Wednesday, April 25, 2007

This and That, All the Time

Today I feel full of the constant swings involved in parenting. It's a life where beautiful moments are punctuated by blasting vomit.

Noah shifts from laughing outloud at something to crying as heartily as if he's been orphaned and left for dead. When he laughs it comes from his belly, he flaps his arms, wiggles his feet like he's swimming, and smiles with his whole face. His eyes disappear into slits peeking out from above his big cheeks and all his teeth (five now, soon six) show like a Jack O'lantern. Then when he cries, seconds later because he wants to be picked up, his little wide-open mouth turns down and he yells "Waaaaaaah!" and his face turns red and he turns to look at me so I can know just how unhappy or mad he is with whatever the current situation is. In his excitement and joy and his fear and discomfort he is simply the sweetest thing I've ever known.

A week ago today he said Mama for the first time. He said it four times that day. It really sounded like "Mum-Mum" and he said it the first time when he needed help. In the morning he had crawled backwards into the wall, and couldn't go anywhere. He still hadn't learned to go forward, although that milestone came just three days later, this past Saturday. So he was backed up, and I was across the room but sort of out of his sight, and he said "Mum-Mum!" Clear as day. And the tone was "Mama! I need help! Come and get me!" Then later that day a friend was visiting, the woman who married my husband and me, and he was sitting in her lap and turned to me and said it again twice, quietly, as he rubbed his hand back and forth on his ear. This gesture is his shortcut baby sign for Mama. Finally at night, at bedtime when I was reading to him and holding him in my lap, he said it again.

So that is how it happened, but this is how it felt. It felt like no matter how long the war in Iraq goes on, or how badly the earth is being misused to its core, or how domestic violence is never going to go away, or how there's never as much money coming into our lives as we'd wish for, it's all good, because I am Mum-Mum. They are words I never knew I would hear in my life, and certainly couldn't imagine how they would feel, even in recent weeks as I anticipated it happening. I am Mum-Mum. Since that day a week ago, Noah has changed his name for me, and now it is "Na-Na." It still makes a warm feeling spread through my body as if I'd had a sip of wine.

Alongside this blissful development, those teeth I mentioned before have been causing Noah some serious pain, and none of us are sleeping all that well on recent nights. He's nursing more to get through it, which in itself is not a problem - it's the fact that he's started biting me. This too is something that I never knew I would feel in my life, and certainly couldn't imagine how it would feel even as I heard stories from other women about it happening to them. Holy smokes, it's worse than labor in some ways, because at least labor for me had an evolving intensity and one stage led to the next so by the time the most painful part was happening it didn't seem out of the blue or anything. But this, yikes. It's a sharp pain in a delicate place, and it becomes very frustrating for me when he does it over and over again, which has thankfully only happened a few times, but imagine this: He goes to sleep at night by nursing, and he's exhausted and crying because he's so tired, and every time I try to nurse him he bites me because his teeth hurt. This isn't fair for anyone involved. This imagined evening was actually two nights ago and it was a trial. I had to deliver the verbal "Stop - bite" message every time, and then somehow find the courage to start nursing him again to get him off to sleep. He usually goes to bed at 7:00 p.m. and is asleep by 7:30 but on this night he didn't fall asleep until after 9:00.

This was a rough time, but was miraculously followed by a beautifully sunny morning. Noah woke happy, and ate a great breakfast, loved his bath, and played on the floor as if all his toys were new. He went down easily and napped for two hours with the bedroom windows open and our orange gauzy curtains fluttering in the warm breeze. It was breathtaking and I almost cried when I looked in on him because of the light and the air and his gentle breathing. The night before was totally irrelevant and a distant memory.

Last Saturday, as I mentioned, he crawled forward for the first time. He achieved this by digging his little toes into the bedroom carpet, arching his rump up so his body looked like a bridge, and lurching forward. Since then it has evolved quickly so he is up on all fours, going forward on his knees and pulling his feet behind him like a little seal tail. He also is pulling himself to a standing position, most easily by sitting on the floor by his crib and using the rails to pull up. This has caused much cheering and clapping and amazement on the part of his father and me. We have been truly excited for him, and I also have felt proud of us for being present with his current stage of development rather than mourning the loss of our darling bald and toothless baby of just a few months ago.

But today, as he pulled himself up again, this time using the edge of a small maple table in our bedroom, he lost his grip and konked his forehead on the edge. He cried loudly, open-mouthed, with a look of shock and confusion on his face - "Why? Why? Why?" I saw a red mark and goose-egg rising - his first one. I snuggled him in and comforted him and told him I was sorry it happened and that I loved him and that he would be alright, and I did actually believe that. At the same time I felt my own pain rising up. It's beginning - no matter how vigilant I am, this dear baby will be hurt. He's perfect, and it's inevitable. His life is happening at full speed, full of wonders and dangers, and he is discovering them so fast. I know that I need to hope that he discovers the richness of both, because I do believe what they say about deep pain allowing deep joy at the other end of the spectrum, but even small injustices or hurts are not easy things for me to watch in one so young and tender. I know he deserves the world, and sometimes unfortunately, I know he will get it.

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