Ussins

Yesterday morning his mother needed to leave for an hour for a school errand and I was left to listen to him howling in his crib for his morning nap as if Hell itself had descended on him. It struck me with guilt for my negligence of him in previous days. Of course the guilt made me wonder if his howling was in any way related to my negligence. When the crying went beyond the rationally tolerable (maybe past half an hour) and it was apparent he was not going to sleep on his own, I entered his room, told him I was sorry, picked him up, he calmed down, and I wiped his tears and proceeded shushing and rocking him. He looked out the bedroom door for his mother, but as I sang to him his lullaby (also too oft neglected beyond his first few months of life, though I use others), he relaxed more.

The guilt and holding him and wanting to comfort him moved me to pray just enough for him to hear [should I be confessing this to The Internet? - too late!], which relaxed him further, and soon and too my surprise he fell asleep on my shoulder, the first this had happened also for far too long (four months? six?) - or at least, I miss it, because our practice is to put him in his crib and let him cry himself to sleep, which is a practice my heart disagrees with.

I went to silent praying, and after standing for a long while rocking him in his sleep I moved him to my arms at my chest, and he stayed asleep. I sat in the rocking chair and rocked him and looked at him as I prayed. I found myself praying for more charity for this kid, and at the very moment I started this prayer, he laughed in his sleep and smiled for a short while, and then returned to ordinary sleep. My prayer was in his dream. It reminded me of Nephi’s dream, or vision:

And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms. And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw? And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things. And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul. -1 Nephi 11:20-23

It also reminds me of this:

Dream, dream, dream, of the joyous day to come
While guardian angels without number
Watch you as you sweetly slumber.. - Verse from a translation of the Austrian Christmas carol Still, Still, Still

As I went for my scriptures to find the verses above, though I knew generally where to look for this (Nephi’s books), the first page I opened to was the very verses. A bit of Mormon cultural mythology is that if you just open your scriptures to something it will be exactly the right verse for you..

Tia pulled me into his room while he was sleeping yesterday and indicated his crib. There in the dark, bunched up on his fours with his limbs curled under him, he slept on the breast of the Lioness.

He has learned to respond to many words in the past month — He’ll make the correct sounds for book, ball, Mamma, Dadda, and Grampa! [Alex’s inserted comment: for Grandpa, he’ll say in a sharp, short, urgent, agitated voice, “Hey!” No, there is no sound for book, Grandpa, or ball. But he tries to say the words]. He likes to make lion, elephant, cat, and monkey noises when you talk to him about those animals. His lion noise is a french gutteral RRRR, modeled after Alex’s Tigger impression. His stuffed lioness toy inspired this.

[Alex: He also makes these sounds when he sees depictions of these animals or stuffed animals. This morning I took him out and he saw a neighbor walking a dog. He flapped his arms and went “Da!” and started making something between a little and barking sound over and over again. - “Hmm! Hmm! Hmm! Hmm!”]

If I play the song I mentioned last entry, I get a hug. The hug lasts a while but ends too soon (most of them do), so I stop the song, start it over again, and I get another hug. I could do this over and over again.

Yesterday morning I played “I have a song” (one of me and Tia’s songs in the sense of “our song”), from the album Sesame Street: In Harmony and he lay his head on my shoulder, and I sang to him, and we danced.

This is heaven on earth.

I have song
I think it’s a song that’s about you
I have a song
I think it’s a song about somebody who
Can see a cloud go drifting by
Feel the very same as I

I have song
I think it’s a song that’s about you

I have a dream
I think it’s a dream maybe you have too
I have a dream
A wonderful dream about somebody who
I think would really like to know
The part of me I’m scared to show

I have a dream
I think it’s a dream maybe you have too

I have a hope
I think it’s a hope that I share with you
I have a hope
A wonderful hope about somebody who
Believes in love, believes in me
Believes in how good life can be

I have a hope
I think it’s a hope that I share with you

Tia recently told me he was “eating it up” as he and I were dancing cheek to cheek to “You’ll be in my Heart” (Phil Collins - the rock version), another of our songs.

In Harmony has a mix of very weird songs with great ones, and I recomment it. I don’t recommend the second album I linked, just the single from it.

Last entry I’d forgotten to say a few days before I was reading Good Morning P.B Bear to Mago. This has pictures of a large teddy bear/kid. In the middle of my reading Mago put out his little index finger and placed it on a teensy teddy bear, much smaller than the little boy bear, hiding in the image. I forgot that tiny bear hid in each image. Mago is smarter than me in some ways already.

I have a little bear I read a story of a little bear to and the little bear in the story has a little bear. The kids’ kids’ kid effect makes me think too soon of being a great-grandfather, let alone a grandfather.

Tia said two days ago that Mago was petting the lioness stuffed animal in his crib after he woke up, and that when she put him down for one nap he lay on his back, well awake and contended, and said “Ma-mu” and that was that.

He frequently tries to make the rolling “g” sound I sometimes make for a lion growl and it comes out a more breathy “hhhhhhhhh.”