Smudge, Fleck, Dimple

Mum,

Finn turned half a year old today. His eyes resolved into their resting colour a couple months ago. Fast, it seemed. Nondescript dark to a dark blue, kind of like mine. But also kind of like yours and kind of like Dad's because his left eye has a single brown fleck, on the inside towards the bridge of his stubby nose. Sometimes I forget to call him Finn and instead carry Fleck around all day. Do you remember telling me that time about how, to your in-love adolescent mind, it was "a sign" that you and Dad both had the same middle name, and both had a brown fleck in your blue eyes?




I've loved that little fleck because it's a little something permanent in this boy who will be nothing but change for years. And also a sign, a signal to me that I'm just as in love with this kid as I have been with that other one. A sign that even though I've engraved it in permanent ways much less than I did with Scout, the details of Finn's babyhood are important to me. For some reason I need to tell him and me (and you!) I notice them, notice them and love them.



He has started crawling. He has two teeth. He's an expert at juicy mouth noises. He's dimpled on every surface you'd expect a little baby pucker and some you wouldn't. A few patches of his baby hair never fell out, so there are these long whisps that curl out like loose downy feathers. Sometimes I can get freaked out by the way these kids act like hourglasses to my life. I push for them to get to some milestone, and then mope at the end of an era. Case in point: For the first time ever, Scout slept through the night by herself last night. (Can I hear a whoop whoop?) But both Andy and I have already expressed regret that we won't be cuddling her to sleep anymore. (Obviously not enough regret to not teach her to sleep through the night.)



I know he won't remember anything distinct about this time of life, but I wonder in what ways the smell of wet pavement, damp earth, sweat and soured butter; the night music of frogs and crickets and howling dogs; the soft sweetness of fresh ripe banana and mango; the sight of warm, smiling African faces pushed into his; I wonder how these will affect him. At what point, when he's eleven, or nineteen, or thirty-two, will a sight or smell or taste trigger the faded outline of a shadow's shadow of a memory that he can't even remember from these months here in Malawi. He'll be sitting on a bus somewhere and hear a voice that he remembers but can't place. He'll wonder if it's a case of deja vue or the memory of a dream.

And me? What will I remember? That's one reason why I have to write, and why I have to be as honest as I can. I end up believing the words I've written. I end up forgetting everything but the words I've written.

If Finn is ever going to be anything but the person he is at that moment, I have to record it in detail right now. Even then it's no guarantee. I barely remember anything about Scout from this last Spring, as impossible as it seems.

Thanks for calling on Thanksgiving. Sorry I couldn't talk. Tell Dad I hope his green chicken turned out as fabulous as his green turkey last year.

Love Joh