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Archives from 2002-2006

For the most part, Dylan can now heave his own self onto the couch, and thankfully we’ve moved on past the up/down saga.

Unfortunately, we seem to have entered a thrilling new stage, which I like to think of as Why Are Doctors So Goddamned Stingy with the Xanax, Is a Prescription With Unlimited Refills Really So Much To Ask For? It goes like this:

HELP ME PUT THIS CUP ON MY HAND. HA HA HA I AM CRAZY CUP-HAND BABY I HAVE A CUP FOR A HAND HA HA HAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAA WHEEEEEEEEEEE!

(.02 seconds later)

OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS CUP IS ON MY HAND IT’S ON MY HAND IT’S ON MY HAAAAAAND WHERE DID MY HAND GO IT’S GONE IT’S GONE OH MY GOD I WILL BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN AND SLAUGHTER YOUR CATTLE IF YOU DO NOT HELP ME IMMEDIATELY OH MY GOOOOOOOD NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

All done, he tells me. All done, all done.

Ah dunnn. Ah dunnn.

His face is a flower. His face is something plucked from a pie. His face is perfect: wide open, smooth, touchable. It is real.

Up, up! He talks to me now. I don’t understand everything he says but I understand some of it and oh, oh. Oh, what a difference.

Once I understood with my skin and cells what he needed and sometimes I was wrong and sometimes I had to guess and guess, over and over, and I wasn’t always right but it was like this: breathe, eat, sleep. Exhale. Do it again. Do it better. It wasn’t binary but it was primal. It wasn’t easy but it was real.

Now it’s like breathing underwater and it’s hard but I’m getting better and I want to say baby come here baby listen baby but he isn’t a baby now he’s a little boy and it isn’t but it is and it’s better and I am learning.

He is starting to talk now and his feet move away but then they come back and it’s getting better and better and better and I know this feeling. This is choice. This is something deliberate. This is something new. He clings to me, his arms tucked under his warm torso. He whispers against my shoulder.

Mama! His face is a flower.

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