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Thrills n' Chills
The week kicked off with Felix revealing two new teeth and a death wish. He took a header off the bed. The former makes it seem as if he's growing up a bit too quickly, the latter, I suppose, proves that he isn't. I could find this comforting if I didn't feel so guilty about the tumble.
It doesn't matter that he was pronounced perfectly fine by one doctor and another expressed mild surprise that 1: his forehead isn't sporting a large goose egg and 2: this hadn't happened sooner. This sort of thing is as common as dirt, but as the song says: "the way of love is the way of woe."
The parts of the incident that linger with me are my shoddy reflexes- I only caught half of Felix as he went down- the wrong half- he still clocked his head and belly, and the sundry lingering accusations that float my way. My mother, for instance, took the opportunity to tell me that my bed, which is rather high, is the problem. (And, yes, the bed height is also a result of my poor planning and questionable instincts. In the wake of the events of September 11th 2001, the EPA recommended that people living in my area replace their mattresses. When we ordered the new one, we did so without thinking or measuring much and, sure enough, the beast is tall.) These things can make a girl rather wary, so I've spent the last few days looking over my shoulder, anxious about what fresh threats are about to snarf me.
The frisson of unhappy apprehension is not entirely unfamiliar to me. Pregnancy is full of suspense. First there are all the usual well-founded excitements and fears, but those are rarely sufficient. When I was pregnant, people loved to tell me what sort of terrible things were going to happen to me. My feet would swell and never return to their original size, my future was full of back fat and edema. And some people loved saying that my future, post-child, would be full of thwarted ambitions and the insanity of sleep deprivation. And the little world of anxiety that was my labor and delivery is best passed over. I will say only that I should have looked upon it the way law school grads regard the bar exam. Once you pass, you are ready to start living a life of suspense in earnest.
Shortly before school let out, a friend whose child is well over a decade older than Felix was talking about teaching her kid about suspense, and I offered her a list of movies that would provide some tense pleasures over summer vacation. Included, for those playing at home, was a scattering of Hitchcock pictures (The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, To Catch a Thief) that provide an exquisite combination of danger and romance, humor and threat that would appeal to the tween set (offering thrills and tension without the harder to handle anxiety of Hitch's more "adult" pictures like Notorious, Rebecca, Vertigo, that sort of thing.)
It appears Felix loves suspense in his own little way. Among his favorite games is for me (or anyone really) to count slowly to three and... do something. It doesn't matter what. I can hoist him in the air or drop something on the floor; by the time I've gotten to 2, he's in hysterics, thrilled by the prospect of something about to happen, not caring what it is. And he still adores the mystery, even after falling off the bed.
I suspect I'm in the sway of bad perception. Whoever says people don't read anymore needs to take a few trips on the New York City subways (despite the threats to everyone's civil liberties). Everyone everywhere is feverishly lugging around multi-pound copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I've seen people miss stops. I've seen people cry with this text in hand. Everyone reads it desperately, craving and dreading the threats, the death, the cliffhanger, the thickened mystery that signals a series on the verge of ending. I'm looking forward to getting swept up in it myself. It's been a while since I regretted staying up too late while trying to squeeze myself through a few chapters.
Felix's fall was frightening, but ultimately it was no more painful for him than his subsequent savaging of one of his toes with his two(!) new teeth. It would do me well if I could stop cursing myself for not being able to see around corners and learn to enjoy living with my heart in my throat.
posted by Elise at 8:44 PM
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