Chalk Full

Yesterday, Cole could have been the starring attraction on Supernanny. He spent the entire day delighting us with behavior that can only be characterized as gremlin-like.

He must have had six time-outs for offenses that ranged from climbing on the windowsill (?) to telling me to shut up under his breath. (!!) He's also managed to completely mangle the idea of "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit," so now he throws it out to ME when I tell him he can't have/do something. Which...is confusing.

Things reached their zenith when he snuck into the garage against strict orders. (When I told him he wasn't allowed in there, he responded with, "Mom, I'm not going to hurt myself, I promise! I'm really not going to kill myself." He loves to try to reason with me with calm preschooler logic.)

I freaked out when I couldn't find him in the backyard, and when he finally slunk out of the garage, decked out in his full Iron Man regalia, he reeked of WD-40.
He'd been "cleaning."

Sigh.

But on days like that, the pendulum always swings the other way. Later that night, when I went in to sing him his nightly song, he snuggled up next to me and kissed my cheek, no longer snails and puppy-dog tails, but softness and baby soap and affection. I sang him the "Bumbee" lullaby I used to sing when he was tiny, and he wanted to talk about what he was like when he was a baby. That led to a conversation about how much he's grown, and how we're all getting older.

Suddenly, he was panicked.

"Mom, are you going to turn into a grandma?"
"Yep, when you're older, I'll get older too, honey."
"Mom! I don't want you to do that! I want you to always look the way you look!"

I hugged him and laughed, but he was very serious. He gets that way.

He reached over to me and held my face in his little boy hands and told me, "Mom, when you turn into a grandma, I will cry." His eyes were so worried.

Then he squeezed me into a tight hug and vowed, "I'm never ever going to let you go."
And he didn't. Not for a very long time.

***

We broke out the sidewalk chalk last weekend, and Riis really got into it. Hmm, funny. I just realized, looking at these pictures, that I didn't even notice Cole was dressed in his Iron Man costume. He wears it as often as he can lately, always with the frog rain boots.