Month: November 2008

  • Strands of DNA

    Stephen’s just like his grandpa. The one he’s named after, no less. I’m not talking about his blond curls, although I’m told his grandpa had them too. Nor am I talking about the classic Swedish features, or the big blue eyes, although every time I look at him I see my dad, my brothers, my uncles. No, I’m talking about the subtle quirks of personality that poke themselves out bit by bit as a baby becomes a toddler, and then a child, and then grows up and becomes his own person.

    My dad is the natural, willing, and able product of order. Ordered parents, in an ordered house, surrounded by an ordered lawn in what at the time of his upbringing was a quiet, ordered neighborhood. Grandma had a washing day, and a cleaning day, and a day for everything in between, and stuck to her system until she was too old and unsteady to navigate the stairs to her wringer washer in the basement. If her sons hadn’t insisted on Grandpa buying her a modern washing machine–which she never learned to master–she would probably have tried to keep to her well-ordered routine all the way to the end of her 90-odd years. As it was, she and Grandpa shook their heads in bewilderment when their live-in granddaughter would stay up all night studying in the tiny spare bedroom, clothing and belongings strewn and stuffed where they could fit, and who in sudden fits of realization that the job had to be done, would burst out of confinement to throw loads of sheets and clothing into the machine in the basement, then dash out to mow the weedless lawn with the mower Grandpa could no longer see to push. The timing was never right, never orderly. It just got done when it fit. That was how I worked. My brain and my schedule has become more orderly out of necessity ten years later, but my son, his Grandpa Steve’s namesake, gets it naturally.

    Every child has his interests. William loves to sing, and to learn words.  He currently loves to whine about nothing at all until his mother starts popping extra-strength tylenol like candy, but I’m told that’s a two-year-old development and will pass. William is a six-year-old in a two-year-old’s body. He was born sage, if not wise. The look behind his eyes when you talk to him makes you think he’s dissecting you like a surgeon, learning what there is to learn. Before you have a chance to read him like he’s reading you, he cuts his eyes to the side, back to his Lightening McQueen cars and his little-boy toys. He laughs like a child, then shuts his mouth with an embarrassed smirk when you laugh along with him. How dare you draw attention to the child? He’s beyond such things, after all. Or would like to think he is. We all try to get him to respond with delight at childish things, and when he does it’s like a gift that he quickly withdraws when he comes to his senses. He’s a fascinating boy, and a frustrating one.

    Anna Kathryn  loves to sit at the table and write letters and her name, and color pictures in bright, bold colors that often don’t stay in the lines. She’s very much like her daddy. A literalist, impulsive, eager for attention, interested in everything. She offers to help me with the jobs I’m doing around the house, and although she quickly loses interest, I love it that she offers. I wish I had the patience to take her up on it every time, and that she had the patience to follow through, but we have our moments of working together, and it’s almost always fun while it lasts.

    Stephen doesn’t ask. He doesn’t talk, so he can’t ask. But he does help. In a willing, efficient, orderly way that is at odds with the rest of the household. I find myself watching him line up his blocks, and stack books on the shelf next to his toys, and I imagine the day when he’s able to take over tasks that still belong to me. He’s going to do things better than his mother does. I can hardly wait. I sorted laundry last week, and he came over to me with a twinkle in his eye, grabbing a soiled shirt and preparing to launch it across the room. In a flash of inspiration, I put him to work. “Here, Stephen,” I handed him something for the darks pile, “put it there.” He did, and then swinging his arms proudly to himself, he turned back for another. We went through the rest of the laundry like that together, with me quietly handing him something and pointing to a pile, and him dropping it on the pile, swinging his arms in satisfaction, and turning back for more. When it was done, he accepted that the job was over, picked his way past the six loads we’d just sorted, and dumped out his legos. It was a moment for me. I fell madly in love with him for about the millionth time.

    It was like seeing a piece of Grandma. Or of my dad. I still remember standing on a chair at the kitchen sink at the age of six with my two older siblings, learning how to wash dishes, because Mom was just too busy with four kids to do everything herself. Dad was our teacher when it came to housework. Mom was the enforcer. Dad was the one who made daily to-do lists for every member of the household, breaking the entire day down into thirty-minute segments consisting of meal preparation, schoolwork, house work, and even personal breaks. My mom thrived on the scheduling as much as the rest of us did. I got pieces of her style in my DNA, and pieces of Dad. A personality study of me is a study in contradictions, as I nearly always test out right on the line between extrovert (Mom) and introvert (Dad), and between artistic and logical. Choosing which side of myself to indulge on a daily basis requires concentrated effort, since the personality bents on every side of the spectrum are all strong enough to war with one another. It works for me, but I recognize it as pieces of both my parents. Some days, when all I want to do is daydream and sketch or write or create, I mentally set aside that cap and put on the other, more organized, goal-oriented cap. The one that’s my Dad. The one that’s now my son.

    Today, Stephen found my reading light. He loves flashlights. He’ll sit for hours with John’s heavy work light with the two-pound battery, flicking it off and on, and making spotlights on the walls and ceiling while he talks to himself. My light is small and breakable, and I use it daily at bedtime, reading a book in the rocker in their room while the boys learn to fall asleep in their new toddler beds. In hopes that I could prevent him from breaking my favorite reading light, I firmly asked him to give it to me. My silent boy ignored me completely and brushed past me. I narrowed my eyes and prepared for battle, then watched as he walked over to the high table where he’d found it, carefully bent it into the shape I’d left it, and shoved it back onto the table as far as he could reach. Oh, yes. My baby is going to be an asset to his overworked and frazzled dual-personality mother. I can feel it in my bones.