2002-06-03
So, this is sort of becoming a journal about the kid. Or about my experiences as the mother of the kid. And part of me thinks that's kind of lame and part of me thinks, Well, that's just the way it is.
I was talking on the phone with my best friend a few weeks ago. I had the kid with me, I think he was nursing and then he stopped and began to coo. I put the phone so bf could hear for a moment then immediately apologized. She said that other than one of her sisters I was the only person she knew who would dream of apologizing for such a thing; that her other friends and sisters encourage their babies to leave long messages on her answering machine.
The thing is, I know what it's like to have no interest in other people's children. It's not clear to me yet whether I've changed irrevocably on that count, but I certainly spent 38 years of my life unmoved by the babblings of infants and am ever mindful that many others feel the same way. (I do find now, to my surprise, that photos of very tiny newborns move me a great deal. Photos of older babies do much less for me; I compare then to C and find most of them come up lacking.)
So partly I'd like spare any of you reading this the baby stuff, much in the way I've always tried to keep pet stuff to a minimum. (I almost always loathe hearing about other people's pets. Dreams, too, though there have been exceptions.) But I also use this journal--on the rare occasions I use it at all--as a means of recording things I want to remember. And I do want to remember these early months with C.
I want to remember all of it, frankly, for it really is--as everyone says--fleeting. My best friend at work will be having her baby any week now and I find myself nostalgic for those early days (you know, if I knew then what I know now). Not that it isn't cool now, as C is on the very verge of true locomotion (he is Learning to Crawl) and as his awareness of his world increases daily.
I think frequently of something another friend told me about having a kid, something that took her by surprise. She found she laughed more than she ever had. No one had prepared her for just how fun it was. And now I see what she meant. (I could tell you an anecdote about the other night, something C did that had B and me clutching our sides but I feel certain you had to be there.)
It's really hard to write about this stuff without trotting out every cliche ever spoken. But things become cliches because they are spoken often, because they are true. And unlike other times when I feel like a cliche because I'm part of some little privileged, overeducated slice of American society, I'm now experiencing something universal.
For someone whose identity has traditionally been thoroughly wrapped up in a sense of her own uniqueness, that's a a little unsettling. It's also very cool.
Of course I have my own spin on the whole thing, but I guess what I'm coming to realize is that I don't have to have my own spin. I want to present something special to you, to let you know that I am smart or clever or insightful or eloquent, that I am not Just A Mom.
Because there's something kind of second-class about mothers in this culture. Or there can be. I've interalized a lot of it, for, to be honest, the mothers I've known who strike me as cool seem to be so in spite of their motherhood status, never because of it.
So, I don't know. I'm free associating, here. It's complicated. But I'll tell you this: It's pretty great. Even B, who as I've mentioned, was less than thrilled about the idea of procreation, who agreed to this solely For Me, is over the moon for this kid.
Of course, we got a really cool kid. But I knew we would. I mean, I hoped we would, I figured the odds were pretty good. And I was right. I was right!
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