That Other One
He is up to my knee already. I used to lay him across my forearm – bum in palm, head in the crook of my elbow, nuzzled in close and sleeping. That seems like yesterday, but it wasn’t. In point of fact, yesterday he picked up Jack’s pirate hat, whacked it on his head, and said “Argh!” Then he marched, arms swinging, all portly and self important, Arrghing around the room. When he walks he leads with his belly button, like an ape, a tiny little ape, long arms flailing that slight bit behind his shoulders, a wide and frog-like stride, knees punching way out to either side of him. When he gambols (I say gambol because he can’t *quite* manage running yet), the ape resemblance is even more pronounced. It makes me chuckle.
He can crawl up onto the couch now. I rue the day he first did so, stubbornly trying and trying to climb up, whining and crying and furious the whole time, but refusing to give up and go do something else. He finally managed to hook a chubby knee up on one of the faded cushions, and then he was up there and giggling madly, and now he won’t do anything else except climb up there and then stand and try to launch himself headlong over the back of it. As long as he is awake, there is absolutely no relaxing in this house at all.
He flops all over the pets, who are not fans. He loves to rub his face on their silky sides, to lay there sucking his thumb and stroking his fingers over their soft hair. Virgil growls low when he does this, and Bella just shrinks up into her shoulders and looks at me like “get it off, please.” Liam ignores these signs, delighting in the animals, and I monitor for danger, teaching him to be gentle, gentle, teaching them to be patient.
He loves to read books. He will bring any adult a book and say “Boo-k. Boo-k.” Last night I swear he said “Read a book?” The only time he ever sits still is if we read him a book. The other day, he got a paper cut on his gum from trying to eat a book. He looked up and smiled at me, the most ghoulish smile, blood squirting between his teeth and rolling down his chin. It clearly didn’t hurt much, but it sure made my heart leap to see my baby with a mouthful of blood.
He talks more and more – lots of words, I couldn’t even count how many, and lots of babbling noises, too. He’s pretty independent, but swings by to check in with me every few minutes of playtime, burying his face in my knees and hugging them tight before gamboling off to his “too toos” or “cawks” (choos choos and cars). I am an affectionate person, and I’m very glad that even in his independence, he is, too.
He used to be the length of my forearm. Now he stands up to my knee. One day he’ll be taller than me, and I’ll remember this time when I was so weary, when his and his brother’s needs kept me sour and tired and yelling too often and worn right down to a nub, exhausted and grumpy at the end of every day. I hope that instead of remembering how ungratefully I get up to remove him from the couch FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME I SAID GET DOWN LIAM, GET DOWN RIGHT NOW – that I remember him giggling at his big brother through the bars of his crib. That I remember him toddling up to hug me at the knees, taking a timeout from play to make sure I’m still there and he is secure. That I remember reading him books about the Five Little Pumpkins, sitting on a gate. That I remember him crawling determinedly up onto the couch and into my lap, where he lays his cheek against my skin and lovingly fingers the tags on his puppy, sucking his thumb, content to be safe in my arms.
I hope that’s what he remembers, too.