Friday, September 18, 2009

our second child:: you know, the blonde one


matthew was looking at a picture from last september when he summoned me to the computer screen. "who is this?" he asked me. i looked at him, waiting for him to smirk and tell me he was kidding. nope he really didn't know.

"that's your son."

"which one?" he responded incredulously.

"garrett."

"really? he looks so different."

i looked closely at the photo and then chuckled. yes that was garrett and truly he looks like the memory of a child i once knew. two months old, reddish-blonde hair, three or four gooey chins and smokey blue eyes. that was a year ago. he was the squeeziest little man. he loved to eat, sleep and cuddle. somehow between then and now he has become a little boy. a little boy with blonde hair and hazel eyes who shakes his bossy little finger at me when i tell him "no" and grins the cheesiest of grins anytime i look at him.

where has the time gone? when did i permit time to stretch my baby out into a rowdy, scraped and bruised pre-toddler? i really don't think that i ever did. i think time did that all of it's own accord. surely i would not have allowed it.

the boy who is my babiest of babies has run right past the one year mark. and run he did. run is all he does. he does not walk, he does not saunter or mozy along. he shuffles those little feet so quickly that one might suspect he is engaged in a lifelong race. and perhaps he is. i dare say that keeping up with his big brother is quite the task.

i think it takes a certain disposition to be the second child. it is not a place for the faint hearted. i should know, i am a second child. some of my most vivid memories from my childhood involve me trying to keep up with or be better than my brother. i recall one afternoon in our home on guthry when i made the realization that try as i might i would never be older than justin. he would forever be sixteen months older than me, to the day. it hardly seemed fair at all. i soothed myself by maintaining that i could still seem older. years later when i learned about maturity, i cheered myself on. i was mature. too mature perhaps.

i don't want my blondie boy to rush to maturity. i don't want garrett to think he has to be gage. i want him to be garrett. i want him to be happy with who he is and content with his place in life. i want him to love his brother and think that he is wonderful and then decide that he wants to be his very own kind of wonderful.

i would really love that.

2 comments:

t does wool said...

lovely post...I've missed much here over the summer...I was a slacker...sorry...
your words are so true.

{nicole coombs} said...

Man he is a cute kiddo!!! he did grow to quickly. I'm feeling this way about Kellin!!