Mondays with Silas

Well…Silas was acting very strange yesterday. He fell asleep on the way home but the phone rang and woke him and he was startled and highly agitated after that. It made me very upset and I never even got back to the phone.
Usually, he dashes head long into all his favorite toys when he gets Home and then he has to inspect the whole place to make sure that everything’s just as he left it. But he was reticent.
Something was bothering him.
My fear is that it’s the gypsy life he’s been forced to live. I’m sure that being hauled around from one place to the next in a non-stop manner can’t be good for him. It made me feel terrible. I try to make sure that he has a very stable environment when he’s Home and that things stay calm and predictable and that his routine doesn’t get changed.
I decided we needed to have dinner. He pitched a fit when I strapped him into his high chair. (He hates being strapped into anything and I can’t blame him.) That’s when I realized he was hungry. He ate like he was famished and he put away almost all of his Beef and vegetable dinner in about five minutes. Then…he sat in his high chair and played and talked and made faces at me. He was happy after that and things got back to Normal.
He had the most fun at bath time and we splashed and played with his dolphin and his little life preserver and threw the washcloth at each other just like we always do.
Then I took a few pictures after drying him off and we decided to get some “action shots” which means Blurry pictures that made him look like a weird Jedi Master.








I explained to him that the readers of Rooked might need a little break from the mundane tales of father and son.
(I think he was trying to intimate that he mostly just wanted to run around naked for the rest of the night but it was far too cold for that. )
I told him that maybe we should write a children’s book together. Sure….maybe call it “The Boy with the Golden Toe.” Yes. It could be about a little boy whose father discovers he has a magic toe that can kick field goals from almost any distance and the boy becomes the youngest pro-place kicker in history and has many whacky adventures along the way. He gave me a look that said, “Why do the adventures have to be whacky?”
Well, I thought, he’s probably right. So maybe we’ll write one about a boy who goes exploring in the back yard and discovers some dinosaur bones. Yes. That’s it. And the bones would be magic. Sure…we’ll call it “The Dinosaur with the Golden Toe.” And the boy would become the youngest archaeologist in history and have all kinds of whacky adventures along the way.
He gave me the Look again.
After that, I gave him his medicine and a bottle and we both fell asleep on the couch.
It was nice to have him there, so close. He doesn’t nap with me like he used to when was still so little. I fell asleep breathing in his tiny, milky exhalations that reminded me of the way innocence must taste before it goes sour inside us and gets spoiled.
I just held him as he slept and hoped that he could hold onto his innocence as long as he could…even for his whole life maybe. He deserves it.