My lionheart

It's Saturday afternoon at our temple and we're all gathered in pajamas for a Shabbat/Hanukkah (or "Shabbatukah," as Phil likes to call it) celebration. On the rug, a group of one-year-olds is shaking jingly instruments while someone sings Hanukkah songs; a few feet away, the cantor is lighting Hanukkah candles with some older kids. On the other side of the room, everyone else is engaged in various stages of constructing a menorah out of modeling clay and popsicle sticks.

Everyone, that is, except one toddler, who is racing around a large round table, faster and faster, like a tetherball whipping around a pole. He appears, much like a hamster in a wheel will never tire, to have been running around the table since Judah and the Maccabees first defeated the Greeks, and the look in his eyes says he is prepared to keep running around that table until someone procures some jelly donuts; that might entice him to stop.

That one? Is mine. Phil and I sat there watching, half amused and half dismayed, as a tween volunteer tried to entice Eli to sit down and color on some dreidels. Part of me thought I should help her out, but part of me also wanted to see how long Eli could keep running in circles around that table. (The answer: Longer than you would think.)

Maybe it's the looming winter or maybe it's just those terrible 2s, but these days Eli seems to be more of everything than ever: louder, faster, more insistent, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. At 6 a.m. every morning, I hear his voice hollering for me from his room, and when I enter in a sleepy stupor his arms are already reaching for me from his crib. "I wanna go in the bed," he announces, and once installed beneath the covers, I can feel his toes poking insistently into my flabby side, his hands moving restlessly over my chest. Every few minutes he pops up like a groundhog to peer out the window and make some observation ("It's dark out! The cars are moving! A siren!") until finally he's had enough and he declares, with all seriousness, "I have to go play."

Sometimes, while I'm frantically trying to open a container of yogurt or a new package of play-doh before his whines ascend to wails while he sits close to me practically panting like a dog, I can feel him vibrating with energy and I'm overwhelmed by the force of his desire. "I want it. I want it!" he'll repeat doggedly, and I'm left spinning out the same platitudes about patience and waiting just a minute. The other night he shrieked through a public menorah lighting because he was desperate for a jelly donut, which I had said he could not have until the menorah was lit. In these moments it's hard to decide when to dig in and when to let go, what's not worth engaging in a power struggle over and what might be spoiling him for life.

Bedtime is my favorite time of day. Not for obvious reasons (ha, ha), but because Eli and I kick ass at our bedtime routine, which he has succeeded at lengthening in ever-incremental steps over the past year. (We used to read a few books, get into the crib and sing a night-night song. Now I read a few books, say "Last book!" at least twice, then Eli gets a turn reading a book, then we "sit for a minute," then I "rock a baby," then we do crib and night-night song, which Eli interrupts every single night to inform me that he will be playing with "toys and chuggers" tomorrow.)

Usually I'm in sort of a rush to speed things along, because I have this idea that it's like now or never, if he doesn't get into the crib and go to sleep now he'll never let me leave. And usually Eli is popping up off my lap to choose another book from the shelf, or playfully tickling at me with his fingers, or whipping his blanket over his head to hide.

But the night of the Hanukkah celebration I was struck forcefully as we sat there together by how still he finally was. There was no squirming against me or feet sticking my sides or palms gently patting my cheeks. Literally the only sound I could hear besides the classical night-night music was that little squeak-squeak from his pacifier, the same rubbery sound it made when he was a baby and I had to hold it in his mouth so it wouldn't pop out from the force of his sucking.

The first time I ever heard Eli sing along with a song that wasn't a nursery rhyme, we were in the Gap and they were playing a song called "King and Lionheart." "Howling ghosts, they reappear in mountains that are stacked with fear, but you're a king and I'm your lionheart." It was the "lionheart" part that Eli was repeating, and ever since then I've thought of him as my lionheart: strong and brave and intense.

Eli was never all that interested in being held. As a baby, he would arch his back against us, as if to say, "Put me down!" He disliked being carried, snuggled or rocked, any of those things that babies are supposed to crave. Now, it feels like a rare treat when he'll sit in my lap, and even rarer when he'll sit there, still, and let me wrap my arms around him.

So that night we just sat there. I resisted the urge to make conversation, to chat about our day. I just breathed him in, kissing his soft hair, trying not to caress him too much and ruin it. He was heavy against me in a way that felt reassuring and familiar, like: This is the weight of my child. As I always do, I felt a quick flash-forward to the future -- Someday he won't wait to sit in my lap like this and someday it will be weird and creepy even if he did -- and nearly burst into tears. Instead I just burrowed further into the chair and nuzzled him into me like a Russian nesting doll, his head tucked under my chin.

"I love being your mommy," I murmured, and it was true. But I love some moments more than others, and that moment felt like the sweetest of all.

As the world comes to an end
I'll be there to hold your hand
You're a king and I'm your lionheart...