Saturday's Old Photo

Monday is oldest son’s birthday, so shouldn’t today’s old photo be one of him? This picture was taken sometime in the spring after he turned two.

 

He’d been crying before this photo was taken. Can you see the glisten of tears in his eyes? He hadn’t wanted to sit by himself away from the rest of his family. As long as he was close to his sister or a parent, he was a sedate child who didn’t require a lot of attention, but he did not do well off by himself until he was older.

 

He was a watcher first, and then a doer. No trial and error learning for this boy. He did a lot of sitting and watching older children play—he was not the sort of toddler who required chasing—and then one day he’d get up and do whatever it was he’d been watching the older kids do. When he was eighteen months old, he hopped on his older sister’s trike for the first time and pedaled off slowly, which was his normal speed for everything, but without any struggle to coordinate the pedaling.

 

He was never one to flit from one activity to another. The summer he was four, his goal was to catch a grasshopper. For hours at a time, for days that turned into weeks, he sneaked around the greenbelt behind our home, crouched over Hamburgler style, cupped hands turned downward and outstretched, stalking the elusive locust. He never did catch one, but t*The pursuit kept him busy for almost the whole summer.

 

He turns 28 on Monday. He still can hyperfocus when he decides he wants to accomplish something, but thankfully, his goals have changed over the years.

 

*Update: I’ve been corrected by the locust chaser himself, who says, “I’m pretty sure I caught some.” If he did, he didn’t show them to me.