirming son.
“You’re going to be two-years-old tomorrow, Mister!”
“I two, Momma! I two!” he replies.
He escapes and slides backwards off the side of the bed and runs out into the living room. This is the age where they run everywhere and so you have to watch them scamper to and fro. Every. Time.
Five minutes later, he scampers back into my bedroom with the small foot stool. He places it near the side of the bed, adjusts it a few times and then audibly pulls himself onto the bed by the sheets. “Eh. EH!” emerges from his mouth.
He sits next to me, leaning against my pillow, and regards me reading before he finally speaks up.
“How you?”
“I’m good, Mister. How are you?” I reply.
“I good, Momma. Happy Birthday, Momma!” he screams
“No, it’s your birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday to you.”
He leans forward, arching to see my face. He gets as close as he can, making direct eye contact and then screams,
“Happy Birthday, Momma!”
“Thank you, Mister.”
“Nuh nye, Momma!”
“Nuh nye, Willy.”
He slides back off the bed, runs to the door and scampers back down the hallway.
My little man is two.