Falling Leaves

It seems impossible, given the relentlessness with which I document your comings and goings, that I left my phone in the car as we walked up the path to Montessori the day before yesterday on a warm and glistening sunny autumn day. The giant tree in the front lawn was aflame with orange, and when the wind kicked up the leaves drifted down slowly like snow, painting an orange carpet over the grass. You stopped, transfixed, staring at the leaves. You grinned and me and pointed back at the tree. You let go my hand and waded into some leaves, staring with an open-mouthed smile as they drifted down, slowly. 

Instead of watching video of you in this moment I must settle for remembering it, and seeing the expression of pleasure and wonder and excitement on your face as you felt the breeze take you up and take up the leaves and swirl them around and flutter them down to the earth.

When we went back to school today, after yesterday's holiday, the tree was denuded, all the leaves in a thick carpet on the grass, heralding the coming of winter. 

These are transitory pleasures, that we are living. But we are here. And we remember. 

Election Day

 You have jet lag. It was fall back the day after Halloween, and also I'm pretty sure you are teething, and so we've had a couple of bumpy nights. Last night you conked out by 6:30 and this morning you were up and bushy-tailed at 5. You were even done with your first nap in time for us to get to Montessori at 8:45, so you are having a full day at school today. Your first. I hope you are having fun.

It's a brisk and windy day today, as everyone goes to the polls and with any luck American democracy survives. I have moments of excitement but most of today has been a wash. I went to the weird 1920s office space that I share with your godlessparents and I've been reading for work. Brian and Ginger stopped by and Brian opened a bottle of rum at 11:30. If I didn't have to pick you up in the car soon I would have been tempted. There's cannabis chocolate in the fridge too. Nursing, though. I do actually try to be a responsible parent for you. Believe it or not. 

You have gotten in to the Manhattan Montessori that I have been angling to get you into since before you were born, so success on that front. I have already gotten sort of misty in anticipation of how you will feel leaving your current Montessori for life in the city. But that's a year away. No point worrying about it now. For now, let's assume New York City won't be in flames tonight and tomorrow. How about that?

I am glad you are unaware of all these frightening things. You don't seem scared of people in masks, though you usually try to pull mine off. You don't know that we have a frightening and divisive leader. You don't know about racial strife, or economic collapse, or disease. You are a baby, and you are smiley and merry, and experience the world as full of friendly people who love you and want to pick you up. I am grateful for this. I live in fear of your ever discovering it is anything but the truth.

So, today, you are playing now with your friends at Montessori in Massachusetts, and I am trying to work and not doom-scroll, and tonight you and I will go to bed early again, and we will hold each other, and I will marvel that you exist, and you will snuffle and complain until you find my boob in your sleep. I have gotten very involved lately looking at footage of the new giant panda cub at the National Zoo. He's a miracle too. They have a panda cam in the den, and as I watch this giant panda mother and her little round panda cub snuggle and put paws in each others' faces and sit up to nurse and then roll over again I feel like it is a livestream of you and me when we hide together in bed at night, willing the world to be as safe and warm and loving as our secret family den can be. 

Growing

 You are so tall! You are 98th percentile for height, which is amazing. Your smile is infectious, and there is no sound I love more in the world than your happy giggle. You have started to be impatient to get to school, which is nice to see. We go to a playground around the corner and you want to go down the big slide and play in the baby car and on the abandoned tricycles. When we go down the slide you sit on my lap and I count one.... two.... (on two I vibrate my legs like we are revving up our engine) and on THREE! we slide down, and you giggle, and I kiss your sweet baby cheeks.

I love your sweet baby cheeks. 

I usually say "may I smooch you?" before I do it, trying to respect your autonomy. I don't know why I use "kiss" as a noun and "smooch" as a verb, but that's how it shakes out. We give kisses, but we also smooch. 

You are learning words, but can't quite say them yet. You can point to my bellybutton when I ask you where it is, you point at Milo, you point at your toy apple, you point at the shower door. I'm so curious what-all is happening in your baby mind at any given time. 

You have been waking up unusually early - like 4:30, 5 am. And having your morning nap early too. I'm not sure what the deal is, as you seem tired and like you don't want to be awake. I have ordered you some special overnight diapers, on the theory that maybe you are wet and that is bothering you. We shall see. Dare I hope that an overnight diaper will carry you straight from 7 pm to 7 am, and it turns out we aren't taking a morning nap at all? 

You love books, and my old mushroom bell toy, and your grandparents are going to send up my tricycle for you, which I think you will like. My baby is a toddler now. I knew, intellectually, that babyhood didn't last all that long, but it's a different thing entirely to experience how brief it is in real time. 

I love you so much that sometimes I think I can't handle it.

And that is how things stand on this, a couple of weeks after your first birthday.

Birthday!

 This morning, after first nap, as I pulled off your sleeping romper and started to climb out of my own pajamas, I asked the smart speaker to play Sweet Child of Mine for us while we washed. When the guitar riff started and I began to bang my head gently, you grinned and started nodding along. 

Then we drove to school listening to music that makes me think of you, and it was a sunny and crisp autumn day in New England, and when we got to school you were so excited that you insisted on walking up all the steps yourself and then pressed your hands on the glass to be let in and didn't even need a goodbye hug. I will pick you up in three hours and then we will go home, and this afternoon in our garden you will have your first carrot cake cupcake. And your Manamana has gotten you a balloon.

I love you so, sweet Succotash of mine. 

I cannot believe you are really here.

One Year Ago

 Today I was in the hospital, entering my 24th hour of induced labor to have a baby. Today I am draped over a smooshy beanbag chair in a funny little 1920s era office that I have rented together with some friends to have a space to write while my Succotash is in Montessori up the street. After a bumpy beginning my baby now happily walks himself up the steps to the infant and toddler house, and knocks on the glass door to be let in. Today he almost jogged into the classroom to see his babyfriends, not even stopping for an extra hug, and barely registering when I said "bye bye Succotash, I love you. Quack quack quack I'll be right back."

My baby isn't a baby anymore. In the night he rolls over onto his belly and sighs. I am beginning to think he might wean himself of his own accord, after several weeks being worried he would remain a gung ho partisan of nursing until well into first grade. He doesn't reach for me as much in the night as he did before. He rolls enough that we have obtained a toddler mattress and padding for the floor, because I'm worried soon the bed won't be safe for him. Strange days.

Tomorrow we will celebrate with a grandmother and an uncle and a neighbor or two in the garden, with a cupcake each and a balloon for the birthday boy. He won't know why so many people he loves are all in the garden, or what to do with the candle. Here is the robust little fellow, tall, inquisitive, with an unfortunate habit of poking baby friends in the eye when interested in them. He is unlike the seven pound creature who emerged from my body in one very surreal moment early in the morning almost one year ago. And yet, in that creature I can see the outline of the boy who lives with me now.

I feel sort of inadequate to the task of expressing what it means to me, and to my husband, to have him here, for him to be turning one year old tomorrow, for him to be real, and really here, and alive, and with us, and a person who is at the very beginning of what (God willing) will be a long and eventful and meaningful life. I look around at Mustard House now and dare to imagine that he might be in this house with his grandchildren one day, that it will have been in our family for over a hundred years, that my first book will have secured a home for this imaginary family I never dared to dream I would have until, one moment, almost one year ago, it appeared.

Almost One

You and your six chins walked almost happily into Montessori today, and smiled and waved at me when I said my special goodbye ("quack quack quack I'll be right back"), and now I am around the corner trying to work and looking at pictures of you first. 

You are now able to: clap, climb the stairs spotted but unassisted, eat an apple or a pear, crawl around in the bed (uh oh), say "Momo" when you see the dog. You play next to a baby at Montessori and it is charming. Yesterday we had a babyfriend over and you had what I think was your first introvert meltdown. You are obssessed with the construction details on the top of your play teepee, in which we plan soon to place a toddler mattress to turn into a secret bed for you. I will miss sleeping with you, as you are warm and snuggly. I will probably be lax about you sneaking into our bed when you have a bad dream. I am soft. 

I am in the process of applying to 2s programs for you in New York for next year, which seems impossibly far off. We have applied early decision for you to another Montessori that is walking distance from our apartment. I am imagining a world where you and I stroll down in the morning, you play all day while I write nearby, and then we stop in Madison Square Park to play on our way home, or go up to meet your dad for early dinner. I imagine a world with a COVID vaccine and Joe Biden as president, and that your babyhood in quarantine will one day be a matter for family lore and nothing else, and not the new eternity. 

You are better at keeping your sneakers on. You like the baby swings, especially when I stop you at the top of your swing arc to bring you in for a kiss. I love kissing your baby cheeks. I see them and say "May I have a smooch?" and then I shower you with kisses. 

It's warm today, but the leaves are changing colors. Fall in New England. 

I have to plan the world's smallest socially distant first birthday party for you. I think we will serve carrot cupcakes and get you a balloon. 

I can't believe it's almost been a year. I feel like you just got here, and like I have always known you. My Succotash wish.

Crying in the Car

I'm in a spare, nearly empty antique office in downtown Beverly, five minutes away from you while you are enjoying your first day of Montessori. At least, I hope you are enjoying it. You were smiling and looking with curiosity at all the other kids and babies, and when we got to your classroom your favorite teacher Donna was waiting for you, and you reached out to her right away. I wrote down my cell number and kissed your cheek twice and waved bye bye with both hands and I made it all the way to the car before I started to cry.

I know it's good for you. I know it. You need to be with adults who aren't your father or Manamana or me. You need to be with other babies. They have a whole room set up just for you. It's time to start learning to nap not in my arms. But damn, am I a stereotype of a first time mother dropping her baby off at day care. 

I'm going to try to work today, so that I can at least point to a good reason why you are in a classroom with relative strangers instead of at home with me and your father. If everything goes perfectly I am to pick you up at noon, which is in two hours. If you are having a tough time they have promised to notify me. I can be there in five minutes.

Five minutes.

I love you so much it hurts. 

Do you know that? If you ever read this, then you will.