Secret World

That’s the other thing. Everybody who has kids is immediately your best friend. I knew this abstractly before, but it’s very real now. They all beam at you with this cult-like good will. “We’re so glad you’ve joined us! It was utter hell when they were small, and it was the best thing I ever did.”

Mostly, your baby is the jumping off point for them to talk about their own little person that they love so much. It makes me feel better about the world, somehow, meeting all these grown-ups – cab drivers, doctors, sales clerks, artists, whoever – who suddenly shed their workday roles, and emerge as their real secret identity – Dad, or Mom, or Grandma. Dads actually seem to be the most vocal so far.

It kinda feels like the real world is all made up only of children and their adult attendants who create these elaborate economic structures to support them, coming home for a few stolen hours in the evening to admire the little child kings and queens, before going out the next morning to do it all again.

Gobsmacked

Emma will be six months old next week, and I’m starting to catch my breath. Digging back into my memories and notes from the beginning … this is what I thought then.

Emma is a month old, and I think I can finally start to write out what I feel.

Gob smacked, essentially. It’s all true what they say – it changes everything. I don’t want to be one of those kid evangelists that suddenly start pushing the breeding on everyone else. “It’s the best thing you’ll ever do. And you don’t know love until you’ve had a child” etc. etc … So my apologies to all of the people out there who are childless, either by luck or by choice, because I know how annoying new parents can be, as if they have a corner on love or joy or beauty. I do understand that life is full and amazing and can be lived to the fullest, with or without kids.

What I wasn’t ready for was the deep animal love that washes over you. Feeding her the other day, she was limp and milk drunk in my arms, and there was just something about her vulnerability that made me realize that this was it, this was the relationship for which I would go to the end. I would absolutely do the most extreme things for this little being – I would lose a limb, give a kidney, die or kill, whatever it took – for her. And maybe if it ever came down to it, I would for a spouse, or friends or family, too. But she has wrenched open a portal in my heart to a world of hurt and love that hadn’t existed before.

I know I’m lucky, but mostly I feel raw. So very raw. Watching Murderball the other day, and I couldn’t finish it. Couldn’t deal with the thwarted hopes and lost promise. So I can’t take violence, or sadness, or loss, or abandonment, but apparently I can’t take hope or courage or determination either.

Weird how vulnerable I feel. There is something so touching about her face and the way it lights up when she sees me that breaks my heart. I don’t feel worthy to be everything to somebody like that. And her fierce will to live, her hunger to grow, the strength she possesses, even in her fragility, just slays me. I’m awestruck by this tiny person.

It’s true – “To decide to have a child is to decide forever to have your heart walking around outside your body.”

What have I done?

This is the first day of our acquaintance

First blog post ever… And the world holds its breath for yet another navel-gazing, privileged mommy blogger to write haikus about her baby’s poo. Can’t help it, though. The blogosphere vortex is too strong.

Never have I had a time in my life where the compulsion to record every tiny detail was so strong.  Because it’s not just my footprint anymore, it’s her’s too.  And I cannot bear the thought that she will ever cease to exist.  So I type against the reaper, I guess.

And I love the world view that being a Mom has reminded me to have – up close, mindful. Slower.

So breathe the air. Remember that life is precious and hard-won. Give thanks. Use it well.