:Words:

The 18 month old is learning to talk in the way a parrot does - by repeating and repeating and repeating the things he hears daily.  Sometimes it is a line from a rhyme we have learned all together ("down came the rain and washed the spider out!"), a bit from his current favorite movie ("Hey, you in there!  Your house is haunted!" ~Totoro), or even something he may have heard his mama say ("Get down RIGHT NOWWWW!").

In the midst of all this parroting and practicing, one thing has emerged that is so fully his own, it leaves me flabbergasted and enthralled at the same time.  It goes a little something like this:

" ' ursie, Mama?  'Ursie, pwease?"

Now of course there are differing viewpoints on nursing toddlers and I really don't mean to start a debate, no matter WHAT the World Health Organization has to say about it.  No, this isn't all about health benefits.  This is mostly about heart benefits.

At 18 months old, he usually hops right down from my lap and takes off when he is through, on to the next thing in this big job of playing and learning and living.  He is moving on incrementally, one step at a time growing bigger and stronger and ever away from babyhood.  He's sleeping longer hours in a bed different from mine these days.  He's eating everything he can get his hands on and no longer runs to me for every single grievance - yes sometimes he manfully wipes his own tears and continues on.

Still, for those few moments of reconnecting each day, his liquid brown eyes lock into mine and he pats my back gently, sometimes humming, sometimes grinning, sometimes tickling.  We're connecting through those few precious moments and I don't see him as a big boy, but my little baby. 

There's nothing I wouldn't do for him and I've never heard anything so sweet as his little voice when he says: 

"'ursie, Mama?"

"Yes."