Dailies

For anyone having problems identifying these behaviors in the wild: a short primer.

This is what a napping child looks like:

This is what a “napping” child looks like:

This is just to say

I have licked
the clementines
that were in
your fingers

and which
you were probably
thinking
you were going to eat

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so not breast milk

Piper and Addie laughing

Above, Addie and Piper sharing some chuckles at dinner last night.

It begins with my toes. It’s November 24th, 2008. Monday morning, 5:15 a.m., and my toes are beyond my reach. I stretch every day before biking down the western edge of Manhattan to my job at New York Public Radio, WNYC, but this Monday I’m awake in the ink-stained dawn, sitting on the living room floor, and I can’t reach my toes. The backs of my legs are tight, like lines holding sails in a stiff breeze. Taut, even when I lean against them. There’s no way I’m getting there.

Puzzled, I push a little and then sit back. There’s a faint electric tingle in my toes, but other than that, the only unusual thing is this sudden lack of flexibility. I shuck off my biking clothes, change into jeans, and take the train south, down the island.
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I am not sure if I will be able to adequately explain this for non-parents, but bear with me.

You are standing and watching your child sleep – their miniature motions and rustlings – and realizing that one year ago today, the human being in front of you was in all likelihood still an even power-of-two number of cells. Just beginning. A very slow, very small Big Bang, still expanding in front of your eyes and creating an entire universe of new rules and physical constants.

And then, just as this metaphor occurs to you, the child lets out a resounding fart that makes the cat turn his head. It sounds uncannily like a truck hitting the air brakes in your kid’s diaper.

That’s parenthood for you, alright.