My sweet baby boy

Oh, my sweet baby boy isn’t a baby anymore.

Being a boy, he’s always been crazy about machinery. Especially big, noisy ones (as long as they are turned off.) About the time his vocabulary was exploding, we were in the hospital with Julianna three times, where he frequently got to watch the helicopter taking off and landing. So he began to connect those two words--he couldn’t pronounce either one. We loved it: “Hec-a-co-te-ter” and “hos-a-popo.” He figured out “helicopter” first, about four months ago. Christian and I sniff-sniffed and shrugged. Oh, well, at least he still says hos-a-po-po.

Last Wednesday, on the way home from choir practice, we passed Ellis Fischel and Alex looked over and said, “Mommy, is that a hospital?”

I wanted to wail.

Alex’s imagination is so vivid now. He’s into Peter Pan, but it’s Captain Hook who haunts his bedtime. These days, we send the tigers after Captain Hook, and then the big tigers sleep in his closet, and the babies on either side of him (along with Fredbird, Ruff-Ruff, Raggedy Andy, and Superman (who is a rattly dog) and the Julianna bear (who is baby blue). And on nights when that fearsome red-coated apparition is not present, Alex likes to lasso the tigers himself and haul them out of his room and down the hallway, stomping barefoot, his legs in a wide stance. It is so stinking funny. Yesterday I sent him to the table with forks, and he said, “Mommy, I’m going to eat my hand! My hand is ice cream!” He proceeds to dig his fork into his hand and then take an imaginary bite to his mouth. “Mmmmmm!”

This morning, I was rushing out the door with both kids, trying to get Alex to day care before I had to be at Mass, and because I was putting Julianna in the car, I wasn’t there to get my goodbye kiss from my husband when Alex got his. “Hey!” I protested, “I want a kiss!” But the front door had already closed. Oh, well. I finished strapping Julianna into the van and went looking for Alex, who was nowhere to be found.

Just as I was preparing to go down in the back looking for him, the front door opened and out came Alex, with Christian right behind. “You want a kiss?” Christian said.

Alex looked very pleased with himself. Man, he is SO SWEET. Please pardon the all caps, but he is SO SWEET!