Aubergine

I love her full tilt

My fingers are cold.  The back of my neck is cold. My toes are cold through my fuzzy socks.  My sweater's sleeves are pulled down past my wrists and my legs are curled up beneath me but still the chill of this house creeps in.  

I crave tonight the ability to focus on one thing but my mind is jumpy and electric.  It is listing for me things I need to get done before the contractor starts work on our bedroom next week, the list of topics I'm narrowing down for queries, the format of the magazine I was studying earlier today, the schedule of my busy day tomorrow, and telling me I really should get up to get another of those yummy heart-shaped cherry jellies I brought home from Whole Foods this evening.  In the space I can wrest between those thoughts the sound of the monitor flows in.  I hear the hum of the humidifier which has become our white noise machine but my ears strain for sounds of rustling or cries.  The baby is sick and as much as I have things I need to do on my computer tonight before I go to bed, the length of the house feels too far away from her.  The audio thread keeps me just enough in the room with her to let me keep working away at my list for just a little longer.

The LHM texted me tonight to tell me he had posted and then pulled a photo of our Bean joyfully eating a birthday cupcake from Facebook because one of his friends had just posted that his nephew had died after surgery yesterday.  "How, exactly, does one observe the period of mourning on Facebook?" he asked.  I don't think I would have pulled down the photo, were I in his shoes.  I have lived enough life to have felt the continuum of it, from heartbreakingly beautiful to heartbreakingly awful, often enough side by side. Somehow it seems fitting for even my Facebook news feed to reflect that ebb and flow.  My heart breaks for the grief of his friend (more for that child's mother), but my first response to the news was to pull my daughter close and look again at how beautiful and miraculous she is.  I would not wish to rub my joy in my daughter's life into the would of that family, but my joy is fierce because I know how much I stand to lose.  I know how easily I could be destroyed if anything were to happen to her.

I knew something was not right with her all day today.  There wasn't any one particular thing she did, but I kept looking for clues.  Twice she pulled on her ear, and several times she lost her balance and bumped her head.  She has wanted to nurse much more today than is usual and she hasn't wanted to range far away from me in her play.  Over and over she would pull up on my legs and ask to be held, ask to nurse.  And then tuck herself in to me, far less squirmy than usual, and gaze up at me with drowsy eyes. When we were out running errands this afternoon she was drowsing between each stop, which is unusual.  In the grocery store she stayed tucked in to me in the carrier and still, just looking out quietly over the edge of the hood.  Once back in the car she feel asleep before I even pulled out of the space.  These things are not normal.  I knew there was something wrong.  When I took her temperature tonight I was almost relieved to see it was a bit high.  Finally, some proof of my intuition.  But also, the prickle of fear knowing that something is wrong with my baby and I don't really know what or how long it will take her to ride it out.  Always the fear that it will turn dangerous, that we will need to rush her to the ER for help.  Always I imagine that the worst will happen.  Not the worst - even in my imagination my fear stops me short of the actual worst.  But the worst I can imagination, that I have imagery for.  Always I go there right from the start.  

My child has been healthy in her first year.  She has had a couple of colds and only one with a fever, but even then the fever was not so high and acetaminophen brought it down quickly.  We have been lucky.  I know mamas who have been though much more with their little ones, walked much closer to the edge of despair than I have had any reason to.  Because it is such a fine line we walk.  Babies are so small, so fragile.  So much can go wrong.  So many things can hurt them.  And I have lived enough life to know that many things will, whether they leave visible scars or invisible ones.  And it is not possible to love our children less to protect ourselves.  I love her full tilt.  I would not love her any less. 

And so I sit here next to the monitor, straining to hear her soft sleeping breath over the hum, and know I will soon give in and go curl up next to her to keep vigil over her sleep.

10 minutes at 4pm on a Tuesday

I have put all of the baby's toys back in her toy basket and she is busy unloading them again which should give me 5-10 minutes to write.  I am kneeling at the coffee table where I can see the whole living room, though she likes to crawl around the back of the couch where I can't see her to mail her toys into the boxes there that haven't made it all the way to the garage yet which renders this vantage somewhat wasted.  There's a cat on the couch over my right shoulder, snuggled up next to my camera, and a tea cup with the sticky remains of lemon tea that I drank a while ago by my left hand.  Strewn across the surface of the table around my laptop are the the parent end of the baby monitor, a crumpled tissue, two sippy cups, a plastic toy car, the cover for my iPad which is in the other room on the charger, a DVD from someone's stocking, a travel book for the trip we are planning, a handful of Trader Joe's Sesame Sticks, and my iPhone.  I crave tidy surfaces, full attention to words, clear sinuses.  None of which I have right now.  Instead, I snack on Sesame Sticks and kneel at the coffee table pecking out the best words I can find right now, which I know are not very good.

This is the heavy part of the afternoon when the remaining day feels like forever.  Back when I was working in an office, this was the same part of the day that my energy would flag and I would head for the vending machine.  The baby is bored.  I am bored.  When the weather was good this was when I would head out the door for a walk, but it is cold out there and frankly I don't have the energy. I have made all the silly faces that I have in me today, read all the books (twice), and retrieved her from trying to put toys in the toilet and investigating the litter box more times than I can count.  I despair of what we do between now and bedtime, now that the toy basket is empty and she's here at my side again looking for Grandpa inside my computer screen. 

Mamas, what do you do to get through the draggy part of the afternoon?

Right now

The house is quiet; baby sleeping, man and teenager out, cats napping in the garage.  It is that hour of the morning when the neighbors are all at work and school and the street is quiet and calm.  The delivery trucks trundle up and down, but I am alone and it is quiet.

It is cold this morning and I pulled out fuzzy socks and a wool cardigan after flipping on the heater in the bedroom and tiptoeing away from the bed.  The kettle ticks while my mullien tea steeps.  I'm trying not to breathe too deeply lest I set off another hacking coughing fit. My toes are still cold in my socks.

I have so many things needing my attention today.  I'm still unpacking, I have an article to research, queries to craft, papers to sort, bills to pay, surfaces to clear and wipe down.  Another basket of the never-ending laundry. Plants to water, toys to put away, trash to take out, food to cook.  My brain is fuzzy still from jet lag. Or maybe from sick, or maybe both.  I feel parched, hollowed, removed from myself.  Dull.

This nap time is so precious, because she is not a napper.  I never know how long it will last.  Sometimes she wakes almost as soon as I leave the room and I return to her kneeling at the side of the bed, grinning at me, ready to play.  Other times she sleeps for an hour or two or three and I find myself unsure of what to do.  What to start, when you don't know how long you have?  What tasks can be abandoned in the middle and picked up again later?  Do I work or do I goof off?  Do I simply sit and hold the quiet, tea steaming, pen scratching across the page?

I want to remember this

I want to remember how soft the palms of your hands are, how soft the soles of your feet. I want to remember the butterfly touch of your warm palm skimming my skin as you nurse.  I want to remember how had your father's dark curly hair when you were placed, wet and solemn, on my exhausted belly.  I want to remember how you looked up at me with eyes that were completely your own, a blue that came from neither me nor him.

I want to remember how we both shed our baby hair at the same time, you and I, when you were four months old.  You lost all that dark hair and I lost all the hair that my body had grown and saved for all those months of pregnancy.  The house and the bed were covered with those strands for weeks, to the point where I was repulsed by it. I want to remember how, 4 days before your 8 month birthday, we both have half an inch of peach fuzz that has grown back in. Your hair is light now, honey blonde with a touch of strawberry in the right light, and straight.  Mine is curlier than it was before. Your eyes are still your own.

I want to remember that particular tug on my nipple when you latch on to nurse.  It is primal, not sexual.  I could not imagine, before, how anyone sucking on my nipple could not be sexual. I want to remember how little of this I imagined before you were born and how much of what I imagined was wrong.  I want to remember how my nipples turned leathery and I want to remember that once they used to be sensitive and someday they will be again. I want to remember how, when I'm putting you to bed at night, I'm so often thinking beyond the room while I am lying next to you - things I want to get done, things I want to write about, prioritizing the tasks I'll do while you sleep to best optimize my time.  But late in the evening when I have wound down my brain, accomplished most of my list, I picture your warm little body soft and finally still in sleep, and all I want is to tuck myself in next to you and listen to you breathe.

I want to remember the way you fell asleep for your nap this afternoon, nursing in bed, tucked in close with your head in the crook of my elbow and one socked foot flung up on my belly.  I want to remember the way you fit in my lap because you almost don't already.  I want to remember how I feel nostalgic already for the tiny tiny you, while also so excited and proud of every milestone and accomplishment you make.

I want to remember the way you are always happy to see me when you wake up - a surprise that never gets old.  I want to remember how, when you wake in the morning between us you reach out to touch his face and smile when he opens his eyes.  Then you turn to touch me and smile again.  I want to remember the three note song you sing to help you fall asleep.  I want to remember the sounds of you learning to use your voice, squeaks and grunts and squeals.  I want to remember the way you sounded like a pterodactyl when you were a newborn, and the peals of perfect joy.  Lately you have been making a long sound in the back of your throat that sounds like a rusty hinge and a sharp "ha" when you are trying to get someone's attention.  You make an "o" shape with your mouth when you are excited to explore something new and a closed-mouth "hrmph" when nothing much is going on.  When you are looking for the next thing you can get into.

I want to remember raspberries you make with your mouth, as punctuation, as play, on my forehead and your arm, in my face and covering me with your spit. I want to remember how you flap your arms, and have been since you were a newborn.  You flap when you are happy, or when you are frustrated, or when your hands are not dexterous enough to get the thing you are after, when you are nursing and your body is full of too much energy to be still, or when you are trying to get our attention.

I want to remember how fast you get into things and how smart your dad was to suggest setting up things for you to "get into" that are safe. Like leaving all your toys put away in your basket and letting you pull them out, or letting you find your snack box in the diaper bag all by yourself.  I want to remember how your exploration circles always return to me, and how, even when you are crawling away from me, you stop and look over your shoulder, one foot lifted in the air for balance, to make sure I'm there and am watching you.

I want to remember how proud of yourself you were when you figured out how to drink out of a sippy cup and how pride and sadness sat side by side in my lap as I watched my little baby looking like a toddler.

I want to remember how well you engage with the world, how friendly and interactive and open you are. I want to remember how you are a people-watcher already.  You target someone in a crowd and watch them until you get their attention, and then flirt with your eyes and a hint of a smile before crashing onto my chest in the classic "I'm shy!" maneuver.  I want to remember how when someone smiles at you, you light up.  And how, when you smile, you light up the room.