about an eyeball

If you're a parent, you can relate to how it pleases me to the Nth degree to get to the stage where my boys are able to express their wants and needs, as well as their aches and pains. When LittleR Dude points to his finger and says "hurt" and it isn't bleeding, I know without a doubt that all he needs is a little kiss to make it all better. When I'm awakened by a cry that could wake the dead (never mind the sleeping) at 3 in the morning, I no longer have to play a guessing game with Little Dude whose language skills are way more sophisticated than his younger brother's. He's able to tell me that it's the outside part of his ear that hurts (from bumping it on the bookshelf) and not the inside (i.e., he has an earache). Hearing "it hurts only a little" is very reassuring to me and keeps my worry-wart tendencies at bay.

Life is ... no ... was good.

Maybe I'm still sulking from being woken up at 5:49 am by Little Dude today. Or, perhaps, I'm just in a funk because LittleR Dude thought that it was "funny, mommy" ... yes, he actually said that ... to dump his milk all over his poopy self while we were at the mall on the day that I didn't pack a change of clothes.

Maybe I'm just in a really bad mood today ... because I really don't find it funny to hear Little Dude complain and screech out, "I've got an eyeball, mommy! Mommy, I've got an eyeball in my eye!"

It seems that his father ... yes, today, he is not the Good Man but the father ... his father has responded to Little Dude's complaints of having something in his eye with "Yeah, you've got an eyeball" one too many times. So now Little Dude is going around screaming bloody murder about having an eyeball in his eye.

This morning, Little Dude's nursery school called to say that he threw up after eating a cheerio. After determining that (1) he didn't have a fever, (2) he didn't throw up his entire breakfast along with the cheerio and (3) he is now fine and participating in the activities, I hung up the phone relieved. Then I wondered, OMG. Has Little Dude ever screamed out "There's an eyeball in my eye" at nursery school?

We've been trying for some time now to correct Little Dude and failing miserably. Today, he took it another step further and actually rubbed sleep from his eye, held a crusty bit up to me and said, "Look at the yellow eyeball on my finger, mommy."

His father could be heard snickering quietly in the background.