When I went to my sister Debo’s after her second baby arrived in January, her house held the quiet chaos of a newborn’s needs and a toddler adjusting to his lost only child status. We made copious amounts of coffee, and I took copious amounts of photos while we tried to help Freddy adjust and keep Finnley warm and fed. My parents and siblings came and went. We marveled at the baby and allowed the wonder of him to capture our hearts. I drew pictures and sang songs with Freddy. He felt some big feelings sometimes, and mostly he accepted his brother, even as we could tell he was trying to figure things out. His new world included a whole entire other person, his very own baby.
On Sunday morning, as soon as Freddy finished his milk, Tyler took him to the donut shop, a tradition. I tagged a long. A pajama-clad Fred chirped toddler excitement on the quick drive, clinging to a stuffy. On arrival, Tyler lifted his little big boy out of the carseat, and the pair headed inside. Freddy took his time picking out donuts. Tyler and I sampled a cronut, then another, the lady behind the counter offering us the sample plate again and again. A few minutes later, we’d procured a box of donuts, a bag of pigs-in-blankets and some chocolate milk. We headed home to feast.
After I got back to Connecticut, I had many photos I loved of that trip and Finn’s newborn magic. These few photos from that morning, though, stood out to me as a different kind of wonderful. I kept coming back to them. Here- a morning, a toddler, his dad, some donuts- simple and compelling, I think, because of just how ordinary everything was. Back then I had no idea that come August gone would be the norm of letting a two-year-old press his face against the glass to pick out a donut. If donuts are on deck these days, a masked Tyler leaves Freddy at home with my sister.
These many months into the pandemic I still keep coming back to these photos. I hunger for the ordinary, for days when we didn’t know to appreciate the simple and compelling goodness of small errands with little big boys, gripping their sticky little hand after they too sampled a cronut. I miss those kinds of errands. The world is experiencing a collective grief, the disorienting loss of our ordinary days. We aren’t lacking in beauty and wonder in this utterly different experience, but it’s important to acknowledge the pain point if we are to do more than just survive (though if surviving is all you can do, that’s ok). I don’t quite know what to make of the seeming unending-ness of the virus’ impact. I hope, though, that someday soon ordinary will return to donut traditions. I can get a donut any day, but I miss the witnessing the connections, the community.
When we got home, Freddy and his family sat around their kitchen table, and I joined them. The coffee was hot and abundant, and our breakfast, still warm, overly sweet, pastry perfection. We ate. We talked. We passed the baby around. Freddy peek-a-booed me through the hole in his donut. I knew the rightness of our little corner of the world then, and I had no idea of the magnitude of the gift we lived that morning. I look forward to the return of ordinary days, different though they might be. In the meantime, some photographs. They still pull me right in.
