is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
Aren't we all just holding on?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 This is a big week. It has already been a big week. A big week followed by a big weekend.
Aside from all of the BlogHer business that has already begun, there is always more work and too many emails to keep up with. Did I mention that I always need groceries? And that my laundry pile has nearly reached from floor to door handle, leaving me no way to escape without hauling the dirties to the basement?
There was also a day-long play date and summer camp and negotiations with my mother and The Ex. All of it, all of it amassed like the whites in with the brights on my hallway floor, has me exhausted before the really big stuff has even started.
But before all of this, back when we were still in the big weekend part, back on the precipice of meeting more than a thousand amazing blogging women, corporations, sponsors, colleagues, and press, there was this one moment of complete stillness.
We were at the lake house. My parents were hosting a family reunion there and Lil E and I drove three hours each way just to spend the day with cousins, many of whom we barely know. But it was fun and it was good and there was sunshine and splashing.
There was also a bunch of kids, which delights Lil E, who normally begs adults to play some kind of Star Wars-Batman hybrid role play game with him. There were kids older than he was to help him on to the rafts floating in the lake and kids close enough to his age to get as excited as he was about the pile of squirt guns and light saber water shooters.
And then there were the younger kids. The toddlers and babies that my son danced for, kissed on, and fawned over with a sweet and silly smile for every one of their gummy, drooly grins.
One of those younger kids, an almost-three-year old with red hair cropped close and a confused and slightly serious look on his face even as he waded in the water and covered his wet legs in warm sand, carefully boarded the pontoon boat with us for one of many rides that went out and around the lake that afternoon.
My own son is at home on this boat, easing on to my dad's lap for his position as pontoon co-captain. He moves around, surveying the water and pointing out what other lake house owners are doing in their yards as we pass by. He peers over the edge in a way that once made me gasp and grab for the back elastic of his swim trunks but now makes me happy to seem him so at ease on the water -- or at least on indoor-outdoor carpeting on revving 10 MPH engine on the water.
As he took his Titanic spot at the helm of the kiddie cocktail cruise, the almost-three-year old wiggled free from his grandmother's hold and stepped with the same slow, confused seriousness he wore on his face.
His grandmother called to him in the way I used to grab at Lil E's pants for security, asking him where he was going, what he was doing.
"I want to go up front with that boy," he said, pointing right at Lil E.
His grandmother nodded, he moved toward the front.
"Lil E," I called out, mostly into the wind. "You're the big boy now. Hold his hand so he can sit next to you."
I didn't think about it before I said it, but once I did, I knew Lil E would listen. As Almost-Three approached, Lil E reached his small hand up to an even smaller hand, guiding him forward, helping him scootch in close on the floor.
They sat like that for the rest of the ride. Even when Almost-Three changed positions, leaned out a little too much, then pulled himself back in more jilted by his realization of it than his grandmother, Lil E purposefully held up his hand for the younger one to take again.
I watched as my boy watched the other boy each time he shifted or turned to see something new pass by. I watched Lil E take him in, take responsibility, take on this new role as the bigger boy.
I watched their hands, firmly clasped, and it got to me. It was this one quiet moment of kindness, of connection.
And because I am his mother, it was a brief pause that filled me with great pride. That was my son, reaching out his hand to another boy.
I worry about him -- you know, as an only child among so many adults. But there he was, reaching, watching and really quite brotherly.
Now that we are immersed in all the busyness and business of the week, I keep mentally wandering back to that moment. To those little hands, holding tight while everything whirs by at a frantic 10 MPH pace.
Reader Comments (4)
And Sima, the kid is (not shockingly) turning out to have some discerning shoe opinions himself.