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| Oliver and Henry, 2007 |
Both my sons have been chatterboxes all their lives until very recently. Oliver can still talk your ear off -- it's truly a stunning thing to feel one's ear curling up and falling to the ground in exhaustion -- but Henry has recently become more broody, more reticent, more dark, leading man to Oliver's ebullient boy. I know all of this is normal, and to tell you the truth, I revel in what's normal -- really revel in it, which might be one of the ambiguous perks of having a considerable chunk of my time consumed by what's not normal. Yeah, yeah -- what's normal? Nothing is normal, some of you might say, but I'm here to scream that some things are normal, and Henry's reluctance to share much of what's going on is perfectly reasonable for a teenager his age. In a couple of weeks, Henry will be taking his girlfriend to the homecoming dance, and last night I learned that when you ask a girl to the dance -- even your girlfriend -- you do something special. He walked to Trader Joe's and bought her a bunch of flowers, and this morning, I wrapped them in tissue, kissed him good-bye and called out how much I loved him when he left. I love you, too! he said, and thank god he still says that! I wondered all afternoon how he would present the flowers and what he would say, and since he isn't coming home until tonight, after the football game, I texted him. Here's our exchange:
And that's just how I revel.
