Celestial Awakening

We packed the car after John John went to sleep.  The thinking was that we’d wake him up and load him in the car and he would sleep on the two hour drive.  Of course he stayed up the entire drive.  But he was quiet the entire time and when we arrived I took him out of his car seat. The moon was three-quarters and bright up in Santa Rosa at 11pm. I pointed to the moon and asked John John what it was.  He knows the moon: he says the word when you point to a picture, whether in full or crescent or with a funny face.  But being a child that goes to bed when the sun is still out, those depictions are the only moons he knows. So I pointed and asked him, “John John, do you know what that is?”

“Egg!” he said.

“No, it’s the moon!” I said, “The real moon!”

He looked intently.  “Moo(n),” he said.

“And those little white dots,” I said, pointing to the stars littering the night sky. “Those are real stars!”

“Stah,” he repeated.

We looked at the moon and stars for a few more moments, naming them .  In the morning it was the first thing he did to point to the window in the direction we’d seen the moon, and sleepily said, “moonh.”   Love this little guy.