Eugenious

Dear Sylvan:

To celebrate your 25-month birthday, all-around inspiring figure (sailor, gardener, pilot, motorcyclist, educator, comedian, sweetheart) Tom Bettman invited us to go canoeing this morning. It was your first canoe trip, and Daddy prepared you by showing you the canoe pages in Jamberry. We met Tom near Autzen Stadium, and we canoed on the aptly named Canoe Canal in Alton Baker Park. You were suitably impressed by the black dog splashing into the water after the tennis ball, as well as by the mallards, geese, wood ducks, and wigeons with their shorebird-like calls. After we heard a red-winged blackbird and you heard Tom and me discussing it, you repeatedly asked where it was. Hiding in the cattails, far away from toddler, was the answer. You fed the well-trained ducks some stale bread, and they complained about its location on par with gypsum on the Mohs scale. But it softened up with a good soaking.

You sat on your cushion in the bow the whole time, facing me for most of it. Then you figured out you could turn around, so you sort of lay down and leaned on the bow, a lovely little runny-nosed, tousle-haired bowsprit, projecting only your head over the water. You even put your hands in a waterfall spilling over a two-foot high dam. It was an exciting morning. I have to admit that I was concerned that I’d have a handful of wiggly, wet Sylvan screaminess on my hands, and I came prepared with Sylvan-approved snacks and a change of clothes; but we were out on the water for at least an hour, and you were fascinated and well-behaved the entire time. You enjoyed it so much that your good mood lasted. Afterward we sat and ate thawed blueberries, cheddar cheese, and pretzels near the canal, and you talked to me and snuggled in when I offered to warm you up. Then you chased me back to the bike trailer, thwacking your hands against the chest of your PFD the whole way, and we had a very civilized diaper change, an unlikely event these days. You asked me to pull down the sunshade on your trailer despite the clouds, and you were asleep before we rode over the Willamette four minutes later.

I missed your 2-year-old letter last month because I left for 12 days for a NOLS course, and then, a week and a half later, for 10 days of Alaskan respite with your Dad (You’ve started to call us “Dad” and “Mom,” dropping the second syllable, when you’re talking about us in the third person: “I need to go to the store with my Dad.” Are you eleven?). I do apologize for missing that letter; you’ve changed tremendously from two months ago.

The NOLS course was wonderful for me, by the way; although it took a few days to get back into the swing of things, I was busy and challenged and heartened to be in a beautiful place (the Pasayten Wilderness east of the North Cascades) using my relatively underutilized brain. As for our Alaska trip, I think your Dad and I realized that a seven-day vacation without you would have been preferable to a 10-day one. We missed you, but you had a stellar time with Gramma Mia.

You did have some difficulties right before we left and then when we were away, and whether they arose from the difficulties of transitioning into a different classroom at your school, our absence, or your reaching a new developmental stage, I don’t know. You had difficulty when Gramma left you at school on the three mornings you went while we were gone. You sobbed and said you needed to go home with her. She knew she had to leave you, even though it broke her heart, and you were fine once she left. But you know that people go away now, and you’re sad to see them go.

On a related note, you “yub,” or “love,” everything these days. I opened Connor’s birthday invitation, and you said, “I yub Connor.” And you yub smoothies, your Spiderman shoes, Tephra, your new alphabet puzzle from Gramma, wind, sand, and stars.

I’ve instituted a new policy: when I become exasperated with you, I hug you and tell you I love you, even if I don’t mean “I love you” in the moment. I meant “I love you” yesterday when you laughed at the mallard butts flashing you as the ducks gleaned larvae from the bottom of the Millrace. “What are they doing?” you asked. That question means “Even though I know what they’re doing, probably because you told me in the last two minutes, tell me again because it’ll make me laugh.” I’ll mean “I love you” the next time you call Snoopy “Noofy.” So, while I don’t mean “I love you” when I’m struggling to dress you and you’re pulling off a fantabulous greased pig imitation, I will mean it again, and I’m saying it as a calming device in the meantime. And it’s undoubtedly useful to get ahead on I love yous; even the best-loved among us may not hear “I love you” often enough.

Today, in a moment of frustration involving you needing to put on your diaper yourself and the snap ending up near your ear, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. You maneuvered into my personal space, looked into my face, and said, “Why are you sad, Mom?” What could I do but smile?

I have lots more to say, so I’ll write a little follow-up next week.

Love,
Mom

Sylvan in the shower: “I have a ladybug in my hair.”

Mom: “What’s it doing?”

Sylvan: “Eating my stuff.”

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.