Two things

1.

Today after latching Elliot in his car seat in the back seat I sat down behind the wheel. At the exact moment when I slammed my door shut--the instant the metal crunched in to place--Elliot screamed. Screamed. Death monkey and beyond. A sound of pure agony. And I was, for a second, sure that his small hand had somehow managed to find its way from the back seat into my door, and that (I can barely say it) I'd mangled his small infant fingers. Don't even think about it--it's too awful.

I think that all that had really happened was that he'd dropped his cold teething ring over the side of his carseat and was mad. Or maybe he was just enjoying making noise. Anyway, he was completely fine, and I'm happy to say that I think my heart has now, several hours later, left the roof of my mouth where it had lodged in my instant of panic and is now back in my chest, and might even be beating normally again.

His sweet fingers.

2.

It's a full moon. Elliot's moon, we call it, since it was shining so luminously the night he was born. Tonight I'd been rushing around doing jobs and worrying about tomorrow, but Brandon made me stop and look at it through our kitchen window, over the rooftops and the dried flowers on the sill. I think this is Elliot's ninth full moon? He won't see it, because he is sleeping peaceably in his bedroom, curtains drawn. But there are some slender clouds stretched around it, and the sky is still a little blue in a deep, dark, restful way.