Fodder and More Since ’04

 My son is now six years old.

He starts grade one in the fall and will carry a lunch box for the first time. He can read simple words, count higher than I have the patience to listen, and wear out a pair of $40 running shoes in 3 weeks. He loves to wear a skull and crossbones swimsuit and rubber boots to family functions and can tell you the power level, evolutionary state and physical attributes of close to six million Bakugan.

He loves his hamster, Lego, and wrapping things in yarn. I do not particularly enjoy any of these things, but I enjoy him so I allow them to happen.

Both his hands are needed to show his age – two hands holding up six short, fat garden grub fingers with jagged cuticles and dimpled knuckles. He says that I am his best friend and he is going to live with me forever.

When he plays in his sandbox, the sunlight shines through the fence behind him and lights him up. I watch him glowing amidst his toys, but only if he cannot see me looking. Sometimes I get a glimpse of the boy he is becoming and beyond that, the man he will become.  I could draw him blindfolded, for I know the curve of his nose, which eye is slightly rounder than the other, and how deep the hollow in his neck is scooped. His outline has been set in my mind like a shadow on a screen after a blinding flash.

He is beautiful.

The school reports that he is “exceptionally patient.”  I haven’t the heart to tell them that what they perceive as patience is actually self-confidence without borders. He will sit and listen quietly, simply waiting for you to realize that he already understands. He has known it, held it inside himself somewhere the entire time.

He is my child and I love him. More importantly, I like him.

Every day I am thankful that this house will never know the quiet sadness of a place that didn’t welcome children.

In the end, we spent his birthday exactly how he wanted to – spitting on garbage fires and climbing rusted tractor carcasses.