Been itchin' to write for a while...but I have a 6-month old son, so I need to write in-between-times. This is one of those times: he's down for a nap.
I've been surprised to find myself in a relationship with him. The first few weeks were hard: adjusting to having another person around; having that person be the most demanding, least responsive person I'd ever known; hormones and recovery from pregnancy and a c-section; the crying--the demand for solutions with NO hints given to the question of "What do you want!?"--the inability to repair what was wrong and learning that all I really wanted was for the crying to stop, not necessarily for my baby to be soothed.
But now...it's a whole new day. (I must channel Celine here: a new day has come. You know you know the song. Sing it with me: "A new day haaaaaas...come!" Baby communicates with me. He interacts with me. He plays with me. He loves me.
He invented this game we play sometimes while nursing: he puts his hand in my mouth and I pretend to bite it. It's so fun! We do it again and again, and have added variations. Sometimes, when we're at the grocery and he's riding in the just-for-infants recliner-seat, I bite his feet and he giggles. I make monster sounds and he pulls his feet away, but I always catch his toes and he laughs, or smiles, or screeches. Music, it's music to my heart!
I can tell when he's sleepy. He rubs his eyes, ears, head. The way he lays his head in his carseat when we're driving. He might yawn. He gets easily frustrated when he's playing. He 'zones out.'
If he doesn't like something, I can tell. The first time we were in a public restroom (he was getting his diaper changed) and someone flushed a toilet, he screamed and burst into tears. Baby startles when his daddy blows his knows (blows his own nose, not Baby's nose). Now I can prepare him for loud noises.
Amazing.
Relating to Baby is so....elemental. Intense. Simple. He's happy, or sad, or loving, or frustrated. It's not happy mixed with nostalgia and a little sadness, stirred up with sorrow. (I've had enough of that in other arenas lately.) This is simple. "It's bedtime, Baby." And he nurses and we look into each other's eyes, his eyelids drooping more and more, and it's just love, and contentment. I lay him down, pat and rub his back so he'll relax again, and he snuggles down, content.
Wow. Thank you, God. Thank you for this blessing. At first, Baby in my life was a blessing like Jacob's broken hip: "God, I won't let you go till you bless me!" And God renames him and breaks his hip, so that he always limped from then on. But now I see more of what God is doing for me through Baby: He's making me a better servant. He's making me more sympathetic to The Least of These, more sympathetic to those in sorrow, more empathetic to other new moms.
Wow. Thank you, Lord Jesus. May it be so.
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