Evening Dance

The oven timer beeps but the music calls me first.

I peek around the corner to see if my usual partner is coming to dance, but she is engrossed in her colored pencils and new found joy in the precision and care it takes to color in the weaving on Cinderella's basket one. section. at. a. time.

So he sees me first, from his perch by the fireplace, and shifts from fat diaper to hands and knees and tucks his chin into his chest and crawls, quickly but carefully in his tentative I'm-new-at-this way.

And I can see his cheeks puff out and I know he's smiling.

Flash of baby teeth and sparkle of drool and he rests on my hip, his fingers pinching my underarm familiarly. We sway, he reaching out one hand to bounce it to the rhythm and my hand raised high in praise for This Good Day.

And the music plays on so we squeeze tighter and begin to spin. He leans his head on mine and I turn my face to inhale that spot on his temple that makes my eyes roll back in my head and he gets a new grip on my hair and we twirl, breathless and tangled and I never want to stop. Never want to let go.

Because if I do, he'll be off to build forts and hit baseballs and take giant trash cans to the curb and divide numbers that make my head hurt and ride his bike too far for me to watch...

But the song ends, and we lock eyes. He grins, and I breathe Love you, G.

Beeping reenters my consciousness and I remember chicken browning in the oven and potatoes boiling on the stove and the dance is over.

I release my hair from his fingers and inhale once more and kiss open lips just learning how to show love like that and set him down at my feet.

And he crawls away.