Sweet Baby – Week 16

Trombone likes it when I whistle. I believe this is because he enjoys both the breeze and the noise, as well as the scent of whatever I last ate or drank. He gulps the air and closes his eyes and then he smiles.

He’s still working on that whole “thumb in mouth” issue. I’m not convinced this will be resolved before it’s time to get him to take it out of his mouth and go to kindergarten so let’s just wait and see. He rejects every type of chewable object except human flesh, even if the flesh is cleverly disguised by pants.

A lot of this parenting business is wait and see. I’ve taken to doing it when he cries because as often as he is genuinely distraught, he’s just trying out a new sound. There was a particular “OMIGOD!!!” shriek that he did for a whole day and it took me several go-rounds to realize he was just making sure I was paying attention.

Yesterday I noticed his eyebrows are growing in. We have been able to see the brow bones, of course, and I have noted that he, like me, can raise one eyebrow without the other. However the brows themselves have been absent. Until now.

He is a watchful baby. When we go to the weekly mom & baby group at the local community centre, he stays awake the whole time and just stares at the babies around us. The other babies get distracted, will follow a toy, struggle to be put down or picked up. Trombone just stares, because it is all SO FASCINATING.

There is a lot to see, after all. And our neighbourhood is well-suited to walks. We live across the street from Queen’s Park, which has a 2.5 km paved trail woven through. Our neighbourhood is very nice; there is a school and a Safeway and lots of families and dogs, but the side of the street with Queen’s Park is Very Nice. The houses are almost all from the early 1900s and even the newer houses are built in a heritage style. There are lots of trees; old, tall trees. Trees you climb and hide in and have to rake up after.

When we walk up to the shops at 6th Ave and 6th St. we usually walk on the Queen’s Park side to take advantage of the shade. I’ve continued doing it though it’s not the hot, hot summer anymore because I love looking at the houses and the yards and petting the dogs and cats and being under the trees, Stephen Joseph Harper, the trees!

One day last week we were walking uptown in the late afternoon. Trombone had been napping well that day and I didn’t want to disturb The Order of Things by taking him out earlier. The light was starting to fade in and around the houses. Kids walked home from school; teenage boys wearing camo jackets and iPods, teenage girls in tight jeans, carrying purses and looking over their shoulders to see if anybody was noticing them. I passed two pre-teen boys; one pulling the other in a plastic wagon meant for kids half their age. Their voices carried and cracked as they shouted insults at each other.

I forgot I was in a city. I felt, suddenly, like I was in a small town; one with big houses, narrow streets, families that knew each other. Actually I felt like I was in an Autumn Scene from a movie about a small town. (The soundtrack was by the Be Good Tanyas.)

I have had that feeling a lot in this neighbourhood, I guess because it used to be the Big City in southern BC and it is like a small town unto itself. Fear not, though, the really nice houses may look friendly and small-towny but the ugliest one on the block will still set you back $700K. Saskatoon this ain’t.

We walk every day and some days I get a pumpkin spice latte (my only Starbucks weakness) and some days I buy chocolate and some days we just get outside and try to coax Trombone into a nap. He will sleep in the stroller but not for longer than 30 minutes. The rest of the time he is quite happy to watch the sunbeams. Pretty soon he’ll be perched at the edge of the stroller hollering at the squirrels like the older babies we see when we walk. Not to rush things.

Across the cul de sac from our house is a middle school. I think this means grades 6 – 9, judging by the kids I see running around. The girls are dressed like young adults but their bodies are still childlike. The boys are all legs and arms and floppy hair and skateboards. I can move through throngs of them and remain completely invisible. Even so, I am fascinated by them, the boys in particular. I have no trouble appreciating Trombone at the age he is now – at almost 4 months old he is difficult not to appreciate. But when I see 13 year old boys I marvel at the obvious: someday my son will be a 13 year old boy. He will want to wear his shoes with the laces undone, he will ignore me when his friends are around, he will put his helmet on when he leaves the house on his skateboard and then, when he is out of my sight, he will toss the helmet to the ground and practise foolish stunts on flights of stairs. If I’m very lucky he won’t break his head like a watermelon.

I stare at these boys, swearing at each other, (did I ever swear like that at their age?) tossing footballs (badly – so badly!) as they walk up the street, carrying their backpacks slung over one shoulder (when did I start wearing my backpack on both shoulders? Will kids even carry backpacks in 13 years?) They trudge along, sharing their iPods the way I used to share my Walkman with friends; walking two-by-two with one speaker in each kid’s ear.

Will he even be friends with those boys? Or will he be more like the two I passed a block earlier, on their way home – straight home – discussing reactions from chemistry class. Will he read volumes under his covers by flashlight after Saint Aardvark and I have gone to bed? Will he re-program our computers for fun?

I’d say I can’t wait to see – but I can. I can wait.