Bits and bobs of life with boy.

Ziggy woke me about an hour ago, crying in his sleep. I asked him what was bothering him and he kept saying, "Pants, pants, pants, pants...."

I felt his pajama pants to see if we'd had a diaper mishap, but no.

I asked what happened to his pants, so Zig said, "Pants fall down. Fall down. In the backyard."



Poor fellow. He's a sleep talker and heavy dreamer like his mother, it seems.

(He woke up two mornings ago for the day crying and asking for "Mo' ice cream?" as we'd had special Pied Piper ice cream earlier in the week!!)




Recently while eating a piece of pizza, he held it out and said, "Airplane!" Sure enough, he'd bitten it into that recognizable shape.




Evening before last, Ziggy colored with markers at the table while his father and I finished supper. He's known his colors and announced them for several months now, and undeterred by the mismatched tops on the markers (shoved on in haste when last used for a children's craft for Mothers Acting Up), Ziggy named each color and began to mark up his paper, then his arm. He drew big fat V looking wings on the back of his hand and arms and told us, "Butterflies."

While painting and coloring have been much enjoyed activities for some time now, this was the first time he drew something specific and named it for us.




Interestingly, Ziggy calls the remote control "Daddy's," and the reel mower "Mommy's." And so it goes at our house. Despite the fact that Daddy has mowed the front lawn on his own last and we split it out the time previous.





In the last month our boy has begun to play with words, one day suddenly piping up, "Goodnight, Junie Moon," cleverly punning on a favorite story and our recently returned runaway rescue Maine Coon.

Likewise, he has turned his refrain to the dog "Go away, Bert. Back up, Bert," (which he actually says in jest, with a sly little smile as it is he who pesters Bert the Dog relentlessly) into something he is trying on with people now. When friend Suzanne and her four lovelies came by the other morning, Ziggy began to say to her youngest, "Go away, Ocea." Despite this, and despite the kicking that he tried out on both Ocea and his brother Kai, Ziggy adores these children and speaks of them many times a day.




And so, we've taken the God Blesses of my own childhood-- uttered to the point of delirium at bedtime prayer, wanting to get everyone I knew and loved named and blessed-- and made a sleep inducing chant of gratitude of all the names of our family and friends. So doing one night early in the week, we'd gone through everyone (I thought) two, three, four times.... and it appeared that Ziggy was just shy of slumber when his eyes flew open and he popped up to say, "Mason!" He was right. I'd somehow forgotten Mason. And, as Zig reminded me, his parents, Jennie and Jake, who as of two mornings ago, have a new baby girl. "Ivy," says Ziggy. "Baby Ivy."