Eliotspeak.

postickle = a frozen juice treat, generally packaged in a plastic tube or on a stick

puhghessti = pasta with sauce

heckatopper = a flying machine with rotating blades

A few weeks ago, in the car on the way to daycare, Eliot confesses, "Mommy? Sometimes I call [insert name of his daycare provider], "Mommy." I don't know why I do that!" He crinkles his nose and gestures with upturned palms and shrugged shoulders to show his confusion.

I assure him that it's quite alright. He spends a lot of time at _____'s house, and she loves him and takes good care of him just like Mommy does.

Later, at home, he yells, "Hey, [beginning of the name of his daycare provider]....uh...I mean...Mommy?!"

I laugh, "Did you just start to call me _____?

"Uh. Yeah!" erupting into giggles

"Well okay then, Baby C____!" [name of other child at daycare]

"You call me Baby C____?! Okay. You ______. [name of another child at daycare]

This back and forth name calling continues with growing hilarity, until we've named everyone at daycare and all of the family members we can think of. He's all but rolling in the floor as he starts in on fictional characters.

"I'll call you Mickey Mouse!"

"Okay, Pluto."

"No--you a Handy Manny!"

"Whatever you say, Pat the Hammer."

"Diego! You Diego!"

"Sure thing, Baby Jaguar."

I love this game. It reminds me of a similar game Lib and I used to play when she was about Eliot's age, only then we would fill in the lyrics to The Aristocats song, "Everybody Wants to be a Cat." We'd take turns singing, "Everybody, everybody wants to be a ______ ," inserting first every animal we could think of, then people's names, and finally the names of inanimate objects we saw around us, usually "washcloth," "soap," and the like, because this game was routinely played while one or both of us was taking a shower. From there the game would devolve into delirious laughter, as we'd conjure up everybody wanting to be more and more outlandish and unrelated objects. "Everybody, everybody wants to be a roller coaster." "A frozen pancake." "A knuckle sandwich." "A coffee filter."

When I cried hot tears to a friend last week about my worries, that Eliot will resent me for not being able to keep our family together, that the divorce will affect him negatively long, long after all the papers are signed, that I'm not up to the task of parenting alone...she told me just to keep doing what I'm already doing. "Talk to him," she said. "Be there." "Love him."

I can do that. And when I arrive at ______'s house today, to pick him up from daycare, and he rushes into my arms, yelling, "Mommy!" as he almost always does, I'll bend down, lift him to me and say, "Oh, how I missed you today, Domino....er...uh...Special Agent Oso...I mean...that is...Eliot." ;)