A few weeks ago I called to make your annual checkup, and I told the scheduler I needed a ‘well baby’ appointment for you. She cleared her throat and gently informed me, after I gave her your birthdate, that it really was now a well child checkup. Last weekend I tidied up your closet, and came across sleepers and outfits from when you were first home from the hospital. I marvelled at how small, how delicate they were, not just the fabric but the colors too, as if everything about ‘baby’ was precious, gentile, and fragile. You wandered up to me, whipped one of your most beloved sleepers out of my hand, an item I intended to set aside to send to you when you are a parent, and wrapped it round your head like a doo rag. You then proceeded to warble Jack Johnson ‘Upside Down’ like it was gangsta rap performed by howler monkeys.
Last year I said you were a little person, with foibles and personality. This year, that is no longer a secret held by your father and I. You are a happy, outgoing, friendly, kind little kid, meaning we have somehow not passed onto you our misanthropy. This past year has been hard, not just for the usual terrible twos reasons. I worry, far more than your father ever outwardly shows. First the little issue with you not breathing well, and then the roller coaster with speech pathology. The past year has been a concerted effort on our part to get you to the point where everyone else could see what an incredible kid you are. The past 2 months have been nothing short of a wonder. It’s also shown me what life with a normally verbal 2 year old would have been like (Mommy horse! Horsies, mommy! Mommy, more horsies! MOMMY! HORSIES!) Other people who do not know you can now understand much more of what you say, and you wander up and start conversations with people, cheerfully chattering away. One child at school said, several months back, that ‘Sean talks dumb’. In retaliation, you specifically refused to play with him for one day, and reduced him to a sobbing wreck, bereft of your rockstar lurv, and you were quite smug about figuring out how to handle a meanie. I was stunned at your Machiavellian instincts and your resilience. Other parents at school inform me you are the star of the class, the kid who plays happily with everyone and shuns no one save for when its called for, like with the ‘dumb’ incident. We walk into a function and you are mobbed by squealing 3 year olds yelling you name like you’re Norm walking into Cheers. I am grateful, ridiculously so, for this, because it means that somehow you’ve reached beyond your little problems to carve a place for yourself and connect with other kids, even before speech came more easily to you.
You never cease to amaze me. Sometimes I underestimate your capacity for understanding and generosity. You survived your first birthday party for a friend the other weekend; I figured explaining to you that the present wasn’t for you, it was for P, would be a challenge. You whipped up the present from where I’d placed it, marched it right over to P, gave her a hug, and announced ‘dis is for you’. You make your dad eat breakfast with you (‘betfuss impor-tant!’) and anxiously ask me if I’m all right every time I sneeze. You feed your stuffed lemur, you pretend you are a train, you inform me when you are meowing and I ask if you are a cat, “No, I’m a Sean!” in a tone of voice which is more appropriate for a teenager than a preschooler. When asked in speech therapy what kind of cheese you like on your spaghetti you reply, “GOAT!” and freak your therapist out. You dance wildly, without inhibition, even when there is no music. You think Jack Johnson and REM’s ‘Furry Happy Monsters’ from Sesame Street are the best things ever, along with the FMA and Ghost in the Shell theme songs. You frantically yell ‘bye’ at your dad until I’m finally ready to go on Saturday mornings, and you squeal with delight at all the offerings at the farmer’s market. You lay on your belly and watch the raccoons creep out onto the back deck, and say bye to flowers, to birds, to cars.
I look at you now and I wonder how much more love and personality can possibly fit into that little body of yours. I am in awe and am grateful that as you round into three, finally, finally, others can understand what an awesome little rock star you are. Happy birthday, Sean.
