life and write

After getting him calm in his crib, patting his back, lifting my hand gently, gently…he’s almost sleep, rolling side to side, but with eyes slightly open to see if I’m still standing there. I don’t look at him, that’s a ploy some babies use to get sympathy so they can stay up longer. You are going to bed. I’m tired.

But the bigger mission is in the escape, maintaining the still of the room requires a waltz on tiptoes dodging every creaky wood slab on a path out the room. If only it wasn’t so complicated, so technical, trying to step just light enough not to incite suspicion but quick enough to get out while I still have a chance.

I whisper a rendition of the “ABC” song (one of his favorites), “next-time-won’t-you-sing-with-me…” I pause…step…step…pause again. I step a little lighter; a little quicker…Ok, whew, I’m out (and exhausted).  

When our 20 month old woke up this morning I thought surely it must be close to 5am (which is when I get up). It wasn’t.

I also thought surely we could get him back to sleep with a diaper change and some TLC. We couldn’t.

And by the time I laid my head down and settled back into a good sleep my alarm started ringing. (How did that hour go by so fast?)

So what was he doing up at 3:51am? Nothing.

And what is he doing now that it’s 5:30am? Sleeping…  *sigh*

“Cold”, he said, with his chunky fingers and tiny nose pressed against the pane. He stares out the window leaving his little lip print and hot baby breath smeared on the glass.

Rafael just slipped and fell on one of his magnetic letters, and as the cry was winding up, I handed him the letter and said, “P”. He repeated, “P”. And we moved on with no tears. It works every time.

There is a weepy screech singing from the raspy throat of my 19 month old these days. He is just short of talking, stuck in the middle of gibberish and coherent language, caught between saying something and nothing at all.

I think I understand that stuck place. I want to say something profound in my master’s thesis. I want to begin one sentence in the countless books I’ve written in my mind. But when I sit down at the computer sometimes I can’t say anything at all. My fingers slide across the letters on the keyboard, the soft scrape against the keys reminds of Rafael’s weepy screech—his tongue, my fingers, both trying to find the right words to say.