Tags: Babies, Challenges, Children, Curiosity, Expats, Milestones, Motherhood, Personal, Relationships, Romania
I made my bed today. I put laundry away. I carried a bowl of cereal to the kitchen table. And I held my baby.
I held my baby.
I stood on my own two legs, reached down to pick him up, and snuggled his sticky banana-cheek to mine. I felt his weight against my hip and the tickle of his curls on my temple. Two Cheerios that were stuck to the back of his flannel pajamas click-clacked to the floor when my hand brushed over them. He cackled as the dog came to scarf them up and then made happy motorboat noises in my ear, content to watch the world from my arms. From my arms.
I promised myself I would remember every single sensation of that first deceptively simple hug. Because there was nothing simple about it. I worked my muscles and my psyche into exhaustion for three long months to get here. To be able to stand, to bend, to balance, to scoop up my baby and pull him to me. To feel and do something that was once so natural. So easy.
When he started to fidget and demand to get down so that he could dig around in the utensil drawer, I looked for a distraction. There it was, right on the kitchen table: a bottle I had stuffed with shiny, colorful things, then filled with water and glued closed. He took it, shook it, and watched the tornado of primary colors churn under his tiny fingers.
As the last specks of glitter settled, he tossed the bottle on the floor and reached down for it. I pressed him to me for two more sweet seconds and finally, finally, let him go.
The morning unfolded into a series of battles over removing the remote-control batteries. Over undecorating the Christmas tree. Over poking the dog in the eye. Over stuffing trains under the couch. We never slowed down, never went back to the bottle on the floor, to those first quiet moments of the morning.
The moments when he discovered density and gravity and refraction. When I discovered I had the physical strength to do what my arms and legs had craved for so long. When I rediscovered the weight of his diapered bottom on my forearm, the way my fingers fit under his squishy thigh, the grip of his fist on my shirt sleeve.
And the feel of him. In my arms.
Have you ever memorized a moment? Rediscovered a simple joy? Savored your baby for as long as he would let you?
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Get the tutorial on making discovery bottles, and read other Real Women of Pinterest posts at MEP’s and Erin’s.
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Fluffy Bunnies in Romania:
Read the tales. See the photos.
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