Eighteen Months (December 2012)

On Thursday, he turned eighteen months old. That morning, I gathered him in my arms and he gathered me in his, and to mark the occasion, we blew bubbles in his bedroom. He sat Buddha-style in my lap: "Bubble? Bubble? Bubble!" he exclaimed, and he smiled, all magic, all-knowing, all little boy. All of a sudden.

I brought him into the bathroom with me while I showered so that the hot steam could loosen his winter's cough. He lined up the bottles of lotion and bubble bath, counting them " Three, three, THREE!", moving them from one area of the gray tiled floor to another. "Three!" He pokes his head around the corner of the shower curtain. "Hiiiiiiiiii," his sing-song voice cutting through the steam as a beam of light.

In the evening, after work and play, and a greeting from the neighborhood kitten, I put him in his "grandpa" flannel pajamas, buried my face in his neck, and said goodnight before leaving to meet a friend. He cries when I leave sometimes - real tears, the kind that taste like innocence, loss and love all at once. But in the moment of my leaving, he was busy at play with his daddy, bouncing yo-yo fashion on the couch, his flyaway hair full of static and boyish rebellion.

On Friday, before he awoke, I read three Emily Rapp pieces, and wept bitterly that her son has to die so soon. I drank my coffee by the Christmas tree, and watched him sleep on the monitor, his little bottom in the air.

Eighteen months can be measured and not. Before we know it, he will be "Three, three, THREE!" and our hearts will expand in tandem. May he count his days of innocence, and may we treasure them too.