Please don’t eat the sand

One of my favorite pictures from my first son's infancy was taken while on vacation at the beach. Squinting/smiling into the strong summer sunlight, my tiny tot will forever be frozen in time and memory by a photo taken near Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, several years before its recent move to new digs on safer ground.

In the photo, we are both smiling; content to be together, happy for the beautiful day, glad of our good fortune to be alive. And I, of course, am ever young, ever fit, ever slim. The man in that photo will never need to worry about graying hair or an expanding waistline. He is untroubled by concerns for his children's safety as they foray, independently, into the world. He does not fret that his teenage son may wreck the car, or fail math, or fail to make the team--or fail to try at all.

And the child in the photo will forever be secure in the gentle, protective embrace of his daddy's arms. A gentle breeze, scented with just a tinge of salt and seaweed lightly toasted by near-tropical sun, will forever caress his fair, unblemished cheek. He is too little to wonder yet about all that can hurt him. He's too busy being filled with wonder.

He hasn't learned yet (but soon will) that sand isn't for eating. His daddy doesn't entirely grasp yet the depth of his intelligence, or the gentleness of his nature, or the intensity of his native curiosity about the world. Although he's already highly inquisitive, it will not become clear until later, when he is able to formulate an endless stream of incisive questions, just how thirsty he is for knowledge and understanding. Although he's already showing signs, his parents can't be sure, quite yet, just how affectionate, considerate and loving he really is. That will come later.

As he grows and learns, and body and mind transform from infant to child to little boy to young man to responsible adult, it will become ever clearer to his parents that he truly is special in many ways. Like all new parents, his parents worry over his every move. They fret when he coughs, when he eats or doesn't eat, when he dirties his diaper or doesn't, or when he picks up a handful of sand and considers its tastiness. His parents alternate between wishing to stop time and yearning for the next stage. Wouldn't it be nicer if we could just get past diapers, or if he could talk, or eat without a drop cloth, or if he could go to school?

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