Sun and Shade

He started that screaming again, that nonsensical bawling which at first always makes me want to laugh, simply because the situation is as hopeless as it is absurd. Whatever I ask him to do, he wants to to the opposite:

Do you want to watch watch television.
No, I want to go to school!
Okay let's go to school.
No, no no! I want to watch television!

That last line delivered at an ear-shredding pitch and volume, his body twitching and flopping on his beanbag like an enraged pupa, his features already screwed into an expression of truculence, easy tears standing ready to burst forth in the inevitable next phase of escalation.

So I was driving him to daycare and he was screaming lustily over a series of outrages I'd visited upon him (putting on shoes, getting into the car, buckling the child restraints), soaring into new realms of keening aggravation, when I suddenly stopped the car and, turning to grasp his chin, said,

If you cry like a baby I'm going to treat you like a baby.

I won't pretend it was a great rejoinder on my part. But his screaming often leaves me so agitated that I'll talk complete nonsense, so this was practically a masterpiece of clarity. At least it had some bearing on the situation. And once I'd turned around the shrieks of anger turned to long, lusty wails of desolation, his mouth in the rearview mirror forming a plaintive rectangle, the lower lip outthrust and trembling, cascades of gem-like tears racing down those flushed cheeks. He wanted mommy now. Mommy, mommy, mommy.

Mommy. Is. At. Work, I said.

We turned onto the main road, out of our neighborhood. The marshes nearby gave the air a heavy sulfurous taste and the insects chittered in the grass. The sun, squashed against the horizon, glared at us between the long shadows of the trees and houses. The car was quiet. My son sniffled in this backseat, his little chest puffing and deflating in a long sigh. I reached back my hand and put it on his leg. He looked down, then looked away. I patted his knee a few times, then turned my palm upward. After a moment I felt his little hand slip into mine, and we drove that way, holding hands. We played a game where, when we rolled into sunlight, we said, "sun" and when the shadows fell across the road again we said, "shade." And that's how it is with him. Sun and shade. But that's love I guess.