All that time I’ve wasted on myself, I think as he and I stand a few feet apart whispering tall tales. He’s only four and yet he tells me he secured his own ice pack when he fell from the couch, while I was in the other room. I’m amazed at his resilience. 

He tells me about a noise that seemed to appear without a source. His retelling of the investigation causes his face to dance—a mixture of motions by cheeks and nose that are both too old and too young for his expression. 

I can’t decide to laugh or cry. As he has suddenly grown in front of me. And I think of these words and the pull they have—urging me away from celebrating all that he is in this moment in order to capture it here in word.

I ask him when he got so big, still debating my next move, and he explains it is when he sleeps in the comfy blanket I wrapped him in last night. I tell him he is right, but I beg him to stop. His refusal adding to the feeling within—both goodbye and hello.