boo-boo care

One of Dennis' favorite get-out-of-a-nap strategies is to plead grievous injury (think "I can't go to sleep--I hurt my boo-boo"). He very nicely took a morning nap today (after lying to his Grandma yesterday and telling her he didn't need a nap because he'd already had one), but by this afternoon he seemed exhausted and was rubbing his purple-smudged-underneath eyes. I thought we'd attempt the impossible: two naps in the same day. It didn't happen. I heard big noises and went in to find him doing his best to mangle the poor miniblinds hanging over the bed in the room he's sleeping in here at the lake. I stopped this and insisted he go to sleep, and he whined about it (naturally). I left him alone and heard another big noise and then the door opened. I scooped him up and returned him to the bed and he claimed "I hurt my boo-boo, Mommy" and I asked him where it was. He said "right there" and pointed to a bloody spot on his knee that I hadn't yet noticed. I sprang to action, running for the mini first aid kit that I keep in his diaper bag. I cleaned up the small cut and he whimpered a little and asked "are you a doctor, Mommy? I need to see a doctor". I told him I was going to run to the bathroom and get a heavier duty band-aid (the Snoopy ones in the kit are a little flimsy, very good for those 'imaginary' boo-boos). When I ran back, he was precisely applying a Snoopy bandage right over his wound. He'd unwrapped it, peeled the stickers off, and applied it just in the right place, and it only took him seconds to do it. Pretty darned impressive, if I do say so myself. Might even have taken me a little longer to do it!

The picture is of sweet sleeping Dennis during his morning nap. How will I ever remember how cute he is now when he's a teenager? His chubby baby wrists and hands and those adorable fingers as they hold up his age or point to the sky as he's playing superhero, the cute things he says, those giant blue eyes and killer eyelashes, his always-dirty fingernails and constantly wiggling toes (and how he tells me his toes are happy or sad), how totally cute he is singing the entire A-B-C song... So much to cherish, so much of a blessing in one slightly more than three foot tall package.