:: :: ee-i-ee-i-oh my god! :: ::

Something happened yesterday that I didn’t expect to happen for years. Literally, years. Evan demonstrated to me that he is an individual person and that mommy and daddy are not the only people in his life.

I was lying on the floor trying to decide if the knot in my center was anxiety or heartburn or both, and Evan was sitting next to me playing with this bug toy he has that plays different songs depending on which button you press. It does “Yankee Doodle” and “Row Row Row Your Boat” and some songs I’ve never heard before.

So Evan presses the yellow button and “Old MacDonald” comes on and he’s bopping along like he does when there’s music on, I swear bopping is the most absolutely perfect word to describe the motion he’s making, and then I hear him go, “Ee-I-Ee-I-O.”

I am sitting up and staring at Brian for confirmation within one second, but he has missed it because he is washing dishes in the kitchen.

Evan continues bopping and then the song ends and he presses a different button.

“No, Evan. Press the yellow button,” I cry almost desperately. “Brian, listen.”

Evan presses the yellow button. He bops. And then he does it again, right on cue: “Ee-I-Ee-I-O.”

Holy crap. I did not teach him this. We don’t really sing that song very often, maybe once in a while when he’s having a fit on the changing table and I don’t feel like doing “The Farmer in the Dell,” but really hardly ever.

Somehow, he has learned this without me. And without Brian. He has learned this, somehow, on his own. At daycare. Without us.

I think the Earth spun a tiny bit backwards just now. Did you feel it?