I’ve felt a smidgeon of the shock and latent terror that most Dads must feel when their 12-year-old girls dress up for a dance and, all of a sudden, they look like women. I have seen the future, and he is a little boy. When Chris and I left for Alaska under three weeks ago, I knew Sylvan would handle it just fine — and that my generous, masochistic Mom would, too. And they did; they went to the beach, dug in the sand, picked and dried fruit, read, worked in the yard, danced, and just enjoyed each other. Suddenly, though, Sylvan has passed through the portal from babydom to childhood, and, if Chris and I were to go to Alaska tomorrow, life might be a lot more challenging for those left in Eugene.
This process started when Sylvan and Gramma Mia were together. Sylvan received some “pretty great” (“How are you, Sylvan?” “I’m pretty great.”) toys when we were gone, including — Oh my platypus! — trucks, trucks, and more trucks! Sylvan has never had a problem sharing before, perhaps because he didn’t really have any toys he felt strongly about (Well, you ungrateful child. That’s the last Pringles can I’m giving you.). Now, he does have toys he really likes, and he’s finding it challenging to allow others to play with those little morsels of plastic yumminess. But I don’t think that’s the whole explanation.
He’s reached the lovey stage, that Linus’s blanket age when it’s quite comforting to have Courtney’s cow pillow stashed in your cubby at school. Yesterday, this new interest, um, obsession with objects manifested itself in some very sad ways. At a barbeque, Sylvan picked up a lovely, Delft-looking ceramic ball from an outdoor flowerpot. Its 4-inch diameter proved too large and slippery for little hands, and it slipped onto the concrete and smashed. Sylvan sobbed instantly, almost before the ball hit the ground: “Put [sob] the ball [sob] back to [sob] gether!” His big birdie-perch bottom lip is enough to make me want to cry.
After we’d gotten off the GREEN BUS (yippee!) on the way home, a college student gave Sylvan a red balloon that Sylvan had admired from afar. Chris tied the balloon to Sylvan’s wrist with a slip knot, and Sylvan proceeded to pummel it like a punching bag; but, remarkably, it stayed tied to his wrist. Then, as we walked through the university in the evening’s streetlights, the string and the balloon decided to simply part ways, and the red balloon floated up into the dark sky as Sylvan was left with a red string dangling from his wrist. Oh, no. Chris tried to explain that the balloon was now free. Real tears just streamed down Sylvan’s cheeks: “I [sob] need [sob] red [sob] boon.”
The trauma of the day’s events woke Sylvan four times between 10:45 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. Recently, when Sylvan wakes up at night, he’s just asked for Mommy or Daddy or for cow milk, no crying necessary. But, last night, he sobbed, asking for his giraffe, his yellow balloon (still in the house from the Eugene Celebration), the red barn, his soft pillow, the lion book. His bed ended up looking like Leta’s. Then, this morning, he asked Chris to take down an armload of stuff to breakfast: “All I need is this pillow. And this truck. And this lamp. That’s all I need.”
*The movie, Silly, not my son.