Page 68 of Hiding From Laughter

That had him cocking his head and peekingover at me curiously.

Had it been the by himself comment?

“Daddy controls the bottles. Period.” Thatgot another smile from him, but I wanted to make sure I was clear about mythoughts on the subject. “But as long as I’m supervising, I think we can tryyou holding the sippy cup if you’d like.”

I was a mild control freak not a completeone.

He shrugged.

Great.

Was I the only one who had an opinion on thesippy cup?

Maybe I was more of a complete one than I’dthought.

“What else did you find?” I played dumb ashe brought out a box of zoo animals from Africa. “Oh, look at that.”

There were several other parts of the worldstill in the package, but he handed me the first load and bounced up and downon his knees. “Open this one first? I think that sounds like a wonderful plan.”

It would also drag out the whole experienceif we were doing one at a time and setting it up before we took the next oneout. I’d have made different decisions, but he was in charge of the toys, so Iwent along with it.

Ha. Not a complete control freak.

“Where should we set it up?” That was alsosomething I was not picky about, so I took myself down the control freak scaleanother notch. Ashton looked around and shrugged, not picky either. “Okay.Options.”

What were the possibilities?

“We can put it up here in the living room.Maybe over by the bookshelf if we move that chair back a tiny bit.” It wouldn’tbe subtle in the least, but we didn’t have people over that often. It wouldalso make it easier to watch cartoons or something like that while we played.

What else?

“We could put it up in the big bedroom.You’ve already got a lot of your stuff in there.” It’d been a reasonable placeto start putting everything when I hadn’t been sure what direction his littlespace would look like, but he didn’t seem drawn to that idea and just stared atme.

Wondering what he was thinking, I finishedopening the packaging and slid the plastic tray the pieces were in out of thebox. “What if we set it up here for now but we made a playroom in the littlebedroom upstairs?”

We’d need to do some shifting aroundbecause at the moment it was a junk room with a bed in it, but Ashton’s eyeslit up.

Bingo.

“Would you like a playroom?” His excitablenod was back and looked like he was going to give himself whiplash. “I thinkpainting it a bright color would be fun and we could pick out some animalsheets for the bed?”

The small twin had been a leftover from ourbachelor days and got no use at the moment, but it would be perfect for naps orto cuddle when I read him a book.

And Ashton’s wide eyes said he thought thatwas amazing.

Giving his forehead a quick kiss, I satdown beside him and laughed as he shoved his way onto my lap. “Would you likean animal playroom?”

He patted my cheeks, nodding as he suckedhappily on his binkie. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

I’d still want to keep some of his stuff inthe bedroom to make it easier to change him first thing or right before bed,but setting up a second changing station in the playroom would give us moreflexibility. We might even be able to find a small fridge to keep bottles upthere too.

Yes.

There was a lot we could do with aplayroom.

Ashton’s snickers brought me back to themoment, though. “Sorry. I got lost in plans.”

And that got more giggles, making it clearthat hadn’t been a surprise. “Are you laughing at me?”

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