seeing the future

i met the elizabeth of the future today. the one who walks into the post office twenty years in the future and sees a mother with two young boys. you could just see the memories flash in front of her eyes as she watched hugh + henry being silly, chatted with them and told me about her two boys. i could tell that she wasn't being trite when she looked straight at me and said that it goes so quickly.

so. i am going to remember this day when i took my darling boys to the post office and we stood in line behind a ridiculously slow man at the self-service machine. and the boys roared like dinosaurs and crawled between my legs and hugged each other and bounced in a circle and stomped on the floor mat because it was metal and made a cool sound. and we went and got ice cream (chocolate for henry, vanilla for hugh, salted caramel for me) and henry was covered in chocolate but got angry when i wiped it off so i had to "put it back" and hugh was so proud of being clean. and they skipped down mt. vernon avenue on the way back to the car. and came home and played with legos together for over an hour and then built trains with foam blocks. and got so happy to get naked before a bath so i could "chase the naked boys" and splashed in the tub and i trimmed hugh's hair and then they both peed in the tub and thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. and then hugh said he couldn't get comfortable until i came to snuggle with him and henry wiggled about when i tucked him in because he was cozy.

this will be a day i remember.

says hugh...

hugh: hey, mama!

me: yes?

hugh: did you know that 'clothing'was another word for 'clothes'?

says hugh...

"peanut butter makes my tummy feel happy."

motherhood is...

realizing that it is really no big deal to pick someone else's nose.

a boy of few (or many?) words

henry has a lot to say. henry has many opinions. henry wants you to understand this right now.

unfortunately, henry does not yet know how to convey all of this in any form of comprehensible words. he does not accept the excuse that you do not speak his particular language of grunts and assorted utterances.

henry better get his act together quickly because, while i can interpret the grunt that means ' yes', his needs for communicating are quickly eclipsing the bounds of yes/no questions. he's frustrated, i'm frustrated. there are many tears.

however, i feel amazingly connected to him right now. for all intents and purposes, i am the only person on this earth who can decipher what he needs or wants. it is a heady feeling.

a penchant for healthy eating

hugh came down from his 'nap' this afternoon and asked what i was doing. upon being told that i was cooking an eggplant to make him and henry pasta with roast eggplant puree, he proceeded to dance wildly around the kitchen exclaiming "yum! thank you, mama! thank you for making me eggplant pasta! i LOVE eggplant pasta!".

apparently, the kid loves eggplant pasta.

he also 'loves peeling garlic with you, mama! thank you for letting me peel garlic!'.

i'm not sure if he's just really excitable today, really loves garlic & eggplant or if he's having an eddie haskell moment.

{to live like hugh try giada's rigatoni w/ eggplant puree.}

magical three

in some context that i can't quite figure out, one of hugh's teachers told him that he is 'magical three'. he's taken quite a shine to telling us that he is 'maaaaag-ical three!'. i have to say that i agree:

• the other night he requested marching songs at bedtime. after a rousing round of 'the ants go marching on', he asked for another. the only one brent or i could come up with was 'the battle hymn of the republic'. it must have struck a chord because he requested it again the next night.
• still on the bedtime song theme, he added some new-fangled lyrics to 'swing low, sweet chariot'. in hugh's world the chariot is comin' for the monkey's going to bite you and a band of monkeys is comin' to carry you home.
• somehow found something scary in a 'max & ruby' episode. i'm not quite sure what it was, i mean, it's 'max & ruby' but something struck such a chord in his imagination that 'max & ruby' has been banished. along with elmo.
• he regularly wears his underwear backwards and insists that it is more comfortable that way.
• loves his little brother so much it makes me cry when i see him hug, exclaim over and/or comfort henry. i think that one of the highlights of his day today was when we went to get henry up from his nap.

three really is magical.