It is nearly summer. School is out. The temps are up, as are the rain totals, it seems. They say it will be a banner season for things like flies, chiggers, and mosquitos. I don’t need to hear news anchors with their warnings about such things. We are already deep in the bowels of the insect plagues of 2024. The grandchildren are equal parts already bored from the absence of a school day routine and loathing the return to structure in the fall. My granddaughter’s days are spent commuting back and forth to soccer camp in Dallas. That leaves my grandson open to the phenomenon we like to call “Didi Days,” where I chauffeur him to his activities and bring him back home to spend afternoons with me. It’s something we’ve never done before, this little boy and me. We’re learning so much about each other. I forgot how hard it was to be the last child born. Why, there’s never been an Ezra when there wasn’t already a big sister. I find us to be a lot alike, too. He’s a worldclass worrier.
Ezra Theodore is a newly minted 6, in kid years. His Papaw and I like calling him Teddy, since his middle name is courtesy of my late father. While he isn’t fond of the name, he has officially acquiesced, provided only the two of us use that moniker. He has an old soul. Teddy would rather stay in than venture out in the world. There are perfectly good things to eat here. Why on earth would a person want to go out in the hustle and bustle of the world to eat fast food? See, he likes his food room temperature. Like a modern-day Baby Bear character from Goldilocks, not too hot and not too cold is his preference. Also, he doesn’t like to take crazy chances. I believe this child will make a top-notch risk assessor one day with a bright future in insurance. He worries about things like cars going too fast and dogs approaching in an unkind manner. To him, the perfect afternoon consists of animal documentaries, drawing pictures of his grandparents doing heroic things, and eating cheese quesadillas that have been sitting on the counter for approximately 15 minutes. He’s easy to please.
Being six, Teddy has some speech patterns that make my heart leap from my chest in sheer happiness. His th sounds come out as f sounds. I have decided to never, ever correct him. I sincerely hope, and it is okay for me to do so because I am not his mother, thus I can revel in this speech pattern preciousness with no worries of his future, that he will one day greet me when I am a very old woman and he a grown-up man. I pray his th still blankets my soul as an f. See, he finks about things. He really, really finks hard about all sorts of things. The eyebrows come together like a knit one purl one stitch on a fine homemade sweater. The bottom lip drops down and pops out the tiniest bit. The enormous blue eyes look toward the back of his head, but not all the way. Arms are limp at his sides. That is when you know. This boy can fink. Did I tell you? Yeah, he’s a sweet doppelganger for his uncle, my first son.
My oldest son likes to say that he was born with the head size he currently has as a 37-year-old man. When I sent the picture of “Teddy vs Uncle Dillan” out to our family text group yesterday, his actual words were, “You could play chess on my head.” It’s a Pickard trait from my mother’s people. She had a substantial forehead
as did her father. I was absent when the foreheads were disbursed, in utero, it seems. I have my father’s forehead, slender on the sides and with a hairline that might just clip the tail of my eyebrows if I didn’t keep it groomed with a lady’s facial razor. Sometimes, when I turn to speak to my grandson, I am gutted. It is him, yet it isn’t. The eyes are the same as his uncle’s, large and clear blue. The hair is identical, right down to the cowlicks in the front. The Stilwell ears that both of my sons sport are spot on, a good size with a tiny tilt outward at the top. The perfectly straight front teeth that, deep down, I know will need extensive braces one day to stay nice and straight – those are the same, too. Often, I cannot answer my grandson when he asks me questions. I am transported to another time and place, if just for a few seconds. I’m a young mom again.
Irish author George Bernard Shaw once declared “youth is wasted on the young.” He went on to say that young people don’t know what they have, often squandering opportunities to be young by being young – this last part was paraphrased. I get it. I was a young mother. While I think I did a fine job, I look back now and see the wreckage I caused. I see how I couldn’t wait until they were walking. I couldn’t wait until they could tell me things. I couldn’t wait until they were old enough to do this one thing or that one thing. I’m not sure I ever allowed myself to drown in the quicksand that is motherhood, or that I did it with enough regularity. This oldest child of mine doesn’t know what an oldest child can do to you. It is glorious, that first feeling of seeing your heart walk around outside of your body. That’s what the first child gives you. I should call and tell him that. Then, I should wrap Teddy in a cocoon of blankets and make him a quesadilla.
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