Sorry, Long Story, but I had to Write It

At dinner, Pi randomly starting singing "Good Times Bad Times" by Led Zeppelin, because a really terrible song was stuck in his head and he needed it out. Tots and I kind of danced, sitting in our chairs. When Pi was done, Tots yelled out, "Yay!" Right after that, Tots started singing a song of his own:

"We went to the playground

And we woke up Daddy

And it was a good idea

We went upstairs

and we talked on the phone

with Auntie Pip and Unca Captain."

Afterwards, we clapped and Tots looked very proud of himself. It was a pretty cool song.

Yesterday, we went to the playground for a good long time, maybe two hours. When you’re there that long, you really get to see a variety of different kids and parents. It was a good group yesterday. I talked with one woman who used to be my customer at both DD and McD. She has a daughter a year old than Tots. The little girl pretended that Tots was her baby and kept making him go to bed. He went with it. Anyway, the woman told me she sells home made ice cream, and that she will have a booth at the carnival in the town that I work. I told her that she’s probably going to get a good amount of business, as that carnival is crazy and it lasts like eleven days.

There was a little boy there who is two weeks younger than Tots. Apparently, he was the first baby of the year in 2009, with his picture and his mom’s picture in the paper. We met a celebrity! His mom told me that when she was nine months pregnant, she decided to shave her head. So, in the picture in the paper, she’s bald and all drugged up, looking terrible. It was kind of funny.

(I just Googled "First baby of 2009" with the name of our local paper. I found the story, but there was no picture. Damn.)

After we made our weekly visit to the library, I decided to make an impromptu stop at an elementary school playground.  I’ve taken him to this one only once before.  The play scape has lots of connected levels so that a variety of ages of kids can enjoy it.  It has many different ways to get up, a ramp and a climbing wall, and a few slides, straight and spiral ones.

Tots met a two year old boy, whom he really liked.  The boy was super super shy, and didn’t really talk much.  His mom told me that he says a few things, like mom and dad and no and juice and so on, but nothing really big.  I assured her that he would probably be fine.  Tots was kind of the same way.  If you were to look into this kid’s eyes, you could see him thinking, taking everything in.  After a little while of playing near each other, the little boy got to like Tots a little bit.  They ran around together, and laughed and smiled at each other.  He really didn’t want to leave, but it was time to go.

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I just remembered the main reason that I wanted to write an entry today. 

Tots got this little blue bunny in his Easter basket from Pi’s mom and cousin.  At the time, he didn’t have a comfort item besides my hair.  I had decided it might be good to have something else for him to sleep with, to help him from waking up all the time.  So, that night at bath time, the bunny introduced himself again, and told him he would wait for Tots at the jammies.  They read a story together, brushed their teeth together, and fell asleep together.  Instant friends, I tell ya.

Pretty much every night after that, Tots slept really well, maybe waking up once a week, at most.  It was good for everybody.

The last day we saw this particular blue bunny was right before we left the house to go to the Memorial Day parade.  I remember seeing Tots carrying Blue Bunny around by his ears, but we left him at home so that he wouldn’t get lost.

Somehow, he got lost.

We searched and searched.  Luckily, we had a stand-in blue bunny.  The first night, Tots said, "No the other bunny.  Not that one, the other one!" but eventually settled for Blue Bunny v. 2.0.  Not the same, but okay.  I missed the first Blue Bunny.  I was worried somehow he had ended up in the garbage or recycling.  We looked all over our cars and in Mom’s and Shleprock’s house.  We figured if he somehow stowed away at some point, maybe he had fallen out of the car without us realizing he was even there to begin with.

Blue Bunny v. 2.0 was okay.  Tots started waking up a little more, but not as much as before any of the bunnies. I honestly lost hope for Blue Bunny, but there was nothing I could do.

Today, I randomly moved one of Pi’s sweaters and Poof!  There was Blue Bunny!  Just sitting patiently in an empty box.  Tots was really happy to see him and carried him around all day.  He was ready after bath time, sitting on the jammies like old times.  They read their story and brushed their teeth.  They went to bed, happy and content to be reunited.