Dear L:
Mommy loves you so much! I cannot believe how big you are getting. You are smiling more at everyone. It's amazing how you have changed from that tiny infant into a bigger baby.
There’s a noise during most nights. I’m probably in some random “just started” dreaming mode where deep sleep is finally reached and my brain is starting to what I call unload everything from the day. There’s the “dolphin sound” as I call it. A pause. Another grunt. Maybe even a slip of baby gas that resembles a 40 year old man’s fart. My own internal groan as it’s going to be me that hears all this. Your daddy is still sleeping soundly. After a few of these, never a true crying out loud thing as I mostly subscribe to attachment parenting, which by the way doesn’t mean you are spoiled, but that you is attached to my own senses… my own keen understanding of what every single cry means… Well it’s obvious to me that I’m there.
I wanted to build for you a very safe first three months near me where you would feel safe and secure with no feelings of overwhelmingness in a strange place with no sounds of me nearby. I wanted you to not be jerked from the womb a month early and then somehow have to come to grips with the world around you alone. No other mammal that I know of does that. The kangaroo has their pouch - maybe the first mothers wearing their baby with their own made pouches. The monkeys on their backs. The canine searching around for the safest place where she and pups are snug together. Only humans probably have an upbringing as diverse as cosleeping all the way up to things not mentioned (illegal baby in dumpsters, etc….).
I only say all this because you are almost 3 months old. I’m going to continue to go like this until August when I pick up a couple more days of work, and I DREAD it! It’s a rite of passage of sorts, and it didn’t help when a good older friend of mine pointed out while speaking with a mother from Africa wanted to know, “Why do Americans put their babies in cages?” Ouch. Cages indeed. We pay top dollar at times for a cherry finish to the cage with slats and a private room wired to a monitor so that we can train them early on to be alone. I never thought about it from that point-of-view as I am so American. We are what we learn. Now I’m not saying I believe that, but it’s an interesting thought. It’s the same lady that told me that they had outlawed the introduction of strollers in that country due to strollers being “anti-family.” The mother was supposed to “hold” the baby. The baby does indeed love the snuggly warmth from the mother or father, and what in the world is more important in those first months that HAS to be done rather than sitting, enjoying, and savoring those first months he/she has in the world? L, you certainly love to be held and almost have an internal alarm when a warm body isn't holding you.
Sometimes it’s healthy to think in a different way rather than what we are used to.
Anyway, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, these little ones grow too fast. It won’t be long and these 2am or 3am middle of the night whines and cries will be replaced with long sleeps and naps. Those will be replaced by grade school homework woes and issues with other classmates. And the cycle moves on… I will forever be grateful of the lack of schedule I have and the lack of knowing when the next 7 hour stretch of sleep will come. It will be awhile solely due to the pumping, and even THAT (somehow) will be missed.
Lucas, it's all the first lessons of sacrifice. Oh what my own parents went through that I never appreciated! And now they are here too enjoying your first year on the earth and watching me relive what they did. The circle of life continues.
I will miss being able to hold you in the middle of the night on my chest propped up with 5 pillows in the bed with hubby sleeping next to me. Your little snores and sleepy eyes looking at me so trustfully. And me knowing you are feeling so secure and innocent in this world. You are not having to put yourself to sleep. You go to sleep naturally. I will miss those first weeks when I slept on the couch that way when you woke up every 2-3 hours on my chest. My back would ache, but there you were, the little angel right there - as I still say - snug as a bug in a rug.
There’ll come a time when I hold you that you will want to get down and explore. I will miss being able to just hold hold hold you and love you that way
So here I am up at 2:30 am, the first time this early in a few weeks, and I smile. I smile because it reminds me of how early it used to be - every three hours almost on the nose by your own internal clock - and how it wore me down… and how I’ve already come so far with you with so many stumbling blocks along the way… things that full term mommies don’t have to necessarily deal with… and I’ve fallen more in love with you, my little guy, that I was so lucky and blessed to mother.
I hope I can embrace every single moment as I am now. I don’t want to constantly grieve the loss of every stage - I want to fully enjoy them, put them to rest in a place saved for a sibling in the very near future - and eagerly anticipate the next one… hopefully it’ll send me into a greater place of joy than the previous.
I’m feeling super joyful this wee hour of the morning. I have to get back to bed and peek at you just one more time. Just know that in about 3 hours, he’ll be back on my chest as I’ll grab you from your nearby bassinett snoozing probably until noon!
Carpe diem…
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