His memories.

I sighed when I heard his little feet patter across the floor.

I had once again gotten up early to write, only to be joined almost immediately by Cooper, who seems to have a sixth sense that alerts him the minute I open my computer.

He wandered into my office, all warm and cozy in that rosy, half-asleep way that only only little kids seem to have.  He climbed into my lap and kissed the tip of my nose like he always does first thing in the morning and last thing at night, then said "Good morning, Mama.  Can we look at our memories now?"  He snuggled against me and sighed a happy little sigh, because in his world he could not imagine that I wouldn't want to do the same thing, or that I would deny him this simple request.

To look at his memories.

That's what he calls pictures.  He has for as long as I can remember.  It isn't something that I taught him or something that I have ever said to him.  But to him all the pictures stored on my computer are his memories, and he will happily sit for hours looking at them, commenting on every single one. "Oh I remember that day!  Don'y you remember, Mama?  We had such a good time!" 

I opened up my picture file and we looked.  We looked at trips to the park and the zoo and the beach.  We looked at fabulous shots taken with my "fancy" camera and blurry iPhone ones.  We looked at family vacations and ordinary days spent at home and everything in between.  He gasped with joy and commented on each and every one.  "Look Mama!  There we are making a craft!  Aw, I remember that time we went there, don't you, Mama?"  and so on.  And so on. 

After about an hour and without any warning at all, he sighed and stretched and turned around from his perch on my lap to give me one more kiss on the tip of my nose - an extra one on this day.  "I like looking at our memories.  Don't you, Mama?"

And I really did.  

I really, really did.