It's been a year plus since I've posted to this blog. Noah is 4 years old now. In the past four weeks he has attended two weeks of summer camp, he began reading - "Mad" was his first spontaneous word, from an ad for the television show "Mad Men" on the back of a magazine. He also has asked multiple times about sex and death, and is drawn to other children like the proverbial moth. After his first week of Scamper Camp at the Y, that Friday night we were hanging out on my bed talking, and after a conversation involving lots of questions from him about how Matthew and I made him, he said, "Did you and Daddy want to make a smart baby?" My favorite moment was when Matthew went into another room and Noah quietly whispered to me, "Mama, when you're done with Daddy can I marry you next?"
He wakes every day happy and excited to talk about the day. His energy is nonstop, until it's gone, at which time he crashes like a comet in flames. At 6:00 last night I was in the living room talking on the telephone and he crawled up on me and said quietly, "How many minutes will you be on the telephone, Mama?" I was finishing up and said "Two minutes, Honey." (This was one our civilized exchanges around interrupting people while they are on the phone.) 30 seconds later he had fallen asleep in my arms, I hung up the phone and carried him up to bed, where he stayed for the remainder of the night. These moments of profound appreciation for his life and energy happen every day now.
As I gear up this August to contemplate getting back to work on some consulting projects after a bit of a hiatus in July, I struggle with a new sense of guilt at putting energy toward work when his life is blooming so vibrantly in front of me every moment. And yet, after spending the last four years orienting my life around his, and now seeing him begin to widen his circle in obvious ways, I must take his lead.
