When you spend all your days doing the same thing, they kind of run together. All I know for sure is that the phone is going to ring first thing Monday morning, but on Saturday and Sunday I can sleep late. Everything else is just a blur, unless something out of the ordinary drops on me out of the clear blue. Like today.

Since coming back from the lake, I haven’t connected much with the family, but Tammy and David had me over for dinner tonight, so I got a good healthy dose of Aiden and Kylie to bring me back from the depths. Aiden was sleeping when I got there, and for about half the time I was there, and he wasn’t about to wake up for anything (even me) until he was ready.

So I played with Kylie, trying to learn her language. She loves to say “bye” and she loves to have someone repeat it with her. She says it with such expression that I have to think it means much more than it seems to, but she’s not the least put out if you don’t get it. She’ll say it as often and for as long as she feels necessary.

Then while we were eating, she was sitting in her highchair at the table with us and expounding on something in a sort of gnomish language that was so full of meaning I almost understood. She used her hands to express herself, waving and pointing and chirping and chattering, sometimes repeating the same string of nonsense syllables over and over, with a look of deep thought in her eyes. I just know she was making fun of us.

When Aiden finally did wake up, he of course wanted to play cars. If it’s not cars, it’s tools. He has so many of them that you’d think it wouldn’t matter which ones we played with, but he’s always very specific about which car (or tool) we’re supposed to be using at the moment. No substitutions will do, in his opinion, but he’s open to slight variations. He wants to play with the police car, but he’ll allow me to tow it with the tow truck.

Toward the end of the night, as Aiden was winding down from another busy day, he climbed into the laundry basket, which (as in most households with small children) was in the middle of the living room floor. He sat at one end, facing his stuffed lion at the other end. He asked me for his blanket, which was next to me on the couch, so I handed it to him. He put it in the basket between himself and the lion, then just sat there quietly (well, quietly for him) until everyone noticed and laughed.