I want to write to you, but I am still not sure what I want to say. I'll start and see where it take us.
I think I want to say something about how I see you as a little person now, not just a baby. Or something about how I find it difficult to relate to anything in this world that can't participate in a process of reason and analysis. The fact that you are beginning to interact with us, to follow instruction, to indicate preference, makes you somehow more real to me. This probably sounds insane, but I think you are beginning to become clear to me. Up to now you have been a bit of a blur, almost something to be scared of! A little ball of instinct and emotion that defies all social norms and intercourse. Now I see you in more stark detail. You are a little person, and, luckily, a beautiful one.
Inquisitive, loving, funny, intelligent, opinionated and brave. Your first instinct is to laugh. Often something startles or scares you, and your reaction is to investigate the source of the shock, to discover that something new is not something to fear. Then you laugh. I love you a little more for that.
On the subject of loving you. One of the many things that they do not put in that parenting manual they do not give you on the birth of your first child is how to handle loving someone with such terrifying ferocity. If you were not my son and I felt how I do they would label me insane. Obsessed. The other day I stamped up and down as fast as I could on the spot. You thought it was hilarious and copied it with equal vigour. Laughing and swinging your arms about you stamped up and down. Stopped, watched me do it again, and off you went like a wind up toy. So cute the memory will keep me sane in a mad world for years to come. Ask anyone else (your mother and grandparents aside) and they would smile and nod their agreement, “Yes, very cute”, accepting the parent bias. For me, it made everything else I do in life make a little more sense. It gave me the reason to do what ever I do. You.
We have been staying with your Grandad for a month and you have become addicted to his guitar collection. I will record it here so we can see if you ever actually pick up a guitar when you grow old enough to use one. In the mornings and evenings you insist on going across to the room where the guitars are kept, hanging on the walls, and there you go through your routine. “Este!, Este!, Este!”, pointing from one to the next. You strum each one in turn then start again. I hope that you somehow relate the excitement of that place with your Grandad. He loves you very much.
You have also been getting to know your grandmother. She has had a difficult year this year and I don't think you will ever really understand what you have given her. You didn't do it on purpose, you don't know what the world is yet, or who people are, but your very being is a balm to sooth. If you remember, you saved her life, and now you are helping her to heal. Isn't that nice?
To finish this rather unstructured and unordered communication I will simple say that being a family is an adventure. As with anything of value in life, it takes effort and sacrifice. But, in my experience up to now there are very few things that can compare with what you get back. For that I can only thank you and your mother. The two of you, my family, my world, have given me access to experiences so powerfully sweet and full of love that I now see the world I knew before for what it really was. Fun, feral, free but totally incomplete. Thanks for making me whole.
