Together

Every morning, I make up with the boys. And by “wake up,” I mean, “shove milk into their hands, turn on the TV and collapse onto the daybed.” But eventually, I have to transition from my awful parenting to Diana’s more effective parenting.

I simply say the magic words, “Let’s go wake up mommy,” and the boys spring into crazy action. They both race across the room screaming, “MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!” And then they burst into where Diana peacefully sleeps. She barely has enough time to moan, “Nooooo,” before they leap onto her, usually smashing her tender bits.

Eli usually stays for 35 seconds until he realizes there is no TV in our room. Luca lingers longer so he can get his Loton. He repeats, “Loton…loton…loton” over and over until Diana squirts some hand lotion into his little hand.

For a while, he would immediately cram the lotion into his mouth. G-r-o-s-s. So Diana has been training him over the last few months to rub his hands together instead of poisoning himself. She smooshes his hands together and says, “Together together together” over and over. He got the hint and now says, “Gether gether gether,” a little too creepily for my tastes.

The other night, however, Diana was chasing both boys during the post bath Naked Crazies. She lost track of Luca while dealing with whatever trauma Elijah had self inflicted and she heard him say, “Gether gether gether.”

Knowing all lotions were out of baby reach, she knew something was up and raced around to find him. She found him crouched over a pile of doo doo. He was rubbing his hands together.

What was on his hands was not lotion.