Second Summer
It is your second summer in the world and so much is happening I don’t know where to begin. You started walking on June 15th. Mom and I were there and we even caught it on film. And you haven’t stopped since. You move with assurance and surprising balance. Bold and strong. Curious about things out of your reach. You run. You fall and get up. You launch yourself down long hallways, hands stretched out, hollering happy sounds. You are in motion, making choices about direction. Free.
You are in a new house. We moved in July. You love the space, the light, the patio, the pool, the play corner. You like the vinyl record cabinet we bought, always trying to open the doors and take out records and turn up the volume on the receiver. You like the wall of bookshelves, maybe too much, always removing books from the lower shelves and strewing them around the room. It’s a bigger home and a big change but you’ve adjusted quicker than any of us. We are a block from a park, where I take you for walks in your stroller in the morning after I get back from a run or the campus gym—which is now a half mile from where we live. We have neighbors who are friendly and kind and who have children your age. This is a dream on a cul-de-sac and mom and I are grateful.
One thing you don’t like lately is your bed. You start off there, but you wake unhappy in the middle of the night. When this happens we take you to our bed and then you sleep like a log (minus kicking us and turning upside down and all around). Right now, for us, this is easier than staying up in the middle of the night trying to get you to go back down in your crib. I’ll be honest, and I speak for your mother, too—we also like having you there between us, with Apricot at the foot, fan turning overhead, quiet and dark, family in repose.
It is sometimes at night in our bed like this that I think about what lies ahead, all of the ways you will grow, all that you will encounter and love and be challenged by, and I am overwhelmed but also in awe of this life you will lead, and the work I will do as your father to hold you steady and high. It can be scary, having these thoughts. So big, so substantial, with so much unknown and unknowable. A parent’s worry about what might be—we become great storytellers in the middle of the night. But then morning comes, with light and singing birds, and you stretch and smile, and mom and I take you downstairs and have coffee on the couch with you, and we all start another day together, basking in the present.