Those Eyes

There are moments in almost every day that I feel I am among little adults. Little adults who can ride bikes, climb trees, clear their spot from the table, put on their own clothes, even switch the laundry (with a boost up to the controls and supervision). Then there will be an outburst of uncontrolled emotion, straight from the pre-verbal days, and I'm reminded that their little adult ways can only go so far, take so much, and hold it together for so long. But even then, even when I am my most sympathetic (as opposed to when I act as impassioned, and simply demand, loudly, that the crying-yelling-hitting stop), I expect them to use their words, hit only things that won't hurt anyone, and to calm down in less than a few minutes. Only later do I catch a glimpse of those eyes. For Dietrich it is his long eye lashes that flash me a reminder of the tiny child he once was, and still needs to be from time to time. For a moment he is the little one finding some peace at the breast and the bridge of his nose as gently sloping down his face as it was the day he was born. It is gone in a flash, but I've been reminded, returned to the person I was changed into when God entrusted me, and Ryan, to care for him. For Elliott, it is the cheeks just under his eyes that puff up just slightly, and are now speckled with a dusting of freckles. His blue green eyes look nothing like the bright blues of his baby days, but those cheeks are the same we first saw on an ultrasound image, the cheeks of the person we hoped and prayed and trusted would one day be our Elliott. Tonight he was so tired at dinner he rubbed his eyes and the tops of those cheeks. His harsh words for our dinner choices had given way to a sign that today he had played hard. When he stopped rubbing his eyes, his cheeks were pink, his eyelids droopy. I need to remember those eyes, those cheeks, and let them catch me in a moment of grown up expectations. And maybe remember that I, too, am in so many ways still so small, still growing up, still learning.