Aminals

Some moments don’t arrive with meaning attached to them. They slip in quietly and ask to be noticed before they disappear. This reflection is about one of those moments.

Yesterday morning was the last day of winter break. While my older boys kept themselves busy, my husband and I, along with our six-year-old shadow, decided we’d take the dog for a walk.

We live in what you might call a rural suburb, and its greatest asset is miles of walking trails. Yesterday was one of those perfect winter mornings in the South. The air was crisp, but you could already feel the sun warming things up.

We’d barely made it beyond the sightline of our house before stopping several times, once for the dog to sniff something important, and again when our Little Guy found a stone that clearly needed to be thrown. I love the sight of the two of them trotting off together. She was the first animal our son ever loved. Before books, before shows, before animal facts, there was this dog.

Our Little Guy learned gentleness by touching her fur, loyalty by being followed from room to room, and comfort by curling up beside her on the floor. Their relationship has always been steady and uncomplicated, defined by love.

As we walked just behind them, our son turned to talk to us about pangolins.

Never heard of a pangolin? You are in good company. Little Guy taught us about them just a few months ago. For the record, a pangolin is a shy, nocturnal mammal often called a scaly anteater. Little Guy knows a lot of facts about pangolins, and if you ever need more information, he’d be delighted to share it with you.

You see, our Little Guy has loved animals since he was very little, the way some kids love trucks or dinosaurs. He is almost seven, but his love of creatures doesn’t seem to be a passing phase. Whenever he gets to watch a show, he chooses Wild Kratts, an animated series where two brothers teach children about wildlife, habitats, and conservation around the world.

Little Guy knows which animals are endangered, which ones play dead, which ones have armor, and which ones mate for life. He delivers animal facts with the seriousness of someone who believes deeply in accuracy. He has always been like this, earnest and invested in the details, at least when it comes to animals.

But when he delivers these very serious animal facts, he calls them “aminals.” He always has.

He’s almost seven now, and nearly all of his childhood speech patterns have course-corrected. He no longer says “cows” when he means “cars.” He no longer trips over the sounds that once tangled his words. The only persistent mispronunciation left is “aminals.”

Yesterday, as we headed into the woods and Little Guy launched into his lecture on pangolins, he said it again.

“Aminals.”

As he said it, my husband looked at me. I looked back at him. There was a flicker of recognition between us, a shared understanding that this was worth noticing. Our son kept walking, kept talking, unaware that anything significant had passed between us.

We didn’t interrupt him or correct him. We let the moment move through us and kept going. He kept talking, sharing facts that were new to each of us. He sounded young and old at the same time.

The truth is, he’s getting older, and that fact has been impossible to miss lately. He reads more fluently. He cares about what clothes he wears. His humor has sharpened, his vocabulary expanded. When we are lucky, he argues with logic instead of volume.

Recently, while playing Sorry, he debated the merits of moving one piece over another. As he talked through his reasoning, he said, “I’m not sure I should move this piece, because it would leave me vulnerable.”

He used vulnerable correctly in a sentence. That seems impossible, considering he was just an infant yesterday.

The signs are everywhere that he is moving forward. And yet, there is one thing that hasn’t changed just yet: aminals.

I know how this goes. I have two older sons, now nineteen and eighteen, and they pronounce all of their words correctly. One day, Little Guy will say animals, clearly and without effort, and it’s likely neither my husband nor I will notice. It won’t come with warning, and it won’t feel momentous. The word will simply shift, as things do.

As much as I want to, I can’t stop that from happening.

What I can do is notice it now. I can register the sound of the word, the good nature of his tone, the way my husband looks at me with emotion, the way the moment passed something unspoken and connected between us. I can let myself feel the sweetness without trying to trap it. I can hold it without gripping.

Like my other boys, one day Little Guy will be taller than me. One day he might have a beard like his oldest brother. Maybe he will still love animals, or maybe he will move on to something else entirely. I don’t know which parts of him will stay and which will evolve. That’s not mine to decide.

What I do know is this: the only moment I ever truly have access to is the one I am in.

Yesterday, it was the woods, the warming sun, the dog, the word, and that look.

So I am holding this one in my heart, not as a relic, but as a reminder: time moves forward whether we are ready or not. The best we can do is meet it where it is, pay attention, and love what shows up while it’s still showing up.