Ed. I don’t know what the First and Second Kinds of pillow fights actually are, but I bet they’re not as good as the Third.

In a sign of just how exhausted I am, the night before last, I woke up in the middle of the night with a survival-life-or-death kind of instinct that I REALLY needed to yank the pillow out from under Mary’s head and put it back again very quickly - think yanking a tablecloth out from under a bunch of dishes.

I have no earthly idea why I felt like I had to do this or what literally dreamed-up reason was behind it. Apparently, according to Mary, I did it with speed and agility not normally seen in someone who is 99.99% in deep REM sleep.

Mary - whose what-the-hell reflex augmented the sharpness of her memory about this whole episode - says I yanked the pillow out and put it back so fast that her head didn’t have time to fall back down again before I’d stuffed it back under her. I couldn’t do this awake if I tried.

The scary thing is, I actually remember doing it, and then trying to explain to Mary what in the hell I was thinking. I’m sure I made up an eloquent and well-reasoned argument for it, but the obvious truth is, I have no freakin’ idea.

Other than I’m so tired right now that I can doze off while walking.

J-Man uses very few words, and most of those are his version of them. One on-target area of his development for a two-year-old is the ability to say ‘no’. Generally, it comes out ‘nah-nah’, but you don’t need a speech therapist to figure that one out. He’ll occasionally throw in some head-shaking for good measure.

Admittedly, he does tend to say it after we tell him to stop doing something he really wants to do - like trying to erase programs off of our DVR - and often includes some devious grinning to let us know that his inner-stinker is alive and well.

‘Yes’ involves sounds he currently can’t make. He doesn’t ever nod his head either, and sign language is pretty much on par with Sanskrit for him at this point. But he’s learned to compensate with various other forms of basic communication, at least to get across the most essential stuff. This is particularly true for anything he REALLY wants to do, which includes anything outside (spelled O-U-T in all adult conversations in our house) and anything related to Signing Time or Wonder Pets.

This is a new one, though, and it gets me every time.

Me: Do you want to go out in the stroller and walk with me?

J: *kiss*

Me: *reflects on how cool it is to be a dad*

So, he responds affirmatively in the most affirming way he knows how. How cool is that?