He slides onto the chair with me, smelling sweetly of baby shampoo, an incandescent grin lighting his face. My boy knows what’s coming in his bedtime ritual which he adores, a ritual which will include an Eric Carle book, songs his mother will butcher, and what I generally call the “Justin/Mama lovefest” which precedes his exuberant dive into his bed on a nightly basis.
We know how to adhere to ritual chez McCafferty.
Justin’s been using his words more frequently lately, and for the past few weeks I’ve been letting him read parts of his nighttime book to me, which has been a thrill for both of us. The kid looks at me with pride after reading every single syllable, and trust me, after waiting more than a decade for mere coherent sounds to emerge from him, that gaze is returned.
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Those words are pure gold.
We wrap up the first part of the ritual and Justin snuggles more securely into me (he’s almost my size now, I’m wondering how we’ll do this when he’s an adult), and I embark on my own fractured versions of his made-up baby song, “Over the Rainbow,” and “Silent Night,” which for some reason I began singing to him years ago and haven’t deviated from our playlist since.
I start my rendition of “his song” that I made up in desperation almost thirteen years ago to try to stop him from crying (it didn’t work), then stop as a brainstorm occurs in my withered synapses (I don’t have them that frequently anymore, so they must be honored).
If Justin can read to me, why couldn’t he sing to me too?
I start over with his baby song, then stop when we get to the “mama/dada” part and look at him expectantly. He stares back at me with a grin on his face, silent. I urge him to “sing Justin,” and he looks at me one more time, and damned if he doesn’t fill in the blanks.
Intraverbals at their very best.
I know that some of the words in their entirety will be beyond him, so with some of them I throw him the first syllable(s)- the “rain” in “rainbow,” the “lulla” in “lullabye,” and he gleefully fills in the rest. There are a great deal of consonants in the last words of every line of “Silent Night,” but he struggles mightily with his task, and with a little help he makes it through.
He’s tired tonight, so as soon as our singfest is over he kisses me and heads over to his bed, waiting to be tucked in. His bed is white, and I have a flashback to another piece of white furniture which housed him as a baby. He used to pull himself up with that one and often flash his toothy grin, and I can recall wishing desperately that we’d find some way for him to communicate which didn’t require pinching or crying.
Now, a dozen years and a lifetime later, my boy is singing to me.
And I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.
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