Boobee and His Growth

The amazed first-time dad always finds marvels to proclaim to the world. Boobee laughing as our dog Sonny takes a pratfall while racing furiously down stairs ahead of us. Aaahhh, so he has a sense of humor, and why wouldn't he? He cries, doesn't he? Although crying is probably viewed as part of the survival kit for babies. Humor must come later, a sign of a growing intelligence. Of course, he's shown himself a master - for his age - of comprehension, the ability to pick out the moon in the sky, the sound a motorbike makes, and so on.

And the reverse of humor, if that's what his crying is about, has also deepened. After a week away in Kumasi, where he had, by all accounts, a fabulous time with all the kids and grown-ups in my aunt's beautiful house, he came back to Accra, and stopped in to see me on Thursday, on his way to his playroom. It turned out the cabdriver had his wife in the car, and that they were on their way to the hospital to check in on their premature baby, so I returned Boobee to his car seat quicker than he liked, to enable Ben and his wife to be on their way.

It was distressing to see his chin quiver, to struggle manfully (is that the right word for a seventeen month-old?) to hold back the tears, to see his face settle into an unquestioning, stoic, disappointed sadness, as though to say, "you're doing something to me I don't like, but I have no power to stop you, I leave it to your own sense of rightness!"

I don't know, I'm not strong enough to handle this...

But when he laughs, when he's clever, then it's alright, although at bottom I wonder whether he really is, that his physical well-being, his intelligence will continue, and not falter. I do hope so. I'll never stop loving him, I don't think. I think it's possible to, a man in the Ann Beattie story I just read did stop loving his wife and daughter, but I'll always love Boobee.