I don't care about being able to make myself invisible or being able to fly. Being able to travel in time, though, that would be awesome.
Well, you know what? It is awesome. I just never realized how easy it would be. The key, apparently, is to have a son (J.P.), wait four years or so, then have another son (Joe). It's as simple as that, or so it seems.
Lately, when I'm with Joe (7 1/2 months), I often find myself transported back in time four years, to when J.P. was the same age. It's a random thing and I have absolutely no control over it. It just happens organically.
Tonight, after dinner, Jude was helping J.P. take a shower in our downstairs bathroom while I fed Joe. I was sitting in one of J.P.'s small, wooden white chairs - a Pottery Barn special - hunched over, back aching, trying (unsuccessfully) to persuade Joe, reclined in the bouncy chair, to open his mouth and eat a tiny spoonful of Gerber's turkey baby food. He was royally pissed at me - bawling, red-faced, squirming - the whole nine yards. He didn't want Gerber's turkey. He didn't want Gerber's organic green peas (which was coming next). He wanted Gerber's rice cereal.
As I looked down at him, baby turkey and baby organic green peas smeared all over his face and hands, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. It was 2008 and I was staring right into J.P.'s eyes again. It was surreal.
The same thing happened on Saturday afternoon, when I strolled with Joe down to Belmont Boulevard. We stopped in at Chago's Cantina, so I could feed him. I wasn't sure how I was going to manage it, other than just to feed him while reclining in the stroller. What the hell, I thought, I'll just stick him in a high chair . . . for the first time ever! So I did, he ate all of his lunch and he loved it. And I loved it, too.
As I alternated between feeding him and taking photos of him with my iPhone, I was hit by the time travel lightning bolt yet again. Suddenly it was 2008 and J.P. and I were in Tabouli's (the predecessor to La Fiesta/Chago's Cantina) together and I was feeding him lunch on a Saturday, laughing at him sitting in the high chair like a big boy. Again, surreal.
And, so, that's how I travel in time. And it is pretty damn awesome.
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