Tuck In Time

Last night I tucked in a five-year-old.

This morning I woke up a six-year-old.

Happy Birthday Bergen Hawkeye Norton.

You know,

I love tucking this kid in.

I love it about as much as I love the fact that he calls his back teeth his “boulders”

and I just cannot bring myself to correct him yet.

Last night he asked me to cuddle with him.

(Like he requests every night of his young life thus far.)

And I know and I know and I know that he won’t keep asking me for long.

So I climb the ladder to his loft bed and I place my head beside his on the pillow.

“Sometimes I pray before I go to sleep,” he shares with me.

“What do you pray about, son?”

“I just talk to God.  Mom, will you pray for me now?”

How can you not love that moment?

By day, Berg is all busy.

All boy.  All jumping.  All running.  All moving.

But by night, Bergen transforms into a Cuddling Machine.

A soft, quietly chatting, warmly embracing Boy of Many Hugs.

After praying, Hawkeye begins to talk.

And I don’t try to stop him, I just listen as he pushes out all the thoughts that apparently have been piling up in his head this afternoon.

This is what he says.

(None of this is made up or embellished.

These are his words,

typed here shortly afterwards as fast as I could so as not to forget them.)

You were named after your mom.

Were you guys the Lacey’s?

[laughter.]

No one can be the Lacey’s.

Can they?

[pause for answer.]

This hand is clean.

[holds up his left hand.]

It’s my picking-up hand.

I only use this other hand if it’s a clean job.

[holds up his right hand.]

What is faith?

[waits for explanation.]

How does concrete get hard?

[waits through explanation.]

What is mulch?

[another explanation.]

Oh, Mom – tell me about this teddy bear.

[listens to a story about the inherited-from-his-grandfather teddy bear in his arms.]

Today, London thought I said “boring” when I really said “boomerang”.

Boomerang is a hard word to understand.

How many years is it until I am ten?

Oh, Bergen Hawkeye.

I love you and your many thoughts.

I love your brain and your heart and your soft head.

And I love you more at six than I loved you at five.