gratitude

For every one hundred grumbling, frustrated, confused & angst-ridden posts there must be at least one glad & grateful one, and this is that one:

I am so thankful for all the dear, close, cuddling moments I get with my beautiful baby. I am in love with our days &, more importantly lately, our nights. I love stroking his soft, warm belly as he sleeps curled beside me at night. I love bearing witness to those first, groggy, nonsensical babbles that burst out when he wakes up with a big blink each morning. I cannot imagine missing out on all of this.

There are times when I have questioned the choices we've made & the way those choices dictate how we spend our time. I am almost alone among my friends in many of them, especially now that X is in his second year. The model I have followed is a difficult & time-consuming one with no easy answers for the pressing problems of sleep (and sleep, and sleep...really, is there anything else?). I have not left my kid in the care of another for longer than a few hours & never in the evening. I don't go out with my friends after X is asleep since he may need my help getting resettled (& resettled & resettled again!). I can't spend the weekend away, doing my own thing, living my old life.

I am sure I will regain some semblance of my "old life" soon enough, & sometimes I hanker for it, but it is coming. In the meantime, some other very important business is at hand. These nights of constant care, the crying & the comforting & the nonstop nursing, are opportunities for me to bathe my child in attention, to touch his little body & assure him of my unceasing concern for his well-being. I am convinced that none of my administrations are in vain.

And I know they are not because I am made whole by them, whether or not he is. This fact hit me during a silly moment, chatting by a fire with B on a chill spring evening, discussing co-sleeping & the merits & drawbacks when it occurred to both of us: I need my baby in order to sleep peacefully almost as much as he needs me. The rush of oxytocin when he nurses, the wave of joy that washes over me when I feel his giant baby feet pressed against my legs, the way he quiets almost instantly when he feels my hand against his back in sleep: these are my mainstays, the things that bring fullness & joy into my life. We are attached, he to me, and me to him. We need each other.

The truth is that however frustrated I may be at times, however anxious & exhausted, almost every day I think about how soon it will come to an end (with a sob catching in my throat), and so I lap up every last morsel of this almost-too-closeness & I relish it.