one moment

I just want to save this image.  

     Last night I was trying to get L organized for what is going to be a long week and get him headed to bed before it got too late.  He's in the last weeks of play rehearsals, so every day of this upcoming  week is booked.
     It was one thing or another and he's not heading toward bed.  At one point he has me watch a video of a TERRIBLE singer autotuning an ode to Friday... "we so happy it's Friday"[sic.].   I tried to click the video off, but he maneuvered my hand away and we sat there staring, expression of disdain on his face and, on mine, awe at how bad a music video could get.
     I confess that I was also sabotaging my own efforts to enforce reasonable bed time by issuing contradictory commands as I needed him to look for a worksheet, organize papers, and get to bed - "Oh, and did you take out the trash?"
     The final distraction was the cutest, "Where'd you put my new soccer gloves?"
    They weren't where he had left them sitting on the desk in what used to be his bedroom (minuscule room, now used for storage - laundry to fold, teaching material, papers, etc.).
     I had put the gloves in a bag and hung them on a bulletin board.

Switch to present tense for the real moment I want to save: 
     When I go to check on him, he's sitting on the floor trying on the gloves.  It's clear that he can't wait to use them --this is about the fourth time he's tried them on-- but they're too good to use for practice.  Anyway, I find him so adorable on the floor like that and, armed with fresh patience, I remind him to "hurry up."  He sets the gloves BACK on the little desk to keep them safe, but I manage to convince him that it's not a good idea; the desk is not sacred, untouchable territory.  My bulletin board safe-storage-solution doesn't satisfy him, so I suggest an old mesh basket hanging from the ceiling.
     When L notices that it's full of his old plush dolls, um, toys  (there's a bean filled salamander we got from some amusement park and there are all of his old "ugly dolls"), he gets all sentimental, "Awww.  How soft."  When next I see him he's walking downstairs hugging old toys and cooing in a baritone baby voice.  It's this self-conscious, but not awkward, moment of letting himself regress - hamming it up a tad for the audience.  Still, it's easy to see his real attachments now; I look in his old room and instead of putting the soccer gloves in the hanging toy basket, he has hung the gloves, all by themselves, in a place of honor.  The mesh basket with the rest of his old toys is on the floor.
     I put the gloves in the basket and hang it again.

     Will I ever get this kid to bed?