Tuesday, April 10, 2007

When love hurts


I wish I could capture the sound that Hunter makes when he is really excited, a voice recorder wouldn't cut it because it is not only the sound (a really deep gasp) but the full body inhale and motion that accompanies it - imagine the most excited you have felt being magnified and completely visible in a four year old boy. I've heard it the last two Christmases when he spied the loot that Santa left for him and I heard it again this past weekend when he spotted Grandma. Not surprising since Grandparents are really as good if not better than Santa anyway. If I could have captured the whole thing on video I would have - gasp (that sound), "GRANDMA!!!", thump thump thump (feet running across the floor), - a full on run hug to Grandma. Up until that point I had planned to keep him upstairs so that the Grandparents could sleep in - they didn't get to Regina until around 2am and, as I may have mentioned before, Hunter is a morning person (like a 6am morning person - this does not come from either Jason or I, I blame my Dad and figure it must skip a generation, really skip). I should have known it was a pointless endeavour, though, 'cause Grandma and Grandpa were just as excited to see Hunter and my Mum never could sleep the night before Christmas when I was little so why would I expect excitement to see the boy to be any different (don't worry they were excited to see Julia too but she happened to be up when they arrived).
There really is nothing quite like a run hug from Hunter, completely wonderful when you are prepared for it but potentially concussion-inducing when you are returning from shopping with bags in your arms walking on the sidewalk. See, while my Mum had time to brace herself for the run hug that morning, later that day when we were returning from shopping he came running from the backyard, hugged my Mum, and knocked her backwards. As I stood there powerless, watching her head bounce up from the sidewalk I had visions of Easter at the hospital. Luckily Grandmas are more resilient than they were when I was a kid. Regardless, I don't think we'll continue to encourage the run hugs (even if they do feel great most of the time). That wonderful sigh, though, I wish I could bottle it - nothing feels quite like that sound.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

OK here I'm finally leaving a comment. I was saying to Em that I think I could get obsessed with these blogs and facebook and the like. So of course after that comment I had to run to read yours and I was not disappointed. That was powerful... sometimes we all forget the simple things that we realized were so important when we were little but now often don't allow us that unharnessed emotion and action. Thank Hunter for the reminder :)

emmaline said...

Remind me to put on my pillow suit and bike helmet before I stop by your place. Although I don't suppose Hunter will be quite that enthusiastic with me! We all need kids in our lives, even when we're not parents, to be able to experience that excitement, impulsiveness and deep, deep love!

PS - is it weird that I get a kick out of doing the word verification every time I comment?

Cammy said...

I hate the word verfication but I didn't want to get all excited about having comments only to find out they were spam :)