Yes, We Read the Grinch, Too, Even Though It's June

This week, in addition to trying to control my calorie intake and workout every day and just generally try to be a better person, I'm trying to remember that despite the ear infections and Terrible Twos and tantrums and the retorts of "no, I'm just tryin' to do this" when I tell him to stop doing something and the several thousand times a day that I say, "Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on." and the throwing of toys and the bashing of various household objects with his officially licensed Texas Longhorns baseball bat, that doing this job really is fun and exactly what I wanted for my life.

Wow, that was a really long sentence.

Tonight, as I was reading him his bedtime books, I thought about what a strange and wonderful experience it is watching him turn into a real person. Anyone who sees my Facebook status updates knows I talk about him a lot, and post ad nauseum all the funny things he says and does as we go about our daily routine. He gets a lot of attention wherever we go. Just as a fer instance, we went jogging Saturday morning, and as we passed the tennis courts, he pointed and yelled, "I want to watch tennis!" So we paused and sat on the little bleachers with a couple of moms who were watching their kids receive tennis lessons. He had an entire conversation with one of the moms, completely independent of me, asking her name, pointing out what a funny name "Dixie" is, telling her his name and age, discussing the hummingbird on her shirt and what exactly a hummingbird is, telling her about his recent haircut and the birthday party he'd be going to later. She told him he didn't get a hair cut, he got 'em all cut, then snorted out a laugh and apologetically told me her humor was about at a two-year-old level. He told her Daddy cut his hair, and she said she bet I'd done it with clippers rather than scissors because that was a lot of ground to cover over his big ol' brain.

When the tennis lesson was over, and Thumper ran out onto the court to help the kids pick up balls and rackets, The mom asked me if he was really two, which we get a lot. She repeatedly marveled at how smart he was and how well he spoke, which we also get a lot. As often as I report encounters like this, and how often I'm reminded of how special he is and how lucky we are, it's still easy to forget and get bogged down in the challenges, the less pleasant aspects of taking care of him day after day.

So that's what I was thinking about while I read him his books. Because I've read all of those books so many times, I began changing We're Going on a Bear Hunt up a bit to amuse myself. I sang the first two sentences; he turned and gave me the Upraised Finger of Discipline, that I apparently use on him, though I'm not aware when I do it, and said, calmly, "No, you don't sing it. You just read it." I began reading from where I left off, and he said, "No, you missed some words." So I started over. Then I began changing some of the words. I turned the thick, oozy mud into thin, squeaky mud. I turned the whirling, swirling snowstorm into stinking, creeping smog cloud. At each point that I wandered from the printed text, he patiently brought me back, explaining that it wasn't woods, it was a forest, it wasn't a squeaky, wooden door, it was a narrow, gloomy cave.

And my heart grew three sizes that day, swelling with love for this remarkable, adorable, maddening kid who knows much more than he should, and who is, after all, only two, and is exactly where he should be, doing what he should be doing, just as I am.