My Bird On a Wire

The day wasn’t going as planned. We had meant to go bowling. But after arriving to a local alley filled to capacity with senior citizens in the middle of a tournament, our plans changed. So after a couple vanilla milkshakes bought to stopper disappointed little boy tears, we found ourselves at the library. My youngest wandered over to the toys in the corner and my seven year old found himself next to me at a table with a stack of baseball reference books.

So we sat there awhile. Enjoying the cool and the calm inside the library.

And that’s when I looked over and stared at my son.

Bent over his books, he was lost in their words. His face still, thinking. His eyes beautiful and brown, liquid and lashed. A button nose; smooth, sweet skin. New over-sized teeth this way and that; cherry lifesaver lips biting, moving, grinning. Newly cut hair, light brown and so much like his father’s. And an enormous smile under crinkled eyes revealing his old soul, as if he’d been smiling for centuries and had perfected its art.

And staring as I was, I held my breath and willed myself not to fold him into my lap. A friend once described my son as being a little bit like a bird on a wire. When he settles next to you, you dare not disturb him in case he flies away. And while I didn’t fear that he would flee, I couldn’t startle this moment of still beauty.

My boy is amazing.

I am sure every parent stares at their child this way and comes to the very same conclusion. Of course they do. They have unearthed their own wonder of the world and are quite certain that there could be nothing more amazing. Ever. In the history of the universe. The end.

I also know that losing yourself in your child’s perfection is, at its core, a reflection of a parent’s own vanity too. But I couldn’t help it.

It blows my mind that I could have anything to do with something so fantastic. Really. Again considering myself in my child reveals even further vanity but forgive that and just humor me.

This boy came out of me. Me. Me?

He’s too perfect. Too exact and just so.Too much more than anything else.

I could hardly swing a B in math. I can’t see past my nose without my contacts. I slouch, I talk over people, I have a very bad habit of feeling sorry for myself. I never “applied myself enough” at school. And I believed the word “gullible” had been taken out of the of the dictionary for a very long time.

But I am still half responsible for THIS?

Impossible.

So I stared. I don’t think he noticed. He stayed put. Reading. Sharing a quick fact now and again.

And I waited. And watched.

Until his wonderful, bubbling bull in a china shop brother finally leaped up into my lap. He patted my cheeks and wound an arm around my neck and stage whispered about some Elmo toy over there in the corner. My youngest boy is a wonder in his own right. Pink cheeked, effused with glee, blue eyes alight, his body humming with motion. He shines joy and wonder and drama into every crack and crevice of any room. I find myself needing to step a few paces back at times – he is bright, beaming and often very overwhelming. He weighs down the wire and shamelessly radiates glory all around.

But when I looked back to my eldest, he had flown off into the stacks. His chair empty, the books gone. Eventually he peeked out and laughed at his brother. And then re-emerged, asking if we could go to the playground.

Our moment was over.

But my soul took flight and my heart soared. These moments remind me what I’m actually doing everyday. While I spend lots of time feeling sorry for myself (see above) about Groundhog Day and the challenges of entertaining little boys during the summer (uh muh guh, I need a vaca…), its moments like these that slap some sense into me. Maybe getting me to apply myself as a parent just a little bit more. Because low and behold, I am kind of responsible for guiding along the two most amazing things I will ever have any part in creating. And that’s kind of a big deal. So at attention. Long summer days or not, I’ve got some parenting to do.