First "I Love You"

Today is Diana’s birthday. And as you know, the #1 present in the Hamann house is sleep. But we upped the ante by going out to dinner with a gaggle of Diana’s old high school chums last night. Steve volunteered to baby-sit, and added the bonus of bringing along Finn. To avoid any late night Finn freak-outs, Steve decided to sleep on our tiny guest mattress with Finn in Elijah’s room.

So technically, that counts as a first sleep over. But just barely. There was no pizza or sticking bras in the freezer or rooting through the phone book for listings of Michael Hunt.

Diana and I got home relatively late (11pm. Call Missing Persons) and we stepped over Finn and Steve and went to bed.

Eli, still kind of sick, woke up at 4:30 again and started howling. Not wanting to wake up our only guaranteed baby-sitter, I ran into the room and snatched the angry toddler, swooping him into our room. Diana and I tried to calm him down for the better part of an hour, but with no luck. Eli was coughing mad.

Suddenly, out of the shadows I saw a young, blonde haired boy of 4 or 5 by our bed. I was petrified, thinking it was Elijah back from the future, coming back to warn me of some terrible parenting mistake I was about to make.

But then I realized it was Finn. He said, “Uncle Rick. I don’t like it when Eli cries. Make him stop.” I sighed and took both boys downstairs for Sesame Street and milk. Finn noted, “The sun isn’t up yet, Uncle Rick. When is it going to come up?”

Diana got her favorite birthday present several hours later. Eli finally told her he loved her. But she had him pinned to the ground and she was begging him to say it. It sounded like one of those trained dogs owned by weird old ladies. “Ry Rove Rou.”

You know what? Ry Rove Rer too. Ry Rove Rer more and more every day.