It's 5:45 and I'm in the rocking chair, arms full of sleeping toddler who makes disapproving moof-moof noises if I lurch in the direction of her bed, doing complex quadratic equations in my head about my remaining amount of sleep--her potential wake-up time, Freak's alarm, my bladder needs . . . Then it hits me. I won't be doing this forever. Someday, I will be old, and my arms will be empty, and my heart will be full, and all I will hear is that sappy country song, "You're gonna miss this time."
I remember one night at 3 a.m. when she was three weeks old, sitting in the living room, on the left side of the couch, feet on the floor, nursing pillow strapped on, lights blazing, because that was the only way I could nurse without pain, and vowing to never forget what she looked like right then. I wanted to turn my brain into one of the gold records they send off into space and preserve forever the particular shade of tea-rose pink of her cheeks, the curve of her lip that reminded me of wedding cake roses, the perfectly shaped little ear, the tiny hand so trustingly resting on my breast, perfectly content in the world.
Six months later at 4 a.m., sitting upright in our bed, nursing pillow on, knowing that the nursing pillow and miracle blanket were becoming mere props instead of necessities ranking slightly above showers, I tried to imprint the way she tumbled out both sides of the pillow, her weight as I tiptoed the papoose back to bed, the exact ache in my left wrist, the torsion on my elbows that morphed overnight into sore shoulders and stiff hips as suddenly side lying nursing was possible. Even as I craved four hours of uninterrupted sleep, I wanted to preserve the feeling of our stomachs touching in glass mason jars to be opened during the winter of my life.
Last summer, spending money we didn't have as my summer class was canceled and falling into a routine of dinner and netflix, I wanted to make a hologram of her sweaty body sprawled across my lap, the weight of her head on my elbow, the inability to move. The perfect evening of watching Cranford with four generations of women, her softly snoring in tune with my grandmother who wasn't sleeping, just resting her eyes, really. The hallelujah moment of discovering the white noise machine and the loss of her piglet snuffles as MY white noise. I was going to never forget her weight, her presence in my arms.
Later, as nursing gave way to rocking, I swore that I would never tire of the little cocoon of her and I and the squeak of the chair and the hard wooden seat beneath me, and the soft body cradled in my arms. And then, she mainly rocked straddling my thigh as she overflowed the capacity of my arms but not my heart, I wanted a snow globe containing the feeling of her ear against my heart beat, the blood circulating as love. My body complained, but I was sure that I was building a defense against the cruelty of time.
And, yet, I cannot remember what nursing really felt like, how much she weighed, not in pounds but in presence, what her head felt like cue ball bald versus ducky fluff. The newborn days are hazy at best. I want to do it all again, but really I want to do THIS baby again. I'll succeed in my efforts to make hollodeck I can return to.
This week, she doesn't want to be rocked. Clanna's visit marked the turning point in wanted to be comforted by "Pat Back!" not "Mama Rock!" She craves story time, not hush little baby time. She's moving beyond the Dear Santa she demanded for months on end. She drifts through all sixty odd of Little Bear, memorizing far more than me in that moment. Her future self won't remember a bed time without chapter books as I long for just one or a thousand more rocks. I send her off to sleep with Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief, but time is the true thief here.
You've made me cry. It's hard because we want to remember each perfect moment forever, to sear it into our brains, but it's not always possible. And that is what is heartbreaking for me.
Posted by: Megan | July 18, 2009 at 08:24 AM
Dang. I'm all choked up.
They grow too fast... even though we think it's not fast enough in the moment, sometimes.
Posted by: Katie B. | July 19, 2009 at 09:32 AM