After Pilates, I went to get Jake and take him to the park – Danneel Playground – the same park my mother took me to when I was his age – it’s on Octavia and St. Charles Avenue. The trees were thinned by the storm and so there is even less shade there now. A father came with his kids and when J was flying after one of the little boys on the firetruck jungle gym, he slipped and came crashing down on the metal bench – my heart leaped out and I swooped him up and checked teeth, chin, etc. and then just held him to me till he stopped wailing.
It’s a funny thing how women like to say you don’t know what it “feels” like till you’re a mother – either I’m the most empathetic woman in the world or I must have been a mother in some other life – because I know I felt his fall.