An Old Soul

Last weekend, Steve, Bry, and I wandered out to Half Price Books in search of some sources for my dissertation. Or, at least that was the premise. Instead, we spent most of our time poking through the children's section, finding all kinds of fun things to bring home. Like Whatever and Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Over the past few months, taking Bry to a bookstore has been something of an athletic endeavor for us. He makes a beeline for the nearest shelf and, given the chance, would tear every book off, leaving a trail of Sandra Boynton and Dr. Seuss in his wake. Before we had Bry, Steve and I could spend hours browsing at bookstores. But now, we've become accustomed to a three-minute duck and dash operation, in which we hunt down the desired book, pay, and hightail it out before Bry can do his damage.

This kind of drive-by maneuver is obviously not limited just to bookstores. Parenthood involves a whole lot more vigilance than I ever anticipated. And it's not just of the checking to see if he's still breathing while he's sleeping variety. Whenever we're out with friends, or shopping for milk and toilet paper, our constant watchfulness over Bry seems to interfere with other tasks like carrying on a conversation, or remembering that we need orange juice, too. It's almost comical sometimes, the stark contrast between our attempts to multitask at interacting with others and keeping Bry alive and Bry's total disregard for anything outside of whatever he is doing right at that moment. I never realized how exhausting this could be, constantly keeping track of Bry's whereabouts, and say, preventing him from pulling a bookshelf or canned goods display onto his head, all while chatting about friends' upcoming vacation plans or picking out a box of breakfast cereal. Any outing can turn into an endurance trial.

At the bookstore last weekend, there was a woman sitting in the corner by herself in the children's section. She had a stack of books by her side, and was paging through them in a leisurely manner, while Steve and I tried to convince Bry to replace the stack of books he had just taken off a nearby shelf and neatly stacked on the floor. She smiled at us warmly, and commented, "He's just so mature, isn't he? Those big eyes. He's really an old soul." And because my brain was buzzing with the cognitive energy required to wrangle a one-year-old, I didn't really respond, but just politely smiled back and went about the business of reshelving the books and scooping up Bry.

Later, after we had returned home and I had the chance to recover from a morning of attempting to decrease the entropy that Bry spontaneously generates, I recalled the woman's comment and laughed a little to myself. Mature had not yet entered into my vocabulary to describe Bry. I know that she was referring to his look, the way he sometimes scrunches up his forehead as if in deep thought (usually just before destroying something). But I started thinking about Bry's actual maturity level and how he's got a ways to go before he might be considered a mature individual. Someone who melts into a pool of tears and snot because you finished cooking a meal and now he can no longer help (because the food is cooked - get it Bry?) might not be deemed mature by certain standards. But on a good day we can remind ourselves that Bry's stunning ability to get red-faced and tearfully angry at the drop of a hat is actually a sign of maturity. He's now mature enough to have an opinion and express it (usually loudly). He's becoming his own separate little person who, although he could be seen as the sum of Steve and I, is of course, so much more. I wish I could say that we're active participants in helping Bry to individuate, as the language goes, but it feels much more like we're on the sidelines, waiting with anticipation to see what will happen next. It's sort of a bittersweet process to watch.