Three good things

One Tuesday morning a couple of weeks ago, David came into my home office where I was working and announced “Papa work. Dada work too.” And he climbed up into the other office chair.

His name for himself is Dada. He uses my actual name half the time instead of calling me Papa. L is usually Mama, occasionally Mommy.

L and I were discussing a birthday present for one of the friends he’s made in the park, and L suggested a puppet. It took some convincing for David to believe that we were not planning to give away his favorite puppet. The preschool registration form asks us what his greatest fears are. Even though he’s excellent about taking turns in many contexts, I think sharing might make the list if we had to fill it out today.

It was just a few months ago that he wasn’t combining words and didn’t say a lot of words. Now we get “I want more smoked salmon please.” “Papa downstairs.” “More park! I want more park!” He’s trying to form questions, the most common of which comes out “Mama, are you?”

We go around the table at dinner and each say three good things that happened today. David participates, though his choices may be from the recent past rather than today. “Trash truck, two guys wave” tends to make his list for several days. For almost a month we heard about the street sweepers which had gone through our neighborhood one morning, spinning around and around, hoisting their loads into dump trucks, and zooming off again.

Three good things that happened today? We woke up with David in our lives. We got to watch him explore a little more of our world, understand a little more of our world, and talk to us a little more about all of it. And we went to sleep with David in our lives. That’s all a day needs.