Right around sleep time lately, Stephen has become very emotional. Not the kind of screaming, tantruming, I’m-so-tired-I’m-pissed-off kind of emotional, but the I’m-so-depressed-my-wife-left-me kind of emotional.

In particular, the sleepy baby song I sing to the melancholy tune I composed gets him very low. The song goes “Sleepy baby. My sleepy baby. Baby sleepy. My baby sleepy. Sleepy weepy. My baby sleepy. Cutie baby. My cutie sleepy,” and so forth and so on. Soon after I start singing the song and rocking him in my arms, his little nose and eyes turn red, his lower lip quivers, and tears drip.

I wonder if Stephen is somehow sensing that his baby days are limited. That I won’t always be able to carry him with his butt on my left forearm and his face leaning against my left shoulder. Whenever Stephen hears a scary sound or sees something scary on TV, he always runs over asking me to carry him this way. As soon as I do, he pats me on my back and reassures himself, “Safe. Safe.”

The world is as safe as can be as long as you’re with me, dear baby.