Tugs

It is amazing to me how some children seem to be born with this instinctive grasp on how to find their mom (or dad's) heartstrings and tug. It is pretty expected that Grandparents will be at the mercy of their grandchildren, but I always thought of that as some kind of inherent weakness built into grandparents, some hole in the defenses that developed in the aging process, along with gray hair and wrinkles and the other similar complaints. But it is ridiculous to me how easily one of the babies can bend me to their will, without even trying. Jon seems immune. He sees it as quite humorous really, to see me squirming to not go rush in to whichever child when I know that they are perfectly fine. Victor is the best at this though. He hasn't been thrilled with the idea of going to bed lately. He's exhausted, no doubt about that, but he just doesn't want to go to bed yet. So he'll stand at his door and call for me. I did pretty well last night. I lasted through the "Mommy! I need my mommy! I need her! I need my mommy! I need her! I need her!" That was hard. Victor has just taken off on talking the last 4 or 5 months and I still love to hear him talk and think he is absolutely adorable. So I'm used to rewarding him whenever he talks by giving him what to wants, to encourage him to communicate more. So not going to him was hard. But then he starts in on "Where's mommy? I need my mommy! She's gone. She's gone. Mommy gone" Just about broke my heart. Yeah, I caved. Went in tucked him into bed with his spiderman, but he told me he wanted his pound puppy instead. And he was asleep in only a minute or two, I'm sure.

A couple nights ago we had a hard time getting him to go to bed. He was in his room knocking on his door and yelling that his toe is stuck. So Jon goes in and he is standing behind that door. Jon doesn't understand what is wrong, because he is obviously not stuck and asks him again what is up. Victor then shoves his foot under the open door and says it is stuck. Jon closes the door a little to unstick his foot, at which point Victor shoves his foot under the door again and then repeats the declaration that his foot is stuck. Ahhh! Now we understand. Victor gets put in his bed and covered up and given his Spiderman and not 5 minutes later he is at is again. His foot is stuck. That was a long evening.