December 26, 2002 - Thursday
We are driving down the highway on the way back home from a morning in the city and Harry is looking wistfully out the window.

He did the same this morning on the way there. It snowed more than 12 inches yesterday where we live, although less in the city, and the new cover made for an enchanting morning drive with thick snow on every branch of every tree and clear midmorning sunlight sparkling and lighting pockets and hills of white. Whether Harry was truly captivated or just relaxed and restful following an exciting holiday is hard to know for sure, but he certainly appeared taken by the wonder of snow. We were on our way to the Aquarium with Grandpa and Judy and it was something Harry and Jeremy were almost sure to love. We'd talked about it for a few days and Harry was quite interested and excited to see it. And, when we got there, the huge water tanks full of colorful fish, turtles, sharks, and toads, seals swimming happily around their habitat, and three different kinds of penguins right as we came in all kept the boys happily attracted and distracted as expected. What was less certain and really quite unexpected was that neither Harry nor Jeremy had any real down moments through the entire adventure, save during a 12-minute and mostly sationary wait for the sea lion show to begin. I would have expected discontent somewhere along the way; like the hour-long drive getting there, the cold wind between the parking garage and the Aquarium entrance, or simply entering a new and unfamiliar place. There was none. Harry even walked the entire way from the car to the Aquarium without asking to be picked up and did much the same inside, although grandpa and I both picked him up on several occasions for a better view. Jeremy? Well, I think a one-year-old has no way not to be absorbed by so many new, colorful, watery, fast-moving, and odd-looking creatures. All around, it was a raging success.

Jeremy fell right to sleep when we got in the car. Harry, having slept the last twenty minutes on the way in, is taking a little longer. The snow on the trees on his side of the highway has now melted in the early afternoon sun and the trees are mostly bare. The scene far less remarkably decorated. We are playing a quiet CD, Trio II, and a song I have sung to Harry countless times since he was a baby, Blue Train, starts. It will put him over the edge and into sleep. I'm sure of that as I turn my head from the driver's seat to take a peak at my happy and contented son. And I wonder as his mind starts dancing with the agility the mind gains midway between waking and sleep, if he, like me, is floating back to the times when it was me, his father, singing the same song lying on the sofa, he on my chest fading into restfulness once again.


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