Oh. My Heart

He's so busy, this boy, and he wiggled like an eel when he saw me this morning. Every time he comes into the house now, he looks and looks and looks, as if taking in new layers of what he sees. He wants down, he goes right for the boxes of tea and the spices and I have to collect them all and put them on the counter and I give him the old copper urn of wooden spoons and that's okay for a moment or two.
But then he's up on all fours, crawling and he goes to the cabinet and he pulls up but he's always reaching as high as he can reach- what is higher? can I reach it? This?


Then out to the porch where he pulls up on a chair and he can stand there all casual and cool, holding on with only one hand.

He reached for the top of the table again but this time he was struggling, pulling, on his tiptoes, trying to heft himself up there.

Really Owen? You think you can pull yourself up on the table?
Yes, Grandmother. And soon, I will. You just wait and see.

He took a nap with me and he held my face in his hands and he slept like that, sort of scrunching my face up. I slept too, and I could feel his soft breath on my chin.

He crawled to the stairs today and while I sat with him, he pulled himself up one stair, then another. I think he would have crawled to the top if I'd let him. Time for the baby gate. There is no holding this boy back.

I wanted to give him a bath before I took him to his mama and so I did. I put some water in the tub and he pulled up on it to see what was going on in there.

Jessie got him a disco duck in St. Augustine and it floated and lit up and he liked it.
I undressed him and he pulled up on the tub again. Oh. My naked boy.

He sat and played for awhile in the water with the ducks but what he really wanted to do was to pull up on the controls of the water. Hot and cold and the spigot. "No," I kept telling him. "Hot." But of course he has no idea yet what hot is. And there will be tears when he finds out and that's fine but no burns, please. Oh dear Lord, no burns. And don't let it happen at my house! Don't let him tumble down the stairs, don't let him get burned or cut or swallow anything disgusting or sharp or poisonous or chokey. Don't let a dog bite him or a chicken peck him in the face. Don't let him stab himself with the wooden spoon handle.

How do we keep any of them alive is what I want to know? They grow so quickly, they can move so fast, they can reach and grab and they can do anything any time and you never know. And the more dangerous something is, the more determined to do it they are.

Well. I want that boy's giggles and I want his eel-wiggles and I want to keep him safe.

Forever and ever. Amen.