Tuesday, April 12, 2011
belated.
[i sketched this into a notebook during a boring Theater 101 lecture on the post date; just typing it in months later.]
it's hard to keep up with you. god knows how many different babies have come and gone while i'm trying to make time to write. i keep thinking, now you're turning into a kid. no, now! okay, but now for real!
it's true. in the last three weeks it's been harder to see you as a baby. even though someone with a three year old told me recently that there's not-a-baby, and then there's really-not-a-baby; you think that baby's not a baby, and then you realize that your preschooler actually isn't one. i think she sort of meant, don't give it away prematurely. i do still nurse you while you're in my arms, i hold you, i rock you.
but your'e also walking, and you are babbling and communicating (clapping since 8 mos! walking since a week ago), and: you are very large.
you are outgoing. sometimes you tottle right into someone's space and i want to remind you that some people are going to need their bubbles. you are happy, and sometimes i twinge because even though it's gratifying, you might not always be. i don't want to identify you with something so precarious. or, really, actually i just hope you're always more happy than not, or that you always have access to it. it's such a large thing, and such an impossible hope.
mostly, though, i try to ride the wave. you're a good ride, you are, and i'm practicing taking it in strice.
it's hard to keep up with you. god knows how many different babies have come and gone while i'm trying to make time to write. i keep thinking, now you're turning into a kid. no, now! okay, but now for real!
it's true. in the last three weeks it's been harder to see you as a baby. even though someone with a three year old told me recently that there's not-a-baby, and then there's really-not-a-baby; you think that baby's not a baby, and then you realize that your preschooler actually isn't one. i think she sort of meant, don't give it away prematurely. i do still nurse you while you're in my arms, i hold you, i rock you.
but your'e also walking, and you are babbling and communicating (clapping since 8 mos! walking since a week ago), and: you are very large.
you are outgoing. sometimes you tottle right into someone's space and i want to remind you that some people are going to need their bubbles. you are happy, and sometimes i twinge because even though it's gratifying, you might not always be. i don't want to identify you with something so precarious. or, really, actually i just hope you're always more happy than not, or that you always have access to it. it's such a large thing, and such an impossible hope.
mostly, though, i try to ride the wave. you're a good ride, you are, and i'm practicing taking it in strice.
