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Archives from 2002-2006

We are taking Dylan to daycare on Friday as a trial run for Monday when I return to work and part-way through this afternoon I realized that since tomorrow and Thursday are non-daycare days for Riley today was my last day of being home alone with the baby.

The last three months have been . . . well, what can I say that I haven’t said a thousand times already? They have been wonderful, amazing, joyous. They have sucked big fat hairy balls.

I look back on those early weeks after Dylan was born and I can barely remember how difficult they were, the hardest days have already receded; a bad dream blurred upon awakening. The screaming puking newborn has morphed into a buttery pudge of coos and smiles, and I thank the great baby gods for that.

At three months old our boy is watching us constantly, ready to break into a giant drooly grin whenever our eyes meet his. He blathers away in his weird vowelly language and pistons his feet up and down happily, blasting out gunshot farts and blowing spit bubbles. His thighs look like something Pillsbury would sell in the refrigerated section of a grocery store, his hair is fuzzy and whisper-soft.

I tell him he is the silliest baby I’ve ever heard of. “You,” I say, as he flaps his arms and jogs in place, his mouth open wide. “You are ridiculous.” Aaaaaooooooww, he says, beaming and flashing me his cheek dimple. He is a flirt, a goofy good-humored guy with tenderly sweeping maybe-it’s-Maybelline eyelashes.

I love him so damn much. I used to worry: could I possibly love a second child as much as my first? And it’s true, what they all say: yes, yes, yes, yes you can. You expand. There are no limits.

We’re on to new schedules, now, new routines and busier days. I’m ready for it, and at the same time I wish I could hit pause and stay here just a little longer.

There are a thousand and twelve things I keep meaning to do like paint my toenails go to the post office vacuum out my car but everything takes time and even though it often feels like I have it in spades the hours are actually slippery and ever-moving and there’s never enough in one day. Even the most glacial periods are tricky in that I grit my way through them thinking god is it bedtime yet then scramble because they’re gone.

I feel frantically busy but stationary all at the same time and I crave the feeling of movement. My day is filled with duty and tedium and enjoyment and laughter but no forward momentum: a hamster on a wheel. I turn on DVDs and jump around the living room to banish the sensation of paralyzed limbs, of feet that fell asleep despite the long road beneath them.

My boys are like something enormous and spectacular mined from the depths of the earth, faceted and painfully glorious, heavy and burdensome. This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. This is so hard to carry. We hold them high and march through the days, bearing that which we love beyond all measure. My arms tremble.

I am so much more capable than I have ever been. I am weak and filled with shortcomings. I am a flexing muscle, aching under an indescribable, joyous weight.

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