They Make Me Smile

I am buckling Harry into his carseat after picking him up from school. It's a sunny, crisp day, and a streak of sunlight glares into my eyes as I reach for his seatbelt. He puts his hand on my cheek and says "Stop a minute. I love your beautiful eyes, Mommy.  I like the brown in them.”  He pats my cheek and releases me, goes back to being the stinker he is so good at being at age three, and I am left in the wake of his wonderfulness.
We are cuddling on the couch, Emma and Mom both in need of a good, long nap.  She puts her little hand on my chest and pats me, saying “You good girl, Mommy.  You good girl.”
Emma loves pizza.  Her favorite kind?  “Peppa.  Whoa-knee.”  That’s two words.
Harrison gathers his comfy kit after school: the pillow from his bed, a soft fuzzy blanket, and an assortment of stuffed animals, anywhere between 2 and 12 of them.  He gets cozy, looks at me across the room with sleepy eyes, and tells me about his gym class with Ms. Sarah.  “She’s Ms. Sarah, just like you, Mommy!  Only she’s not you, and she doesn’t look like you, and she doesn’t sound like you, and she’s not you, right?  But she’s nice.  We played a turkey game today.  She put those things on the floor….what are they called?  Um, bean bags.  Yes, that’s it.  The bean bags were turkey food.  They were all over the floor and we had to pick them up.”  I ask him if they were pretending to be turkeys and he says: “No, Mom, you’re the turkey.”  And then he fell asleep.
Emma is talking more and more these days and her independence streak continues to amaze us.  She insists on getting herself dressed every day and lately has even wanted to pick out her own outfits.  Today I tried to put a certain pair of pants on her, which she wrinkled her nose at and said “NO, Mama!  Pants not pretty.  These pants pretty.”  And so she wore the other pants, which are, in fact, much prettier than the pair I had picked out. 
I was sick with an earache yesterday and we went to the grocery store pharmacy to get my prescription filled.  Harry came to sit with me while I waited and he found a magazine on the table next to his seat.  “Here, Mom.  A Ladies’ magazine.  Maybe you’d like to read it to keep yourself busy while we wait.  It might be awhile.”  Sometimes I have to remind myself that he’s only three.