Karolina went to jail last night. So this is night #2, Saturday.
This morning, Elliot woke up at about 6:45 with me next to him. I gave him milk and it was a normal day with Andrea helping so I could do paperwork for the divorce, get a storage unit, consult with the divorce attorney, etc.
Elliot did not ask for mama until 12 hours later. After playing some pinball, he started to walk upstairs and called “Mama?” but that’s all.
An hour later after dinner of eggs, fruit, and water (I wasn’t prepared), we went upstairs to start reading our books.
Here are some of the books in our current nightly rotation. We read 3 or 4 per night.
The last book we read, which he specifically requested, was Are You My Mother? Like Dragons Love Tacos, Night of the Gargoyles (I love Eve Bunting), the Alistair Grittle books, The Three Robbers, Adaleide, and some others, Are You My Mother? is another book in our current rotation which we’ve been reading most nights.
Elliot: “Aki, where’s my mother?”
He’s never called Karolina anything other than Mama — certainly never Mother — so I thought he must be asking for the book. I picked up the book and read it to him.
After I finish, he says again, “Where’s my mother?”
“She’s not here right now.”
“Story. Tell story.”
I told him a made-up story about Elliot driving to Roxborough State Park with Pepe, Grendel Fish, Noce, New Cat, Chiney, and Daddy (not Aki this time) and then hiking. All the cats ran away on the hike, chasing different animals like rabbit, squirrel, mouse, grasshoppers, etc, and it was our job to get them back to the car. Daddy could not run fast enough so Elliot had to eventually get each one and put them back into the car. Well, we had forgotten about the open bottle of spicy salsa we left in the car. The cats drank it and breathed fire everywhere! in the car just like similar to Dragons Love Tacos.
Then of course Elliot pretended he’d eaten spicy salsa in bed. He proceeded to pretend to breathe fire all over me. And I pretended to be burned. It was fun. He loved that game.
It was a wonderful night.
And I left a dozen books next to the bed with no one screaming at me about it.
