I used to daydream about meeting The One. Now that I’ve got him, and our son, I daydream about meeting the world’s best neurosurgeon.

The Kid is receiving Botox treatment tomorrow in his neck. This is the stage of Neckgate that we hope will prove an alternative to surgery: it will freeze the neck muscle that pulls his head into a tilt and, hopefully, allow him to straighten up, so to speak. Either that, or it will show us that his needs are surgical. Spinal surgery, the words that loom like a black cloud in the back of my mind.

But there is one who looms larger, in the back of my mind and over the past, in the future and in the here and now. Especially in the here and now.

I’ve returned throughout my life to the words of Isaiah, one of my favorite guys in one of my favorite books, a prophet and a poet. His twenty-fifth chapter has been a resting place for me. Even if you’re not a fan of the Divine, you have to appreciate the imagery Isaiah invokes; I mean, hello, wine figures in prominently.

I returned there, to Chapter Twenty-Five, this past weekend, after a week full of world- and work-weariness. As a part-timer I realize the thin ice upon which I skate when I complain about my job, but seriously: no, I cannot come out to your car to do an exam on your child who refuses to enter the office. And if I hear the question “Why we gotta fix those teeth if they gonna fall out anyway?” one more time…

And it was immediate post-vacation, which is always a drag because in my mind I’m imagining what I was doing a week ago. And it nearly always involved a drink in one hand and a beach in front of me, so it’s hard for real life to compare. A car cut me off in a parking lot and stole the space I was eyeing and I actually growled. So here we are, with real life catching up to us and another medical visit for The Kid, and I read Isaiah to prepare.

I read about shelter and shade and refuge, and I wish they were showing up in different ways than they are. I wish they were showing up as answers and resolution and everything just being fixed. I wish God would be an umbrella on a soft sandy beach or a big cuddly teddy bear even though a Jewish proverb reminds me that he’s an earthquake, not a kindly old uncle. Sometimes I want the kindly old uncle. Sometimes I want whatever is different from now.

Then I reach a phrase that catches my eye: on this mountain. On THIS mountain. And Isaiah mentions feasts and banquets and meats and wines (holla), and then he gets really into it and there’s some talk of destroying shrouds and swallowing up death and I’m like, “Hell’s yeah. I can get on board with that menu. Let’s do this.” But I keep coming back to on this mountain. And I feel like maybe my kindly old uncle is being an earthquake again.

This is our mountain. Neckgate, and TK and everything he’s gone through, and all the days-before-appointments, the not-knowing and the trying-to-figure-it-out. I realize that sometimes a new answer means more to me than what I already know, and this should not be. Because this mountain, this one, is where the set-up will take place and where the caterers have been directed to arrive and where the party will occur. This is where Redemption lives: in the now. Not in an alternate pathway, but in the one we are already walking.

I read another favorite author: “The mind would rather fret about the future or pine over the past–so the mind can cling to its own illusion of control. But the current moment? It can’t be controlled. And what the mind can’t control, it tends to discount. Brush past…over…What if I didn’t discount this moment but counted it for what it is–God here?” I consider the ways I’ve tackled life as a to-do list, waiting to get past this, strategizing my way out of mystery, looking for a meal other than manna. Other than bread and wine. And she continues, “Now could be an altar.”

I look around at what Now offers and see it with new eyes: The Husband busily decorating the house for Halloween; TK, with head all tilted, babbling and laughing at me when I blow my nose; autumn drifting to earth on golden leaves; banana bread in the oven. Now is where they are. Now is where He is. Now is a gift I will not keep forgetting to unwrap.

Prufrock measured out his life with coffee spoons; I am measuring mine with sippy cups. A beach vacation looks different from this side of childbirth, with chunks of time spent standing at a sink cleaning those cups; the clockwork-like handoff of highchair tray between The Husband and me; the mass application of sunscreen to toddler skin; the endless placement and removal of his sun hat; the bags of gear loaded up for an hour on the sand. Mornings that used to be spent lingering over coffee on the deck are now spent checking for poopy and making sure the makeshift-chair-as-stair-gate is in place.

It’s harder, but it’s so much more.

The moment his tiny feet hit the sand, I held my breath. Would he react the same way The Sis did at his age, wrinkling her nose and crying out, “It’s STINKY!”? Would he follow The Niece’s lead and commence to frolic on this new playground? The answer was somewhere in between. In true TK fashion, he gazed down warily at the white substance encasing his toes. He picked up one leg, then the other. He let out a whimper. Then he manned up, sat down, and got to work investigating his new terrain.

Our trip was punctuated with less-than-stellar moments. There was the rain that met us upon arrival, drenching our clothes and our deck and defeating our plan of dinner outside. There was the news of my grandmother’s death and the fact that it prevented The Mom from joining us. There was The Kid’s puking half an hour into our departure, when TH had to pull over on the side of a road that was also a grim-looking house’s front yard. The Sis wrinkled her nose and said, “It smells like pot,” and I stripped TK down while glancing backward to make sure no one was coming toward us with a gun.

Then there were the other moments.

The Sis and I made a day trip to Montgomery and, as the family gathered in prayer, a cell phone went off with a bluesy theme song. We shook with laughter and felt our grandmother would understand. Then we drove up to the graveside ceremony and beheld the crowd that had gathered to pay their respects, a humbling sight. We made it back to the beach, where the clouds had lifted. We watched our children sift sand through their fingers and ride waves and taste salt water. We took TK into the water commando after he shat his last swim diaper and watched him slap the calm surface. We argued over politics and plenty else and finished dinner and laughed. I saw my buttoned-up BIL relax over a beer and his favorite song (don’t tell him I said so). We got sand in our beds and bags and butts and we lived with a Gulf view for seven days.

Our week in the sun was late in the season, so we drove straight north into fall. Now we’re back in the land of speech therapy and neurosurgery consults and early-morning wake-up calls and work routines and errands and grief not soothed by salt water. Now we’re back to real life, where we don’t get a bike ride after lunch or a Gulf breeze. And I feel the clammy hand of fear rise to greet me upon arrival, feel my shoulders and various other body parts clench in their quest to control the details.

The Sis and I had one more stop to make the day we returned: our cousin’s wedding on the lake an hour north of home. We walked into a backyard filled with family and champagne and clinked glasses while the sun set over the water. We drove back and kissed sleeping kids and climbed into sandless beds. This morning I took TK to daycare and he grinned widely. No post-vacation depression for him. I want his take on life. I wish I liked anything as much as my kid loves bubbles. I wish I could always celebrate.

Because I’m the one who, when TH and I visit our wedding site with TK in tow, is plotting our walk back and fretting over fixing lunch and delaying naptime. I approach life with sunscreen in hand, looking for spots to spray while just over my shoulder is the most amazing sunset ever; just to my left is the spot where we said our vows; just in front of me is the family I always hoped for. And I know that post-vacation and post-Christmas and post-birthday depressions are always a risk for people like me who over-think and over-analyze and overdo. And so, at the end of a week that encompassed the full range of human emotion, I wonder if getting back to real life might just need to start looking different for me.

I consider the possibility that, because of grace, a gravesite doesn’t mean the end. That a kitchen covered in Cheerios can be just as beautiful as one with a Gulf view. That the incessant rumblings of my mind and the fear that laps at my ankles can make me like and lead to a closer encounter–a call to belief being not a rebuke, but an invitation, with both scars and a new view included.

“Send me a cute picture of James,” The Sis texted. “I’ll explain later.”

When later came around, which for two mothers of small children is about a week, she told me that she was giving a presentation to some colleagues about seeing the same thing from different perspectives. So in a series of shots placed into Powerpoint slides, she showed The Kid from three vantage points: an image from the CT of his upper spine, a photo of him on his tricycle, and the professional shot we had taken last year of the six of us: The Bro-in-Law, The Sis, The Niece, TK, The Husband and me. Family.

Things look so different depending on where you’re standing.

I remember when The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook was published. As a professional student living on loans, I didn’t indulge a purchase, but I did log some time at my local bookstore studying the contents of the manual. Most people found the information about landing a plane and surviving a shark attack entertaining; I stopped just short of taking copious notes. A ball of fear began to form in my stomach as I read each entry: what if this stuff ever happened to me?

Then, a dozen years later, I became a mother and things got much, much worse.

The more doctors we see regarding TK and Neckgate, the more I realize that they so do not have all the answers. Or even that many of them. And the thought that some of the brightest among us–people who walk into a sterile room and cut into children’s brains, like, daily–are often walking blind? Well, you can call my faith a crutch, but we’re all leaning on something. And if all we have is all we can see, then pour me a triple because we’re screwed.

I feel the paralysis of fear looming every day: with every news report of yet another shooter, with every Amber alert blasting from my phone, with the tumble that TK took down the porch’s front steps last week and the absolute worst image that flew into my mind’s eye before I sprang into action and scooped him up. With his neck, we are faced with a set of unknowns, a lack of clarity and–for me–a host of monsters lurking around corners. But who doesn’t face that? It was just easier to feel more in control before this baffling condition arrived on the scene; it didn’t mean we were.

Last week, after a day spent performing Google searches and staring at a screen, that clarity remained elusive and I turned to TH. Navigating the lump in my throat, I said it: “It’s just so hard to love someone who’s so helpless.”

I didn’t stop until now to wonder if that’s how He feels.

Because here’s the truth: I am so, so afraid. Of shooters. Of kidnappers. Of cancer. Of trampolines. Of organized sports. Of home invaders. Of the Botox injection he is scheduled to receive. If I sat here and continued the list, this post would never end (instead of just feeling like it never ends). 

Fear does not only exist in this dojo, it is threatening to overtake it.

But here’s something else I’m afraid of, and here in our suburban home in a relatively safe area, it’s much more likely to cross my path and I will do all I can to avoid it: I’m afraid of teaching TK to be fearful. That is one of my tendencies that I just cannot pass on. So what is there to do?

I’ve come to crises of faith–I mean big ones, like, am-I-going-to-stay-signed-up-or-cancel my-subscription forever kind of crises–a couple of times in my life. And the question for me has never been whether God is real, but rather, whether I can handle how real he is. When life exposes my deep fearfulness and distrust, when it reveals just how much of a problem I have with a God whose power, because it exceeds mine, can be seen on my worst day as a threat to my happiness (He’s not safe, but he’s good? Let’s go back to the “not safe” part)–what then? And I realize that there is always, will always be, a part of me that bucks up under any authority but my own. That is constantly hedging my bets. And I’m so tired of this mutinous segment of my heart. I’m so damn tired of being afraid.

So I read, and I know it’s true: that “anything less than gratitude and trust is practical atheism.” That thanksgiving is what pounds the nails in the coffin of fear. And like Mother Teresa, and then my SS said, sometimes we pray for clarity when what we need is trust.

He is calling me to somewhere deeper than I’ve been yet. And when I think about everywhere I’ve been with Him so far, I know that I have never looked back and wished that I had trusted Him less.

So faith may be a crutch, because it has always held me up. And a crutch can beat the hell out of fear.

I have to laugh at a verse I come across from the time Paul was about to be shipwrecked while following his faith. He was at the mercy of other people and they made a bad decision. Not fair! my inner judge yells. Paul says: “I believe God will do exactly what he told me,” Paul said. Oh, good, I think. Then this happens: “But we’re going to shipwreck on some island or other.” WTF?

Not safe, but good.

Last week I read to TK’s class. When I arrived, TK was just waking up from a nap and he was in a craptacular mood. The end result was me sitting in a chair reading from Eight Silly Monkeys while the toddlers sat silent, faces rapt. All except one: my progeny, who screamed at my feet. “This is not how I saw this going,” I deadpanned to his teachers. Is parenting, ever? Is life? And then another day, at work, a place where I take care of other people’s children and fight worry over my own, Finding Nemo plays from a screen. I remember that Nemo makes it home in the end, but I have forgotten the last moment of the film, and I watch it now. The final shot is of Nemo swimming away from his dad, who sighs, “Bye, Nemo.”

Love is letting go. And sacrifice. And choosing to believe is something bigger than the scariest of what I see–in something more than anything I can see. All of these choices that the world sees as extremes, and they are the currency of a kingdom with a view beyond what I can imagine.

There are the times when it’s easy to say “thank you”–after the follow-up mammogram, for example, when the all-clear has been given and I can get back to my regularly scheduled life.

Then there are the days with two trips to the post office, or when a juice cleanse sounds like a good idea, or when there are skinned knees and temper tantrums and you are left holding your bad attitude in one hand and your family in the other, wondering which to let go of.

These are first-world problems. All of mine are, really. But we’re not here to compare struggles. Hopefully, we’re here to share them. And on that note, let’s not start comparing levels of selfishness either, because (a) I will “win”; and (b) that’s like convicts comparing their murder weapons–our self-interest lands us all in the same place, no matter what the length of our stay. And if you’ve ever watched Orange is the New Black, you know that place isn’t pretty. I have done more time than I care to admit in the dark halls of self-enthronement: have demanded my way and wondered why God was unresponsive to my best ideas, have pitched fits over inconveniences large and small and refused to see grace when it doesn’t dress the way I want it to for the occasion. I have been a toddler throwing a tantrum, fighting against the path of my life as it unfolded exactly as it was meant to. I am selfish, is what I’m saying. And though the worst parts of me will always claw for their moment in the spotlight, walking in grace means redemption is the constant theme of the story.

So I am not where I used to be. But I am also not where I’m going to be. Always.

The Husband and I decided to do a juice cleanse this weekend. I can’t remember where we got the idea, but our eating varies from reasonable to atrocious on any given day, and there was, therefore, room for improvement. I looked at it as a reorientation of ourselves to healthy living. And when we clinked glasses over the first orange-y concoction on Saturday morning and took a big gulp, I felt hopeful. It wasn’t disgusting! Maybe this would be fun!

That chin-up attitude lasted until noon.

TH plowed ahead, pushing the greens and fruits down the juicer’s chute with a sense of purpose and delight, as I began to take note of the tiny specks of of food that landed on the counter. At the puddles of water the pooled atop the granite. At the fresh-cut grass smell that should not be a quality of our kitchen and certainly not of anything going into my body. We clinked glasses and gulped. And I gagged.

The day went downhill from there. The damn juicer has six parts that need to be cleaned with each use–and at five juices a day, you do that math. TH and I attacked it together, one washing and the other drying, but after a while I turned on the project. I became the Benedict Arnold of the juicing movement within our marriage, and I grew angry. This was too much work and it tasted like crap. And my counters were getting dirty. TH mentioned the possibility that maybe juicing wasn’t for me after I had an Andy Bernard-type response to the day’s weather during our family walk.

The whole thing came to a head with the last juice of the day, a beet-centric mixture that TH mixed according to the instructions as I sat on the couch, pouting over my sweet potato and brussels sprouts diet-alotted dinner. I had abandoned him for this one, tired of dry heaving my way through the day, but I finally decided to be a big girl and walk over to help with clean-up.

Bad idea.

The juicing area looked like a crime scene, with beet juice splattered over the countertop and side of the refrigerator. Then I saw specks of red on our wedding invitation, the one hanging on said fridge, and I lost it.

“THERE IS SHIT EVERYWHERE!” I thundered.

There really wasn’t–in terms of beet juice, at least, the damage was minimal. But my shit? Oh, now that was all over the place. And for about the millionth time in our three-year union, I felt TH bear with me as I struggled against my own limitations, my own need for perfection, my own shit. We were not in a pretty place. But it wasn’t the juicer’s fault.

Somehow, we pulled through. It didn’t hurt that the next day was Sunday and I was reminded of my place in the narrative, of forgiveness despite my assery, and that TH and I (and JC) have a decent enough sense of humor to find hilarity in changing the lyrics to “Amazing juice…that saved a wretch like me.”

It doesn’t hurt that despite my worst days, I have a few guys around who will never leave me. (And only one is contractually obligated.)

And it doesn’t hurt that there are the moments that remind me that grace won’t leave me, either–and that it has already covered some serious ground. A college friend emailed with an offer to show some of The Kid’s scans to his neurosurgeon friends, and I was so overcome with gratitude that I drove to Children’s Hospital to retrieve the CD and to the post office the second time in one day without complaining once. No, seriously–this is the kind of thing that, despite the inherent and obvious blessing in the task, would have left me feeling huffy and overburdened not long ago. How’s that for some ugly? But on Friday, as I hopped back into the car and headed across the parking lot to pick up TK, my eyes overflowed with a sudden awareness of just how much of a blessing it is to be this kid’s mom, to be doing this for him. In the middle of not knowing what the hell is going on with Neckgate, or what for sure we are going to/can do about it, there is this: a story being told in which even an all-too-often ungrateful jerk like me can get second and third and fourth chances to catch a glimpse of the breathtaking love at the heart of grace. That is where we are all headed. Always.

Friday was a day The Husband and I have been dreading for a while. We were scheduled to travel as a family to Raleigh-Durham, where we would meet with a neurosurgeon at Duke to get a third opinion on The Kid’s upper spine, or Neckgate as the major news outlets now refer to it.

EXPOSITION! Prior to this trip, TK’s given diagnosis was a tilted top vertebra, with a resulting head tilt to the left. One doctor wanted to just watch it and follow up in a few months; the second raised the question of whether the bone was impinging on a nerve, and whether TK tilts his head to avoid pain. And might paralyzing that nerve with Botox (and asking for some for my ever-aging forehead while we’re there) alleviate his pain and lead to him holding his head upright? And if so, let’s go in and shave some of that bone off!

We were up and out before the sunrise, headed south toward the airport with a confused, definitely-and-despite-our-thorough-planning-AWAKE, footie-clad toddler in the backseat. I had done my fair share of reading and praying and being exhorted by wise writing to look for God in places I wouldn’t think he’d be. Well, a one-day round-trip flight across three states with a nearly-two-year-old and a pair of exhausted parents must qualify for that. Planners that we are, TH and I were armed with toys, books, and enough Cheerios to supply a daycare for a month. And sure, we had our moments. Like when the stroller toppled over and I muttered that I can’t do everything and announced that I needed a break from the whole thing. At 6:30 am. But for the most part, we remained an intact team–all the way into the airport family bathroom. They say marriage kills romance, but who doesn’t find it sexy to pee in front of their spouse while their toddler watches from his stroller?

Some stats from the trip:

Hours flying: 3

Hours spent at the medical center: 3

Hours spent talking to the neurosurgeon: 1/4

Crappy diapers: 2

X-ray machines avoided by me while carrying toddler: 2

Healthy meals consumed: 0

Cheerios/raisins consumed by TK: inestimable

Hours spent by TK napping: 1/4

So the long and short of it is that this doctor doesn’t think TK has a tilted vertebra as a cause to his tilted head; she believes his tilt is muscular and the bone tilt is a positional result. She recommended Botox for that muscle. She brought up possible long-term sequelae of not treating the issue. And then we left, waited at the hospital valet stand for 20 minutes, and tried to remember everything we had just heard.

TH had booked us a hotel room for napping and recovery, and since TK had chosen to take his nap on TH’s shoulder at the valet stand, he stood in his crib and stared at me while I lay on the bed beside him. He chanted his characteristic “ooh!”s and grinned at me. I know why the caged toddler sings, I thought deliriously, and it has to do with Cheerios and ignorance being bliss.

Our return flight went smoothly; there was The Cat in the Hat and wine, which the flight attendant handed over with a cup. At some point, preciousness and the cup were discarded and I drank straight from the bottle (and by at some point I mean immediately upon receiving said beverage). As TH read to TK beside me, I looked for God on the flight. I gave thanks that I had taken the morning shift because my vocal cords were currently rejecting the phrase “it is fun to have fun but you have to know how”. I gave thanks for how good Chardonnay tastes at 10,000 feet in the air after a day of toddler traveling. I gave thanks that this day was almost over, and vowed to send it off with the same words The Niece had recently proclaimed upon flushing the toilet: “BYE BYE, POOPIE!”

I’m confused. I’m frustrated. We’re still trying to figure this thing out, and that might never fully happen. I remember when love didn’t hurt so much, when it was just a word on a card or in a note passed during class. I remember when Friday nights were spent eating tapas on a sidewalk, not searching for our car in a parking deck. I remember when Tuesday afternoons meant running in Central Park, not getting a follow-up boob ultrasound. I remember memorizing Shakespeare, not Dr. Seuss. I remember when a pregnancy test stayed positive and wasn’t trumped by a month of bleeding. I remember when my plan for the day consisted of unfurling my towel on the ground in Madison Square Park and lying down with a magazine as I gazed at the cornflower-blue sky above.

I remember when things were easier. And then this happens:

I lie down on the hammock in the backyard and swing with the weight of a nearly-two-year-old on my chest, feeling him relax and fall asleep as his tiny hand grips my shoulder. I stare up at the sky, the same cornflower-blue sky a thousand miles away from Madison Square Park, the same sky that, three hundred miles from here, emptied rain up until the hour before our wedding, and afterward boasted a full rainbow. The same sky that, later this weekend, glowed golden over the water behind my parents’ house as The Niece ran circles in the backyard and TK toddled on the patio with his flashcards. There was a time when I sat alone on a fire escape waiting for the people who are now beside me to show up. And now, the sun dips low in the sky and gilds this moment in amber light and just where I would not expect it to, a snow-white gull soars overhead. There is easy, mystery-free living…and then there is the fullness of the weight of everything that matters.

If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered. –Stephen King

Just once I want to see an Instagram shot of someone on a hospital bed hooked up to an IV with the hashtag #blessed or the caption “God is good!”.

Okay, maybe not really. That’s a little morbid. But with all the labels we are so inclined to throw around, I do wonder how good we really believe the Good News is.

We’ve had a hell of a year around here, some high highs and low lows, moments of unstoppable laughter and nights of ugly crying on the couch. MRIs, uncertain diagnoses, neurology reports that read like a rap sheet or ominous fortuneteller depending on the day, iffy mammograms and empty ultrasounds. And I hope I haven’t dressed any of it up to look like something it’s not–some perfect walk of faith, Jesus and me holding hands and walking off into the sunset. I also hope I haven’t been unnecessarily Debbie Downer in any misguided attempt to extract sympathy, or pitching a tent in Maudlinville when I know my true home is in the city of hope. I want to be real, and that can be a tall order in a world where people know you by your online profile more than your inner character, where Instagram’s sepia tones can disguise the darker shades of life.

I just get tired of all the bullshit, ya heard? And as a believer in a gospel that is focused less on my efforts than on the finished work of another, sometimes I say things like bullshit. Sometimes I enjoy shocking the pearl-clutchers and rule-followers a little too much. Not Miley-Cyrus-at-the-VMAs-much, but you know…a little much. It’s just that I remember when a cuss word seemed to open the gates of hell, or when not living up to an image was the worst thing that could happen.

It’s not the worst thing that can happen.

Which doesn’t mean that what we do doesn’t matter, but I happen to believe that the heart behind what we do matters so much more, and that part is infinitely harder than keeping up an image or meeting a requirement. It requires wisdom, real brain-engagement, and vulnerability and relationship and an openness to constantly not being there yet. It means having a sense of humor.

Thankfully, genetics work in my favor on that one. I grew up with a dad whose terms of endearment weren’t of the punkin variety, and what seemed a burden during my formative years–that good-natured joking plus a stubborn refusal to believe in God the way I thought he should–is now one of my favorite family inheritances. I can’t party with a worldview that isn’t open to the askew, or a personality without rough spots. “Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none,” wrote Emerson, and amen to that. I’ve written about my allergy to sweetness before, but even after the navel-gazing and grace-teaching that got me there, I also know that my tendency toward the sarcastic comes with its own dangers. I will always veer more toward bitter than sweet, more toward mean than fake, and these are not directions I want to get used to taking. When I feel myself trying on snark like it’s the season’s hottest new coat and I need one in every color, then it’s time for grace to step in again. And the work it did that set me free from convention and “good girl”-ism is also going to have to be what keeps me from becoming all sharp edges and corners.

It’s only grace that can make my words matter. That can transform what would be resentful and fearful and bitter into something scarred and worn and beautiful. It’s only grace that knows and puts me in touch with every deep hurt I’ve ever had, and turns what could be discarded as crap into soil for a better story.

And in those moments when I’m tempted to take myself too seriously, like when I’m picking Cheerios off the floor…or keeping track of who changed the last diaper…or when I’m walking across an outlet mall with bags of clothes hanging off my arms and sweat beading on my forehead and my inner monologue screams, like a petulant socialite, “Where the F*CK is Banana Republic?” as if stocking up on fall sweaters is the most important thing I’ll ever do…it’s then that grace allows me to take a look at myself, at all my flaws and shortcomings and ridiculousness, and have a nice long laugh. Because there are moments that deserve to be taken seriously, moments in doctor’s offices and next to MRI machines, but these moments have no less life in them, are no less good, than any of the others if we are held by the same hand throughout all of them. The one whose voice sometimes needs to silence my words, temper or overrule them…and sometimes sustains them, allows them to fall wherever they may, however they land, if they’re real.

The Kid, who has eschewed more conventional security objects like a blanket or stuffed animal (thatta boy!) has taken to carrying around some Disney-themed flashcards we picked up at Costco. I love that although he isn’t technically speaking yet, he is fascinated by language: he holds the cards up to me or The Husband and watches as we sound out the word printed next to the picture. One day, he’ll sound them out himself. For now, he carries them around, turning them over in his hand and mind until he finds the place in his story where each one fits.