The kid I used to call Boobee now goes by the name of Dani. Same kid, different name. Well, a much different kid now. A little while ago, I was taken by the manner in which carrying him around in my arms was a balm for my own soul. I remember that on more than one occasion I would almost ache from the fact that he wasn't pressed against my side anymore.
A few years down the road at 5 he is almost too big to carry. Comfortably, singing him a lullaby, watching him work through knowing and not knowing, wet and dry, hunger and satiation. Those days have been replaced. The tooth fairy came last week to replace a missing tooth with a coin.
Not knowing has been replaced by knowing almost too much. Wet and dry are largely conscious acts, much as we are still sometimes surprised by wet.
I spoke to him yesterday on a phone call to Chicago, where he's spending ten days visiting his mother Pamela's family. He told me that he had got a new pet monkey, and I played along with it, asking him how he intended to take care of this monkey, given that he had abandoned his pet rabbits to head to Chicago. He gave me his by now standard self-assured answer...he would be fine. And then he asked me whether I wanted to speak to the monkey. Of course, I said 'yes'. And for the next minute of our conversation, I got treated to a great George of the Jungle act.
So here we are, fatherhood and sonhood. All very nice.
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