Wisdom Received, Revised

"He seems pretty even-tempered and willing to be pleased so far," I told my parents as we drove from the train station toward their first visit with Noah. "But I’m told that you have to wait a week to really see how their temperament is going to be. So I guess we’ll have a look at the seven-day mark."

My mother laughed out loud. "Seven days! Good luck. I’m still trying to figure out your temperament after 32 years."

I thought about her statement calmly for a few moments, blinking my eyes widely at the pedestrians in the crosswalk in almost saintly sort of way, and then I drove off the road in a howling tantrum, waiting for the vehicle to come to rest before defiantly pooping my pants.

She had been quite right. The look on my father’s face was one of stoic resignation as he changed my underpants.

Noah isn’t much for bowel-mediated defiance just yet. For one thing, it would undercut his effort, by example, to teach his dad the merits of restraint. For another, peeing straight up into the air above the changing table is so much more entertaining.

By day six he had hit Liz and me multiple times with this little piece of cunning, and on the seventh day he did not rest. Of course the official position on peeing is that we love it, airborne or otherwise. Hallowed be the healthy kidney. And the shade of green I chose for his walls could use a little yellow anyway, especially right next to the changing table. Win, win.

But the seventh day won’t go down in my memory for any of that anyway. A week after he was born, Noah woke up in his bassinet with a little fuss. His diaper was clean. His mother was showering and breakfasting. The floating die in the magic eight-ball came up OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD. I scooped him onto my chest and lay back down, and for once he did not root around with parted lips in a mad dash for a nipple. Quietly he rested his face against my skin and set his lungs to a rhythmic purr. Five minutes passed and turned into fifteen. That turned into thirty, a close cousin of forever, as his matchstick fingers opened and closed around the tiny tufts of chest hair gathered in his fists.