“Isn’t it crazy how this baby has only been around for 18 months and here he is knowing what he wants and hanging out and being a little person?” I mused aloud as I sat on the floor sticking The Neverending Story in the DVD player for a post Memorial-Day-at-the-pool chill out movie night.
(I start to get stir crazy in the evenings when my husband is traveling.)
“I think that you don’t like me,” my son answered beside me, drawing his knees up and glaring.
I blinked at him.
“I don’t think you think I’m special, and I think you like Moose more than you like me. I don’t think you love me because I’m not special,” he said, his voice all whiny with half-drama but just enough real hurt to shatter me.
I scooped him into my lap and spoke against his spiky short hair, my expression hidden. The baby played in baby jail beside us, happily rolling cars along the carpet. Unable to comprehend my hesitant words.
“You’re my best buddy, you’re my first baby, you came out of Mama’s tummy first and you’re a big boy and you’re my best friend, and your brother is my best baby friend and a baby so he’s special too and you’re both special, both of you are special.”
“You’re not my FRIEND anymore,” he sulked, entirely dissatisfied with my reply. “I don’t like YOU anymore.”
He’s four, barely four. But I couldn’t say you’re more special than your brother, even though the baby wasn’t listening and didn’t care. He’s four but he wanted to hear that. And shit, shit shit they don’t really warn you about that when you’re busy tracking feeding schedules and worrying about the color and consistency of baby shit.
And even though all that baby stuff and toddler stuff and preschooler stuff was hard I’m starting to realize that every day hurtles us toward a far more complicated existence.
(A beautiful existence.)
But oh my heart ached tonight. We watched the movie together and I answered all his questions about the Nothing and whether it was a storm or a twister and then afterward we ran outside the driveway to take some pictures and then we put the trailer of his Lego truck together. He forgot, it seemed, about his question of favoritism.
At bedtime, he told me a long story about how a boy used wishes to fill lakes with water and turn upside down trees sideways up and the North Pole back to ice and all the forests and cities back to forests and cities. And then he fell asleep quickly, snoring and twitching.
I lingered in his bed, touching his hair and his eyebrows and his perfect nose and whispering, “you’re special, you’re special, you’re special, babydoll.”
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