At Chik-Fil-A, as I was watching my tiny boy play with a group of other rough and tumble toddlers. We’d just finished an exhaustive process of picking the best Thomas the Train track set and paying for it with with the gift card he’d received from my husband’s sweet friend on Gotcha Day. Since I’d set aside the day for Sugar Biscuit, I acquiesced to his request for slides and fried nuggets. 

Snuggled in my booth, watching the smiles and hearing the squeals, I was struck by the normalcy of it all. My son is just a boy like any other. He is not sick and withdrawing, exhausted and frightened, delayed or denied. He simply Is. He is whole and healthy, smelling of baby goats, of strawberry jelly. 

The only chaos in my son’s life comes from his large passionate family and our equally large mouths. There is no hurt. There is no darkness. There is no pain. His worries consist of bug bites or a lack of new Umizoomi episodes. He sleeps warm with a favorite blanket in a room of illuminated stars. Sugar Biscuit spends his days snuggled with animals, exploring the yard, meeting life on his terms.

Yesterday, Sugar Biscuit ran up to me with grease on his chin and apple juice wetting the front of his shirt. His ten-megawatt grin lit up my heart as he spouted, “I habin’ a fun day, Mom! It FUN!”, before running off to play again. So yet again, gratitude filled my chest, displacing the fear that lived so long there many months ago.  Because this is as it should be for my baby boy. This? This is grace and perfection.

This will do just fine.Â