Saturday, September 12, 2009

Try again

Our son has been very chatty lately, mostly like a parrot, repeating everything we say. (Yikes.)

He has his cute little boy fun sayings, like "awesome" and "oh, man" (said very expressively, and usually when frustrated).

Then there's the annoying when repeated over and over, but still cute, things, like "try again." He uses "try again" to say he wants to do something repeatedly, not just to say he'd like to get better through practice.

It's amazing to me how fixated a three-year-old can get on one thing, such as pushing his plastic toy lawn mower down the hill. "Try again, mama!" for the 50th time, as I watch, quaintly amused but truly bored out of my skull as the blue plastic lawn mower runs into the tree at the foot of the hill and Sam yells out an excited "Yes!" then, "Try again!" Ugh. Please not again. (Hey, it's not all cuddles and warm fuzzies, this motherhood thing, let's be real).

And there's just the nice spontaneous things that are the reward for enduring the 51st lawn mower run. One evening recently, after an especially long and grueling day at the office, Sam seemed to sense my exhaustion. He snuggled up in back of me on the couch, hugged me, played with my ponytail for a few minutes, then said thoughtfully, "Mama, you're pretty special."

Sigh. Try again.