Sunday, October 10, 2004
Saturday mornings
Parker woke me up this morning by crawling over me and laying between me and Jeff and showing me the library card he’d found. It has a picture of the building and the trees out front of the main library in downtown Gainesville. So, as I tried to gain consciousness (and hoped Jeff would wake up), we talked about the card.
“Look a building!”
“Yeah, what else do you see?”
“People go in the building.”
“Unh-hunh. What else? Are there trees?”
“YES!! And windows!”
“Cool.”
Then he gets up. I don’t know where he’s going, and honestly, I don’t care. Within 30 seconds, he’s back. This time, he has TWO library cards (we have three in the house – one for each of us, so it could be any combination of them). And he crawls back over me to show me that he has two.
“Be careful of Sprout, honey.”
“Look, another building!”
“Yes, you have two now. What color is the building? Is it … beige?”
“It’s yellow!!”
“Oh yeah, yellow. How many trees does it have?”
“TWO!!”
And off he goes again. This time he comes back with my University of Florida ID card (yes, I still have it – it might allow me to get into movies cheaper, darn it!), and he says, “Look! Here’s Mama!! Here you go,” as he hands me the card. And off he goes again. Then he comes back with both another library card and our blue BankOne Visa card. He asks what it is and I ask him the color.
“Blue and white and yellow!”
“Yep.”
“Look at all the buildings!” he says as he spreads all the cards out next to me.
“Yeah, those are the same, aren’t they?”
“Whoa, and Mama and blue!!”
“Yeah. Neat.”
I am slowly reaching consciousness and know that I do not want to get up. I need to sleep.
“Wake up, Mama!”
“I’m awake, I’m awake.”
Then, he goes around the bed to Jeff – YES!! “Daddy, wake up!!” And Jeff gets up. I ask him the time, and he tells me it is 8 am. On Sunday. Sigh. I guess young kids don’t yet appreciate the concept of sleeping in.
As soon as Jeff gets up, Parker says, “Time to EAT!!”
I say, “Parker, please put those cards back on the computer table.”
Parker replies, “Okay, Mama,” and runs off to do it.
Jeff, needing to pee starts to walk past the kitchen. “No, Daddy, THAT way!” Parker says while pointing Jeff to the kitchen.
“But Daddy needs to go pee-pee, Parker.”
“No Daddy, time to eat!”
“What do you want to eat?”
“Uhhhh ---“
“Cheerios?”
“No, Daddy.”
“Ummm, Cheerios?”
“Nooooo, Daddy.”
“Ok, I’m gonna go to the bathroom, let me know what you want.”
“Need to eat, Daddy.”
“You want yogurt?”
“Yes, oh-gurt!!”
So, Jeff voids his bladder, washes hands, gets yogurt, and I decide to stay in bed. I finally get up at about 9:30, blissfully better rested than I was at 8 am. Parker is upset that Spiderman isn’t coming on today. He sees me, though, and proceeds to tell me what he did get to watch on Sunday morning TV. “Hey Mama! I watched the red train and the blue train! I saw bears, cups and teapot! And there was a boat and a tunnel. Too small, too small, yeah!!”
I look at Jeff, a little bewildered, and Jeff looks back a little shocked. Apparently, this is exactly what happened on the first Thomas the Tank Engine show that Parker has ever seen. There were trains, including a blue and red one. A train was carrying bears, tablecloths, teacups and a teapot for a tea party. And then a train carrying a boat had to choose between three tunnels. One was too short, one was too narrow, and one was just right. Jeff tells more of the story, including a train falling into rocks, which Parker then tells me that it was “snow”. I am beyond impressed at his ability to recall all of that after seeing it only once.
------------------------------------------------