“What did we talk about before Tex?” I asked my cousin this morning. “I really don’t remember.”
The question arose when she and I sent a series of Snapchats to each other in which we were both performing what is known as “baby talk” to her six-month-old son. Although I still think technology has turned us into a less-social society, I am so grateful for its attempt to bridge the 533-mile gap between Tex’s Aunt and Tex’s Mom, and of course, Tex.
At the beginning of the week, Tex’s Mom sent another series of Snapchats that made me melt like the glaze on a hot Krispy Kreme donut. In a neat little grid of Snaps, a freshly half-year-old baby sat leaned back against the chair’s back, his feet kicked out in front of him. Babies have a way of making themselves comfortable in a house they pay no bills in. Oddly, he had this look like he was up to no good, even though he really doesn’t know what’s good and bad yet in this life. He was deciding, though, that this crescent-shaped, soft, squishy thing in his hand (and mouth, mostly) was…good. And next to him set a box with five-and-a-half other donuts with a handwritten note that said, “1/2 a dozen, 1/2 a year.”
This morning, as Tex’s Mom is saying, “Say hi to Grace!” Tex is looking on in the phone as though he’s wondering is this magical box where he thinks he might see himself is named Grace. It’s been a while since he’s been held in my arms, since he’s teethed on my hand, since he had a major blowout in my lap. I wonder if maybe he’ll forget who I am, or if he’ll attribute that magical-box-thing to “Grace.”
But then I get another message from Tex’s Mom: “He gets so excited whenever you come on the screen,” she said, letting out a quiet laugh as Tex lays beside her on the bed. She proceeded to show me the faces he makes, followed by the various slightly animalistic grunts and noises he was pushing from his mouth. I don’t believe in evolution, but the series of noises mixed with the faces Tex’s Mom was making, I do sometimes see the resemblance between monkeys and the human species.
I set my phone down afterwards, laughing at the replay in my head of Tex’s Mom doing the monkey noises, and it occurred to me that we were grown up.
Maybe it should have occurred to me before now. And maybe, in some ways, it had, but it never has settled this hard in my heart before. In some ways it makes me feel like tomorrow I’ll receive my AARP card in the mail, but in other ways it’s like a rejuvenation of life. We’re not AARP age (yet), but instead we’re at the very beginning of our adult lives.
Tex’s Mom and I have been adults for quite a few years, really. We’ve known each other for over ten years and have been adults for half of them. But age, in this case, really is just a number—being eighteen doesn’t make you an adult any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. Physically, we were able to be shipped off to war or legally get drunk in a bar, but the arrival of Tex is what made me feel like I’m a real adult. (Said in Pinocchio’s voice, “I’m a real boy!”)
Post-Tex visits to Tex’s Mom (and Tex’s Dad) include a sleeping baby in the backseat of the Jeep. When we get where we’re going, we unfold a stroller, we extricate aforementioned sleeping baby from his car seat, and we set him in the four-wheeled ride. People ooh and ahh throughout the store as we make our way back to the baby clothes, picking through to see if we can find anything long enough to fit his string-bean body shape.
However, pre-Tex visits looked a little different. Our last visit pre-Tex was in Panama City Beach, Florida. In the Jeep, we cruised Front Beach Road while listening to Tex’s Mom’s hood-rap music that she knew every word to, and that I would just bop my head like a lizard to as if I knew the song at all. The salty wind blew in through the open windows, but we kept our hair in braids so that it wouldn’t look too messy by the time we got where we were going. When we’d arrive, we would step out, shut the door, and head into whatever destination we’d chosen. Baby clothes didn’t concern us, but we would always check out the touristy shirts for adults.
“Ummm…I don’t know.” Tex’s Mom replied to me after this morning’s question, “I think mostly venting about road rage.”
Sweet, sticky, glaze-covered baby boys are much more exciting than road rage any day.
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