The Hands of Time
He reached out, fumbling for something. I grabbed a toy and handed it to him and he said, “No, Daddy,” and took my hand.
I’ve been working relentlessly. So, sadly, Family Time seems better measured with a stopwatch than a clock these days.
It makes perfect sense that my littlest lad has been a bit more urgent about me. Following me around. Walking in on me while I’m in the bathroom, to hang out. He’ll sing or yell nonsense loudly while I’m talking with someone else. I get it. He’s trying to shut me up with an important test of the Emergency Attention-Getting System. Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooop! It’s ridiculously cute or mildly annoying, but I always completely understand it.
So, when we were all getting in the car the other day, as he buckled himself up, he rather smoothly instructed his mom to vacate the back seat so I could sit next to him. Then he took my hand instead of a toy.
His hand was as soft and small and as certain as his voice had just been to his mama.
Time itself was impressed enough by the gesture that it seemed to slow down from it’s break-neck pace, so maybe it too could savor the moment. And so it stood still there for a while, while our hands hugged one another.
Physical closeness has always seemed very black and white for my 4yo son. He’s not too much of a hand holder; that’s too in the middle, too grey. He either wants to latch on to one of us like a frightened monkey (“uppies”), or for us to go far away from him, change our names and nationalities and leave him the total heck alone.
His hands aren’t as tiny as when he was a baby, of course, but his hand was still completely engulfed in the big meat mitt of mine. I looked up from the perfectly-matched mismatch and smiled at him. He nodded his head, contented.
Later, in a quiet moment unpopulated by anyone but the two of us, I explained to him that I knew I’d been working too much, but that it was so we could play together more, later.
To which he replied, “I know, Daddy. … Sooooo… can we pway now?”
I said yeah. And then knocked the giggles out of him with a pillow.
““
Don’t follow us on Facebook. Go hold your kid’s hand or hit them with a pillow or something.
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Jess Berhang says: 
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