Tonight after our very relaxing bath, Oliver and I read book after book after book. (Or as Oliver refers to them: “BAH!”) Finally, after about a dozen books I started to sing my usual lullabies to Oli. He has come to realize that singing means bedtime, so he began to cry in frustration at the thought of having to go to sleep. The funny thing is, if the lights are on and you sing to him, he cries; if the lights are off and you sing to him, he sleeps. So I completely understand why he was getting grumpy but instead of jumping up and turning off the lights, I decided to take this opportunity to test Oliver a little.

This time, when Oliver screamed at my singing, I just let him wriggle down off my lap and onto the floor. He was screaming and squirming so much, I just didn’t want to fight him. Once he was on the floor I was left there holding his blanket and his stuffed monkey while he looked for yet another book for us to read. Instead of reading another book or the same one for the third time, I decided to hold his stuffed monkey in my arms like a baby and then pulled Oliver’s favorite blanket around the monkey and continued my singing and cooing—only with the monkey instead of Oli. This infuriated The Kid.

Oliver took one look at me and the monkey and he turned as red as a beet and screamed even louder than before. He raised his hands in the air in signaling for me to pick him back up onto my lap. Immediately I stopped singing to the monkey, and picked him up and wrapped him again in his blanket. He smiled, kissed and hugged his monkey, and was as cute as can be once again.

Then I started sing to him again, and he started to cry and wriggle out of my arms just as before. Once again I let him squirm and wriggle to the floor. I snuggled the monkey in the blanket and restarted my song. Oliver reacted with his primal scream again until I picked him up and snuggled him. This little cycle went on for three or four times. It was really quite funny. The entire time I thought, if this is how he reacts to me and the monkey, what’s he going to do when he has siblings?

Finally, I picked up The Kid and the monkey; turned off the lights; and sang him peacefully to sleep. With the lights off, he took much better to my song. He also held tight to his monkey.