z and uncle t

zeee, my man. what's happenin', buddy?

this was the refrain every time uncle tony came to visit. he was always upbeat. just like my boy. he visited us often and loved to hold my boy in his lap, which, with its pillowy belly as a backrest, was much more comfy than mine. maybe that's why he and my little bald baby became such fast friends. they shared an ornery streak too. i caught uncle tony sneaking too many peanut butter balls to my willing toddler at our christmas party last year, a sugary surreptitious act sealing their affinity.

uncle tony was actually anthony, a cousin—my dad's first, my second, and z's third—but he insisted that my boy call him "uncle." and so it was. i had an uncle tony too: anthony's father, who teased me throughout my teenage years about my imaginary towhead boyfriend. (no respectable italian girl would have a "snuffy" boy courting her, mind you.) i smile imagining how old uncle tony would've reacted to my (surprisingly) towheaded newborn two years ago.

the above photo is from the first summer of z's life. he's now about four months' worth of now i lay me down to sleep from his third, a summer which will hold an empty place at our fourth of july picnic table and my birthday dinner: uncle tony won't be with us.

my son's first experience with great loss has come at an age where he knows only the pure joy of love and none of the sorrow. surrounded by smiles and hugs from strangers, he didn't know he was at a funeral home last sunday. he sat on the floor in the back of the room and showed his new friends his favorite toy from my purse—a magnetic bracelet whose parts repelling and attracting each other never cease to thrill.

on the way out, i picked up my 30+ pound sack of potatoes and showed him the framed photo of uncle tony where he was happiest—surrounded by family and in his green apron, fresh from cooking chicken wings and pasta alfredo (made especially for me, the family's only non-carnivore) at his party last september.

i pointed and asked, "who is that?" wondering if my boy would know. as his eyes crinkled up into a smile, in that telltale way that makes his face finally resemble mine, he answered in the punctuated, inflected syllables of toddler-speak: un-cle to-ny! 

and we both left smiling, an homage to the man who always did the same.

z "yuvs" you, uncle tony. you will be missed.

inadvertent sage

wa-wa? 

it was his first time seeing valley falls. mine, too.  

wa-wa? waaa-wa.
over and over, he'd ask the question and then answer it for himself.

water is all the same to him, whether he's sucking it from a sippy cup (i want to ask why they're not more accurately called "sucky cups," but  i already know the answer) or letting it rush over his fingers from the bathtub faucet or musing as it gushes over giant, flat and jagged rocks.

i watched him that day, watching the quietly powerful water. he was, and is, unmoved by the vicissitude of all that wet stuff. whether it's droplets or tons, it's all wa-wa to him.

in my little boy's world, there is no "tiny," no "enormous," and certainly no "average": there's only new. every meeting with every thing—from a bee to a stray thread to a tractor— beckons wide eyes and a wider (and toothier-by-the-month) grin.

and no new thing becomes old, because every day is new.

a shoosh thing.

us, in matching shoosh at unoo's college graduation party. a few days prior, unoo turned 41— four years, ten months, one week, and a few hours older than me, his equally unconventional sister, who also finished college later than most. big brother and i both graduated with honors, which i think makes a fine case for our way of carrying a scythe and hacking an uncharted path through life.

i wonder if my son will carry on our nontraditional tradition. those musings are for another time and my other blog. in this particular wide open white space, the shoe is the thing.

z doesn't like his own shoes as much as he likes mine, especially any with heels, which have become mostly obsolete since my name changed to mamma. it's not that i've lost the urge to wear them; i've lost the occasion. my loss is my son's discovery. every day is reason enough to explore my closet floor, filled with wedge heels, boot heels, and stiletto heels, my neat arrangement of which he happily destroys. if i'm in my room, he's sure to be amidst a mess of shoes, sitting atop a plastic storage box of more shoes, concentrating desperately to arrange the meeting of one fat, flat foot against the sole of whichever shoe has caught the attention of his enviably thick-lashed cerulean eyes, which will look larger as he looks up at me and says, "shoosh?" "yes, baby. mamma's shoes."

it's always one shoe, and on his right foot. he typically chooses a wedge, as would any discerning walker. those spiky suckers are for looks, not for comfort. see, already a problem solver and not even two years old. i never have to question if this kid of mine is going places. for now, he goes clunk, drag, clunk, drag across the hardwood hallway and into the living room. and if i'm lucky, i'll catch him look over one shoulder and smile when he hears me laughing at him.

my pint-size platform pirate. he finds the treasure in everyday things.

tail tell.

that's a dog on his back. it's a boy dog, not because my child is also a boy but because i just know. he's made of quasi-corduroy material, in wide wale. (i worked in a clothing store at the mall when i was 19 or so, long enough to get the employee discount on my first purchase and learn that corduroy comes in wales.) corduroy dog's tail doubles as a leash—not for the dog but for the child.


i never imagined i'd be a mom who would lead her kid around by tether. generally, i never did much imagining about motherhood before i was on the brink of it. now that i have crossed the chasm and become the keeper of another human being, i imagine myself doing whatever is reasonable to maintain safety and good spirits.

he doesn't mind giving cordy the dog a piggy-back ride. the limitations of cordy's tail tend to confound him, but he bounces back (literally and figuratively) really well. this is because my son is a staunch conservator of his time: he will spend seconds—not minutes, and certainly nothing beyond—dwelling on that which he cannot have. then he's off discovering something else that makes him happy.

it's a good way to be.

what's underneath.

i took this two days ago while sitting a few feet away from z, hoping i wouldn't have grass stain on my butt when i got up. we go to the park nearly every day. z gets a free ride for three miles while i run. i hope to get a new jogging stroller soon, because the hand-me-down i have feels like pushing a wheelbarrow full of bricks. people are usually around when i'm heaving the jogger into the back of my car, and i like to pretend that they're thinking how strong i am. maybe i should let out a loud "eeeeaaaaahhhh!" like the muscle guys at the gym do when they're lifting the straight bar with 200 pounds on it. you know, just for effect.

after our run, i take z to the field next to the mini golf course that has yet to be manicured for the upcoming season. it needs a quick shave and some cologne. z is wholly uninterested in it. at his age, a chain link fence isn't worth his curiosity. so he runs and runs in the field. falls down. stares a dandelion right in the eye, says "pree?" (that means pretty), and i say "yes, baby. very pree." then he plucks its head right off its body and smashes it in his hand, half-squealing, half-grunting with joy. 

on this day, z discovered the shelter in the field. there are three of them, all with a concrete slab, brown picnic tables, and a brown roof. the one near us, near the slovenly mini golf, was the smallest of the three. z would stand on the cement, then step into the grass, back and forth, over and over. he liked how each surface felt beneath his feet. then he discovered that big, metal circle, which might be a water meter cover or a manhole, but i'm certain it's the door to the rabbit hole. he stomped around the door a bit, then stepped into the grass. back and forth. hard to soft. over and over.

i was thinking, z taught me something at the park. the rabbit-hole door and the grass, they're like life. our first year was like that door. hard as steel. harder, maybe. as year one came and went, the grass started to grow, and as my baby stepped into it, i did, too. we found our soft spot. i bet life for z and me will always be a lot like a day at the park. we'll stomp around those hard spots, and we'll relish the splendor of the grass.

hygiene horse.

booooossss. 

that's what he said when i asked if he was ready to brush his teeth this morning. we "booooossss" together every morning now. he stands patiently while i give the first few scrubs of his six teeth, and then he smiles when i tell him "you finish." it only took him three or four times before he understood what "let's go brush our teeth" meant. his powers of comprehension are pretty wicked for such a wee boy.

at first i thought his toothbrush was a little guy with a mohawk. then i uploaded the pic to this blog and realized, no, i'm wrong. it's a seahorse. unequivocally. look harder at that posture. now you see it, right? seahorses have a distinct posture. i wanted to call it astute, but then i went to merriam-webster to make sure i had it exact. i didn't. because no one would call a seahorse shrewd  or perspicacious (as listed in the definition of astute). and if they did, they'd be wrong. seahorses have an air about them. they carry themselves well.

one day i'll take zion to a seaquarium and he'll meet a seahorse. we'll name it, even though it won't be our own to take home and admire. at first he won't understand, but kids have short attention spans. we'll move on. 

everything will be okay.

anew.

today marks the beginning. a new blog. my second one. my first blog is about me, the writer, the ever-searching woman. this one is about life with my son. my sun.

the idea for it came at the suggestion of a friend. she knew i needed something else, to break apart the straight line that is life in this town where i grew up. a town that i left, certain i'd never have to live here again ... yet here i am. a town that, like me, is struggling to rediscover itself. my friend said, try to find joy again through your son's eyes. she told me to take photos  each day of the small miracles he finds in exploring his new world. at first i thought, okay, i'll share a photo on facebook every day. then i thought, no, no i won't. because that's not enough. so i closed my eyes, concentrated for a few minutes, and then i knew what to do.

so here i am. here we are. me and my son.

this is our life in north-central west virginia. baby steps, literally and figuratively. watch us grow.