I never get tired of watching the little ones play.
I have a larger one, as tall as his mother now, almost. He’s lots of fun in a different way. But it’s the little one, not yet four, and all his compadres that capture my imagination. I literally watch him do nothing. I never get bored of him, ever.
He has a routine as fixed as any salaryman. There’s a pleasant frantic rhythm to it. You can still see the unaffected gears turning in his head as he goes from one activity to the next. Nothing much is hidden behind any sort of pretense. It’s like watching the raw clay for a human pot spin on the wheel, and you put your hands on it and the shape of his personality is made, or revealed.
He will be past it all very soon. He types his name and a few words now. How much longer can we hope for, before that marvelous transparent being is rendered opaque to us?
7 Responses
Wow!! When I pulled up your site today I thought I was seeing one of my old baby pictures.
Really enjoy your posts.
jdkelly
Thanks for reading and commenting.
You are most welcome, but I did not mean the Wow! in any way but literaly. It really does look like my three year old baby picture hanging on the wall in the other room. I showed it to my wife and she agrees. Amazing.
jdkelly
jd- That’s great fun.
The picture reminded me of my next door neighbor when I was a tot. Looks just like him. So apparently you look like my childhood friend, Richie Moran.
The bitch of parenthood is that it’s your job to lead them to the point where they can be be opaque. You succeed, and you lose.
You wrote:
It’s like watching the raw clay for a human pot spin on the wheel, and you put your hands on it and the shape of his personality is made, or revealed.
My sons are 25, 23, and 21 now. I can so well remember their early play and their early sibling interactions.
I don’t think they have become opaque. They do change, but they are clay only to a degree. Much is there today that was in the beginning.
Thank God for that.
Harry’s children are translucent, not opaque. perhaps that’s better.
M Tak- That’s an excellent summation. Producing autonomous human beings is a depressing and wonderful thing.
M Takhullus is a fine writer and has a keen mind.