Mother Wonderful

So its been awhile since Mr. Gubbins has actually posted anything on this blog, for which he is (ostensibly) a co-blogger. Since Mrs. Gubbins does such an excellent job of relating our adventures, I'm generally content to let her do the blogging. But last week Simon did one of the cutest things I've ever seen him do (which is saying something)--and it illustrates just how much he loves his Mama. So I thought I should be the one to write about it.

As Mrs. Gubbins mentioned in the previous post, our little boy is going through a lot of separation anxiety right now. While I'm told he expresses a sense of concern when I leave for work, grunting in a serious manner and pointing out the door after me, he reserves his deeper shows of emotion for when his Mama leaves. When we drop Jessica off at work, for example, there will often be tears for a few blocks after we drive away. Some afternoons when Jessica is gone Simon can sometimes be found crawling from room to room saying, "Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma..." looking for where Jessica might be hiding (he generally crawls to the bedroom first and looks to see if she's still sleeping). Its awfully cute, and, thankfully, doesn't usually accompany a total meltdown.

The other day, though, he took this separation anxiety to new levels of sweet. We were in the middle of a long day away from Jessica, and Simon had had a couple moments of worry regarding her absence. He was holding it together pretty well though, and we were sitting with a pile of books doing some reading. We have a book version of the lullaby, "Hush little baby..." which Simon handed me to read. I started reading aloud, "Hush little baby, don't say a word. Mama's going to find you a mocking bird. If that mocking bird won't sing, Mama's going to find you a diamond ring... etc., etc."

Well, I was a page or two and several "Mama's going to find you a..." phrases into the book when I looked up and saw Simon rather frantically doing his "all done" sign and looking like he was on the verge of tears. At that moment I realized that, although he had been putting on a very brave face, this lullaby book with all its mentions of "Mama" was simply too much to bear. I put the book back on the shelf right away and chose another one. We continued reading and he was just fine.

This is how much you mean to us, Mama Gubbins! When you're not around we can't even read books about Mamas!

Thank you for all your hard work for us--we appreciate it more than you know.


Love,
Papa and Lil' Gubbins