Thank you for a beautiful, perfect, spring break, sunny blue sky day, my dear dear rabbit child. I think the zoo has become our thing, don't you? And I think this goes down as one of our best days together, don't you? Zoo days and altogether days.
I know you sometime stumble on this blog for a little leisure reading while surfing at Barton. Mostly you forget about it and live your life so I can (occasionally) write about it; were it I had more time, you'd be reading daily. Mostly things I want to remember because, gosh, you can only hold so much sweetness and love in memory and word form. It lives in the body regardless, as you can see in the way I kvell over you and the things you say. But just so you know, I write these things so we can look back and remember. Not for anyone else (though they are welcome, since many mamas of boys must share some of what we do (just like we share much with Mama T and Rex). In any case, hello. It's mama. You might skip this one til you're a bit older since it might have some bigger words or hard to understand things or maybe just things that are boring. Why all these words? I just felt like writing to you tonight, Fee, to tell you how much I loved our day. Thank you for taking me to the zoo.
What I hope to remember from today: the lashes of that young cow with the same reddish blondish brownish hair as yours, the pink of her tongue, her little teeth, and all of this working together to form an anthropomorphic smile. Thank you for letting me return to see her again and again today. A fair trade for the visit to see the bunnies, yes? How happy you were to just get a reach in to feel their long fur. Sophie. And the other one...you liked her best, the one that looked like Elton and CC, our beloveds who live on in all creatures and in us.
"What's that thing they put in a needle and put in an animal to make it go to freedom?" you more or less asked me today because you're reading Wonder, which has a part about having to put their dog to sleep since she got sick, you explained. When you asked me I flashed back on so many things: first, the reference to freedom, remembering that day, oddly warm in February when we walked on the ice and you stood atop the lifeguard tower at Lake Calhoun and offered prayers to Numgum, your sweet cherry Beta who had died that weekend; your prayers were other worldly, nothing you learned from me or Dada. It scared me as much as it did move me; who was this bird bowing repeatedly to the frozen lake, in repetitive duty, something no doubt you saw on tv or in a movie, but also something that came from some other somewhere that is not of you and me and Dada or even this lifetime. That something spirit that is uniquely you, that runs through you and always will, following that energetic lifeline from (where?) ever it came and will go. I also thought of CC, too, of course, and so did you. I flashed on the night you and Dada went to the vet and I was miles and miles away on the shores of Lake Superior and it was raining and storming. "Well, she's gone," Dada texted. And I couldn't stop crying into that lake and that lake was my tears, my storm, my too many years unlet sorrow. But that has to do with grief, a good thing, something we can talk about much later. So you can skip this part.
And now it is late and I've gone off track. That's what happens when you write: you know that now Fee. Keep writing that amazing story with the characters with the cool names! Have fun with them as they travel and discover and love.
For that matter, Fee, you must know that whenever you say to me "hug! GIve me a hug! I want a hug!" I want you to know that I want to hug you back as long as long can be. I love our hugs and your need for sensory input and love. Even in the middle of the crowded farm babies exhibit. So even when I say, not now Jude, or don't pull it hurts my back, etc, etc, I still want to hug you because what is really more important? I am sorry that grown up things like bad backs and timelines get in the way of that because hugs are way more important.
And for that matter,
And I love when you put your little hand in mind (so small)
For all too soon I won't be able to hold it at all
And when I am much much older, I shall put my little hand in yours (so small)
...
As we walked to the car, a lone black CRV parked far in the distance. "Awww," you said, "for some reason looking at that car makes me feel sad."
You know why? I said.
Why?
Because you have empathy. You can imagine feeling what the car is feeling. You feel for it. That's great.
Actually I can imagine feeling what the driver's feeling.
Ya, right, honey, I aquiesce, relinquishing my hope that you too feel for inanimate objects. But you do a little, don't you JJ?
Also, please stop growing now. Just stop.
Thanks for waiting so long to get your haircut and not once complaining even when I did. Sorry. You are teaching me more than I you on some days.
Thanks for putting the groceries on the belt thing while I ran for jelly and then bagging them up. You did it perfect.
Nice Frech lesson while out to dinner at Mexican place. I think it impresses you just a tad how much Spanish I spoke to the waiter. Well.. you just wanted to know what we were saying.
By the way, thanks for not reading that awful US magazine when I told you not to. Total trash honey, trust me.
OH, and... I really have no idea to respond when you hold up a bottle of hair spray that says Totally Wild Sexy Hair with that funny grin on your face, trying to get me to react. What can I say, honey?
There is more, so much more honey. But now I must go night night. Love you so much, mama
