I�m finding that I love my dissertation drafts. I�m almost going to be sad to see them go when I finally turn it into polished prose. The drafts are full of notes to myself in square brackets, things that I�ve been thinking about that may or may not be relevant in the long run, recommendations for further research, things I want to quote but don�t want to stop and look at right away because I�m on a roll. These notes are almost always addressed to myself as if from another person, so that the whole draft takes on the quality of a dialogue. As things get honed and polished, the diss is certainly more readable to others, but I lose the map of how I got there. A little of myself falls away in service of the project. The draft copy is the diary of an active mind, something I appreciate more and more as a full-time mom of a preschooler.

AJ is in the repeat-everything-as-much-as-possible phase. His current obsession is the alphabet in many forms but particularly in the form of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We have to watch the video at least once a day (more if we let him). We read the book over and over again. We sing the song, sometimes together and sometimes I sing while he acts out the story of the letters ascending a coconut tree (which I drew on a large piece of paper) with his foam letter designed to adhere to the sides of a bathtub. It is absolutely mind numbing, and yet you have to do it because you know this is how he learns things. Repetition is what he needs. The other thing that is making me a little insane is his constant requests to �say hi� as he hands me some object he wants to speak. It might be a puppet or a stuffed animal. Or it might be a fire engine, tricycle or piece of furniture. But like my dissertation dialogues, his desire to literally communicate with everything around him is a sign of his active mind and as a parent you feel you must comply. Even if you sometimes feel you�d rather walk barefoot on broken glass than do it just one more time. I also have to admire his ability to remain enchanted with things that to an adult seem everyday, even upon constant repetition. He gets an amazing amount of joy from watching traffic lights turn from red to green, from reading stop signs and watching the letters fall out of the tree in a heap. Every single time.

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