A moment in boyhood

We walked around the corner to the small park, hand in hand, just the two of us.  No little brother, no neighbor friends.  Just us.

When we arrived, there were a bunch of bigger boys playing some sort of tag game in and on and around the play structure.  Sebastian watched them, but with less wide-eyed wonder than before.  This time, he climbed the steps and got very close to the face of the boy hanging out at the top of the twisty slide.

“Are you going to go down that slide on your belly?” he asked the bigger boy.  My heart leapt.  Sebastian has rarely had the confidence to talk to anyone he’s never met, much less a boy four times his age.

The boy smiled.  “Yeah,” he said.

“Can I go down the slide after you?” Sebastian asked him.

“Sure,” the boy told him.  And down he went on his belly.

Sebastian zipped after him, sitting up like he always does.  But when he got to the bottom, he looked at me and announced, “I’m going to go down on my belly this time,” and raced back around to climb up the steps again.

He got to the top and looked down, warily.  He started to get on his belly, but at the last minute, flipped himself back upright and said, “This time I’m going on my bum.”

Several times, he got to the top determined to try on his belly, but each time changed his mind.

“Can you go with me?” he finally asked.  So we went up to the top of the big slide together.  I sat down and lowered him in front of me, so he was on his belly but holding onto my waist.  Laughing, we twirled around the slide to the bottom.

“Ok, this time I’m going to do it ALL BY MYSELF!” he shouted.  Up to the top he went.  Paused.  Looked down over the edge.

“Mama?  Can you come with me again?”  I climbed up again and again, thinking to myself how lucky it was Theo had gone erranding with my mom, so I could just be here.  Sliding.  Encouraging.  Soaking up this brief moment of little boyhood.

Next I suggested he try the small slide and see if he could do that one on his belly.  “Ok!”  He was nervous, clinging to the top as though he were hanging off a 100-foot cliff.

Then…he let go.  In one second his feet were on the ground and his eyes were electric.  “I DID it!” he told me.

He decided he would do it four times before trying the big slide again.  Three more times up, three more times down on his chubby-belly – the only part of him that’s still toddlerish.   Then he was ready.

“Can you wait at the bottom?” he asked me, as he scurried to the top.

So I stood there, camera in hand, waiting to see if this time it would be it.

Another pause at the top.  Another hesitation.  And then?

Whoosh.  Down he came.  I saw him disappear and then reappear around each turn, giggling the whole way.

When he stood up, he literally hopped over to me, his whole body wiggling with excitement as he exclaimed, “I did the BIG slide on my BELLY all by MYSELF!”

Our smiles collided there in the sunshine as we both radiated the same feeling: Pride.