Mommy Hay-yuh

My son loves my hair.  He always has.  Even as a newborn, he would reach out with his tiny fist, grasp a handful of my hair, and draw it down to tickle his face with the ends.  It probably would have been cuter had he stuck with that.  Unfortunately, he moved on to eating it.  Yes, he pulls handfuls of my hair into his mouth and chews on it.  I know it's weird; it's even gross.  But I don't have the heart to stop him when I see how much happiness it brings him to eat my hair (sans swallowing, I should point out.  Just enthusiastic chomping).  Hey, it's dead cells, right?  What else am I going to do with it (besides, oh, maybe, style it and not have it look like the end of a wild animal's tail?)?  And he really, really loves it.  Sometimes he tells me, as he reaches back to grab a fistful from the nape of my neck: Mommy hay-yuh!  It's nice!

He's been a terrible, terrible sleeper for the past week.  Does NOT want to go to bed, does NOT want to go down for a nap, and wakes up after only an hour, instead of his usual three.  Last night I even tried bringing him into my bed, out of sheer desperation because I was exhausted and knew I wouldn't be able to sleep through the incessent:  Mommeh!  Mommeh!  Mooommmeeehhh! that he had been calling from his crib for an hour already.  I see persistence will be one of his strong suits later in life.  *Ahem*

So I brought him into bed with me, hoping that he (and I) would fall asleep quickly (he had already fallen asleep in my husband's arms, then mine, but awoke as soon as we approached the crib in both cases, and did NOT fall back asleep when we left him there) and that my husband could transfer him back to the crib when he came to bed.  Instead, we enjoyed the following:  He sang the ABC song to me.  Hush, I replied.  He sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  Shhhhh, sleepy time, I replied.  He told me he was a monkey, and began to climb on me, making monkey sounds, interspersed with the words: Monkey!  Climb!  I told him he needed to lie down and go to sleep right now.  He lunged to his feet, stretched his hands above his head, and announced, in a booming and decidedly non-bedtime voice:  I A TOWER (TOW-UH)!!!  Then he belly flopped onto my increasingly frustrated form and burst into laughter.  I believe it was right around this time that I called his father from the living room and asked him to take one more crack at this bedtime thing.

And as my son was carried, crying, from the bed, realizing his days of song, monkeying around and towering were over for the evening, was it his loving mother he cried out for?  Well, kind of.  His last words before being dispatched to his own bedroom for the final time last night were:  MOMMY HAY-YUH!  I WANT MOMMY HAY-YUH!