Every morning when Elliot wake up is a joy. He sits up next to me, shows me his quirky, crooked smile with no teeth revealed, and then crawls on top of me. His head just under my chin as I lie facing the ceiling, he says, “Give me the vuvs.”
I caress his back and say what my mother always said to me in the mornings, “Good morning, Mary Sunshine!”
At night, after reading some books, we have a similar routine. He crawls on top of me and asks me to tell him a story and give him the vuvs.
The story is almost always an adventure of Elliot and the 10 Pizza Kittens. Sometimes the story is a variation on something we did together that day; other times it’s a fantastical adventure not based in reality.
And usually, Grendel crawls on top of Elliot to be pet. Elliot calls to her if she doesn’t come. He calls this the Elliot Sandwich. Grendel is the bun, and Elliot’s the tomato or sometimes the lettuce or the chicken.
