Reading To My Son

I believe that books are important.  I believe that books can teach you how to empathize with other people.  I believe that books cane make people, and therefore the world, so much better.  I really do.  I firmly believe that part of why I am the person I am is because of the books I read.  The courage of those characters, their strength in the face of world-ending catastrophes, reinforced my ideas of what it meant to be honorable and brave and loyal.

Which is why Paul and I read to the Pumpkin every day.  We started reading to him before he was born.  Sometimes, I would make Paul read to the tiny embryonic Pumpkin just so I could get the benefit of being read to sleep.  What I never imagined before the Pumpkin was born was how hard some of his books would be to read.

The Pumpkin has plenty of safe books.  Those are the ones that are easy to read.  Thomas the Tank Engine, Frank and Ernest, ABC books.  I don't have a problem getting through those.  But some of his other books, I have to read multiple times to myself before I can even attempt them with the Pumpkin.

Have you ever read Guess How Much I Love You?  Big Nutbrown Hare and Little Nutbrown Hare have a bedtime contest to see who can express a bigger love for the other.  It's a simple and adorable story that should be a breeze to get through.  But when I read it to the Pumpkin, I completely lose it maybe three out of every four times we read it.  I start crying and my throat gets all tight and I just want to hug the Pumpkin until I get a grip.

It's like that with a lot of his books.  I read those books, the ones that cloud my eyes and close my throat, and they take all the huge universe of love that I feel for my Pumpkin and they smoosh it all down into my body at once.  Like every atom of everything that has ever been, is now, or will be, gets jammed through my pores and into my body until I'm overflowing with the heart of the universe and it's always almost too much.  Every time I get so close to being overwhelmed, my mind and heart not sure that there's enough room anywhere, anytime, ever, for all this love.  I have to close my eyes and hold my breath to cut off the exchange for just a moment, until I can pull myself together, find the room, remember how to live with so much absolute beauty.

And then I'm better.  Crisis avoided, self in one piece, I finish the book.  I kiss the Pumpkin.  I breathe in the air around him and wish I could make a perfume of his smell, that perfect sweet baby smell.  The whole crazed moment has only taken a second or two.  The Pumpkin doesn't even realized that it's happened.  It will probably be like that for the rest of my life, with me losing it in small doses and him oblivious to the entire process.  I suppose it will be like that with all of the kids I have, since I do want to have more.

I'm going to keep reading those books.  I'm going to keep falling in love with my kid(s) each and every night.  And when they grow up, I hope that they keep reading.  I hope that, eventually, they get to fall to pieces in the exact same way.

Take care, and I'll write again soon.