Sceered

When you look across the great genetic bouillabaisse that is your kid, you hope they get the stuff you like about yourself (ability to grow a fantastic beard) and you hope they skip the stuff you don’t really care for in yourself (beard that starts just below the eyeballs).

And for the most part, I think Elijah and Luca have lucked out in the DNA department. They have my baby blue eyes. They have Diana’s beauty. My love of Star Wars and Diana’s love of wine. I assume.

However, Luca seems to have inherited my childhood skittishness. Eli, as you well know, has no fear. There is not a stranger who can’t be talked to or a diving board that can’t be leapt from. But Luca, he’s a scaredy cat.

He gets that from me. I was a petrified little kid. I would vomit at the idea of going to Kentucky Fried Chicken with my grandparents. And not because of the idea of eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. Steve and I used to hide in our basement, huddled together protecting ourselves from dangers that never seemed to exist.

More times a day than I care to admit, he’ll look at you with pleading eyes and say, “I sceeeered, daddy.”

I’ll say, “What are you scared of, Luca?”

“People.”

Ugh. I’m hoping this is a phase. Or an attention getting device. Or something we can give him a DNA transplant for. And I did grow out of my sacredness and can, on occasion, eat at a KFC.

So when he says, “I sceeeered, daddy,” I say, “That’s okay. You can be scared. Daddy won’t let anything ever happen to you.”

And you know what? It kind of works. And I love that it works.