Day 4

This one was close, only two hours left in the day.

I came home from work tonight and played with The Dude (well, no, not that one.) We played with firetrucks, practiced with lightsabers and slew some monsters together. We played with The Dude's Fantastical Zoo o' Fun. The Zoo consists of lions and cheetahs and elephants and zebras and horses and cows and pigs and dogs and goats and hippos and pigs. And dinosaurs. Sometimes Superman.

No matter who is in the zoo the lion sits up on his plastic rocks, still the king of them all.

I tell him I love him, I do that a lot, and he says "I love you too." Very matter of fact, with a short nod of the head, a definitive, no gray areas or doubting.

We named animals and animal parts, made animal noises, made up animal stories and gave some of these creatures abilities never thought of in nature. Sometimes the animals fought, sometimes they nibbled on plastic trees.


Later I put him to bed and laid down next too him for a while, he tossed and turned some, rolling back and forth. He moves all night long, he always has, even when he was in my wife's belly he would move around all night long, that's just him. He rubbed my five day growth of stubble on my chin with the back of his hand, he giggled lightly at his Curious George doll with the light up head. It's the weirdest toy but he likes it and takes comfort in the warm glow.

He rolled over, put his arm around me and rubbed my back a bit, and then patted me on the shoulder several times. As if to say: "I'm alright, I'm growing up good, you're doing a good job, you're a good dad." Then he fell asleep.

I stayed there for awhile.