Snips and Snails and Puppydog Tails

He is so different.

He doesn’t want to cuddle, even with his mama, unless there is a bottle involved. First thing in the morning, riding high on his daddy’s arm, he greets me with rosy cheeks and a slow, shy smile that finally bursts as bright as the sun shining in our eyes.

I hear them, before I see them. They stop at the bottom of the stairs and stand, faces pressed together, looking out the window.

What’s the weather, what’s the weather, what’s the weather like today? Is it snowy, is it sunny, what’s the weather like today?

A silly little song for a silly little boy.

Deposited in my arms like a sack full of precious stones, he sits back and opens his mouth wide, like a baby bird. He sighs and falls back against me, content to sit and drink his leisurely morning libation.

But when he is done, he is done. He twists and turns and lunges toward the floor, already surveying the area for contraband Cheerios and small, delicious bits of paper, or toys left behind by his sister.

Hooting and grunting gleefully, he stuffs a pink plastic pony in his mouth, face contorting in eternal agony as the glorious object is gently wrestled from his grasp.

He crawls, military-style, until he is underneath his high chair. Clunk! He sits upright, only to whack his head on the hard, white crossbar. His cries, so sudden and high, quiet immediately after I swoop him up in my arms.

He tilts forward, aiming for the floor again.

Nightime comes, and he splashes next to his big sister, delighting in his nudity. He grabs his little penis, grinning, yelling: heeeeeyyyyyy! heeeeeeyyyyy!

All he needs, I tell his father with an indulgent, maternal smirk, is a tiny raincoat.

He endures the supreme indignity of being dressed in white pajamas littered with blue elephants as you might expect—with little grace and much complaining.

Goddamnit! I yell, above his red-faced screams.

Mommy, calls big sister from the cooling water of the tub. What does dynamic mean and why are you saying that?

I laugh into my son’s fresh head and pick him up, cupping his diapered bum in the crook of my arm. He leans against me and I feel his new, firm flesh melting into my own weary limbs.

We sit, awkwardly, in the big brown rocker. He roots for the bottle and puts his blankie over his face, snorting and sucking and going not gently into the night.

Finally, his body stills.

At the same time every evening, he pushes the bottle away and sits up, round eyes close to my face. He claps, once. He claps, twice.

He mashes his forehead into my collarbone, hard, when I ask him: Baby, where’s mama? Where’s your mama?

He is moving still, fierce fire against the cool press of my hand on his belly.

Shhhh. Shhhh! Time for bed, my babyman. Night-night, babyman. Mama loves you.

He is so strange, so full of life. So ripe and new all at once. He is snips and snails and puppydog tails. He is my only son.

My love.