Lost in Translation

Says Milo vehemently from the backseat of the car; “I don’t want to grow up to be a man!”

Uh-oh. Here comes the gender-bender. “You don’t? What to you want to grow up to be?”

“Well, I just want to grow up to be a big boy.” Whew.

There are so many things I will miss. Like how Milo says, “a little darker, Mama” when he wants me to speak in a deeper voice while telling stories with, say, a scary bear. It’s not that I don’t have the heart to tell him he is wrong, that he means “A little deeper, Mama.” I just like his way better. So I do not correct him. Because soon enough someone will tell him what he means, and “a little darker” will be gone forever. Or at least until he wants the lights out.

I will miss the times when I lie down with him in his tiny toddler bed just to stroke his hair and tell him the last “Uncle Ryan Story” of the night and he tilts his head and says wistfully, “Mama, you are the BEST! You can stay in my bed FOREVER!”

Or, when I am really, really frustrated, how he comes extra close to my face and asks, “Are you happy?”

I will miss the times when, anytime he sees someone with a flushed face, or hears a horn honk, or feels himself getting angry, he refers to these people as “hotheads.”

Last week, as I struggled to not vomit in the car on the way home from dropping Andrew off at work, I told Milo that I just needed some quiet time on the drive home because I was sick. Milo tried to convince me that I was in fact not sick at all. “No, Mama! You are feeling great! You are NOT sick!” I had to smile at his perception of the world, that he can say something and it will be true. Just like that. And you know, I guess I started to feel a little less like puking after that. A little.

I will miss Milo’s way of saying “yes.” It is never just “yes.” More often, it is the entire statement: “Yes, of course. Certainly. No duh, Mom. That’s right.”  As in, “Milo, are you thirsty?” “Yes of course certainly no duh mom that’s right.”

And Oliver.

This stage I will miss. I already miss it, and it’s happening right now. No, really. My heart aches just writing this.  Oliver is in that perfect baby place. The place where I miss him when he is asleep. And I hold him too much because I can’t bear to not feel the perfect weight of him, touch the curly tendrils of his mohawk. The place where he kicks his legs and waves his arms and laughs out loud when I retrieve him from his crib after a nap. He is the happiest, sweetest, most innocent being I have ever known.  Soft and dimply and happy, happy, happy.

He beams at strangers with a wide open mouth and six pearly teeth until he gets their attention. It is flirtation at its purest, and he has mastered this game. While waiting in line, Oliver’s entire face lights up as soon as he has someone in his sights. Ready, aim, fire. Melt. Just today, he pulled that move on the passenger of a garbage truck from his carseat. Beaming up at the man and cooing until he finally got his attention. Instant smiles erupt from the toughest contenders when Oliver turns on his charm.

He tries to clap his hands, but instead rolls them around each other until it appears he is rolling the dough for “Patty Cake,” a clumsy and fumbled attempt at pleasing us silly adults.

He says, “Gah” when he is trying to tell us something very important. I know it is important because his brow furrows and his soulful brown eyes meet mine with such intensity, I have to look away. Gah.

He is so on the verge. On the verge of putting it all together. On the verge of crawling, of clapping, of communicating more effectively, of being big.  Of growing up and running around and leaving us all in the dust.

Oh, how I love my boys. There are no words.