I am not talking about a ridiculous series of DVD's designed to turn your baby into a genius, I am talking about what babies do to the grown up humans around them.
Time and Space change. The very physical laws of the universe seem to bend.
Time
1 a: the measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues : duration b: a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future
I did not post to my blog for nine days. I have emails from over a month ago that are sitting unanswered. I can't tell you if it's Monday or Saturday. October 1 or September 13. There is not real division between night and day, aside from the darkness. When the clock starts to roll around to 10 pm, all I can think is that I have to go to bed, whether I want to or not, and another "day" has passed during which I had almost no non-baby time. Saturdays and Sundays are different because Pete is home, and he does not have to get up at a set time in the morning. But that's about it. It's been almost two months since Finn came home. That's almost unbelievable. Time has flown.
Gravity
3 a (1): the gravitational attraction of the mass of the earth, the moon, or a planet for bodies at or near its surface
Usually, one thinks of gravity as a big object attracting smaller objects, which then revolve around the larger object. Babies are the reverse. You have this very small creature in the center with anywhere from one to four adults, sometimes more, drifting (or flurrying) around it in different trajectories. Infants are White Hot Need wrapped in Uncontrollable Cuteness, and they pull us in. They have to in order to survive.
It's hard to imagine these shifts before you have a baby. You can't imagine being attached to something in such a visceral way. It seems impossible that layers of your life could just fall away into oblivion when you hold your son. Even when I am on the couch for hours, and I think I can't stand one more minute, that little face is the most mesmerizing thing in the world.
He needs me. I need him. I love him. He will love me. We're a fresh little family with so much to do. Lots of baby physics, baby chemistry, and baby biology ahead of us.
2 comments:
Isn't it amazing how everything chanes around these wee creatures! I remember living this way as a blur, short-lived but fuzzy. I thin kat about 5 months things started to get back to a more normal function, as Pete was sleeping longer periods of time and yes having little bits of solid food. Or was it 6 months? Hang in there Pete and Karen, things will change fast! All my love,
Grammasue
I love reading your blog. Whenever I check it out I am glued to it for much longer periods of time than I actually have to spare. It is far more entertaining than my current library loan "How to Raise an Amazing Child the Mmotessori Way". I am glad you are all doing so well.
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