one and only
I thought this baby-tending would be a more balanced activity between me and Steve, but the nature of the job doesn’t permit that. There’s so much I couldn’t have realized until I held Henry in my arms, and a big realization is that he is always in my arms. When he’s not eating, he might be hungry and so he’s passed to me to see if he wants to eat, or else he’s in my arms sleeping after eating. The gaps between these activities is too small to let others spend much time holding the baby.
Steve would lactate if he could, but also the fact is that someone has to go to work. He’s the one with more business savvy, clearly, so off he goes. Someone has to tend to the garden, and dig massive holes and reroute water drainage, and order huge piles of rocks and compost and $700 in wood chips, apparently. Looking at a shovel makes my arms tired, so the job goes to him. I hold the baby. And hold the baby.
Hour after hour the baby is in my arms. My arms hurt. My rotator cuffs are stiff. My back hurts. I don’t get much done. And sometimes I feel a teensy bit of resentment. I just didn’t realize that nursing round the clock means I am always on duty while everyone else runs off without asking to do those activities I envy, like running outside to check to see if the mail came without telling anyone where you’re going. What spontaneity, what autonomy!
Twice this weekend I wanted to disappear for just ten minutes. Just plop the baby down and go to my bedroom, lie down, disappear with the dogs and sleep, daydream without jumping up to tend to that fussing sound or see if anyone else was going to check on that fussing sound. I wanted to disappear without having to ask if it’s okay, if someone else could watch him for a bit. I wanted to go to the bathroom without putting the baby on the bathroom rug. I wanted to change the laundry without putting the baby in the hamper. I wanted to step outside and breathe and look out further than eight inches without asking if someone else could take over.
I get nostalgic so fast. By nighttime all I wanted was to hold my beautiful baby. When else in this boy’s life will I matter so much. In just a few months he’ll be eating rice cereal and carrots and squash. Someone else can be there for an hour or two or three or even four. Right now I am all his.
And even already he needs me less. I can hold him to sleep, then slowly walk away and the past few days he can stay sleeping for sometimes half an hour. A half hour when my baby is all alone behind a closed door. It breaks my heart a little. This constant touching, suckling, this needing me only, it really is only a phase. This is the only chance we have to be this way together. And I want a break from this so I can do what? Pay bills? Go buy food without a creature crying in the backseat? Hold a book with two hands? Suck it, monkeys. I can do that later. There is a boy building neuron connections in his brain that are only formed once. His whole life unfolds from here, from this crucial first year, and he’s waking, waiting to find my face.
