Now Entering Parenthood...

Kids are a pain in the ass. Kids are the most amazing thing you can do in life. Sure, I haven’t saved a life or climbed Everest or given a year to humanitarian aid… But I still feel like at the end of all that I would come back feeling like having kids was the most meaningful thing I did in my life. For people without kids, I’m sure that sounds at best cliche and at worst self-centered. For people with kids, I am sure it strikes one of those chords deep in your heart, one of those ones that aches.

It’s all because I read this article which should be required reading for anyone who has kids, anyone thinking about having kids, or anyone who wonders why the hell any of us have kids…

“As an adult, you may think you’ve roughly mapped the continent of love and relationships. You’ve loved your parents, a few of your friends, eventually a significant other. You have some tentative cartography to work with from your explorations. You form ideas about what love is, its borders and boundaries. Then you have a child, look up to the sky, and suddenly understand that those bright dots in the sky are whole other galaxies.”

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH SIMON
A friend of mine once asked me, “Don’t you feel like this is the first time you’ve experienced unconditional love.” And when I hesitated, she asked, “You don’t think you really had unconditional love with Tom, now do you?”

The question resonated. Was she feeling something more with her son than I was with mine? Or did I just love Tom more than she realized? 

My love affair with Simon has always been what I would call comfortable, observant, respectful. There was this moment I had when Simon was barely a week old, and I laid him on my chest as he fell asleep and started singing him a song. I began sobbing uncontrollably. The love I was feeling was so new, so raw, so deep and scary that I think from that moment on I tried to keep it in check.

There is no mistake. I love Simon with all my heart, but because I was so afraid of that deep raw uncontrollable burst of love… I think I rushed my love affair with Simon straight from honeymoon to old married couple. Simon and I are an awesome team. He can have his bad days, I can have my bad days and we both know we are still made for each other.

We have our secret language, our jokes, our way of communicating even without words. He’s confident that when he wakes up in the morning that I will be right there waiting for him. He’s so confident that he is not afraid to wander off in the mall, go explore the world, do his own thing… Mommy is home base, but Mommy is not the most interesting thing in the world. We are comfortable.

And the only time I have ever been scared for ‘us’ is about a month before #2, Mr. Charlie, came into this world. I started getting really scared about how Simon would feel. And I made this completely secret, and also completely naive, promise to myself to always put Simon’s needs first. Simon trumped this unborn baby, but that’s because I had not ever met this baby…

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH CHARLIE

“The Cancer man knows exactly how to a take a woman into his Crabby grip and keep her there forever. Maybe he squeezes a little too hard, pulls you a little too close. But you don’t mind.”

Let me start by saying I think astrology is bunk, but this quote had me believing. My little Cancer boy is clingy, rough, tough and I love it. Every time he entangles his baby fingers in my hair, pulls HARD, and dives his little baby face with hot breath into mine… I feel alive, I feel in love. Charlie love is visceral, in your face, here and now, and for some reason I am allowing myself to soak in it, I am letting it seep into my bones.

I love Charlie like a new obsession. Like the freshest of crushes. If I spend a day without him, I find myself obsessively thinking of him, guilty I cannot be with him. If he has a bad day where he isn’t in the best of moods, it hits me hard… Does he doubt my love for him? Does he feel like he isn’t getting enough of me?

It’s deliciously toxic and intense. I am letting myself experience all the vulnerability and insanity that I felt in that one moment with Simon and terrified me. With Charlie, I swim in it. I let it get to me.

There are these odd moments in the day, when I am holding him, where I envision terrifying things. Like, what if I just let go and dropped him down the stairs? What if I just left him here out in the cold? I don’t know why my subconscious inserts such horrors in my head, but I think it is the equivalent of putting your finger on a shocker. It’s a quick painful hit that gives you adrenaline.

I feel that shock, and I squeeze Charlie close, hard… Like someone is trying to take him away from me. Like tomorrow he won’t be there. And I realize how I no longer can survive without him. This small little man that I was so willing to put his needs below Simon’s… Now I just honestly couldn’t live unless he was alive as well.

I am nurturing a mama’s boy. I no longer care about independence. I just want his crabby claws dug into my heart forever. But I know I need to begin to let go some day, I am just nowhere near ready yet…

MY NEXT BIG LOVE
No, this doesn’t mean I am thinking about having another kid. Although I have learned that there is room in a mother’s heart for many many loves, I do think that I have hit my personal limit. Everyone has their personal limit.

What I mean by my next big love is that I am starting to feel this warm swelling in my chest, this new fluttering crush sensation, this wonder and this peace… And it is attached to this new idea. It’s brothers. Every time I see Simon and Charlie interacting without me, when I see the sense of wonder in Charlie’s eyes watching Simon or Simon doing something sweet… “Der ya go Charlie”. Handing Charlie toys, trying to make him laugh.

I crave more of it. It’s addictive, and I get teary eyed just writing it. I want so badly for these two boys to find love in each other the way I have found love in both of them. Nothing in life could make me happier…

THE EPILOGUE
Yeah, yeah… So I guess there is also some big life news and stuff too. Charlie turned 7 months old, and is starting to get up on all fours (just barely). He finally cut two teeth and is starting to sleep through the night on occasion again. He loves Ollie probably more than any other living creature in the world. The mere thought of that cat sets him into squealy giggles.

And then there is Simon. Now the two year old. A big number, and yet that still scares me less than the idea of Charlie turning one this summer. Simon is such a big boy now… Dancing, imagining his stuffed animals are real, jumping, watching movies, making up his own delightful routines, like naming off every body part on his face for us to kiss before bed (eyes, nose, cheek, chin, other cheek, head).

But best of all… Simon Giles Strickland is potty trained. Let’s hear it for a delightful little man and no more diaper changes. Sigh :)

That’s all I’ve got. May each of you enjoy your children and the loves in your life in your own unique ways. After all, why else are we alive? I’ll end with another quote from that awesome article that keeps echoing in my head…

The first four years of your life. Do you remember them? What’s your earliest memory? It is fascinating watching your child claw their way up the developmental ladder from baby to toddler to child. All this stuff we take for granted, but your baby will painstakingly work their way through trial and error: eating, moving, walking, talking. Arms and legs, how the hell do they work? Turns out, we human beings are kind of amazing animals. There’s no better way to understand just how amazing humans are than the front row seat a child gives you to observe it all unfold from scratch each and every day, from literal square zero. Children give the first four years of your life back to you.