Seven Months
Feb. 11th, 2007 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anastasiav""If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle." - Van Gogh
Evan was seven months old yesterday (the 10th) and he has two adorable tiny bottom teeth, and I've been thinking a lot about the changes to me, our life, and our relationship because of him.
He's so adorable. I just can't even put into words how adorable he is. That silly smile. The giggling. The look of boredom when I'm trying to feed him and he just looks at me like "oh mamma, pears again?" He is full of joy every day, and that is, for lack of a better phrase, a blessing. He loves us, he loves the world, he's happy, he's healthy. That is everything I could wish for.
I am not a natural at this. But I'm learning. I remarked to Josh tonight that the absolute hardest thing for me to get used to is that we now do everything - everything - in turns (eat dinner, go out to the store, visit with friends, drive my car, do the laundry, everything). I miss doing stuff in unison. I miss stupid stuff like walking around Target for an hour looking at stuff but not buying anything. I really, really miss sleeping late on Sunday mornings. Near the end of my pregnancy, Josh and I talked about what an idyllic time those months had been, and we weren't wrong. I will look back on those months with a tang of pleasure for the rest of my life.
Which is not to say that I don't love waking up every day to the tiny smiling face of our beautiful son, that I don't love him completely, that he hasn't changed me in deep and specific ways. All of that is true. He gets up on his hands and knees now and wiggles his little butt in the air - locomotion is, I'm sure, mere days away, and already I find myself looking back on those photos of him as a newborn - how tiny he is! - and thinking that those days passed too quickly, that I should have bottled and kept those days while we had them.
Saturday night we went out to dinner with many friends, to celebrate Josh's birthday, and we brought the baby too. There he sat, in the highchair between us, sucking on spoons and throwing them to the ground - spoon after spoon after spoon - and every time my eyes met Josh's over the top of his head we smiled at each other, a smile that said "you're the mommy and I'm the daddy and that is the way its going to be now forever and ever and ever". And all the hard stuff just washed away in those moments, because it was ok, and we were still ourselves, we were just, now, these other people too.
I think the best part of all this is watching Josh be the daddy. I picked him out, you see, because I knew he would be good at this, and good at this he is. It brings me such joy to see the two of them blowing raspberries at each other, or Josh holding the sleeping baby on his chest, or the two of them snuggled up in bed together. When we have to do awful things to the baby (like clean out his stuffy nose with the evil nose sucker thing) Josh is the one who has to hold his head steady - that tiny head clamped tightly in those giant hands - and Josh apologizes to Evan through the whole process, and its clear his heart is breaking as he makes the baby cry, and then my heart breaks, too. He is so in love with that little boy. I feel, honestly, like the best part of this entire process is that I've given Josh the most amazing gift.
So the days continue by. Evan gets older and stronger and bigger each day. I have good days and bad days, but always days with joy in them and always days with worry. I continue to feel a tiny bit of guilt for the very selfish act of bringing a new life into this very crazy world; a world where, I fear, war or climate change or violent acts will bring pain to him that I wish he could never face.
So yeah, anyway, its been seven months. We're all alive and we love each other.
Who could ask for more than that?
Evan was seven months old yesterday (the 10th) and he has two adorable tiny bottom teeth, and I've been thinking a lot about the changes to me, our life, and our relationship because of him.
He's so adorable. I just can't even put into words how adorable he is. That silly smile. The giggling. The look of boredom when I'm trying to feed him and he just looks at me like "oh mamma, pears again?" He is full of joy every day, and that is, for lack of a better phrase, a blessing. He loves us, he loves the world, he's happy, he's healthy. That is everything I could wish for.
I am not a natural at this. But I'm learning. I remarked to Josh tonight that the absolute hardest thing for me to get used to is that we now do everything - everything - in turns (eat dinner, go out to the store, visit with friends, drive my car, do the laundry, everything). I miss doing stuff in unison. I miss stupid stuff like walking around Target for an hour looking at stuff but not buying anything. I really, really miss sleeping late on Sunday mornings. Near the end of my pregnancy, Josh and I talked about what an idyllic time those months had been, and we weren't wrong. I will look back on those months with a tang of pleasure for the rest of my life.
Which is not to say that I don't love waking up every day to the tiny smiling face of our beautiful son, that I don't love him completely, that he hasn't changed me in deep and specific ways. All of that is true. He gets up on his hands and knees now and wiggles his little butt in the air - locomotion is, I'm sure, mere days away, and already I find myself looking back on those photos of him as a newborn - how tiny he is! - and thinking that those days passed too quickly, that I should have bottled and kept those days while we had them.
Saturday night we went out to dinner with many friends, to celebrate Josh's birthday, and we brought the baby too. There he sat, in the highchair between us, sucking on spoons and throwing them to the ground - spoon after spoon after spoon - and every time my eyes met Josh's over the top of his head we smiled at each other, a smile that said "you're the mommy and I'm the daddy and that is the way its going to be now forever and ever and ever". And all the hard stuff just washed away in those moments, because it was ok, and we were still ourselves, we were just, now, these other people too.
I think the best part of all this is watching Josh be the daddy. I picked him out, you see, because I knew he would be good at this, and good at this he is. It brings me such joy to see the two of them blowing raspberries at each other, or Josh holding the sleeping baby on his chest, or the two of them snuggled up in bed together. When we have to do awful things to the baby (like clean out his stuffy nose with the evil nose sucker thing) Josh is the one who has to hold his head steady - that tiny head clamped tightly in those giant hands - and Josh apologizes to Evan through the whole process, and its clear his heart is breaking as he makes the baby cry, and then my heart breaks, too. He is so in love with that little boy. I feel, honestly, like the best part of this entire process is that I've given Josh the most amazing gift.
So the days continue by. Evan gets older and stronger and bigger each day. I have good days and bad days, but always days with joy in them and always days with worry. I continue to feel a tiny bit of guilt for the very selfish act of bringing a new life into this very crazy world; a world where, I fear, war or climate change or violent acts will bring pain to him that I wish he could never face.
So yeah, anyway, its been seven months. We're all alive and we love each other.
Who could ask for more than that?
