Morning

This morning Louis woke up first.  He had a poopy diaper--not a surprise, as it seems lately he likes to start vacating his bowels the minute he opens his eyes.  He wanted to nurse before his diaper change, so I had to cradle him in a cloud of stench while he gazed up at me dreamily.

Finally he let me change him.  Afterwards, I brought him upstairs and put him in his highchair.  I got out some pureed sweet potato, added some brown rice cereal.  Clara came downstairs in purple paisley jammies. She removed her overnight pull-up and tossed it in the garbage.

Her hair was wild with sleep and her skin soft and pink as a rose petal.

"Do you want cinnamon toast?" I asked her as she settled herself on her chair.  She grinned coyly, her baby teeth like shy little pearls.  She loves cinnamon toast.  On the mornings we have oatmeal or Cream of Wheat she can hardly bear life.

I got out the bread and set to work mixing cinnamon and sugar in a bowl.

"Mom, why do you always steal Dad's things?" she asked after a contemplative silence.  I glanced over and she was resting her chin in her hand, watching me intently.

"I don't steal his things. My shirts all get dirty really fast because you guys-" gesturing to her and Louis--"like to touch me with grubby hands.  Daddy says I steal his things.  I don't steal them.  I borrow his shirts sometimes when mine are all dirty and haven't come through the laundry yet."

"Oh."

She was feeling generous, letting me off easy.  Maybe it was the cinnamon toast.

I sat down to feed Louis.

"Do potatoes grow on a tree or in the ground?" Clara asked. (In addition to sweat-inducing depositions, mealtimes in our house seem to also be an occasion for profound questions and observations. Last night Clara looked sagely at Louis in his high chair and said, "Upsy-daisy and downsy-daisy, Louis.  There are all kinds of daisies in this world.")

"In the ground," I replied.

I paused with Louis' spoonful of sweet potato in midair while he let out a boisterous sneeze.

"Bless you!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, hi!" he replied, flapping his hand at me in greeting.

"No, Louis, it wasn't a greeting," I told him.  "I was blessing you because you sneezed!"

Clara thought this was hilarious.

"Dikka, dikka, dikka," Louis said, grinning at me hugely.

Later, as we drove down the street to Clara's preschool, she said, "Mom, why do cars crunch people?"

"Cars are really heavy.  That's why we have to be super-careful around them."

"Are they too heavy to lift?  I bet Dad could lift one.  He's really strong.  I bet he can almost lift a tree."

"I'm strong, too," I said carefully, experimentally. I glanced in the rearview mirror.

"Hmmm," she replied noncommittally, staring out the window.

"aiiiii-YA!" said Louis.

Louis the Toothsome

At just under ten months, Louis finally has one of his little bottom front toothies, and I believe he's working on another.  He can crawl on his hands and knees, but mostly he likes to locomote on his belly, by army crawling using his elbows, or even rolling back and forth diagonally until he reaches his desired object. He is really good at moving from seated to a crawling position and back again.

He can say, "Mama," "Dada," and "Hi."

Clara and I did a horrible, terrible thing to him this morning.  We moved all his toys into a large semi-circle formation around him, so that he would be forced to crawl to them.  He looked at us like, "What's this shit?"  Then he maneuvered on his bottom to the sofa, which was very close, and fished under it with his pudgy little hand until he found a toy.

                                           ***********

A few days ago he played on the bathroom floor while I scrubbed the bathroom sink.  He took apart the training potty and banged the seat against the side of the tub, over and over.

I looked down at him.

"Yes," he seemed to say.  "I know you can't believe I just made that magnificent sound.  But believe it.  And behold THIS."  And he dropped the potty seat and held up his hand, twisting it around so the shadows on his fist changed shaped.  "I am the first of all mankind to have discovered how to twirl my hand..AND SPLAY MY FINGERS!  Go.  Go now and summon the television crews."

"Very cool," I said wryly.

"A-ya!  A-ya!" he shrieked, flapping his arms wildly.  Sometimes he flaps so hard I think his little diaper bottom will levitate off the carpet.

After awhile I moved him to the bedroom.  I finished up washing the toilet and stuck my head in the bedroom door to check on him.  He was nowhere to be seen.  But then I noticed the laundry basket was turned upside down and, looking closer, I saw little pink toes sticking out one of the decorative holes in the side.

He made a little worried sound.

"Did you get trapped?" I said.  "Don't worry, Mama will rescue you."

He chuckled with relief.

                                           *********

Yesterday I took him swimming.  The young lifeguard assigned to the kiddie pool had half her head shaved and wore a complacent look that bordered on boredom.  Louis grinned and grinned at her until she finally noticed.  Then he waved hello to her, opening and closing his fist inwards.  The sight of his thumb so close to his face could not be ignored, and he quickly popped it in his mouth, while the rest of his hand kept flapping along.  The lifeguard smiled, her face unexpectedly breaking into dimples.

Photos of me I wish my child had not taken

Yesterday I took a high-intensity water aerobics class, which was probably not the best decision considering this morning I awoke exhausted, with deeply sore muscles and the knowledge that there would be little rest for me throughout the day.

At about 10 a.m. Louis took his customary morning nap and Clara said, "Mom, let's go snuggle in the big bed."

So unexpected and wonderful was this statement, it was a little like stumbling across a cistern of cool spring water deep in the Saharan desert.  I allowed my heart to hope, however briefly, that she might fall asleep so I could, too.

I should have remembered that, unless allowed to, for example, go without sleep for several nights and cross the country two or three times on a plane, or perhaps run the toddler equivalent of twelve miles, do fourteen puzzles and color a whole coloring book, all in the space of two hours, Clara doesn't usually nap during the morning, and she doesn't really "snuggle" either.  Snuggling connotes a comfortable cohabitation of space with another person, a sharing of body heat.  Clara does not want to cuddle with me so much as she wants to climb back inside my body.  When we're lying together, she rearranges my limbs, butts her head into my neck and sometimes even squishes her face into mine, all to maximize the surface area of my skin that touches hers.

The other thing she does when we're meant to be snuggling that's really, really irritating, is she continuously rearranges things: the blankets, the pillow, my hair. Ever since she was tiny, she's been a super busy kid.  It's cute when she's building forts down in the playroom or making five-course meals of plastic Bok Choy, apples and chocolate chip cookies in her play kitchen.  It's not fun when you're lying next to her, your muscles weeping for rest.

I once complained about her constant rearranging to Simon and he told me that she was behaving like me, trying to continuously arrange and fix everything instead of just living in the moment.  Perfectionism.  It wasn't such a problem for me until it showed up in my child.  It's like she's extricating my worst side, and then putting it on display for me.

"Mom," she whispered after we settled in and I pulled my thick comforter over the top of us.  "We are cats in a winter storm."  She yanked at the comforter so it went askew on my body and my legs stuck out the side.  She pulled the pillow out from under my head.

"Mom, let's make a nest, a nice comfy warm nest for us to sleep in.  We are cats, Mom, we are hibernating cats."

"Hey, I got an idea.  Let's see how long you can go without moving." I said.  She froze on her back, her front hands curled in front of her, close to her chest, her mouth agape and teeth bared.  She even held her breath. I imagined she was trying to approximate what she thought a sleeping baby kitty might look like, and I was loathe to tell her the pose looked more like a T-Rex.

"One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-" I began.

"Hey, Mom, I got an idea.  I will be the baby cat and you be the mama cat and it is snowing outside."

"That was pretty good," I said.  "Last time you only lasted for one second."

"Mom, why did you close your eyes?  It's wake-up time, Mom."

"You just said a minute ago we were hibernating."

"We are hibernating, not sleeping, Mom."

"Mmmmpf," I said, and she went suddenly quiet.  I could tell, from her mutterings and grappling sounds, that she'd found my phone and was flipping through the photos.  Good.  Maybe she'd let me doze for a few minutes.

Suddenly the room lit up in a brilliant light.  I could feel it burning my retinas through my closed eyelids.  That's it, I thought, I've had an aneurism.  The kids have finally done me in.  The kids and high-intensity water aerobics.

I opened my eyes and Clara had my phone and was grinning gleefully.  "I got you, Mom! It's wake-up time!"

I took the phone from her and examined the photo:

It's not so bad.  I'm not a fan of the nostril shot, but at least my lips are closed.  It's a better photo than the one she took of me a few weeks ago, standing at the stove cooking, my butt a broad, shapeless red plain in the fleece Guitar Hero pants my mom got my husband for Christmas six years ago.

And it's a million times better than this gem, which Clara took of me at five am one December morning as I was stretching, and which I refer to as the, "chinless wonder shot.":

The Dynamic of Two

"Mom, tell me a story about when I was one,” Clara says around a mouthful of toast with butter and jam. It’s her second slice. She’s really hungry because she didn’t eat the lunch I made for her. I comfort myself with the fact that the bread she’s eating is whole grain.

It’s mid-afternoon and I’m trying, for the third or fourth time today, to wash the dishes. Baby Louis is in his Jolly Jump Up, vibrating with breast milk belches. Occasionally he emits one that threatens to become a geyser but, today, at least, it seems the front of the Jolly Jump Up will stay dry.

I tell Clara the story of when I was sitting up in bed breastfeeding her when she was just born and I was so tired I fell asleep and she rolled out of my arms like a little sausage and rolled down a long pillow that was against the bed and ended up on a bunch of pillows on the floor.

“And I woke up and said, ‘Eeeek! Where’s my baby!’” I finish, looking up from the pan I’m scrubbing.

“Heh heh heh,” Clara chuckles.

“Heh heh heh,” Louis chuckles, because Clara did.

“Mom, read me a book,” says Clara, climbing out of her chair. She wipes her butter-greasy hands down the front of her Hello Kitty shirt. There are long smears of blackberry jam at the corners of her mouth, making her look like the toddler version of the Joker in Batman.

“After the dishes, and go clean your face,” I say. Miraculously she doesn’t protest.

Later we go downstairs and I put Louis on the floor. My hands are still kind of wet from doing dishes, so I duck into the laundry room for a towel. When I come back out Clara is lying on top of Louis, holding his little fists against the carpet so he won’t grab her hair (one of his favorite things to do-Ever) and smashing her nose against his. Louis is on cloud nine. He opens his maw and tries to get her nose with his drooly gums.

“Hey, hey!” I say, grabbing at Clara. “Don’t lie on top of the baby!”

She sits up and begins to gently sock Louis in the gut. He gurgles at her in delight.

“Okay, especially don’t do that! He doesn’t know any better.” I say. Wait, I think. That doesn’t make any sense.

“What I mean to say is, he’s little and delicate,” I amend. Wait, that’s not exactly true either. He’s about to grow out of his infant carseat and is almost as tall as she is.

“Well, he’s young. Younger than you.” That’s not it either. Don’t karate-chop your brother’s stomach because he’s younger than you? I can see myself in future years: “Don’t chase your brother with a chainsaw because he’s younger than you.” “Don’t back over your brother in the SUV because he’s younger than you.”

What I really should have said is, “Don’t punch your brother in the gut because it’s not nice.”

Why can’t I think of the thing these days that’s exactly the right thing that I want to say in that specific moment? It reminds me of the time, a month or so ago, when we were walking down the sidewalk and Clara asked me to carry her and I said I couldn’t because I was carrying Louis because he didn’t have any legs. In my defense, I was so foggy from lack of sleep I could barely concentrate on brushing my teeth that day.

“He does have legs, Mom! He does!” she had yelled.

‘No, no he doesn’t,” I had replied absentmindedly before amending, several steps later, “Oh, oh, you’re right! You’re right! What I meant to say is, ‘He can’t walk.’”

“This is how you roll over over,” Clara says on the playroom carpet, after finally ceasing her jabs at Louis’ tummy. She gives him a shove and he overturns slowly, like a reluctant iceberg. “Holy cow!” she says, for no particular reason. She takes his hand in a spectacularly wrenching fashion, bending it back and splaying his fingers. Surprisingly, he seems unaware of the terrible pain this is inflicting.

“Ok, you’re not playing nice, so you need to go over there and find something else to do,” I say, pointing to the other end of the room. She goes for her Cinderella Legos.

Louis watches her leave with some disappointment. Then he forgets about her and begins to Indian leg wrestle with one of the nursery chairs. Unable to topple it, he grows frustrated and uses it as leverage to roll. He tumbles over, directly on top of a bunch of his toy cars. He groans in frustration. He meant for them to go in his mouth! Now he must figure out how to skooch down the carpet so he can get them in range. Alas, linear movement is, for the moment, beyond him. He decides to roll over again and crashes into Clara’s toy baby stroller. He wrestles with it for a moment, making all sorts of determined noises. After a small, lamenting moan, he begins to chew on one of the wheels.

Louis gets his four-month check-up

One of my favorite things...

One of my favorite things about Louis is his hands. They are delicate, long-fingered and very expressive. When I nap with him I like to drape my arm across his chest--I support my wrist and hand on the other side of him with a pillow so my arm isn't too heavy on his body--and he plucks at my arm with tentative exploration. As if it were a harp string or something. I like to carry him upright with one arm and he puts his little hand at the nape of my neck, his fingers flicking and grasping softly at the short hairs there. The effect is very relaxing, and sometimes I find my eyelids drooping, even as I'm walking around with him, doing laundry or dishes one-handed.


Louis gets his four-month check-up...

Thursday was Louis' 4-month Well Check. I took him out of his carseat in the doctor office's waiting room and let him stand on my lap with my hands supporting him under his armpits. He was wearing his blue jammies with the penguins on them, but I knew what he looked like under all that fleecy comfiness: his knees, locked as he stood rigidly, would have disappeared entirely into the delicious chubbiness of his legs. He has such deep, firm, wonderful rolls on his thighs now that you could probably use them like a chip clip, or an impromptu holder of pens and pencils.

I'm allowed to talk about his chub like this for two reasons: one, I'm his mother. And two, I know from experience that as soon as he begins to crawl all of that sublime baby blubber will, sadly, disappear.

In the doctor's waiting room was another baby, a little girl with a tiny, pert nose, wearing soft pink jammies. She was crawling all over the place and pulling herself up using the waiting-room chairs and end tables. Her mother said she was about ten months old. The mother brought her over and stood her in front of Louis, about a foot from him. He jerked excitedly and grinned at her, drool dangling off his chin. He loves other babies.

The little girl baby stood calmly watching him back, exercising the controlled muscles of an older, and thus more accomplished, baby. Sensing the opportunity to show off, Louis lurched to his full height, his little arms wind-milling. He looked like a skier just conquering the "snowplow." A fleeting look of bravado crossed his face. The girl baby reached a hand out to touch his nose and he abruptly lost all his form, bending at the waist, sagging at the tummy, face going completely slack as his dribbly mouth gaped open, wanting only to catch one of those tiny pink fingers and chew on it until it was prune-y with slime.

Seeing that Louis was a flesh-eater of the highest degree, the girl baby withdrew her little hand in dismay. Louis stood up again. This time, when he was fully upright, he glanced sideways, his eyelashes fluttered briefly, and I thought I saw a more grown-up emotion on his face: bashfulness.

The nurse came to the door and called out our name. I was relieved to see it was our doctor's nurse, the hip one that wears clothes from R.E.I. and always has kind things to say about my hair. The other nurse--the one that helps out when the regular nursing staff is swamped-- always shouts Louis' name in French, even though it's pronounced the American way. When she yells, "Looo-eeey!" I always think of that call, "Sooo-ey!" that pig farmers use to make the pigs come running.

I stripped Louis down to his diaper and we weighed and measured him. He came in at the 93rd percentile for weight and the 98th percentile for height.

While we waited for the doctor, I stood Louis on the examining-room table and let him talk to himself in the mirror next to it. He gurgled and chortled, and then he swayed and swaggered and scolded that baby in the reflection.

After awhile he got tired, and anyway the baby in the mirror didn't seem that scared of him. I sat him down on his bottom. His interest was caught by his foot. Slowly, very slowly, he bent at the waist and brought his mouth down lower and lower, until it enveloped his pink, unsuspecting big toe. His face registered interest, surprise, and then the euphoria of a connoisseur of French food tasting the finest, most expensive truffle.

The doctor came in a few minutes later and examined him. She pronounced him very healthy and cleared him to sleep ten hours a night without eating.

Then came time for the shots. The nurse came in with three syringes and a dropper on a tray. She laid him on the examining table and squeezed Louis' thighs, both to straighten them out and to find a good place in which to poke the needle. Louis, who is VERY ticklish on his thighs, giggled.

"That makes me feel bad," the nurse sighed, getting the first syringe ready. She plunged it in and Louis squalled in shock and fury. "What are you doing?!" he seemed to yell. "First you guys insist on trespassing inside my diaper line and now this..."

However, he calmed down pretty quickly, and even grinned at me a moment later with red, teary eyes. He got three Bandaids, one for each needle wound. One Bandaid was blue, with some kind of cartoon on it, I don't know what. One was black with cool tri-colored flames on it and the other had a skull and crossbones.

Telling the baby in the mirror to, "Get a life!"

Feeling sleepy, sore and kind of feverish after all those shots.

There are fish in the swimming pool

Clara turns three this week, so we enrolled her in swim lessons. Today was her first day. In the locker room of the local Y, we put on her blue gingham bathing suit, tucked Floppy the stuffed dog under her arm and wiped the blackberry jelly -infused snot from her upper lip with the corner of our swim towel. Floppy and I watched the lesson from the pool deck, where we sat in white plastic patio chairs. Louis drowsed on my shoulder, bedazzled and hypnotized by the sunshine streaming through the windows and reflecting off the turquoise pool water.

Clara did great, and even jumped from the edge of the pool afterwards and into the waiting arms of her swim teacher. She put her head underwater, too.

After the lesson, she seemed concerned and distracted. Surprisingly, she declined to splash around in the kiddie pool.

"A fish swimmed into my mouf," she whispered to me, huddling in her towel next to my knees.

"It did? Honey, there are no fish in the swimming pool."

"Yes, there are. I saw her. There's a mama fish."

"Here, come here. Show me." I put Louis in his infant seat and crouched at the edge of the big pool.

"Right rair," she said, pointing to the bottom of the pool, where the concrete was splotched with dozens of yellowish stains. "Oh!" she shouted. "There they are!"

"Those are just stains. Fish can't live in this pool. They put special juice in this pool the fish don't like, so they stay away. They say, 'No, thank-you very much! We're going to stay in the pond!'"

"The mama fish swimmed to the bottom and planted a tree in the dirt," Clara whispered conspiratorially. "And then she swimmed into my mouf. And she wants to go into my belly to be with her baby and big girl."

"Ohhhh-kay," I said, deciding to join her in her reality. "How are you going to get them out?"

"They will come out when I go potty. He will swim in the toilet."

"Alright. Let's go pee then."

We did, in the sodden restroom next to the pool.

The fish didn't come out.

"They will come out with a toofbrush," Clara decided when we found ourselves back on the pool deck. (Louis was an absolute doll. Throughout the fish epiphany he cheerfully sat in his seat, giving Clara his best idolatrous drool-filled grin.)

"We don't have a toothbrush. Shall I scrub your teeth with my pinkie finger?"

That didn't work, either. Back in the girls locker room, Clara stood on the stool in front of the vanity mirror and stared into her mouth.

"He's in there," she confirmed. Then she grimaced hugely, inspecting her teeth.

"Hey, that lady is taking our room!" she said suddenly, pointing to a woman who was undressing and putting her clothes into a nearby locker.

"They're called lockers. They don't belong to anyone in particular. When we come we just find whichever one is open to use. Last time we used the one that she's using. But that doesn't mean it's ours. It's just the one that happened to be open last time. This time we're using this other locker. See?"

The trespassing, villainous woman smiled at Clara. Clara blinked.

"I think the fish are stuck in my teeth. I will try not to eat wem."

We went upstairs and Clara opened her pink My Little Pony lunchbox. I gave her half of her peanut butter and jelly, but withheld the other half until she ate three green beans. She stuffed them all at once into her mouth and chewed deliberately. After a moment she spit them out in a little fibrous, slimy green pile on the table.

"Right rair! The fish is in rair!" she said, pointing to the pile.

"The fish is in the green beans?"

"Yes."

"Well, you're going to have to eat more green beans since you spit those out."

"Okay."

Later in the afternoon I came upon her looming over Louis in his Jolly Jump Up, her mouth gaping.

"I'm giving my fish to Louis. The fish is jumping out of my mouf and into Louis' mouf."

By the time Simon arrived home from work, the fish was back in Clara's body and had worked its way down to her feet. No sign yet of how it'll make its way out.

Christmas Eve Brunch

On our road trip to Sun Valley on Christmas Eve, we stopped at AJ's restaurant in Mountain Home, just across from the truck stop, for brunch with Clara and Louis' Great-Gramma Nina, Gramma Diana, and Great-Aunt Lainer (whose real name is Elaine). Also Grandpa Dale.

Right when we stepped through the entrance, we saw them in the restaurant's back room, where the Rotary Club usually meets. The hostess had put them at a long table. Aunt Lainer, grinning maniacally, waggled her hand at us. Gramma Diana hunched her shoulders forward and pursed her lips with delight. Great-Gramma Nina went the other direction, leaning back, smiling widely and pushing her palms against her thighs.

Grandpa Dale, sipping a bloody Mary, was more reserved, though no less excited to see us.

Gramma Diana got Louis right away. He had just awoken from a nap in the car and was feeling pretty good. He was excited about all the kisses, the smell of Gramma Diana's perfume, and the sounds of the women's voices. Also the way the light reflected off Aunt Lainer's gold-rimmed glasses.

Clara grinned sheepishly as the women cooed and kissed Louis. It was silly the way they were hee-hawing over him and nibbling his cheeks, but it unexpectedly made her feel good, too. She climbed onto a chair next to Simon and sat back on her new pink cowboy boots with the star cut-outs, graciously accepting the giant styrofoam cup of hot cocoa with whipped cream the waitress handed her.

Aunt Lainer, who had flown in from Washington for Christmas, couldn't get over Louis' sheep-skinned-lined hat with ear flaps. Lainer, who is a supervisor in a factory that makes utilitarian office furniture, claimed to have one just like it. Louis gave Lainer some drool-filled smiles and stuffed a fist into his mouth. She had a giant crimp in her gray-blond hair from a ponytail she'd recently worn. She screeched with laughter at something Gramma Diana said and Louis started to cry, his lips quivering as though his feelings had been hurt. I reassured Lainer that he was getting teeth and this was probably what upset him, but she said her gravelly smoker's laugh often makes babies cry.

The food came, piles of starch and protein that were all the same color, but all delicious.

Clara wanted my attention, but I was chit-chatting with Gramma Diana. She climbed up onto my lap, and positioned herself so she was facing me, and cradled my face with her hands. She made my face stay directly in front of hers, and whenever I started to speak to Gramma Diana, she kissed me on the lips with a hashbrown-greasy mouth.

It was lonely at her end of the table. Grandpa Dale was cradling Louis and taking him on a walk around the room while he drowsed and sucked on his binkie. She had finished the plate I made her by splitting my own in half and arranging the scrambled eggs and cut-up sausage on a little side plate the waitress had given me. The talking women formed a warm nexus, and there was joy there.

After a minute she slid to the ground and started fingering Great-Gramma Nina's maroon cardigan. The cardigan had leaves embroidered all over it, and Great-Gramma named them for Clara: beech, oak, maple. Great-Gramma Nina grew up in a hollow in West Virginia called "Butt Holler." I am not kidding. It was named for a family whose last name was "Butt." Great-Gramma says growing up there no one ever thought twice about the name.

I mentioned to Great-Gramma how nice I thought she looked. She is on Weight Watchers, and, being an extremely disciplined and focused person, is only about fifteen pounds from her goal weight. She is also only nine stamps short of earning the last Rachel Ray dish in the Albertson's Grocery Store Rachel Ray promotion.

At that point, Aunt Lainer leaned over to Gramma Diana and bestowed upon her the highest compliment paid by women to each other in our family: "You look like you've lost weight."

"Oh, Lainer, you old sweet thing," Gramma Diana said, giving her a side-hug.

Aunt Lainer told how, the night before, she and the other two women had stood at the piano and sang Christmas carols in three-part harmony ("People kind of dispersed at that point," Lainer would later admit). Egged on by me, she and Gramma Diana and Great-Gramma Nina started to hum and would have broken into "Silent Night" right there in AJ's but for a rare feeling of constraint, possibly brought on by the presence other diners.

Grandpa Dale guffawed at the women's singing and, pretending to motion to the waitress, said, "We better get another round of Bloody Mary's."

After a minute, Clara started dancing for Gramma Diana. Clara sometimes wanders our house singing "Johanna" from Sweeney Todd, but replacing the name "Johanna" with "Diana." Gramma Diana likes ketchup on her hashbrowns, too, and there's a cat named Felix that lives at her house in Boise. (Although the last time we saw Felix he was part bald from a nasty case of ring-worm and so couldn't be petted or even touched)

Grandpa Dale sat back down with Louis, who was now wide awake. He walked his long, brown, callused farmer's fingers up Louis' legs and tummy until Louis chortled with glee. Then he gave him back to Lainer, and Louis was content to lie in her arms, comfortable and warm and fascinated by her glasses. Lainer looked content, too, the way some women do when holding babies, as though they're remembering babies from long ago, or maybe just reveling in the warm, soft baby heft, because they don't, very often, get to hold one anymore.