Ignoring her deadlines, she blithely blogged.

D. has a lot to say these days. Much of it is completely unintelligible, but he is also starting to say lots of things that we can understand. I've also found that repeating the sounds he makes often gives me clues as to what he wanted to say. Other times, it just makes me sound like an idiot.

He learned a bunch of Rosh HaShana songs. My favorite is sung to the tune of London Bridge:

Blow the shofar,
Blow, blow, blow
Blow, blow, blow
Blow, blow, blow.
Blow the Shofar
Blow, blow, blow
On Rosh HaShana.

If I sing the first line, the D. either does the "Blow, blow, blow," or he makes his fist into a shofar and blows "Doot, doot, doot!" Trust me, it's adorable.

On Sunday, some friends of ours stopped by with their boys, a 2-year-old and a newborn. The 2-year-old is so verbal it makes me want to choke the life out of him wish I could lie on the floor and bang my fists in frustration smile in genuine happiness for my friends. I love the kid -- I do. But it sometimes, you know, makes me feel like someone has reached into my chest and yanked out my beating heart, stabbed a bunch of holes into it, then shoved it back into my body. It hurts a little. I want to have a conversation with my kid. I want to ask him, "D., how you feeling?" and have him come back with, "OK."

Every so often we get these little gifts. Like the other night, it was time for the ritual handwashing prior to the meal. You pour water over your hands and make a blessing. With little kids, you pour the water over their hands and then stand there, prompting each word of the blessing, and they repeat it, or the pick it up and run with it, or they ignore you -- whatever. So, Mr. WG took D., poured the water, and prompted D. with "Baruch" and D. came back with the next 2 or 3 words of the blessing, and Mr. WG and I just stood there, jaws on the floor, eyes wide with wonder, and gratitude in our hearts.

And then D. smacked me in the face and the moment passed.