I Miss Newborns (But Not Bad Enough to Have More of Them)

My son held my thumb until he fell asleep tonight as though he were a newborn. He surprised me by reaching his hand up to meet mine during a rare bedtime head-to-toe relaxation exercise.

Since The Lawyer was only two, we've used the same yoga meditation CD to help him wind down. I hope the astral background music and the narrator's hypnotic voice also ease his recurrent night terrors.

My little first-born, now big enough to play baseball wearing a real uniform on a real team with real rules and real fast pitches on a real field, gripped my thumb so tight tonight, just as he did when he arrived Feb. 15, 2001, filled with epidural fluids and a lusty spirit, naturally endowed with that amazing reflex, the Plantar grasp.