About a Boy
10/19/14
The day after a successful amniocentesis, my son came into
the world three weeks early. He was due
on my birthday but my blood pressure had become too high for me to continue the
pregnancy safely.
As soon as I laid my eyes on him, I was in love with eight
pounds of beautiful, perfect baby boy.
Every day amazed me, and I couldn’t believe eight weeks of
maternity leave had passed. It seemed
all I had done was stare at him adoringly.
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| 8 lbs. of love |
My children are the greatest gifts that I will ever give to
the world. My greatest accomplishments
and the best thing I will ever have done with my life.
With my son, there was a new fear that I couldn’t shake. Would he love me as my daughter did? Asia and
I had bonded immediately. My fears of parental failure were amplified with the
idea that I would not find common ground.
I was horrible at interpreting his cries and I feared my
inability to understand him even then would predict our future relationship.
As he grew his affections for me became intermittent. He was happiest in my arms, but had a love
for his grandma that touched my heart, and a connection with his sister that
was unmatched. She was a little mama. She’d asked for a little brother, and begged
me to give her one. She couldn’t have been happier with him. She’d sing to him while he was in the baby
swing, and while he was in the bath. She
helped me to change him and feed him and most often was happy to hold him for
me.
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| Mommy Time |
My handsome boy grows bigger every day. He snuggles me less and less as he reaches
for his independence. We struggle often,
and I continually try to find a connection with him somewhere in sports, tools,
all variety of mechanical things, and roughhousing that’s often too rough for
me. He cries for me when I leave earlier
than he wakes in the morning, and asks for me while I’m at work. He still runs to me when I get home, though I
often feel that he’s just racing the dog to get to me first. He’s got a wild
temper and I often joke that he’s a siphon for my reserves of energy. He’s endlessly
stubborn and doesn’t listen to “No!” or broken record mommy’s repeated loop of “Nononononononono!”
He’s got to learn everything for himself; repeatedly. He terrifies me with his willfulness and I
pray often that I’m teaching him the right ways to grow into a man.
There are many days that I wonder if he feels my love. I
wonder if he will ever know what I sacrifice to make it through each day and
what joy I find in making it home to have his little arms wrapped around my
legs when I return at night. I wonder if
he knows that there is no better feel to me than lifting him up to hug my neck
too rough and too eager because he is so excited to see me.
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| Big Love |
My heart fills up when I hear his little voice across the
room, “I love you mama,” for no other reason than just because he feels it. Or
a love note scribbled with swirls on a post it note that he insists is a "love
letter" to me, offering the detailed version line by line.
These moments are fleeting.
They will be gone long before I am ready and I am sure that I will never stop wondering if I have done well.
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| My sweet little trickster. |
