Luca Likes

Once again, I spent a Elijah-less, Luca-less and Diana-less week at work.  At most, I would get fifteen minutes in the morning, which essentially means handing off some milk, turning on the TV and kissing them goodbye.

Thankfully, I got a slight reprieve Thursday night and was home well before bedtime.  Here’s the ranking of how happy everyone was to see me:

1.     Grover (by far)

2.     Diana

3.     Elijah

4.     The squirrels who taunt Grover on our fence

5.     The ants in our bathroom

6.     The girls from down the street who stole from Eli’s piggy bank.

7.     Luca

In fact, I don’t think I can really even register Luca on the list because his first words upon seeing me was, “I don’t like you.”

Come again?

“I don’t like you.  I like mommy.”

Well, I can understand that you prefer her.  She’s awesome.  But you seriously don’t like me?

“I don’t like you.”

Great.  Diana informed me that Luca had developed a nice, fat Oedipal thing over the last week or so.  And I shouldn’t take it seriously.

With that, she walked out the front door to go pick us up take out sushi.  This threw Luca into a terrible state.  He did NOT want to be with me.  He wanted his mom.

He ran out after her, naked from his bath, and chased her down the street.  He was crying so hard he started hyperventilating. 

Despite my pleading, he refused to leave the middle of the street unless Diana came back and gave him a kiss.

I managed to get him inside and into his PJs.  At which point he realized it was I, and not his mother, who was putting him to bed.

This would not do.

I laid on the floor and Eli laid in his top bunk and we watched Luca paced back and forth, muttering, “When is mommy coming home?  Where IS she?”  Occasionally, I would suggest he try putting his head down on his pillow.

“But where is mommy?  Where IS she?”

Diana eventually made it home with our take out sushi and she got Luca to sleep in about 2 minutes (Elijah, who asked me to read him what I am writing, just suggested I add “that’s awesome” to this paragraph). 

The sushi was not great.