Thursday, July 1, 2010

Creature Comforts

**I wrote this post months ago and never put it up. It is from Hendrix's third month. The pictures are from his first week alive, all taken at The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Beth Israel in Boston**

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At the current moment Hendrix is fast asleep. I should be taking these precious minutes to do something non babyish. I dunno, maybe paint my nails, do the dishes, read the latest Vogue. Instead I am staring at Smoosh from across the room. Geez, you'd think I'd never seen my baby before or something. I just can't look away. Even while I type I sneak glances out of the corner of my eye.

I have a very distinct memory from about age five. I'm at my Grandmother's house and we are sitting in her green swivel chair. I'm on her lap, facing her, my head rested in the crook of her neck. I vividly remember that the house was silent except for the clock ticking.
She smelled of White Linen. Pert Plus. Lord and Taylor. Holy Water.



She was warm and soft and the moment was ours. But more importantly I felt safe. A big giant bubble of protection surrounded me and it was all love, and ease. Peace.Of.Mind.Well.Being.

So as I sit here, watching my little bird sleep in his lambie swing, I am flooded with that moment in time. Maybe it's the way the motion of the seat sounds like a ticking clock. Our whole house is silent. The early afternoon light is sneaking in through the windows.

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I could stare all day at you, my love. At your peaches and cream skin, so pudgy palms pressed on your knees, fingering your soft lil baby pants. Your hair is sticking up a bit and it flows with the wind from your rocking machine. Little ducking fur. Your rose petal lips are pouting out squished together from the weight of those chubby cheeks.


I feel the same calm, cool, and collected feelings now. Funny how it is I who is supposed to give that to him and yet he throws it right back at me. Both of us nurturing one another.


It had never occurred to me that my Grandmother that day was gaining as much from the moment as I was until I became a parent. Its been my belief that as an adult, as the parent, you have to be strong and above needing loving reassurance and that familiar warmth of being a child protected by an adult but I seem to crave that even more.

My son makes me feel like a kid again.

It is a completely reciprocal process. I give him his evening bath and fill his tummy up with milk, cozy wozy pj's and a peanut pie bed and I am just as soothed by the process as he is.

It's apple juice and animal crackers before nap time.

Chicken noodle soup and a stuffy nose.

The quiet of the library, the smell of the old books, and a warm lap.

Kindergarten creature comforts.

The relationship between parent and child has so many blurred lines, mixed emotions, confusing scenarios. It is not so clearly defined as they have you believe on Dr.Phil.. We are the adult, the child, the mother, the infant, all at once. I too am a brand new baby, new to to this world anyways, to the world of being completely and utterly responsible for another's life. I too need the reassurance that I'm making my way.

I have never been so selfless and selfish at the same time. I take as much as I give.

We are in this thing together.

1 comment:

  1. this was beautiful! and he had so much hair! he really hasn't changed too much. i can tell it's still him.

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