Where's Dada?

My Biscuit baby just doesn’t understand the phone. He likes to hear people talk on it when we hold it up to his ear, but he usually won’t talk back, and he doesn’t understand that the people are far away.

The most recent occurrence of this was last night. Jeff had a media op at Duke in the evening, so he called about 8:30 to let me know he was heading home. Biscuit usually goes to bed between 8 and 8:30, but he didn’t seem sleepy at all. As soon as he heard the phone ring, he ran over, pointed at it and started saying, “Mmm? Mmm?” like he was asking if he could talk.

So I picked up the phone, held it to Biscuit’s ear then hollered loud enough for Jeff to hear me, “It’s Biscuit. Talk to him.”

As soon as Jeff started talking, Biscuit’s eyes lit up. He started looking around the room to see where Jeff was. Then he dropped the phone and ran into the kitchen calling for Jeff. “Da? Da? Da?

Then he ran into our bedroom, then to the front door, looking for Jeff. Finally, he made his way back to the living room where I was. With Jeff still on the phone, I tried to explain that Dada wasn’t in the house. “He’s still at work, baby. He’s not home yet.”

Biscuit looked at me for a couple of seconds with a serious look on his face. Then he realized. The Daddy Man was nowhere to be found … and he lost it!

He started crying so hard that his cheeks got red and there were big, fat tears streaming down his face. He sat down in the floor and put his hands on his head, still wailing. Then he laid on his back and rolled back and forth, still wailing.

It took that child 15 minutes to stop crying. He heard his Dada’s voice, and he wanted him RIGHT THEN!!!

Biscuit would not go to sleep even though it was well past his bedtime. Finally, Jeff got home about 10:30. He didn’t even have time to set his computer bag down and take off his jacket before Biscuit was standing at his feet with his arms thrown up in the air, asking Jeff to pick him up.

We always like to put on slouchy clothes when we get home from work, but Jeff couldn’t even change his clothes. Biscuit didn’t want to be set down for any reason. Jeff finally sat down in the rocking chair with Biscuit on his lap, and that baby didn’t go to sleep until about 11:15.

I told Jeff that he was not allowed to call our house EVER again!