i LOVE babies. they make my heartstrings play in double time. they are the perfect picture of innocence. the way they grab their little toes just because they can. the funny noises they make. my daughter spent about an hour laying in her crib last night making noises that i SWEAR sounded like a drowning wookie. holy cow it is adorable and TOO funny.
even now, she is sitting in her bouncy seat and making noises that would make a grown person blush to their roots. if a grown up started doing what she is doing right now they would be institutionialized. and put on incontinence medication. but when a baby does it, it is so CUTE.
[pause for a diaper change]
i like changing diapers. i like spoon-feeding another human being pureed veggies. i like kissing her little toes and being beat on the chest when she no-so-vocally gets hungry. only to my babies does the world revolve around me. i love being responsible for their happiness, and i love making them happy. there are bad times, and sad times, and pulloutmyhairihaveafuckingheadachewhywontitsleep times. i love it all. i love being a mommy.
currently, i’m running on my last baby. kinda like a recycled battery, i wonder what’s going to happen when she slowly fades…because that’s the wonderful and sad thing about having a baby. they fade away and morph into something else. i have a little taste of that with my son.
he definitely isn’t the baby he used to be…and MAN do i miss my little baby boy. he is forever lost to me…i’ll never get those big gummy smiles or sleepy snuggles back again, and if i think too hard about it i’ll get teary eyed, because K was one cute little baby.
it’s not a bad thing that my baby boy is gone…because looking at the little boy i know today, i know i wouldn’t trade him for that baby if i had the chance. he’s gaining his independance- he doesn’t rely on me 100% any more, and i don’t know every detail of his life like i used to. that’s okay though, because now we can talk- yeah, i know. he’s only 6. but if we can talk good together now, just imagine how interesting the conversations will be in ten years! he’s my little buddy. we play video games together and read books together and talk about interesting things together. and sometimes those things are really funny.
the other day, he realized he didn’t know how i got E out of my tummy. so he asked. such an innocent question, but soooo difficult to explain. he asked me if she was cut out of my tummy; i said no, because i know he has a thing about blood. his face visibly paled when he asked that question. poor kid almost passed out once when he cut himself once deep enough to bleed. i don’t want him associating having babies with pain and blood. well, at least not until he’s old enough to understand that the magic and wonder makes all the pain and blood worth it.
so i told him that i pushed her out. naturally, he couldn’t leave it at that. he had to ask me where she came out when i pushed. i told him i didn’t want to tell him because he’s just a little too young to know.
then he got to thinking that it was some big secret and kept going on and on about it. he started making a big deal about it, and it got to the point where i could see him going on the playground the next day and asking other kids or (goodness forbid) the teacher. so finally i said
Me: “you’re not gonna want to know honey, it’s kinda gross”
K: “just tell me. i just wanna know”
Me: “okay…well, mommies push babies out between their legs”
K: “ummm. OH. so they come from here?” [he points to the side of his thigh]
Me:”no honey. they come out mommies pee pees”
K:”ummmm. i’m trying not to say it. but. GROSS.”
Me [laughing uncomfortably] “that’s why i didn’t want to tell you sweetie. next time listen when i tell you something…i’m not gonna lie”
i swear, i tell him that last sentence all the time. he just doesn’t trust me. i suppose it offsets the perfect trust that our children as babies place in us. then when they’re teenagers they completely tip the scales so that we can spoil our grandchildren rotten and not feel bad about it at all.
back to the conversation…i suppose i had to tell him sometime. it’s not like i could avoid it forever, and to tell you the truth, i’m not sure why i was so embarassed to tell him how the baby came out. it’s not like i told him how she was made or something. (when he asked that question, i told him that daddy puts a seed in mommy’s tummy. when he wanted more info, i adamantly said NO) i’ve heard of women who actually let their young children sit in on the births of their siblings. i’m talkin’ 5 year olds watching their mommy huff and puff and scream while blood and amniotic fluid and other nasty unmentionables spurts out her nether-regions.
i, personally, would NEVER do that to a child, and honestly think any woman who would do that to their kid should be beat in the head. repeatedly. besides, my blood-sensitive boy would probably pass out or throw up.
early in my pregnancy i was sitting on the couch watching “a baby story”. when we got the the labor part, the woman was screaming in typical labor fashion…K asked me if having a baby hurt, and i said “yes, but it’s okay because the baby is worth it”. he started bawling. i asked him why he was crying, and he told me that he didn’t want me to hurt like that to get the baby out. i immediately switched the channel, never watched a show like that again, and did my best to distract him until he forgot about the incident. thankfully he did.
well. i’ve procrastinated enough. i have 3 gigantic loads of laundry to fold. gah. ah, the darkside of motherhood. i can handle the dishes, and the floors, i don’t even mind washing diapers, but for some reason i HATEHATEHATE folding laundry. maybe because it’s just damn pointless….some of these clothes i’m about to spend a lot of time folding won’t even make it to the dresser drawers before they’re dirty again. meh.
enough scattered babbling.
i’m out.