He’s Waxing Poetic

Miles is getting more and more creative with excuses at bedtime. It started with needing water, hugs and more prayers. But now that we’re on to him, knowing he’s not dehydrated or affection deprived, he’s upping the ante. He’ll drop his “guggy” (snuggly little blanket) over his bed rail and call out, saying that he can’t get it. He’ll yell that his tummy hurts. He’ll say that he’s scared (that one worked really well for awhile, by the way). Then we started to get more strict, hoping the return visits to his room wouldn’t get too out of hand. He stopped coming up with the usual requests, realizing we weren’t going to give in, and has started to get creative. Like today at naptime when I said, “night night” and closed the door, only to hear, “MOOOOM, there’s WAX coming out my EEEAAARR!!,” over and over. Um, okay. He just kept it up until I came in to explain that he could sleep with wax in his ears. He said, “but it’s coming out.” To which I responded that we could clean his ears at bathtime. Then I started to leave the room again and he asked, “are you still sick mommy?” I’m such a sucker for Miles’ concern that I actually paused a moment, about to sit down on the bed and relay all the woes of my cold. But I refrained from plopping down for toddler therapy and closed the door for the last time, making it clear that I wouldn’t be coming back in, and that he needed to take a nap. Miles is so full of creativity that I’m not sure we’ll be able to keep up. He has all kinds of ideas that are so surprising and so much fun to hear about. There is no stopping his busy, imaginitive mind. To try to play a game like Memory with this child is a hoot. He lasts about one minute, matching two elephants and then has them off to the side, living in a zoo and talking to each other, completely forgetting about the game.