I grew up around a lot of estrogen: The Mom, The Sis, and I were left tending the home fires much of the time while The Dad traveled around for bacon to bring back. So when the ultrasound tech informed The Husband and me, about a year ago, that The Kid was of the male persuasion, I was excited to the point of tears. For one thing, it meant that he was likely to become a sort of mini-TH, and the world needs more people like that. For another, it meant less of the drama that Louis CK describes: hurricane instead of genocide.

Now that TK is here, I’m already appreciating the speed with which I can choose clothing at Target, even as The Sis struggles with The Niece’s newfound aversion to white socks. I listen to his form of talking that is now just sounds strung together at elevated decibels,  passionate and often enraged discourses on the state of his toes that encourage me to think he will have no problem forging his way in this world.

But I’m The Mom, so I also baby him.

Every car ride involves a sneaky tug of war between me and TH over the radio’s volume dial, even after he arranged all the sound to come through the front speakers. “Maybe just a little too loud…” I’ll whisper, creeping my fingers over to the the aptly-named controller. TH laughs as TK continues his diatribe on national health insurance from his car seat, and I consider for the millionth time how grateful I am that he has both of us: one with whom he can skin his knee, and the other to whom he can run for Band-Aids.

For now, he maintains an infatuation with me in which I unapologetically revel: his head follows the sound of my voice, he laughs uproariously at even my lamest jokes, and I get to be his spot of rest. Yesterday before church, he was just spent from fruit inhalation and bottle slurping and a speech to the U.N. about teething, and when I entered the room with my now-customary “How’re my boys?” inquiry, the rubbing of eyes and yawns and a hand-off by TH were my answer. So I carried TK into the sunroom and we leaned back on the couch to read the copy of The Velveteen Rabbit gifted by his aunt RC. I hovered over the part where the Skin Horse talks to the Rabbit about being real.

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand…Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

We finished the book and I leaned back on a pillow, hiking TK up onto my shoulder, where he fell asleep. His hand rested on my arm and his breathing became the rhythm of the moment, the way that his talking and sometimes his crying are. But for now it was the soft intake and release, the life resting upon me and the sound of TH’s footsteps walking in to find us and stay, the three of us being Real together.