Day After Purim 2022. Wear-pajamas-to-school day. Scooby Doo pajamas with a mosasaur “stuffy”.

A memory from last week or so. There was a light drizzle and the sky was darker. Elliot asked, “Where’s the sun, daddy?” I said it is behind the clouds. When the rain clouds move, we’ll see it again.

We were up early yesterday morning. The sun was just coming up. Elliot wanted to see the sunrise, like the day before when we had watched it.

There were a lot of clouds, but we could see the sky through patches. Elliot pointed at the patches of sky and said, “That’s for the satellites”. He was referring to a time a few weeks ago when we went outside to watch the ISS overhead, but there were too many clouds in the sky. We couldn’t see it through the clouds, and I explained to him why.

I love when this happens. It shows that he listens, remembers, and reapplies his learning to new events. It’s wonderful to witness!

“I’m growing up, Daddy! Look!” Elliot reaches down from his carseat to touch the back seat of the car. His arms haven’t been long enough yet to do that.

“When I grow up I want to be a dinosaur finder.”

“When I am a little tiny baby, you were holding me and I was scared of the t -Rex. At the Jurassic World. I’m a little tiny baby. Scared of the raptor and the t-Rex’

It is one week into the Ukraine invasion.

“It’s so beautiful, Daddy”, said Elliot about his new planetarium as we lay in his bed staring at his ceiling.

We watched for longer than i wanted him to stay awake. But he said it several times, and for the first few dozen comets exclaimed, “comet!!!”

He thanked me profusely.

“I want to stay with you, Daddy”, said Elliot as we lay in his bed. “I don’t want to stay with mama.”

And this gave me such strength to continue the fight. It was exactly what I needed and at the right time. Remarkable.

A few nights ago, Elliot was excited and wanted to play with me. I wanted to get him into bed. It was taking a long time to get him to focus on his night routine, and I was getting frustrated because it was later than usual. I wanted him to have a full night of sleep.

He pulled a blanket off of my bed onto the floor. I got sad. I sat down on the bed and then, foolishly, pulled the other blanket off and the pillows onto the floor, “Is this what you want?” I said. Not loud or with anger, but with sadness.

I usually have unlimited patience with Elliot, but not this time.

Elliot looked at my unusual behavior and said, “I’m sorry, Daddy.” I felt like a fool. We put them blankets and pillows back onto the bed. He told me about a dozen times how sorry he was over the next 15 minutes. He told me he was sorry for hurting my feelings.

A day or two later, he took a throw pillow from the bedroom chair and put it onto the bed. He immediately apologized and put it back. He told me he is not supposed to do that.

I am concerned how careful and apologetic he is. What is going on in his other household to get these kinds of reactions out of him? I do not think it is anything I do because I do not get angry at him, I do not yell at him, and I do not often do the kinds of things I did the other day (“Is that what you want?”) — perhaps once per year.

He was too apologetic, too quick to try to repair what he thought was a terrible mistake.

While dressing this morning, Elliot saw me put on this as an undershirt:

He’s only seen me wear it as a night shirt, so he said “No, daddy! It’s for night time!”

I took it off.

Elliot wants a hamster and will name it Swishy.

Elliot asked me why we live on planet Earth. I did not know what to say.

While waiting for the planetarium show to begin, Elliot asked “It’s loading?” like a the space app that he loves to use He LOVED the show! It was a tour of some of the planets with a live narrator. It was on a pretend spaceship that launched from space. We had to go a second time ( we are waiting in line now)

The show took place in 2096, 74 years from now. Elliot will be 77 years old then. There was a moon base and a Mars base in the show. I wonder if 2096 will bring that.

Last night, in bed, Elliot asked me if I remember wrapping him in a “cocoon” (towel) after his bath, and then feeding him a bottle of milk in bed.

I said yes, and the vuvs, too. And then I would dress you in a diaper, pajamas, and sleep suit. Then we would read 3 or 4 books together (“No, 5!” he corrected me), I would sing to you, and stay with you until you feel asleep.

I tried to name some of the songs I sang, but I only remembered “Row, Row Your Boat”, which is such a peaceful song to me. He asked me to sing it to him again. I think we also sang Shabbat Shalom even when it was not Shabbat. I also told him “The cow Jumped over the Moon” nursery rhyme.

I told him how we did that every night since he was a little baby until last year. I did not say May 2021, but that is when we stopped. He was verbal then but nothing like he is now.

We still do the cocoon, vuvs, and books in my bed after a bath. But no milky. And we’ve added “throwing the cocoon” since then — I throw him onto the bed with a great “1, 2, 3!” while he’s wrapped in his post-bath towel. we only do this this routine now after he has a bath. That used to be every single night. Now it is once per week with me since we are only together 50% of the time.

I asked if he still has a sleep suit at mama’s apartment. He said yes, and that it is blue. When I asked if he wanted one here, he said yes.

Elliot said that yesterday morning after going into the laundry room to put his dirty clothes into the hamper. It was his first time doing that alone. He was proud to be scared anymore.

“I want to stay with you you, daddy.”

It is Thursday night. Elliot joined me again on Wednesday late afternoon and wont leave again until Monday morning.