Dirty Knees

This weekend we helped my husband's brother move into a new house.  On Sunday morning, Jackson here had to choose between staying home to play with the kids -- all five and under -- or heading out with the men to dismantle a baby bed at the old place.  He thought about it for  less than a nanosecond before he puffed up his chest, glanced at the kids, lowered his voice, and said, "I think I'll go with the men."

My heart took a flip in my chest.  He identified more with the collection of men than he did with the kids!  He saw himself as one of their tribe.

When he returned from his outing, he was proud to describe how he'd talked with his uncle, Grandpa, and Dad, how carried crib parts out to the van.  For a few minutes he stood removed.  He couldn't be bothered to rejoin the games of the little people.  He seemed so aware of the gulf between his moments in the land of men and his life in the land of children. He was hungry to savor his moments of bigness.  Just a pause in life worth relishing.

And then, twenty minutes later, I took this picture.  He is eight again, leg flopped over a bar, getting ready to hang by his very dirty knees and then flip over backwards laughing.  Thirty seconds later he is leaving his hat on the bench, sure his mother will come behind him and clean up.

But that moment... the brief breath of manhood... grabbed me firmly by the ankles and planted me resolutely in the present.  As beautiful as he was as a man that morning, the future is not to be rushed.  I need more time with dirty knees and forgotten ball caps.