Sitting at the dinner table last night, Zoë was eating her self made Boboli pizza. She loves 'painting on' the pizza sauce, and scattering her cheese around. I was excited because she actually WANTED to put green peppers on as a topping. Turns out she was happy to eat the green peppers raw, but didn't like them much once they were cooked as a pizza topping. That's fine kid, I'll take that; no problem. So, eating her freshly baked pizza, she picked off the green peppers and re-arranged them into little 'candles' on her 'pizza cake'. Then she proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to each of us separately, making us blow out the pieces of green peppers like candles.
This morning at breakfast she still had birthday on the brain, asking me whose birthday was next. When she wasn't happy with the answer of "Vince's birthday is next, in June".... she said "no!! after that... my birthday!" with a grin on her face. Then she starts telling me she wants a Hello Kitty birthday party, complete with a piano to hit with a bat. "Piano?", I said, puzzled... she kept saying piano, and how her friends and her would all hit it with a bat. The give away was when she said "then the candy would fall out". "Oh!!" I thought, piñata!! "Zoë, you mean piñata!" "Yeah, pianoata". Then she tells me she wants her 'pianoata' to be a Hello Kitty that she can bat around. "The head and body Zoë?.... or just the head?". She wanted just the head. We both laughed at the idea of batting around Hello Kitty's head. (It wouldn't be the first time a cartoon character got bludgeoned in our backyard.) We had a gnarly looking Winnie the Pooh piñata head one year after Vince's birthday party.
I thought that chat with Zoë would be my "remember this" moment of the day, but then Vince comes in the kitchen to quiz us on whether or not we know where the Merengue dance originates from. "Hey mom and Zoë, do you guys know where the Merengue is from?". Zoë ignores her brother and continues eating her breakfast. I answer, "Isn't a dance from somewhere in South America?".... he immediately snaps back at me in his matter of fact way (complete with hand motion and waving) "No mom, a place. Like, a building.... where is the Merengue from!?" I said "Well I don't know Vince," and he says "...it's from the Dominican Republic, that's the place"..... then he trotted off to go make a Lego police life boat or something of that nature.
Tonight, I'm sitting in the living room, after putting everyone to bed, and I'm trying to drown out Luca's protests from his crib. After a few minutes of cries that won't dwindle, I realize he's not going to settle down... so I go and get him. I brought him to the living room with me, which was totally dark and mostly quiet (compared to the usual). I had some soft music playing, so I danced around the room a little bit with him clinging to my neck. When I hold him, his head rests over my shoulder in that perfect little nook that only he fits into. I sit down on the couch, and hope that he's still going to keep quiet and calm. But it's Luca, and he doesn't keep calm. My sitting down is his chance to escape. He jumps out of my arms and starts whispering and babbling to me, pointing out the window, pointing to the book shelf. Running around and taking a few laps through the dining room and kitchen. Whispering and whispering all these babbles, and pointing, all with this look of such concern. Almost as if he were telling me about some conspiracy, or some secret event that was about to happen. He keeps this up for while, taking a few more laps around the house. I figure it's all good, as long as he just keeps this to a whisper, and doesn't get fired up into a tizzy. A few more moments pass, and as he circles past me on his last lap around the house, he's looking a little more pooped out... maybe ready for resting. I grabbed a stuffed bear and cuddled it, pretending it was Luca, stroking it's back and helping it to fall asleep. Luca just looked at me, studying me. Then he ran away again, but quickly returns with one of Zoë's stuffed baby dolls. He takes it, and climbs onto the couch next to me, sits down, and starts cuddling the baby doll, holding it in his arms, patting her on the back, and soothing her. He's whispering babbles to her that only he could understand, and even gave her a kiss on her head. So there we were together, in the quiet dark, each of us cuddling a stuffed toy. It was so painfully cute to watch him mimicking me, I sort of didn't want it to end. Seeing as Luca is my last real baby I have to cuddle, I then chucked that stuffed bear and scooped him up again, cuddling that little boy until we reached his crib. Now the only thing I hear as I'm writing, is Mike shoveling the snow off our driveway.