Sam

Claire and I have a special relationship. Not only are we a father-daughter pair, we are also friends. We read together, hand legos back and forth, walk around the house looking out the windows at the never-ending Winter. Sometimes we just hang out doing nothing. Claire is my girl.

And yet it is Sam who breaks my heart. He is a highly mobile boy. In the evenings he often does laps crawling through our bedrooms. He doesn't keep eye contact like Claire does when he is interacting with you. When he's happy, he gets this aw-shucks grin on his face and goes back to his current job. When Claire is happy, she gets an enormous toothy grin, like a hyena baring its teeth and squeals with excitement. When she is upset, her body goes rigid and she screams louder than any other being her size.

When Sam is upset, it is like his soul has been irreparably wounded. He sticks out his lower lip. His eyes get really big. He begins to cry and then he wails like a hurt bear cub. Even when you have properly soothed him, he retains a residual melancholy as if your taking a quarter, or a pen or a pair of scissors away from him has shattered his illusion that the world is a habitable place.

I stayed home with Sam and Claire today. They didn't have a very good morning nap. After lunch they went to play group. When we made it home from play group it was three o'clock and they were ready for a good afternoon nap. After about thirty minutes, Sam starts to wail. He is, as is almost always true in these cases, sitting up in his crib watching the door crying his eyes out. Claire is dead asleep. I take Sam out of the room to keep from waking Claire. He's only been down for thirty minutes and he didn't have a long morning nap, so he will have to go back to sleep.

When I am carrying him around he is fine (accept for the residual melancholy). When I lay down with him in our bed, he starts crying again. I snuggle him into my shoulder, rub his back and sing to him and he slowly calms down. Every fifth breath is still a gasp to hold back his tears. If I stop singing or talking or I stop petting him, he starts up again. After about fifteen minutes he finally falls off to sleep, a warm bundle at my side.