Confessions

Every night we go through the ritual. I lay Ali in her crib and she falls asleep. Then a half hour later I walk Calvin to his room, we read Balloon Farm (it’s been a year of Balloon Farm and he knows it so well I can’t even skip pages anymore), we say a prayer, I lay Hobbes and Puppy on the pillow and then tuck all three of them in together and give them all hugs and kisses. Sometimes twice. Oh, sooo cute! Or so you might think. As soon as I hear the click of the door shut immediate feelings of freedom rush over me. Not wanting to miss a single second of shut-eye that comes my way, I grab my pillow and run to bed. And just when I’m comfortable I hear the cry of a smothered Ali. Calvin has been doing this every night for the last month. He gets out of bed when I leave, throws his pillow and blanket on top of Ali, and climbs in her crib with her. I just don’t know what to do about this, and so it continues. But the other morning Calvin and I had an interesting conversation. He must have remembered how mad I was the night before and thought he should explain. He said, “Calvin, why’d you climb in Ali’s bed?” So I asked, “Calvin, why’d you climb in Ali’s bed last night?” He said, “Ali cried.” I said, “I know she cried, but only because you got in there and threw all your crap on top of her.” He said, “Ali take Hobbes.” And I said, “Well she wouldn’t have taken him if you hadn’t thrown him in there.” And he said, “Ali hurt Hobbes.” So I asked, “How did Ali hurt Hobbes?” Then he shook his head and said, “Ali didn’t hurt Hobbes, Calvin kicked Ali. Ali was crying.” I asked, “She was crying because you kicked her! Why did you kick her?!” And he said, “SHE WAS CRYING!” He must think I'm stupid for me to not understand his reasoning. PS this was also our first real conversation that actually made sense from start to finish. I'm so proud.