(with apologies to Tom Bodet and Motel 6...)

I'm listening to an audiobook version of It's All Too Much in the car right now, and coincidentally am also in the throes of a major basement purging/reorganization effort. We've arranged the furniture down there to create a "learning room" for each of the boys, and now have to make the room for everything that will stock them. The storage room was no longer navigable and it was getting impossible to find anything. So, here we go again.

Joe and I were down there this afternoon during the kids' naps, emptying bins and sorting them into Throw Away, Give Away, Put Away and Storage piles. Then John started banging around his room, so Joe went up to investigate. He forgot to turn off the monitor before leaving. And in a moment I heard his voice: "John, get back in bed."

"Iz nodda bed, Daddy," said an impossibly small and babyish voice. I realized with a shock that it was John.

"Sh. Go to sleep."

"Iz nodda bed, Daddy. Iz nodda bed, Daddy. Iz nodda bed, Daddy," the tiny voice repeated, with calm determination. "Izza twactor."

"Okay, then, it's a tractor. Get in the tractor and go to sleep," said Joe.

I sat there listening, a sheaf of papers still in my hands, unmoving, fascinated. It's so easy for me to forget -- I've been translating John-speak for so long now that I hear it as English in my head, and I forget that for all his wide-ranging vocabulary and facility of expression, for all how big and grown he seems compared to Thomas, that although he's not "da ninnelyest" child in the house anymore, he is still very, very ninnel.