She was following him around, interviewing him, videotaping him with my cameraphone. He was doing all manner of things with a hula hoop (other than hula-ing it). A random, blessed afternoon in which I was well aware how very very fortunate I am.
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Son, almost four, Berkeley, CA.
One of the ways I’ve experienced photography, since the advent of children in my life, is that it freezes them (somewhere! somehow!) in a way that makes it possible to take their measure. Â Given that the way of youth is to be nearly constantly in motion, this is a special treat, inaccessible to us at all other times except during the stillness that settles over them in sleep (“Look how big s/he is! I had no idea!”, our voices joining a chorus of marveling parents the world ’round).
Sometimes, though, an image foretells as much about one of my kids’ futures as it does about their present. For a second I get an inkling that they’re growing older every minute, becoming somebody I might know, but don’t know. Yet.
PB moustache
Compare with Squash goatee, of about a year and a half ago, for a quickie blast from the past. Double his lifetime later, he’s so sophisticated now. So debonair. So — hey! Is that a stinky diaper I smell?
Gone today, here tomorrow
After dinner she tossed the teddy bear in the air over and over again, catching it maybe 50% of the time at best. Said, with a seriousness available to only a five and a half year-old, that this was her new goal: to toss the bear up as high as possible and try to catch it. Â That her dubious success rate should be anything to be aware of, much less embarassed about, is beyond her ken.
I should also note that this goal sits side-by-side with the goal of reading thirty chapter books before the end of the summer, and mastering the proper deployment of the term “infernal.” I might be exaggerating a bit about the number of chapter books she’s looking to polish off this summer.
This mind-boggling juxtaposition is surely one most precious jewels of childhood.
A morning with DadDad
Better for the moment not to intersperse these with words — which per usual I have more than enough of, though per usual often not enough time to share ‘em. The story that’s there is right fine and true. [Ed note #1: You could of course roll over the pictures for wee captions, though. You know, if you wanted. Don't have to.]
A welcome sign
This note from the girlchild greeted me on the dining table when I walked in the door last night, just after sunset. I was gone four days and three nights, far far away.
“I LOVE YOO BABA AND I OLSO WIHC YOO WR HER.” Or, to the trained eye: “I love you Baba and I also wish you were here.”
More travelogue to follow, after my kissey lips and my huggey arms have caught up with their several days’ kid deficit. I swear their vocabulary doubled and their limbs are twice as long since last I had a good bead on ‘em Thursday morning. They grow up so fast.
Voting open 'til Feb 19, 2012.
- Liza: Fairy sparkles. Dust motes are way too ordinary fo...
- jvoor: What an awesome photo! I love the lighting and the...
- Lnav21: I love this....
- Laurie: I really love this picture. I bet that was a g...
- Lesbian Dad: And now, a bit of Mr. Sendak in his own words. ...
- Lesbian Dad: Mama, you made perfect sense. My own shoulders dow...
Truer words were never splashed across a Band-Aid
Whenever he comes even close to skinning a knee — the surface of the skin isn’t even broken; maybe there’s just a wee abrasion — he calls out with a dramatic intensity on a par with graduates of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, “IS IT BLEEDING?!”
Don’t know when it will be that I stop keeping Band-Aids (the never-fail placebo) in my wallet. When that day comes, a major chapter of this parenthood will have come to a close. Of course there’ll be whole new ones to follow. Probably in which I turn around and apply the Band-Aid to myself. (“Is he even in this ZIP CODE?! This AREA CODE?! The frigging TIME ZONE!” Or, “Would it kill her to just text me back A SMILEY FACE EMOTICON SO I KNOW SHE STILL Â POSSESSES THUMBS AND EYEBALLS?!”)
That day will come. And I’ll be damn lucky to see it.
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