AJ and I spent the morning romping in the yard. Finally, the sun has appeared, although it is still quite cold. AJ helped me rake some of the flower beds so we could look at the new little shoots pointing out of the ground. Now, in addition to the crocuses and daffodils, we have all manner of lilies and sedums stretching their limbs. AJ was fascinated with the way the infant crocuses (croci?) were so adamant about finding the sun that they grew right threw the layer of oak leaves lying across them, impaling them with their slender shoots so clearly less fragile than they appear. My Lenten rose, which I planted last year as an experiment, has three enormous buds on it and should be flowering soon. I�ve never seen one of these flowers in person, only in photos, so I have been checking it daily. The forsythia branches that I clipped over the weekend have flowered in the vase on the mantel, bringing some of the springtime inside.

Mostly, though, AJ and I played with his remote control car and shot hoops. AJ is not nearly tall enough to reach the basketball hoop mounted over our garage, even when he�s sitting on my shoulders (which we don�t do often because he has a tendency to drop the ball on my head). But he loves watching me play, and cheers vigorously regardless of whether I actually make the shot. If it goes in, I hear �Good job, Mommy!� or simply �Swish!� If I miss, he�ll say �Nice try!� or �Almost, Mommy!� Then he applauds as if I just broke a world record.

We know we must be doing a lot of cheerleading for AJ lately because he�s begun doing it for us on a regular basis. Yesterday when I was in the bathroom (which inexplicably has a louvered door, offering no sound barrier whatsoever), he heard me start to pee and came running up to the door yelling excitedly, �You peed! Good job, Mommy!�

The thing is, when you�re two, if you�re lucky, people cheer for you a lot. We cheer when he makes baskets in his diminutive indoor basketball hoop or when he doesn�t. We cheer when he uses the toilet. We cheer just because it�s a beautiful day and the wind feels good on our faces and, well, because we feel like it. Grownups don�t do enough cheering, as a rule. I think we need to make more of an effort. I know I could use a good, �You wrote five pages today and entered 25 books into your database. Way to go!� every now and then. Especially when they are not my best pages.

We also had a visit from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law this morning, who are champion cheerers. AJ was beside himself with excitement trying to keep their attention and get more applause. The kid�s a ham. When they left he gave them goodbye hugs and went back to his play. But a few seconds later, he announced, �I want to see my friends� and sprinted to the front window to wave at the departing car, blowing kisses until they were out of sight. Then he came back into the kitchen where I was sweeping up the trail of cookie crumbs he�d left in his wake. He peered at me from behind a cabinet, smiled and said, �Good job, Mommy!�

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