The hat is old, at least thirty-five years old, because
David wore it when he was little. It’s
blue and gold and says Fighting Irish.
There are a few holes where moths have feasted and there is a yellow
pom-pom on top that seals the deal. It’s
the cutest thing Charlie has ever worn and he found it in the coat closet. He picked it out. He puts it on almost every day, when the mood
strikes him.
It symbolizes him.
His style. His mind. He is an “I do it myself!” kind of guy. He is a “Don’t help me!” kind of guy. He is a “Go away, stand back, I got it” kind
of guy. And he loves accoutrements,
especially hats.
He wears the Fighting Irish hat when he rides his bike, when
we take Finny to school, when he’s sitting in the cart at Target, sometimes
even when he naps. The other day when he
was struggling to go down for a nap, I walked in and found tiny gold threads
from his pom-pom in clumps and piles all over his bed. The pom-pom is still there, but looks a
little anemic now. David was sad. “But I can’t take it away,” I said, “It’s the
cutest thing I’ve ever seen.” He agreed.
Lately, he’s also taken a liking to his Spiderman bike
helmet. It’s the first thing he wants to
put on when he walks down the stairs in the morning. He eats breakfast in it. He dances to Michael Jackson in it, and two
nights ago, he just sat on the couch and watched Mary Poppins in it. I love
it. I wish he’d been wearing it a couple
months ago when the back of his head slammed into the coffee table. I think he should probably wear it all the
time.
When he’s putting in song requests—“I wanna hear Beat It.
I wanna hear Jungle Boogie. I wanna hear Freak Out, Come On, Don’t Stop, Lover of the Light, Satisfaction, I
Will Wait, Viva Was Megas, Roll Away Your Stone, Hey Ya,”—when he’s
singing, dancing, hanging from the monkey bars, going down the slide, looking
for Sinny, asking for graham crackers, throwing his milk cup at me, telling me
to go away, calling himself a “Stinky Baby,” making “Smoovies” in the kitchen,
telling us he wants a “Family hug,” telling me he sees the “Number one hundred!”,
telling me he sees a “W!”, an “E!”, a “Big, red truck!”, a “Blue button!”, when
he’s doing all of these things while sporting some kind of head gear, I start
to see who he is and who is becoming and I love turning the pages.
I wonder: He loves
music—will he be a musician? He loves
pressing buttons—will he be an engineer?
He loves numbers—will he be a mathmetician? I wonder, but I don’t want to skip ahead.
Right now, I know my two-year-old Charlie loves hats and I
want to linger here a while on this page.
I want to sit comfortably by and just watch him--watch him play, sleep,
ride bikes, swing high, eat Cheerios. I
want to sit a while on this page and watch what he’s writing, always, always
with blond curls poking out beneath his head gear, always, always adorned in
some kind of fashionable thinking cap.
