I’ve written here before about my current view of this blog as a sort of a ‘Pensieve’ where my memories and thoughts can be chucked in and hauled out in silvery snot-like threads at some later date. One might say, “why not stick it in a notebook?” Good idea but it’s not me. Although fewer and fewer people read this stuff, I tend to need at least the possibility of an audience in order to do something with the appropriate level of care.
So here I am.
Today I’m looking at my Eldest Son, who will be fifteen next week and who, to my delight, is now considerably taller than I am. My memories of him, from now, will be of this clever, gentle, considered guy rather then the bump, baby and toddler who came before and who filled our lives so completely.
So here I am.
Today I’m looking at my Eldest Son, who will be fifteen next week and who, to my delight, is now considerably taller than I am. My memories of him, from now, will be of this clever, gentle, considered guy rather then the bump, baby and toddler who came before and who filled our lives so completely.
Perhaps it’s time, then, to chuck something into the Pensieve, lest it get lost along the way. Perhaps when I am old and my mind has gone, someone might read this page out to me and I might smile a moment, imagining these things really happened.
Three memories of J:
When he was a toddler, we had a date every evening, after work and before bedtime. We used to wrestle. We’d meet up on our bed and square up to each other. Toddler would employ sophisticated Half-Nelson techniques and invariably dad would be chucked off the bed and onto the floor. Three falls were sufficient to win the battle and toddler never conceded a single fall in all the time that this violent and giggle-ridden rendezvous was kept.
Every evening, once tucked in, a book was read aloud by me to him. We read very little every night, perhaps only a page. In this way, we read all the Harry Potter books (except that last one which he was old enough to read himself), all of Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, Watership Down, Swallows and Amazons, Witch and the Wardrobe… it is truly amazing how much can be read, one page a night, over the steady trickle of a childhood.
Finally, almost Benjamin Button-like, we sneak back to the earliest moments. The tiny baby. At weekends, I used to take the night feed. I would watch half of some video movie and leave the second half for the middle of the Friday night. There, in the insular twilight of the living room, Dad and bottle-suckling infant, lay on the couch, wrapped themselves up in a patchwork quilt and watched Candyman together.
I couldn’t ever forget that, could I?
Just in case I do, perhaps it’ll be here.
Three memories of J:
When he was a toddler, we had a date every evening, after work and before bedtime. We used to wrestle. We’d meet up on our bed and square up to each other. Toddler would employ sophisticated Half-Nelson techniques and invariably dad would be chucked off the bed and onto the floor. Three falls were sufficient to win the battle and toddler never conceded a single fall in all the time that this violent and giggle-ridden rendezvous was kept.
Every evening, once tucked in, a book was read aloud by me to him. We read very little every night, perhaps only a page. In this way, we read all the Harry Potter books (except that last one which he was old enough to read himself), all of Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, Watership Down, Swallows and Amazons, Witch and the Wardrobe… it is truly amazing how much can be read, one page a night, over the steady trickle of a childhood.
Finally, almost Benjamin Button-like, we sneak back to the earliest moments. The tiny baby. At weekends, I used to take the night feed. I would watch half of some video movie and leave the second half for the middle of the Friday night. There, in the insular twilight of the living room, Dad and bottle-suckling infant, lay on the couch, wrapped themselves up in a patchwork quilt and watched Candyman together.
I couldn’t ever forget that, could I?
Just in case I do, perhaps it’ll be here.
