Tomorrow X will celebrate his 2-week-old birthday. It is with a twinge of sadness and remorse that I watch him grow -something in me wants to keep him this small forever, even as I anticipate all the thrilling stages to come. I imagine having other children someday, if only to recapture these tender, wonderful days of getting to know my baby. On the other hand, he is so vulnerable and fragile, I wish he would hurry up and grow so I can stop worrying so obsessively about him. I feel that were he slightly more robust, my anxiety would subside.
Sometimes I lay and stare at his sweet, sleeping, oblivious face while tears stream down my own. I despair of the fact that I cannot protect him from this big and terrible world. He will face it on his own one day, and I will not be there to shelter him. He will be crushed a hundred times over, and I will be crushed right along with him. Somehow, it seems harder to watch someone you love go through the hurt of growing up than it was to go through it yourself. When I was pregnant, I looked forward to having children as an opportunity to live my life again vicariously, and I imagined all the joys: exploring the forests for the first time, going to school, ice cream and animals and birthday parties -I did not imagine the sorrows and the turmoil, the hurts and the disappointments. Now, awash in a rush of postpartum hormones, I look over my silent, sleeping son and sob uncontrollably for all the sadness that is to come.
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