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You are sleeping. You almost seem to have a rhythm but I don’t trust that. I’m realistic now. After all its been five weeks. I'm on to you little one. But I’ve gotten better at starting projects even with the knowledge that they will most likely be interrupted. Today’s project was to go through my clothes and try on a few of the pre-pregnancy pants. I've been putting it off but I thought, my stomach isn’t so big....a little more flabby, but they should fit. Nope, they wouldn’t even button. Not because of fat though. My hips have moved. I can't believe it. My pelvis is pushed out. I can't believe how you have rocked my body. Everything is loose and open. I am wider now in so many respects. My body, my emotional capacity and my understanding of life have expanded. It has only been 5 weeks since you were born and so much has changed. I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t consider you…a time when I would simply go out on a Saturday night to a movie or coffee shop. Last night Jorg and I decided to venture out. It was Saturday and we thought we would do something different. My mother mentioned an auction that was going on at the Ethan Allen Club. It sounded interesting, so we gathered a few friends and went. It was sad enough that a trip to a benefit auction, at a former all men’s club was a big outing but we couldn’t even handle that. Little Lukas wasn’t impressed by the auction… moody and wound up the entire time. I spent the night breastfeeding him and holding him, walking him, trying to calm him. We found ourselves irritated and back home at 8PM. And then after a simple diaper change he was calm again. That was all it took. I guess we are still learning. I guess its only week five. We’ll figure it out. Maybe my hips will even go back...but maybe not...thats what I am coming to terms with.....nothing will ever simply "go back".

soft souled boy

Today I am in love with you. You smiled at me. You seem to respond to me. You have been sick the last few days and in a bubble of discomfort that was hard to witness. All I could do was feed you, hold you, rock you, sing to you, talk to you but I couldn’t make it go away. I couldn’t fight it for you. How many times will I feel this powerless to protect you? How many times will I wish to simply do it for you.
Today you looked at me, watched me, seem to want to understand me. We even play together. I clap your hands together. I dance with you. As I sit in our chair watching you fight off sleep, I try to imagine you as a man. You will become a man and you will probably take on much of what it is to be a man in this culture. Right now you are so free of it. You cuddle and nuzzle like a little animal. You are beyond gender. You are simply a being. But one day you will learn that you should not nuzzle or cuddle, that you should not cry or show your soft vulnerability. You will learn that you are a boy and that this means something special in our society. I want to keep you from it. I want to let you just be a being. But all the cars, wrenches, blue wall paper, macho hand shakes, sporty competitiveness, deep voiced pressure of our culture will lay its hand on you. I don’t know what it is to be a man. I can’t teach you that and so again I am powerless. I can only teach you to be human and that to be human is to feel and think and care. You won’t nuzzle me for long in your lifetime. You will learn that it is not okay to nuzzle mommy forever and I suppose that it isn’t. But may you stay soft my son. May you keep your soft and cuddly soul in a world that may try to harden you.

little fists

Passing the time .... watching you grow older, watching for changes. You look at me now as if you recognize me. I think that you smiled at me this morning. A real and sustained smile. You have a cold. You wheeze and snort but don’t seem to know that it is not normal to feel this way. To you this is merely another aspect of being human, as uncomfortable as your forming digestion. It both makes me sad and gives me tremendous hope to see you learning your first smiles through a congested nose and aching new body. I am amazed that you feel the impulse and yet there you are looking up at me with a wide grin as you cling to my shirt with your little fists….monkey man. It is gray and cool, classic November, the kind of weather that you don’t really notice when you are busy at work but I feel it now as it curls around us making our little cocoon even more pronounced. I sit in my chair and think of what today may be. Perhaps there will be no big milestones, no big success or accomplishment, no rush of adrenaline as I tackle some thrilling project. Just you and me watching each other, learning each other, just a little growth in this quiet November.

getting out

Its the smallest things....a trip to the coffee shop to meet a friend, grocery shopping, going to the drug store. These are the things that become major endeavors with an infant. We tried to go and get a coffee...only a 2 minute drive and a very uncrowded coffee shop but little lukas would not have it. We walked in and he was hungry. Now I'm pretty comfortable with public breast feeding but the place was so empty and I was by a window and I just felt so exposed, so I headed for the bathroom but when I walked into the barren florescant lit little room and sat down on the toilet to feed lukas, he just looked at me like I had to be kidding. It did feel kind of dirty, like I was doing drugs or something. I looked back at him and said "o.k. you're right...lets go back out there." So I attempted non-boppy breast feeding which was a challenge. He flopped around and scratched his eye and got all red in the face. I worried I was poking him in the head with my nails and might accidentally puncture his skull. He weighs so much it was hard to keep him there long enough for him to really eat so we moved on to the pacifier. Meanwhile, my steamed milk is now cold and my muffin is untouched. My friend Trina and I try to talk but lukas is grunting and groaning and I feel preoccupied...I so want to be with people...to talk about something besides baby, but my thoughts are always pulled towards lukas. Its not just these logistical challenges that make it hard its also the new image. I'm not used to being the lady with the baby. The woman in the coffee shop on a Tuesday afternoon with a baby on my boob talking about solid foods and diaper rash. Why does that feel so cliche? We don't last very long there...a semi-forced hour and I'm convinced Trina will never want to go out with me and my squirming baby again. I'm also convinced that I may never want to go out with my squirming baby again. After a car ride with an unhappy little baby I land back home in my familiar breast feeding chair and he settles back into me. I look down at him. He is curled into me and he sighs a little as he drinks his milk. His hand clutches my shirt. I know its not his fault. He is just a little person with fears and needs who is trying to understand this world. But that doesn't make it any easier. Maybe Ill just stay inside until he is at least 3 months old. Its just too stressful out there.

pretty baby

He's hit his first awkward stage. Chuby cheeks, baby acne, horrible gas which causes him and me pain. He screws up his face and turns red all over and sqwirms in my arms. He's so heavy now but he seems to have gained all his weight in his head at the moment. I still love him of course but I miss his little perfect newborn self. He has his first scars of being human. A little diaper rash around his willy, poor boy. I feel like I failed him. Like he was perfect when I got him and he's been going downhill ever since. I guess that is what this being human is...this coming into a body. The other day I was explaining to him, through both his and my tears, that it's not easy, being human, but it will get better. I started explaining all the good things in life...jumping in rivers in the summer, campfires, leaves and apples in the fall...hot chocolate, hugs, christmas, music, a warm bath. As I was explaining all this he stopped crying and just stared at me, wide eyed. I'm sure that he understood some of it. It at least made me feel better. It made me feel like I could at least do something to help him when really I am just a powerless observer with milk filled breasts and arms that move him around.
He is asleep now. He is so quiet that I have to go to him and check him, make sure he is breathing and now he is awake. Susan, what have you done my dear. Here we go again. Here I come my pretty baby.

bonding

My mother has been here all week and so I have written less and slept more. Lukas seems to let me sleep the last few nights...we are co-sleeping. As long as he is cuddled and fed he is happy and sleeps. Go figure. I've felt so excited by him all week...watching him change in small ways. He grabs things now, my necklace, my hair, my shirt as I try to walk around with him. It feels like he is participating more in life. He is awake longer. He watches things. He attempts to hold his head up. Jorg thinks that he's an extrovert as he's constantly vocal making the most prehistoric sounds. I call him teradactyl. Last week he was cricket. I don't think he'll ever learn his name. I have a million nick names for him...muffin, butter ball, baby bear, monster, booby pants, mr. man. Poor little Lukas.
I think that parenting an infant is a very zen like activity. It forces you to be patient, to stay in the moment and to not get attached to any plans. The best advice I have recieved is from my mother. She said...."don't try to do anything else right now. Don't think you are going to do anything else. Just let this be your life. Take this time with him." She is right. She didn't do that. She wasn't able. She was a different person then. Its beautiful to watch her with him...to see how he calms her. He sleeps on anyone's chest happily listening to their heart beat. He is sleeping now and I want to wake him, to play with him, to watch him. I can't believe how much I love him. I thought this routine would be mundane. Rise at 7 AM feed him, clean him, change him, try to find a moment to eat. But he changes so much in such small ways every day. I learn so much from being with him and trying to be patient. As long as I stay here in today I find this all facinating, beautiful, transformative and exciting. May I continue to have such a perspective and may I have compassion during the times when that perspective escapes me. What a journey and he's only 19 days old!