Ishu really likes to buckle all the things. 

We got him this buckle pillow. But he is also obsessed with buckling his backpack, his swimming vest, and the buckles on his busy board.

Ankur’s backpack also has a buckle that connects both straps to one another.

So, every time Ankur gets home and puts his backpack down on the ground, Ishu rushes over to close the buckle.

And then, every morning – without fail – Ankur will pick his backpack up by one strap and realize they’re buckled together and have to unbuckle it before throwing it on his back.

It’s a little bit they go through.

“Oh great, my straps are buckled again,” Ankur says as he sarcastically grumbles about it.”Who closed the buckle???” Ankur asks dramatically.

“BU-CKO,” Ishu squeals in delight.

We spent the past two weeks away from Ankur. We ended up staying in California for a little longer and he had to come back to Chicago for work.

Every night when he’d get home from the hospital, he’d text me saying he missed us. That the apartment was really quiet.

Suffice to say, he’s pretty thrilled that there are sounds of screaming and stomping and giggling again when he gets home each evening.

But the kicker?

The morning after we got back to Chicago, he had to leave for work. Both Ishu and I were still asleep. He told me later that evening that he picked up his backpack and found that the straps were buckled and it made him smile so hard.

Knowing that things felt normal and happy again.

The buckling was back.