Playing boat.

This morning Yuri and I were playing in the living room. Playing some version of "boat," which evolved from "tent" which evolved from "blanket" which far as I can tell originates back to December 2011 when Grandma and Grandpa were staying with us before they had a place to live. I believe Mom is to be blamed for teaching him this game; it kept him occupied while he wanted to be with them in their room (aka: kept him from messing with things he shouldn't mess with). He has forever been a lover of blankets since that time. Not the worst thing, just means we have blankets strewn about the house, picking up cat hair and detritus.

As we were playing, a picture I had recently leaned up against our wedding picture caught his eye.
"I see somebody!" he said.
"Who do you see?" I asked.
He paused, clicking his tongue as he does when he isn't sure he wants to say anything.
Then, he said, "Kay!" Then, "I sang a song about Grandma in my bed last night."
I asked, "How did the song go?"
He replied, "I can only sing the song in my bed, and I'm not it my bed."
Then he said, "You know what you do when you are sad?"
"What do you do?"
"You go like this-" [opened his mouth, looked down and did a little throaty noise]
"Are you sad? Why are you sad?"
Whispering, "Grandma Kay is reaallly sick."

[Of course, with Yuri, the conversation didn't happen as fast as it goes when you read it. There was plenty of shuffling his things under and behind and over the blankets...]

I let the conversation end there - partly because I was crying, but I also wanted him to lead the conversation how he needed to. It felt good to hear Yuri talk about his feelings. It seemed like he was happy, almost happier, after having seen her picture there (it was a picture he was in). He played so well the rest of the morning. Grandpa came over soon after and we had quite the enjoyable musical (mostly vocal) concert as Yuri "composed" several songs for us, directing us with a baton or free-hand (like the Russian conductors), sometimes asking us to sing along and sometimes performing solo.