By the time most people read this, my son will be two.
I wrote this next part a year ago with the approach of Jakey’s 1st birthday. I never finished it. I felt like it was about time.
Rewind your mind one year. Join me… in Spring 2014.
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Birthdays.
I have never anticipated any of my own birthdays this heavily or thought of the approaching week and day so often as the big day approaches for my little guy. Not my 16th birthday, not my 21st, nor my 30th.
If you’re familiar with the Broadway musical Rent, you no doubt remember the song “Seasons of Love” with its catchy refrain about the 525,600 minutes that make up a calendar year. Tonight while we were bathing Jakey that lyric popped into my head. If you know the song, you won’t have a hard time understanding how it sticks in your head.
Recently, while sorting stacks of books and papers, I came across a handful of photos my mom printed for us last summer—likely from WalMart or a Fred Meyer photo kiosk. She is like her own photography service, trafficking in family memories, nostalgia, and keepsakes. She visits our home, marvels at Jakey, chronicles moments of our life, and sets to work churning out these fresh memories to send to grandparents, family friends, aunts and uncles.
I am nothing if not nostalgic, so I rifled through shot after shot. Each with Jakey only four months grown last July: Lying on his back looking mostly immobile; held in my arms, kinda lumpy and squishy-looking; in his mother’s arms with that spacey, confused look babies wear much of their early months.
This set me to thinking about how much changes in the first year.
He was precious and I loved him back then. Now he is precious, I love him, and he jabbers, laughs hysterically, chases the cat, and throws balls in my general direction. He’s a rock star at being a baby as he approaches his first birthday. When those photos were taken, he had hardly passed beyond the sheltered uselessness of the aptly-named “fourth trimester.”
We play together in his romper room—this used to be a dining room and now lives on as a protected habitat partitioned from living room and kitchen by sturdy child gates. It keeps the baby in, though it cannot contain the blocks, balls, colorful keyboards, and baby apparel he delights in dropping over the fence or depositing through the bars. Often, I sit on the floor with him, legs spread out straight and my back against the futon.
I become a play structure.
When he first became mobile, Jakey would drag himself up the seemingly monolithic height of my shin or thigh and rest there, panting with his chest pressed against my leg. Then he would gather his knees beneath him and launch out over my leg, completely unprepared to stop his plummet to the carpet with anything besides his face. Sometimes I would ease him into a softer landing. Other times, I let him crash and rug burn in the controlled environment of the romper room. He would thud down on his face, legs angling up into the air as he slid along the carpet.
A little groan would escape his baby mouth before he would take off squirming to more explore terrain.
Times have changed.
The romper room is more like a demolition derby course, one lean, energetic baby careening around and around. He whacks toys into submission with his xylophone mallet. He stands at his plastic piano banging out tunes before overturning the whole thing onto its keys like a tiny, drunken rock ‘n roll bad boy. He walks with his multi-colored walker as the machine belts out the now-familiar refrain, “Welcome to our learning farm, there’s so much to do!”
There really IS so much to do.
As the final days of our first year with this little guy pass by, I am struck by his development. These 525,600 minutes fly. In fact, as new parents, that’s about the same number of times people have told us that kids grow up so fast.
Their eyes unfocus when they say it, like they’re remembering their own tiny drunken rock star smashing guitars and setting hotel rooms on fire. It’s a wistful look that conveys genuine love tinged with nostalgia for young life developing in your care, before your eyes.
Now, when Jakey encounters my legs, he barrels right over. His arms support the landing. I’m a speed bump at best.
Or a ladder.
Sometimes he climbs up my chest, places a foot in my gut, and launches off me like a climbing foothold to summit the lower peak of our futon. Having gained this elevated position, he’ll survey the room before going after whatever had been placed there “out of reach.”
Cell phone. Slurpee cup on the back of the arm rest. Those kinds of things.
This birthday is merely a launching pad to another miraculous year. He was a rock star at being a baby and he’ll be a rock star at toddlerhood and being a little kid, too.
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Back to the future… Fast forward to 2015.
Tomorrow is his 2nd birthday.
As far as tricks, he is more like a 1-year old than a 1-year old is like a newborn infant, but……. The changes during year two are still dramatic.
This morning I put him into his car seat and he launched halfway over the far side to snatch his stuffed monkey from the seat.
“Monkey see!”
I said, “Monkey see?”
“See car seat, Monkey!”
As we drove, he showed Monkey various sights along our route. By partway to daycare Jakey has usually begun requesting, “See fire station. Go past fire station.”
I always try to go past the fire station—unless the traffic on Terwilliger is egregious and I can’t bear to wait several lights to get through.
Today was a winner and the fire station door was open to boot. One big, red, shiny fire truck in all its glory. I pulled to the side of the street and lowered Jakey’s window so he and Monkey had the clearest view possible.
“What do you see, buddy?”
“Truck.”
“What kind?”
“Fire truck.”
We like to go deep here. Really dig into the specifics.
I gave it thirty seconds or so and said, “You ready to go to daycare and get some breakfast?”
Over my shoulder I heard a barely audible, “Uh-uh.”
“No?”
“Uh-uh.”
This is his new way of declining. It’s like he’s a teenager already. We gave it another minute. I told him it was time to go and eased back onto the street.
I looked in my rearview and saw him—reflected in the car seat mirror—with one hand on Monkey’s arm and waving the tiny monkey paw at the fire station as we drove away.
I am one to reflect.
I think about how many wake-ups and bath times and bedtimes make up a year. How many hours I spend with that boy and how many apart.
Parenting has been both a speedy ride and a long trek. It is both a whirlwind and a slog. I spend enough time as a coach preaching about focusing on the process—not the outcome—that I feel like I should be able to revel in the day-to-day process of his life and his growth.
Mostly I do.
Every day he seems changed. His voice is different. The sweet way he says mama or daddy sounds a little different from his lips. He balances better and manipulates tools and toys with startling dexterity.
This is the same week where I wished Ron another happy, healthy year. Now I’m on the precipice of a third year beginning with this boy who owns my heart.
This morning Heather asked if he knew when his birthday was. He stared at her.
We explained it was TOMORROW!
He went into what I think of as his “long squeal” and did his happy dance—running in place, chin on chest, like playing the old Nintendo track and field video game with the controller mat where you piston your arms and legs as fast as possible.
Another year begins. I want to see his happy dance again and again. He is young and he lives as unbridled emotion every waking moment.
Heather told him, “Today’s your last day of being one.”
Life moves awfully fast. I suspect the next 525,600 minutes will pass in a blur.