Tristan can get you a toe . . .

In the early weeks after Tristan and Duncan were born, we lived a strange half-life in the gaps of a three-hour rotation of feeding and diapering babies and pumping breast milk.  If everything went well, we might have an hour or an hour and a half to take a walk or eat or shower or sleep on each cycle.  If everything didn't go well, we fumbled through to the next cycle as best we could.

The funny thing about that time was that we were incredibly determined to make the best of our free moments and save our sanity.  We went to the park every time we could possibly manage it.  And while we fed and burped and diapered and pumped, we often watched movies.

The first movie we watched, the night Tristan came home from the hospital, was Conan the Barbarian.  The second or third was The Big Lebowski.  We were going for tried and true favorites (or at least Dane was), and we figured the babies wouldn't notice.

Maybe Tristan noticed.

At breakfast this week:  "Tristan, what do you want to eat?"  "I want NOTH-ing to eat.  Noth-ing!"

After breakfast:   "Tristan, do you want to wear pants or shorts?"  "I want to wear NOTH-ing on my legs!  NOTH-ing!"

In the car, apropos of nothing:  "ZERO stands for NOTH-ing!  NOTH-ing!  I like zero!"

At lunch:  "Would you like noodles?"  "I want to eat NOTH-ing!"

I can't really convey in print the maniacal pleasure the kid takes in saying the word "nothing."  He's already got a blond crew cut and it's only a matter of time until he says, "Yah.  I believe in NOTH-ing." 

I'm scared to wear flip flops.