Suburbs of Our Discontent

"God b' wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate." (Henry V, 5.1)

Tonight my daughter was reading to me from her book, The Girl Who Could Fly. She was cracking up over this scene where the baby falls off the table while her mom is changing her diaper, but she magically stays suspended in air.

This made me think back to a dark day in my son's early babyhood, when he somehow slithered out of my grasp and fell head-first off the bed. Except he didn't know how to fly.

Lucky for me he was fine, but I definitely lost a few years off my life that day.

"Too bad Jonah didn't know that trick when he fell off the bed," I said to my daughter.

"Yeah. Maybe that's why he can't say his r's," she tossed off before heading upstairs.

I am scared for adolescence. Very scared.