Golden birthday

Xingu was born just after 8 p.m. on Monday, April 7, 2003. He was term (barely), weighed 5 pounds 9 ounces, and looked like a space alien. Today, his seventh birthday, he is a wiry 50-pounder. He is tall, blond, and miraculous to his parents in nearly every way. Two of his grandparents got to meet him; his father’s mother got to know him. More than that, he got to know her. One of the gifts older parents often can’t give their children is grandparents.

What can we give him as we age? Perspective, tolerance . . . time. Perhaps because we have lost our own parents, we are in touch with mortality in a way that younger parents are not. We have seen enough to know that we are all on the brink of the abyss at any given moment and that, in the words of a character in one of Xingu’s books, “Now is all the time there is.”

Xingu and I go way back together. Thirty years ago, single and anxious and prone to drinking too much wine, I talked about the sweet little boy I would have someday. He reassured me from the womb throughout my fraught pregnancy, and then here he was.

He has no clue that he will be bullied mercilessly if he continues to study dance. He loves to climb, swim, run and ride his bicycle; he is learning to skateboard. He knows snippets of The Mikado, The Sorcerer, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Lion King, and various operas (“Mom, who is worse? President Bush or Don Giovanni?”). He whines and pouts and whines some more. He reads Harry Potter. He hugs old people, who love him for it. He hugs his parents, who love him for it.

The evening Xingu was born, my good doctor came in to tell me why he thought a C-section was in order. I had hoped to put it off until the next day because just then I wanted to eat more than I wanted to have surgery. Dr. W said he thought it better not to wait. I looked at my husband Krang. “Seven is an odd number…” I murmured; Krang knows I like odd numbers. Dr. W added, “Seven is a lucky number.”