Dear Z.,
Today we rode the city bus for the first time together. The driver was joyful when I told him so, and the ticket machine ejected a discounted full day pass for our adventure.
I will never forget that first ride— the 20 westbound over the Burnside bridge— with your warm smallnotsmall body on my lap, remarkably still and tucked cozily into my arms, your head turning this way and that. Though I could not see your eyes, I could feel the thunderbeam of your awareness projecting out, and, I think, so too did some of the other passengers. The man in the scooter smiled at you, shook his fingers hello, and you spoke a clear and resounding Hi.
Just before the bus, you tried to walk into at least two of our neighbor’s houses as we talked about gnomes and mushrooms and the ducks at the Laurelhurst Park pond. Earlier, you had stared for a long while into the eyes of an elder woman sitting on a bench with her shopping bags. The smiles that unfurled on both of your faces were for the ages.
You are one of the most unabashedly social creatures I have ever met. It is one of my sincerest hopes that I do not ever inadvertently shame your inclination toward human connection. Though I can be rather outgoing in many contexts, being very social for me requires an energy output that only solitude and quiet time refill.
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Alf recently affirmed that he appreciates being asked by the parents of enthusiastic littles wanting to connect: hey, is this okay with you?
I am drawn to the deep consideration in that practice, yet there is still a part of me that is curious and rebellious to social norms that just wants to allow you to have your experience, and for them to have theirs, even if it’s a little uncomfortable…
For example, at a store you approached a little girl holding her father’s hand. You liked, or, more likely, wanted her sunglasses, and I said to you, watch how she took a step back when you reached for her glasses. That might mean she doesn’t want to be touched right now.
To my surprise, you seemed to understand, and wandered in another direction. The girl seemed relieved.
Because ultimately, although you are of me, you are not mine. I am here to help you make it to adulthood in a good way (and alive!), and to support you as far as I am able in this life. But my job is not to control your behavior so that others will approve of me.
I wish the rest of the bus day went as smoothly. Perhaps we did too much, having done the slingshot back across town to Sunnyside playground, your favorite place or thing to say. A boy drove his plastic battery-powered truck across the basketball court toward his Black family.
You darted for the machine. “Zavian’s” was your word, the possessive insistence that the truck was yours, or at least the object of your attention, and that you wanted nothing else but to engage with it.
I didn’t have it in me, son. Many potential scenarios unfolded in my imagination in the space of half a second, some of them joyful, some pretty uncomfortable, all of them prolonged by the precious desire of a dysregulated, hungry toddler who just wanted to play with another boy’s truck.
Instead of leaning in, I pulled away. We left the park soon after we’d arrived, and you screamed and cried and writhed in my arms for a long time. When you calmed, we stood next to Stumptown Coffee and I said, I’m so sorry, you really wanted to play with that truck. And we just breathed together on the station bench til the bus came to take us home
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