Put Me Out, Coach

My son, the jock.
I apologize for the quality of the photo above (as with any of the pictures, you can click on the photo for a larger version), but the picture was taken on the sly without a flash. Kiernan had just gone down for his afternoon nap. I'm generally paranoid about waking him during his afternoon nap, especially during times like this when Wendy is out of town on business. She is in Alabama for a week and a half (!)--a statement that deserves an exclamation point for a variety of reasons--and while I have more help from friends and a fantastic babysitter during the week, the nap time during the weekend is very, very precious. But I just had to get this picture. I cracked the door to check on him, saw the above scene, and ran for the camera. I shut off the flash just to be safe, and snapped the picture as quickly as possible. Hence the poor lighting and general blurriness.

In case it's not clear what's going on in the picture, Kiernan is sleeping clutching his basketball under one arm, and his little football under the other.

A semi-recent development has been his tendency to cuddle up to his stuffed animals when he goes to sleep. This was not always so. He has never really had one special little animal or blanket, nothing we could dub his "woobie"...or whatever people call that special thing kids latch on to and drag around with them until they get sick and their parents toss it into a junk pile out back because they are afraid of germs and then a fairy comes and makes it real.

Um. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to go all velveteen on you. Blame Karen Hardcastle.

But lately he has been developing an affinity for certain of his animals. Most notably his Pink Panther, gifted to him by my Aunt Claudia and Uncle Jim, a man so unbelievably laid back that as I kid I had no choice but to refer to him as the Pink Panther. Usually Kiernan's affection for his stuffed Pink Panther is expressed by chewing on said Pink Panther. Kiernan chews on many things, but he especially loves chewing on certain of his stuffed animals. Pink, also Fluffles (a little stuffed lamb), and Pooh (his Classic Pooh Bear, not the Disney version). Of late, when he falls asleep, he has taken to throwing an arm over any or all of these three and sleeping with them held close.

Today when I put him down for his nap, the basketball and football were already in the crib. I knew this was a mistake, but I caught it too late. He was fairly drowsy by this time, but still lucid enough to notice the basketball in his crib. I was concerned that seeing the ball would make him want to play with it, and that this would cause him to pull away from sleep. Still, I knew that if I tried to remove it, he would snap awake and complain (by which word I mean, "freak out"). So I left it in the crib with him. The football was down near his feet, so I was able to surreptitiously cover it with his blanket. I made for the door.

He opened his eyes a bit more and said, "One more. Sing."

"One more" is one of those little things that Kiernan has picked up, something we did not try to teach him but that he adopted on his own. It came about fairly simply. Whenever we were done with something, say a snack, we would tell him, "All done." He would give us the sign for "more," and we would say, "Okay...one more then. Okay? One more, then all done." And he would nod. One day he turned this on us. We were finished with something or other, say a snack, maybe a cookie. We told him he was all done. He held up a single finger and said, "One more."

Talk about being totally disarmed. How do you deny something like that? It is unbelievably adorable. He, of course, uses it for everything he wants to continue now. Like reading. When you finish a book he wants to read--current favorites are Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom--he will hold up his index finger and say, "One more." This indicates he wants to read that book again. The problem is that "one more" in this instance--indeed, in most instances--doesn't really mean "one more" in the spirit in which we used it originally. It means, "one more until you finish this readthrough and I hold up my finger and say 'one more' again." And again. And again. And again.

Yesterday he made me read Curious George and the Bunny to him eight times in a row. This is mind numbing, but who am I to object to my boy being crazy about his books? I want him to be crazy about his books. If this means my brain goes a little numb, so be it.

So he said, "one more, sing," which meant he wanted me to sing some more as he fell asleep. I went back to the chair in the corner and kept singing to him. At one point I fell asleep myself, and he helpfully woke me back up by saying, "one more, sing," again. I know I've mentioned this before in these pages, but I cannot for the life of my figure out how single parents do it.

As I feared, instead of getting sleepier, Kiernan began to get more restless. He rolled around with his basketball, trying to find a comfortable spot. He said, "Football...go?" He is forever asking where someone or something went by putting the word "go" after it. This week has been a cycle of "Mommy...go?" and "She went to Alabama to do a project with Lisa and Pokie." A never-ending cycle. Mommy-go? Mommy-go? Mommy-go? And after I answer "Mommy-go?" with the above about Lisa and Pokie--two of her colleagues--he will then ask "Pokie-go?" and "Lisa-go?" Even though he doesn't really know who these women are. Sometimes he mixes in "Dada-go?" because Darren and Daniel are out of town too. So I've got that going for me.

I avoided the subject of where the football was, to no avail. He eventually located it, holding it aloft with a clear air of victory. I gestured for him to lie back down. He did, and continued rolling around. Eventually the restlessness grew less and I got up to leave the room, singing a couple more verses before squeezing out of the door. He complained a bit, but much to my surprise fell asleep within a few minutes. Sometimes staying in the room to sing some more actually keeps sleep from coming. Maybe he feels falling asleep during a performance would be rude.

So I took a peek at him about fifteen minutes after the complaining stopped and there he was, cuddled up to his basketball and football.

What an incredible kid.