i have been watching Oscar play with little boys these past few weeks. the majority of the babies he’s known and interacted with on any regular basis since his birth – among friends, at the sitter’s – have been girls, and most are within a month or two of his own age. but the summer and all the visitors have brought boys. slightly older boys, born in late 2004 or 2005, most of them. just slimming out past the toddler stage, words beginning to tumble from their mouths in complexities my own boy watches with wonder, and puzzlement.

O & Isaac

Oscar seems to like these older creatures, these running, laughing, jumping, talking boys. he tries to emulate them, ranging further afield across the lawn as they do…studying their toys and their movements, trying to take some for his own. he is open and friendly, if sometimes oblivious to their rights of possession, but he’s surprised me with how willing he’s been to share with them, to offer them his treasures, his favourite books and bath squishies, to court their favour.

Oscar, Rowan, Theo

he looks up, and sees them, and he lights up. like a little brother. like the second-born boy he really is.

Oscar & Matthew

yesterday afternoon i watched him galumph across the backyard in pursuit of our racing godson, who was born the month i got pregnant with Finn back in 2004, in Korea, when we were all expats and new to the parenting journey, wondering whether diverging paths would bring us all back together to see those babies grow…their newborn, our newly announced baby-to-be. i was due today, this date, August 4th of that coming summer.

but Finn came and went in April, instead. only the following April did we take the next step in the journey, take a baby home and watch him grow.

Oscar & Joshua

so these older boys fascinate me, with their long legs and their words, and i wonder in spite of myself what Finn would look like now, if he would run and jump like they do, how he and Oscar would interact…Irish twins, only 51 weeks apart, in the alternate universe in which they both get to exist. and if Oscar would look up to him, and beam, and then swat the toy from his hands.

bath

and just for a second, though i know better, i wish that Oscar got to be a little brother.