blogs

I was never a baby kind of person.

When my mother gave me a baby doll, I dragged it around for a few days with a nagging sense of guilt and burden, and finally hid it in the top of my closet, where I pretended to have forgotten it. Sometimes, at night, I thought I could feel its reproachful open-and-close eyes staring at me through the closet door, wondering why, of all people it had to belong to me.

 So I have guilt issues enough as it is.

When I had a baby (we'll call him Baby J), at first, it was like that.

He cried, and I imagined him saying, "but I'm such a good baby! Why won't she take care of me?" (This, even as I changed him, cuddled him, fed him, and lived in constant fear of his every unhappiness.) A lifestyle magazine for the newly married came in the mail (I am that, too, relatively speaking) and I salivated over the suggestions: make a romantic dinner. Fix your house. Have fun with your spouse. I'll never do those things again, I thought. And I'm clearly inadequate as a mother.

I felt in over my head.

The days passed, and turned (slowly at the start) into weeks. Soon, he stopped crying whenever he woke up. (I never understood that: he'd look around him, widen his eyes, and shriek in abject unhappiness.)

Soon, he started to smile.

That was the beginning of the end.

 Now, from where I'm sitting, I can hear him laugh as he plays with his father. And there's no describing the feeling when he's playing in his Baby Einstein "command center" (our name for it, not theirs). Arms flailing, he slams the keys of the little pretend piano, sending classical music flying through the air, changing every time he gets bored. When the music is especially exciting, he jumps violently and screams in happiness, a huge grin flashing across his face like a spotlight.

He likes Jason Mraz, too, the new album, especially the songs that my brother pointed out recently are particularly dirty. (They have better beats, I guess).

And he's fantastic: smiling, laughing, playing, jumping, and generally being a funny little fellow.

 He's only four-and-a-half months old now, but it feels like he belongs here.

I don't know what I did to deserve him -- and, in most ways, I don't think the credit is mine -- but I love him. He's the best thing I have ever done -- and I'm so glad I get to get to know him better.