Yesterday something happened I’ve been so longing for, I’m quite verklempt. Alex is not a huggy kid, but he nestled in the crook of my arm, squished against his mother, and fed himself from a bottle while kicking up a storm (his mamma got the worst of it, of course).
But I got to cuddle with him, smell his hair and feel his skin, and it was life affirming.
And he’s talking in sentences. It never happens overnight, it just feels like it. There were so many I didn’t even keep track of them. Katie says it started a week ago. Sometimes he still babbles, but he’s turning into a kid who hears and repeats what he hears, sometimes so precisely you crack up from sheer wonderment.
When I left him yesterday he was asleep in the stroller, and when he woke up he was fine for about half an hour, and then it was WAYAH ZIZI WAYAH ZIZI as he announced his displeasure that he didn’t get to hug and kiss me goodbye. Katie texted me and I called him to apologize. HIYAH ZIZI! That was good enough, he handed the phone back to his mamma.
Some of his complete sentences are about people who aren’t around. He talked about his Poppa (Paul).
We went through all the genealogical names. Mum and Daddy. Grammy and Zizi and Unca and Auntie. Cousin. Ellie! Zizima! (great grandmother, reviewing it with a picture of her as Katie does her best to give him a picture of who she’s talking about in front of her to keep him oriented.) He reviewed the photographs I took of him with amused interest.
Kitty news:
He is Obvs. Feel. Much. Better. today and yesterday he brang me a freshly killed roof rat. Margot is still a little subdued but not really off her food. Might be the change in the weather, which has broken off into real rain, thank god, it’s been so dry.
