There, be Dragons!

"Mommy, he just wouldn't quit!"

"Who, Sweetie? Who wouldn't quit?"

All my paranoias kicking in--Someone was after my son!

"The dragon! He kept trying to get me!"

Ah. So it's going to be one of those days, is it?

"I was fighting him and fighting him. And I had forgot to leave the window open so he could escape. But he just kept trying to get me and he just wouldn't quit!"

Rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he made his way down the stairs this morning, excitedly relaying his story. Kitty tucked securely under one arm and his other arm doing double duty as he holds his flashlight and steadies himself on his descent. Dinosaur jammies slightly askew--no doubt due to the fierce battle with the relentless dragon.

"Well? How'd you get away?" I ask incredulously.

"I kept fighting him and fighting him and then I came downstairs and opened the door Dakota uses and then he flew away."

"So that's all right then?"

I really need more coffee to handle these conversations so early in the morning.

He pauses. Then very thoughtfully asks, "Do dragons talk?"

"I'm sure they do," I answer. "Though probably not like you and I do (and who does?) but I'm sure they have their own dragon language."

"Oh. Okay. Well, this was a son dragon. He flew off to find the Mommy dragon and the baby dragon. But the baby dragon didn't talk. Because babies can't talk. Did you know that a dragon starts its life as an egg?"

Yes, I did know that.

I remember a moment of "Mommy Panic" when Jacob was a couple of months old. I spent so much of my time with him enjoying the quiet moments when he wasn't screaming and just reading my own books. Then I read somewhere (stupid child rearing books!) that I was supposed to be talking to him. They didn't tell me what about. "Just talk," they said. Sort of difficult to carry on a one way conversation. But I was so sure that my lack of chatting was going to stunt his development.

Then came the comments made by the doctor at his one year check-up and I was all, well, there ya go. See--stunted. And it's all my fault because I was unable to conversate with my two-month-old son.

Am I absolved yet? Because now I think that maybe we've gone a tad overboard on the interacting with our children.