Tucking Charter in at night is a different type of affair. You have to watch out for flailing arms and legs as he flips & flops around his bed talking about everything that seems to be flailing around in his little mind... God, his special toys, food, games, sisters, pretend wars, his fear of having another night terror...
One night i came in & flopped down beside him.
"Charter, this part of my leg is tight, how do you think i could stretch it out?"
This is a question he obviously likes... He flips over to his back flinging his bare white legs over his head & inadvertently showing me his spiderman undies.
"Like this?" he questions.
i smile.
"That'll work."
i try his special move & he giggles - his huge grown up teeth still framed by spaces waiting to be filled with more teeth.
i want to remember this boy forever. With just a sprinkling of freckles covering his perfect nose, and his white blond surfer hair hanging down into his blue eyes. i want to carve this happy child into my brain & pull the memory out again when he is a big man with a receding hairline & a booming voice with children & grandchildren of his own. i want to etch out this imprint of my boy, my son - while he's still mine & i haven't yet given him to his blushing bride.
He has a perfect miniature six-pack & big broad man shoulders... His toenails are dirty & i should really tell him to go brush his teeth. He has a tan on his chest, but the tops of his little legs are as white as a fish's belly. He has his daddy's hands. When he was born, the nurses told me they looked like baseball mitts. He has a thin white scar running up his pinky finger where a bowling ball smashed it on Cai's 7th birthday. He has knobby skinny knees and muscly legs...
Together we quote Psalm 91. He has my tendency for volume...
Drink, pee, brush teeth... The drill...
Finally down to the business of blankets, dimmed lights & lowered voices...
Suddenly, he flings his skinny arms around my neck & it's like a chemical reaction & the memory is set in stone. His little boy smell, the feel of his warm & slightly sticky self pressed against me, his blond hair flying into my eyes, my nose, covering my lips.
The moment is mine forever - another tiny gem to add to my treasure trove of motherhood.
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5 comments:
*whimper...tears* -j
They grow up too fast, don't they... it made my heart leap last night when I went down to the Bible Camp (6 miles away) for night Chapel... when Alisdair saw me a broad grin burst across his face and he came running -- dirty t-shirt and shorts and mud running down his leg! I'd brought some clean clothes and he was happy to put them on and sit with Isobel and I during the service. Kids were literally jumping in the rows and some on the benches and he whispered to me "I don't think the pews are going to make it, Mum!" Sort of our little secret. He's home on Saturday and then is around for about ten days before flying off on his next adventure. I'll miss them when they're gone... three weeks is a long time for a Mum!
Maybe you should get yourself some Spiderman underwear and that would cure your stiff leg... ha ha! (We have SpongeBob undies around here -- and Dora the Explorer ones -- which I am rejoicing because they've been DRY DRY DRY for the past three days. Maybe we're winning the potty training battle -- at last!!
Saskatchewan Cousin
OK, Paige, this is like a prose poem. I really love the way you capture little moments! Thanks.
You're making me cry here! I don't wanna think of my boys' voices ever changing...let alone receding hairlines! ;)
Charter's hairline will never recede...(this is prophetic...haha)
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