Baby Ball

The three of us were ready for bed, lights off. Isaac was running a light fever but you couldn’t tell the way he was playing around. He wasn’t sleepy and he had brought over his toy train to tinker with. Occasionally, he did the bum-jump (jumping and landing on his bottom), it tickled him pink everytime. But I was tired, it was 11pm and it was annoying so we pinned him between us.

He didn’t seem to mind because he sang off to (what I think was) ABC. So I thought it to be the perfect time to go over the letters he’d learned, even if it was already dark.

Last night’s sleeping time conversation:

“A,” I say.

“Eyyy!”

“Apple.” (Tots echoes a sleepy “Apple,” too.)

“Papple!”

“Airplane”

“Pepen!” His voice is shrill.

“Good!” his daddy and I both chorus.

“B”

“Beeee!” Sleepyhead, no more.

“Bubbles, can you say bubbles?”

“Babol, yey!” he chortled. He was happy.

“Beehive,” I say, yawning. I was already sleepy.

Daddy interrupts. “Say basketball. Basketball.”

I give Tots a soft slap on the arm. “That’s not in his book.”

“Let him say it anyway,”Tots says.

“Ok, basketball.”

Isaac is quiet.

“C’mon baby, say basketball.”

Silence.

I say, “Nevermind, we’ll learn that tomorrow. Say C.”

He doesn’t answer right away so I say it again. “C.”

“Baby ball!” he laughs. We laugh along with him. “Good boy! Basketball!”

“Baby ball!” he says again.

“Good, good! Now say C. C is for car,” I say.

“Baby ball!” He laughs like it’s a good joke.

“Car,” I repeat. He is adamant. “Baby ball!” He laughs harder.

“Ok, clock.” We learned this all in his baby book. (I love it when he says this word. It comes out as "Bok" and he always nods towards our wall clock at the same time.)

But all he utters is “Baby ball!” Stronger and clearer this time.

“D,” I go on.

He chortles. “Baby ball!” Tots is laughing, too.

I try again. “Duck… quack, quack.”

“Baby ball, baby ball!”

“Drum … boom, boom. Say drum.”

“Baby ball, baby ball!” He’s shouting out loud this time.

And he squirms around in fits of giggles.

~ 0 ~

We stopped there and I joined the laugh trip. One of the best family fun I’ve had, just the three of us. Downside: we didn’t sleep till 1am. All the excitement threw off the sleep mode and it took a while to quite him down. But oh, I love my boys so.