Each night Ayrie and I go through a little bedtime ritual. It used to be that I would tell him things that made me happy that day. Maybe… ‘i was so happy to pick you up at daycare today’, or ‘I was happy to see our friends Sarah and Julie’, or ‘I was happy to see you hugging Shiya’. I also used to ask him what made him happy and until recently, didn’t get much of a response. But here’s a re-cap of tonight:

“Did you have a good weekend, Ayrie?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too.  Do you know what made Mommy happy this weekend?”

“What?”

“Going to our friends’ Kyle and Melissa’s party (baby shower). It was so fun. And you were great. I was proud of you”

“Yeah”

“And it made me happy when you were bringing Shiya toys.  He was playing with the plugs and you brought him his ball to play with, and you even made sure to bring it back to him when it rolled away. He loves you so much. Did you see how excited he was to see you when you walked up to the porch today?”

(Ayrie hides a proud smile under the blanket.)

“And I was happy today to see our caterpillar build himself a cocoon.”

“What made you happy this weekend, Ayrie?”

“Emmy and Ian love me.”

“They love you so much! What else made you happy?”

“The sun.”

“The sun made you happy?”

“Yes, and the moon”

“The sun and the moon made you happy?”

“Yes, and Shiya”

“Shiya made you happy?”

“No, the sun and the moon”

“Oh! you mean the sun and the moon made Shiya happy too?”

“Yes!!”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. The sun and the moon make mommy happy too.”

“And running (as he stands up in bed to demonstrate), and jumping, and twirling….”

And I bring this dialogue to a close as I see no end in site to the active things that he ‘loves’ and wants to demonstrate!

This is one of my favorite parts of the day.