My two-year-old son and I have the same first name \u2013 James \u2013 and before too long, he\u2019ll be too old to be rocked to sleep by a lullaby. That\u2019s too bad, because he loves \u201cSweet Baby James\u201d by James Taylor. He always nods off during the chorus:<\/p>\n
Goodnight, you moonlight ladies
\nRockabye, Sweet Baby James
\nDeep greens and blues are the colors I choose
\nWon\u2019t you let me go down in my dreams
\nAnd rockabye Sweet Baby James<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWe already had four kids by the time James came along. And, as you may have guessed, James wasn\u2019t supposed to come along. Yet here he is. He was a mistake who became a surprise who became a blessing.<\/p>\n
We had already planned our lives around the idea of four kids in school. My wife was going to go back to work part-time; I was going to get rich, and everything was set. Then James came along and screwed everything up. We weren\u2019t sure if we were going to forgive him for doing that.<\/p>\n
The day he was born changed all that instantly. He came out with a full head of dark, scraggly hair \u2013 unlike all four of our other kids who were bald as ping pong balls upon their arrival. James also, unlike our other kids, had a hard time breathing for the first few days. We were told his prognosis was good, but he had to be put in intensive care on a respirator, and we couldn\u2019t hold him. The irony was thick on the ground – here was the child whose arrival we had been dreading, and now we were terrified at the prospect of losing him. The day we were able to take James, healthy and happy, back home with us was one of the greatest days of our lives.<\/p>\n
I think the hair was still helping matters. The dark hair was replaced by blonde curls, again, unlike the four straight-headed kids who preceded him. Near his second birthday, my wife asked me to go get his hair trimmed, and, being an idiot, I gave very vague instructions to the SuperCuts girl, who proceeded to practically shave his head. My wife burst into tears when she saw the curls were gone, and they haven\u2019t come back. It\u2019s still a sore subject around the house, but, fortunately, we\u2019ve found other reasons to love him.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s smart and funny, and he wants to grow up in the worst way. Last night, at a cousin\u2019s house, he decided to imitate his older cousin by crossing his legs, but he couldn\u2019t quite lift his right leg over his left. It was fun to watch him struggle with it. He\u2019s obsessed with cars, or \u201cbye-byes,\u201d as he calls them, and given the opportunity, he\u2019d watch Pixar\u2019s \u201cCars\u201d movie all day long. Sometimes, when my natural sloth takes over, I almost let him.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a mistake.<\/p>\n
This is precious time that we\u2019re never going to get again. He\u2019s the last one. I\u2019m trying to remember that. I\u2019m trying to enjoy the fact that he carries his little blue blankie everywhere; that his face lights up every time he sees a doggie or a kitty, that he calls all his brothers and sisters by name but still calls himself \u201cbaby.\u201d He\u2019s growing. He can crawl out of his crib now. He wants to grow up more than I want him to stay little, and nature says he\u2019s going to win out in the end.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve only got so many \u201cSweet Baby James\u201d nights left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mytwo-year-old son and I have the same first name \u2013 James \u2013 and before too long, he\u2019ll be too old to be rocked to sleep by a lullaby. That\u2019s too bad, because he loves \u201cSweet Baby James\u201d by James Taylor. He always nods off during the chorus:
Goodnight, you moonlight ladiesRockabye, Sweet Baby JamesDeep greens <\/blockquote> ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4972,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/4972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}