Rocks

M is on Spring Break right now and home with the Little Man. Today marked the first day of the two of them alone. Together. Without Mummy. And since V has been a little Mummy-clingy lately, I wondered how the day would go…

I hurriedly drove home from work, wondering what would greet me as I returned. Would it be ‘House destructo’? Or perhaps ‘Collapso-Daddy~0’? Or even super grinny ‘Mischievous-Munchkin~o’ plus ‘Exhaust~o Papi’?

It was none of the above.

I pulled up to the garage and hit the remote. As the garage door rolled up, I noticed with a shock that there was another car parked there. As in not my car. As I am the only one that parks there. Mostly because I can’t figure out how to park my car in the garage to allow for another car to fit in there. Selfish, I know.

So as I walked through the garage, I heard these sweet giggles and these hearty laughs coming through the door.

As I walked from the garage into the courtyard, I saw Little man in his diaper and tee-shirt in an inflatable pool, with M sitting next to him laughing.

“Jame!! Rocks are awesome!” he shouted at me as I walked through the door and as V threw them with force at the pool surface (that he was standing in).

Splash!!!!!! The water shot up into V’s face and he laughed like a maniac.

“Yes!!” he shouted!

Literally, V shouted yes over and over with each rock he threw into his inflatable pool. And there were a lot of rocks in that pool.

“Rocks,” he said in a solemn voice as he looked up at me, his diaper sagging down to his calves with water intake. His tee-shirt was soaked. His hair stuck up all over the place. His face was a study in concentration and joy at the same time.

M turned to me and said “He was so scared when I brought it out, he literally wouldn’t go anywhere near it. I had to bribe him with candy.”

Turning and looking at V in the pool, my little water-baby in action, that made me laugh.

“I had to hold it over the middle of the pool. And as I did, V turned and looked at me and totally heaved a huge sigh and stepped into the pool, ” M side-eyed me with the story as we both watched V-Diddy throw rocks in the pool.

Huh. My child, bribed by food. Hm. Italian blood. Ha.

And some West Coast blood as well. He stayed in that pool for 30 more minutes, throwing rocks, splashing around.

Mike emerged from the house while I was lounging, watching V splash with the announcement, ” We now own our first squirt gun,”he proclaimed.

“Jame. It’s a shark.”

This was a serious announcement.

And it was a serious moment, full of shark squirting, solemn rock dropping, super big grins and some big applause from Mummy.

It looks like Daddy and V week is right on schedule.

xoxo a.m.