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A World of Joy and Wonder
by Beverly Beckham
We called him Mr. Skeptical when he was born because he came into the world scowling and it wasn't just your typical infant "I'm hungry. I'm wet. Feed me! Change me now!" scowl.
It was an old man's reproving look. It was as if Adam had been sitting in a Chippendale wing chair, sipping brandy and smoking a cigar in front of a fire somewhere in London, when, puff, he blinked and found himself in an infant's body in the neonatal unit of a New York City hospital.
It was an outrage and a mistake. That's what he told us with his eyes and his frown.
We rocked him. We sang him lullabies. We kissed his fuzzy little head and his soft baby cheeks and we tickled his toes and placed him on a blanket on the floor next to his little-bit-older cousin and said: "See. She likes it here. So will you."
But my grandson was not buying any of this.
We bundled him up and took him outside at night and showed him the moon and the stars. In the daytime, we pointed out the trees and said, "Listen to the birds." We bought him soft teddy bears he could feel, and rattles he could clutch, and a pacifier he could suck on. And we swaddled him in receiving blankets for as long as we could.
Still he frowned.
One day, when he was about three months old, his mother, aunt, cousin, and I went to a Mexican restaurant and he was in his baby seat, looking around, clearly disapproving. And there sat his cousin in her baby seat beside him, enchanted by the lights and the music.
And I thought then: He doesn't trust the world.
But little by little he’s come around. He turned one. We blew up balloons, had a party, made him a cake.
He frowned. But he smiled, too.
He turned two and his scowl was nearly gone.
He’s three-and-a half now and there’s not a trace of the old man who lived within him. The child is fully present.
He trusts. He laughs. He plays.
Sometimes I look at him, all relaxed the way I hoped he would be, and I think we sold him a bill of goods.
"Mimi, can we play in the back yard? Can I water the flowers? Can I have two Popsicles?”
Popsicles and “Dora” and “Backyardigans” and his mother smiling at him and his father making pancakes, his own little room, his baby sister, his friends at preschool, his toys, his books and his songs – this is his reality.
No television news. No reality shows. No reality beyond what he sees.
And what he sees is his best friend Brady. They ride bikes and play soccer and run around Brady’s grandmother’s house every Friday. What he sees is my house, the grocery store we set up on the family room floor with pretend food and pretend money. What he sees are his other grandparents in Maine, who take him to the beach and the museum with the “Goodnight Moon” room.
Adam expects only good because he has seen only good. This will change. Some day someone won’t like him. Some day he will get hurt. Some day playing with pretend food won’t make him happy.
I raised three children. None of this is new.
But I look at Adam and it feels new.
"Trust us," we said to him. And he does.
He loves going to Mexican restaurants now. He loves the music, the balloons and dipping the chips into salsa. He gazes up at sky. “Look at the moon, Mimi. It’s following us.” And when it disappears behind a building, he laughs and says, “It’s hiding.”
Children make you want to build walls to protect them. But all you can do is what you can do - buckle their seat belts, hold their hands, teach them to be good, pray for them. Enjoy them. And love them.
Adam sits on my lap and we read "Barnyard Dance."
"With a BAA and MOOO and COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO," I sing and he bobs his head and sings along.
And he is so happy it hurts my heart.
"Can we read it again, Mimi?" he asks and we start over again. "Bow to the horse, bow to the cow. Twirl with the pig if you know how."
And right now, for Adam and for me, life is good.
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