Shortly after dinner, Einar is telling us something in his usual frenetic pace when suddenly "Brappp!" a fart breaks loose.
"Einar, do you need to go potty?"
"No."
"But you just farted. I want to make sure you don't need to go."
"No, I'm OK. That was just gas. You know, not car gas, but people gas."
Tonight was my turn cuddle Einar to make sure he went to sleep. We don't do it every night, and there isn't a formal my turn, your turn, division of labor, but never the less, tonight was my turn.
Laura read him one of the Mamma Mu books that his aunt Anna gave him. It is in Swedish, so Anna wrote a translation to English that Laura reads, while Einar follows along in the book and looks at the wonderful illustrations. I was doing something else, so I got in at the end of the story, somewhere near the line "Maybe two hellicopters..." (no, I'm not going to explain other than that it is a story about a cow, a crow, and a slide.)
Anyway.
Laura left and I was alone with Einar. This is the time of day when his proficiency in verbal oratory explodes into full bloom. "Pappa, why is..." and then some interesting and insightful question that you find yourself answering before remembering that it is past talk-time and it is now sleep-time.
By the time you have started to explain that there are no more questions, he has already asked two or three more that you feel obliged to answer, if but briefly...[ha!]
I finally figured out a solution. These days I put earplugs in before I lay down next to him. When he talks, all I hear is "Mmmbbblllm mmmbbl bl?" and I answer "Einar, no more talking." This goes on ten to twenty times before his brain slows down enough that he notices that he isn't getting any real feedback. Then he moves on to talking to the stuffed animals, flailing arms and legs, getting a sip of water, taking a potty break, or any of the other delaying tactics a four year old is so skilled at. (Do they take classes? I don't remember us paying for any...)
Finally he is asleep and I get up to sneak out the door.
At this moment Einar turns, sits up, looks at me and says "Pappa, why are you leaving? Please stay!"
"Einar, you are asleep. Lie down."
"I'm not asleep!" he protests loudly, but he does lay down and closes his eyes.
I count to three, shakes his shoulder—asleep like a log—and I'm out of there in less than sixty seconds after he first sat up.
Parenthood does give you amazing abilities to judge the state of your child.
I BBQ some chicken the other day. Everybody liked it and Einar (who appears to be in a growth-spurt again) gobbled his down in record time.
Later when he is clearing the table, he notices a tiny red spot on one of the chicken bones.
"What's that?" with a certain distancing in the tone of his voice indicating that he thinks he might have found something that is disgusting... like blood.
"Oh," I say, "that's just cooked hemoglobin, it was in the chickens blood, but now it is all cooked and there is no blood left, just the red of the hem."
There is a long pause. You can see the gears grinding, known facts looked up, the results computed, double checked, and the final answer reviewed since it is so startling.
To independent sets of information has finally been merged: (a) we sometimes eat a dish called "chicken", and (b) there is a cute type of bird called "chicken". The realization that the two different uses of "chicken" refers to the same thing is mind blowing. He doesn't doubt the truth of it, but the implications... wow!
"You mean we eat chicken?... from chicken?! Yuck!! That's Gross!!"
