And now for something completely different

Some Riley related things to share.

First, he's recently grown quite interested in some toys that his cousin Simon shared with him. They're little boy figures made by the Beanie Baby company; a baseball player and a snow boarder. They each have outfits that can be taken off and switched around etc, so of course now we must do that five million times a day. Last night we were putting the shirt on one of the little boys and Riley was instructing the toy how it's done. He said "First you push your head in and then, when you get it all the way up, you just poop it out the top!". I fell out laughing, as you can imagine.

Second, we found a light saber at the thrift store and it's spawned a whole new world of Star Wars fascination. Robbie's shown him images of the characters on the computer and told him about the stories and then last night we watched one of the movies. (The first one was out so we had to start with number two, which started a funny philosophical discussion about whether he'd have the proper context etc. We're such geeks! ;-) So anyway, Riley is really into the Darth Vader character. We're not sure if it's the outfit, the helmet, the clear presence of overt power over others (which we're thinking of in the context of kids being without personal power and identifying with powerful characters like superheros etc) or what, but he has been claiming all day that he's Darth Vader. He donned his longest play scarf, a big piece of black star fabric, and took up his light saber and proceeded to march (strut, even!) throughout the house while Robbie hummed the Imperial March theme. It was hilarious. So serious and intent he was.

Look out! Lord Vader is coming through.

And last, Riley has finally gotten old enough that he's leaving his momma-centric infant and toddler phase behind and his focus is shifting to Dad. When dad's not here and we're having a snack he'll pause for a moment, sigh and say "I wish dad was having a snack with us". And when he wakes up, rather than hollering "Momma!" and pushing dad away if he tries to go to him instead (ouch!) he calls out hopefully, "Dad!?".

He's also expressing some concern about dad's safety, which makes us wonder what goes on in his sweet little head. Yesterday he played a very long elaborate game up in a tree in the back yard in which he had a boy named Robbie and his boy would get into danger again and again and Riley would go save him! I didn't ask any questions about it, not wanting to interfere with whatever processing he's doing, but just listened and wondered and left it open if he wanted to talk about it. Last week while Robbie was out of town we were playing Legos and he told me that one piece was a map of Alabama. (Dad uses a map of Alabama regularly to plot his routes) I asked him what it was written on it and he told me that it said "Work is Very Dangerous". I asked him if he felt that Dad is in danger and he said simply "Yes". I asked him what he felt was dangerous about it and he told me that there are people using saws, sharp knives and crank drills (!) and that it was very dangerous. I explained then that dad doesn't do that kind of work anymore but Robbie's going to talk to him more about the work he does so he can give him a clearer idea of where he goes when he goes to work.

As an adult it's easy to forget how confusing the world was when there were so many details missing.

What dad does Riley does.