brood

Something must click in a toddler’s brain, some kind of developmental epiphany, which leads to an interest in the “why” questions. “But why do we have to sleep, why?” Now, one might consider this particular question to simply be part of a larger act to stall the inevitable turning out of the lights and going to sleep, and that is likely true, but I’m convinced, that asking “why” is in a category of itself. Is it just learned from we parents who in our attempts to make our governance transparent, explain the reasons behind our rules? (If the kid is lucky!)

And, I ask you… why do we have to sleep? It seems like a simple question to answer, but isn’t all that easy. Our son requires a full explanation, which we arrive at through a simple progression such as “we sleep because we are tired.” “why are we tired?” he asks. “because we played so much.” “why did we play so much.” he asks. “because that is what [we] wanted to do.” “why did we wanted to do that?” “well… that’s what we do! basically, we need to sleep to rest our feet, head, legs, hands…” “what else?” he asks “arms, fingers, cheeks, tongues, eyes… oh, especially our eyes, and finally, to let our brains dream, so we can get up in the morning and feel rested, and then we can play.”

somehow this is a satisfactory answer. we lie quiet for a few minutes… soon, i hear deeper and heavier breathing coming from my child. i sneak out of the room, and clean up the kitchen while listening to the subdued talk of npr. my wife and i watch snl skits on the computer and laugh ourselves silly for a minute. somehow i conjure the will to write in this blog.

i wonder what he dreams about. he used to have bad dreams about the train. if you listen for it, you can hear the train all night long here. there are about 20 freight trains a day that run up and down the MoPac line, part of which is located about 2 blocks from us. i think there is some law that says they have to blow the horn while going through certain parts of town, and they do. there is one now. about two months ago, levi woke up terrified every night for a few nights – he said the train was taking momma away. how awful! he didn’t like it at all. i convinced him to go down the creek by the tracks with me during the day to see the tadpoles and stuff, and to watch the train up close. i thought it might help desensitize him, or traumatize him, i guess. i’d like to think the former is what played out. he hasn’t complained of such dreams since.

sometimes – rarely – levi wakes up complaining about not feeling well. it’s really hard to figure out what is bothering him. sometimes it is his head, and sometimes it is his tummy – sometimes he just needs to pee, but getting this information out of a half-awake toddler is an interrogation like none i’ve ever performed. if you do suggest something that you think will make him feel better, such as pee, don’t get your hopes up. a favorite phrase from this child’s mouth is “that didn’t feel me better.” if it wasn’t such cute toddler grammar, you’d get really frustrated.