bookmark

One curiosity of having the little one on hand is that I newly feel the deep swells of emotion with regularity. I'm not the sort who's used it. More the type who identifies with over-linear Dickens villainry and keeps a lawyer on retainer to vet his admissions of love.

E.g. tonight. With the house asleep, I was considering the half of the Obama address I'd caught, working on some b.s. nonprofit restructure plan and (despite that) letting a sliver of Oboptimism surface in my consciousness.

Then there's a climactic stirring (like a tiny Kool Aid man punching through the fabric of space-time) and through the quiet the kid gives a mighty and woeful cry. I run upstairs, dash through his door and find that he's a full foot from his pacifier.

It's an easy crisis to avert -- pacifier finds kid, dad consoles kid through awkward patting and something akin to the worst massage you ever got in your life. But (without the option to not do this) I imagine him older, feeling at once the totality and please let him do well let him be okay of his emerging personhood.

Only the fact that I'm an emotional Excel spreadsheet keeps me from busting out crying. Instead it's like a bookmark for a cry, a little hiccup.