Just like me.
My child is just like me.
Sunday, a friend asked me, "Does even one day go by when no one says 'Wow! He looks EXACTLY like you!'"
well, no, not even one, as a matter of fact. Not since the day he was born.
Actually, he looks a lot like his Daddy, from the bridge is the nose up; his beautiful brown eyes certainly don't come from my side of the family. But nose, mouth, chin, pink chipmunk cheeks and blocky build - thats all me.
As is his taste in food, his jumpy energy...and his attitude about sleep.
Which is to say, like me, he loves sleep - once he gets there. But getting to sleep is a daily problem. Because he knows - KNOWS, for an actual FACT - that there is something interesting going on somewhere. And if he goes to sleep, he'll miss it. He knows for sure, just like I remember knowing at 2 or 3, that everything really good happens at night. I used to lie in my bed, door cracked a fraction of an inch, straining desperately to listen: to the sound of the TV (Glen Campbell, the Burns and Allen TV show, Johnny Carson), quiet conversation, turning pages. I didn't think my parents were having martinis or glamorous parties out there, a room away...but I knew they were up, and I knew it was good time, special time, grown-up time, and I was missing it, and it filled me with longing.
This is a weird admission: my biggest fear, as a child and even a teenager, is that I would die before I was grown up and would never get a chance to DO ANYTHING.
It will be years before my kid has the words to talk about this - and maybe I'm totally projecting - but I swear I see this in him, this longing, at 15 months.
1 comment:
Great post, Bets: I can definitely relate. One of my earliest childhood memories is that of sneaking out of my bedroom "late" one night, to commando-crawl along the moulding of the long hallway that led into our living room, to lurk just behind the back leg of my dad's favorite armchair, so I could watch one of the Apollo moon landings on our black-and-white TV. It was so thrilling and so dangerous: my dad would surely destroy us (my younger brother would usually be by my side) if he ever caught us. I remember belly-sliding backwards whenever my dad shifted in that chair. But I don't remember ever being caught. Or at least, if we did get caught, I don't remember it -- perhaps that came from the head trauma... (kidding!)
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