We watched Jack for the day while his parents attended a wedding and our very prego pal Kate and her son also popped over for an impromptu 8 hour play date. Boys are so awesome. I really am so happy that I have two. I like the way boys play. I like the way they work things out pretty quickly nowadays and how grudges do not exist yet. I like how they love each other so fiercely and wrestling is paramount to the day. How fast till they are men? Quickly I fear.
I read this poem the other day and shivered:
My Son the Man
Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,
the way Houdini would expand his body
while people were putting him in chains. It seems
no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper,
guide his calves into the gold interior,
zip him up and toss him up and
catch his weight. I cannot imagine him
no longer a child, and I know I must get ready,
get over my fear of men now my son
is going to be one. This was not
what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a
sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson,
snapped the padlock, unsnaked the chains,
and appeared in my arms. Now he looks at me
the way Houdini studied a box
to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled
8 comments:
Ooh, that poem gives me the shivers too. Beautiful.
Children are so entertaining! Love the photos!
Boys are so physical. My oldest son's love usually translates to vaguely violent gestures. He can't just come up and hug me - he has to slam into me. But those are the bruises I don't mind.
I grew up with three girls, and I have ALWAYS wanted a brother. You have such a beautiful family!! Boys will be boys, thank goodness, I hope I have nine of them ...(or maybe 2 - 3)... great poem.
i love how finn is always in costume...but i've told you that a thousand times before, right?
love that boy.
Boys are wonderful! I'm not sure I could survive another girl's drama-one was enough.
I wish we were neighbors so our boys could be boys together and we could watch from the fringes, drink margaritas and laugh at the testosterone.
Sharon Olds is one of my favorites. The poems have such a different resonance, though, now that I'm a mother.
Sometimes I try to visualize my 3 year old (today!) as a man. Sometimes I can almost see him there, inside the baby. What will it be like to watch him emerge?
I know everyone laughs at me when I talk about looking forward to the teen years, but I just love that phase of encountering the world, and the way they discover who they are as people. Struggles and all.
LOVE Sharon Olds. Doesn't she just resonate with everything you feel as a mother?
Also, your sweet boys are darling. That whole man thing is light-years away, surely...
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