Reversal of Roles

Yes it's been forever since I blogged and believe it or not I'm actually crafting a post that explains it. But in the meantime, here's a Max story:

Max’s bedtime window is between 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. each night. We try to hew as closely as possible to this, with allowances for periodic deviations. One such happened the other night, but the reason for it was because Max put us to sleep in his room before going into ours and watching football.

My Fair Lady was sitting in the far corner, comfortably ensconced in Max’ beanbag chair. I sat next to the door which let Max walk up my chest and face to get to the lightswitch. We were talking back and forth while Max played between us. Then a light must have gone off in his head because he did the following:

1) Climbed up my chest/face and turned off the light.
2) Closed the door from the outside thereby leaving us on the floor in the dark.
3) Giggled as he ran off down the hall.

I opened the door and peaked my head out. When I didn’t see him, I crawled all the way out of the room. He was sitting on the bench in front of our bed watching the football game and casually swinging his feet to and fro. He spotted me, laughed out loud, hopped down, and ran at me.

He grabbed me by the throat, pushed me back into the room, and put me back up against the wall. He climbed my chest/face, turned on the light, ran over to mommy, and gave her a big kiss. Then he ran back to me, climbed my chest/face again, turned off the light, shut the door, etc. He was laughing hysterically the whole time he performed this routine.

I find it increasingly difficult to put an end to his fun. He’s almost two, and just seeing such blissful joy on his face as he plays with us is a reminder of why I got into this business to begin with. I hope he’s still a great kid when he’s a teenager and every decision we make is ipso facto repression. But the memories he’s creating for us right here right now are worth all the pain that (may) come our way. He’s a great, sweet child who genuinely enjoys just living. It’s hard to argue with that level of enthusiasm.

Oh, and he’s started reading to his bear. For the record, he has more than a few stuffed animals, but the one he’s bonded with is the oldest among the lot. It’s one from My Fair Lady’s childhood, and he never gave it much attention until recently. We always read to him before bed time, and about a week ago he sat on my lap and refused to listen to any more Dr. Seuss. I closed the book, then he pointed at the bear. I picked it up and sat it right next to him on my lap. Max nuzzled in to both of us and I started again.

We made it all the way through our nightly triple header. One little Max head and one little Bear head were intently focused on the books in question. When I put the little man down, I sat the bear in the crib next to him. I checked in on Max about an hour later and found him sound asleep on the bear’s legs.

It’s memories like these that make everything worth it.