Barnabas Monkeypants

Look, I feel bad that Henry has been rejecting Raphe so much lately. I mean, I’m flattered that I’m the coolest person in his somewhat limited universe, but it’s painful to see the look on Raphe’s face when Henry rather pointedly states, “No want Daddy.”

It’s worst at bedtime, when Henry, with some prompting, says, “Night-night, Daddy” and “I love you, Daddy” (this actually comes out as “I uff oo, Addy”, which is stupendously cute), and then follows up with, “PUSH, Daddy,”(which totally mitigates the aforementioned cute) as he shoves Raphe toward the door.

As much as I’m sensitive to how Henry’s giving in to his Oedipal tendencies is killing Raphe, I have to tell you that the 15 minutes I traditionally spend with Henry in his rocking chair just before going to bed have gotten even better.

Henry talks now! A lot! And sometimes in sentences! It’s exciting and fun. While we’re sitting in his rocking chair, he now shouts out requests when I’m singing him bedtime songs. “NO! Row row!” he shouts when he wants me to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” When he’s sick of my out-of-tune warbling, he commands “Talk, Mommy.”

I admit, I like “Talk, Mommy” best of all. I tell him about his day and then I tell him about my day. I highlight all the stuff that was good about the day. Sometimes I give him backrubs while I’m talking (he will remind me if I forget). And when I’m done talking, I tell him it’s his turn to talk and ask him to talk to me. He usually babbles a lot of incoherent stuff, catalogs his body parts, and smiles. Then I whisper, “I love you, baby boy,” in his ear, just as I’ve done since the day he was born, and I put him down in his crib.

Good stuff. We all sleep soundly around here, even Daddy.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Barnabas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.