Which, in the lil’ peanut’s world, equals: zoo train.
He waved enthusiastically at everyone we passed by.  At least 33% waved back. Unalloyed unselfconsciousness: the double-edged, enviable, indomitable power of the three year-old.
When the zoo train took its San Francisco Bay view loop, all us grown ups were casting our eyes out across the beautiful, wind-swept vista. Â Meanwhile our kids kept a steady bead on the bushes in their emu /wallabee lookout.
I can’t count the number of times a day I realize how excruciatingly fleeting this unselfconsciousness is, this wide-open engagement of the world. Â But it may be that these moments are more jam-packed and seamless on a zoo train ride than in any other ten- to fifteen-minute stretch I typically have with this boy. Â His hand rests on my leg, he not only tolerates but cuddles and warms to the feel of my wrist and hand tight around his torso.
A few weeks back, I overheard his older sister saying to her girl cousin, “I wish I could marry Mama.” His retort: “I want to marry Baba.” Â Oedipus? Electra? Neither? By the time the question becomes more apropos, I’ll be lucky if he answers my text messages. Â Or beams me his coordinates, or whatever we’re doing at that point.
I absolutely love this. You always have a way of capturing the perfectly innocent, seemingly mundane images that portray perfection. Thank you. My partner and I, with our 9 month old twin sons, talk often about how things might be when they’re three…let alone 15 years old, and too cool to talk to or acknowledge either of their moms. We have to soak up these early times when they love us so…