Scene: the rocking chair in the kids’ room. I’ve got my not quite two-and-a-half year-old son cuddled up on my lap, and he’s sucking my pinkie as I sing lullabies to him.  It’s a nightly ritual I predict I will be loathe to give up, and I try not to think of that time.  With any luck it’ll be at least five years or so.  Ahem. Â
Lil’ peanut (quietly, from behind my pinkie): You’re a great singer.
[Here’s where I note that his mum is an opera singer. Â Her nighttime routine typically features highlights from the Joni Mitchell songbook, poured like honey into his ear.]
Baba (after recovering from being dumbstruck): You’re a great son.
Peanut (again from behind the pinkie, and only after the merest of pauses): You’re a great parent.
Baba (struck even dumber): You were sent here from heaven, sweetie.
Peanut (smiling): I’m not in heaven.
Baba: No, you’re not. You’re right here with me. And you came here from–
Peanut: Mama’s belly.
Baba: Most recently, yes.
Peanut (after a brief contemplative pause): You’re a great pinkie.
OMG, as the kids say today. That is amazing.
Okay, you did it. Made me cry in front of the computer. Which is not easy. Movies, yes, I bawl away easily at the movies. But it’s dark there. Not here – I’m in my brightly-lit workspace at the other end of the world crying – about your son, about my daughter, about all children and their wisdom and trust.
Yay, human beings! Yay, the amazing sources of love that we never knew existed! Yay, the capacity of people we think we know to utterly surprise and undo us. Yay, for the net of love you and your daughter weave around you.
wow…what a little angel (and smarty). No wonder he has you wrapped around his little pinky!
So sweet! So can I start calling you Pinkie? 😉
You most certainly may, sister Vikki! I know he will. I will answer to practically anything, except “Poopyhead,” which, alas, he learned from his older sister (tell me Zeca has a similar potty mouth, thanks to Miguel). And angelina… I swear everything was verbatim. Also, more adorable stuff that I just couldn’t include because it would have been utterly implausible. All of which is a good thing, because not three hours before, he was steadfastly refusing to clean up his toys before dinner, and after the last nerve got sat down on (with arms crossed), I got all menopausal on him. Both of us quite unhappy campers. Evidently dinner and bathtime heal all wounds.
Ah, for the beauty of little’uns still chanelling the other side. May this story sustain you when the Li’l Peanut is seventeen… and until he has li’l monkeys and peanuts of his own.
Aww. Just aww.
wow. I’ve been mostly lurking lately cuz I’ve been reading your blog at work (!) but I want to respond to this post. These moments are so fantastic! They whisk you right out of going menopausal and plop you down into going ethereal. So far when they’ve happened for me with my nearly 2 1/2-year-old girl child I blink real hard and think, “I’ll remember this one!” I feel inspired to write them down now…. I do feel envious of his comment, “You’re a great singer.” I’m most definitely not a trained opera singer, and I guess I have a limited repertoire. Sometimes ma petite critic says, “not that song,” and I can see her eyes rolling, adolescent-style. I pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again – with a new one!
Thank god for blogs to write this all down.
youre a great parent :´) and a great pinkie… I know what you love, love, love the boy child n_n