Loving Thorn

I can scarce remember last September.

Was it cold? Did I have a lot of work?

It was the first September of life with Thorn. I thought, during the long nights and the frantic days, that we had a new status quo, and that life would eventually settle into a new pattern. I was wrong. Life didn't settle, and the status quo kept changing. In fact, it is still changing. What was true yesterday is not true today, and so I'm living in my own personal version of the post-modern universe.

What is truth?

Something I'm daily discovering anew.

Life with Thorn is wondrous. It remains frantic, though not nearly as much as last year. And he is changing. He is bigger, of course. He has more hair. But that doesn't impact as much as the little personality that is rising in him. He isn't saying very much beyond 'dad' (of which I'm still inordinately pleased) and 'dog' (which is now beginning to settle on the correct species rather than all animals), but he understands. He learns quickly. If you show him something, like how to put a block in a slot, or how to turn pages, flip cards, open cans, or stack boxes, he replicates your actions. When left to his own devices, he will eventually figure out how to get through most barriers and locks that bar his way. He will not be contained. He likes certain things now. He loves books, dogs of all sorts, and dancing. He doesn't like having his diaper changed, but who can blame him. He has begun to imagine. Yesterday with Drake, Fox's brother and Thorn's uncle, he pretended to drink from a large, yellow cup. He knew there was no liquid inside, but he still made the slurping sound, still brought the cup to his lips. I know imagination of this sort does not seem remarkable, and in the fact that nearly every human being alive has this capacity it isn't, but to watch it begin -- to watch a child begin to separate and to play with the boundaries of the real and the fantasy is amazing.

Every day I look at our Thorn, and every day he surprises and delights me. What will you do next, my son? What dreams will you weave? What will I teach you? What will you teach me?