My dear friend Beth recently wrote a beautiful blog post on
the magical moment she has during bathtime with her kids—the meditative feeling
of repeatedly rinsing her daughter’s hair, the special sweet smell of clean
child that is so unique and precious, and that stoppage of time where all you
do is just bath—and the fact that with her last child growing up, these magical
moments of bathtime are sliding away. I loved the post and nodded to myself and
said yeah, I love bathtime too—Kalev’s special smile of delight, his bath
dance, the way he lines up his ducks and boats afterwards—a special time where
you can totally glimpse his joy in the moment and therefore it transfers to
your joy as well. So I agreed and was sad, sad for Beth and sad for one day no
longer getting to enjoy bathtime with Kalev. Then I went about the rest of my
day.
Except that those words of Beth’s crept into me, into my
heart and my mind, stewing there and churning churning churning until it hit me—Oh
my God! My magic moment is holding Kalev
while he sleeps and oh my God oh my God oh my God! It’s sliding away! This moment of course came to me as I looked
down into the peaceful child sleeping in my arms. This was it. This was my bath moment. And it hurt, that realization that he
will not always be sleeping in my arms. Like Beth, I get to experience my magic
moment every night, and lucky me, every nap time, because Kalev still falls
asleep in my arms. Sometimes the process getting there is annoying or
frustrating and I think all I want to do is sleep myself or get something done, but as soon as he’s
asleep, I’m there—that magic moment, that magic place, of true mindfulness and
appreciation of what an amazing experience this is. It washes away whatever struggles
happened during the day—the negotiations, the meltdowns, the limit setting, any
illness, any frustration—and refreshes me and my outlook on motherhood. (It is also one of the few times Kalev is mostly still, that his energy is resting, and that I can just look at him and breathe in his awesomeness). I am so
blessed! Thank you God for giving me such an amazing son, and the experience of
being his mother. I look at him, curled against me, his breath fluttering
against my chest, his perfect lips slightly open to allow his breath in and
out—that slow, beautiful meditative synergy of breathing, of me slowing down to
appreciate that breath and match it. He is my baby and my love for him blows me
away. I’m consumed by it. I know that love will stay forever, but gosh, I
really don’t want to lose this special time of holding him while he sleeps. (Hence
the gazillion pictures I take of him during these moments, some of which I share below)
Beth’s post clarified my fear of this magic moment sliding away, but it’s been rumbling in little pops of fear for the last few
months. We’ve been in survival mode around here since late January/early February and I haven’t
really taken much time to think through deep thoughts or focus on my
mindfulness—I just got through the moment, the minute, the day. But since I’ve
been feeling better lately those thoughts have crept in, usually at naptime or
bedtime, when I realize Wow! Things are really going to change soon. Kalev
falling asleep and sleeping during the night on and off in my arms—this will
change. I don’t know the mechanics or the specifics of the change, but I know with a new
addition to our family and our family bed, things are going to seriously
change. And a big change will be this magic moment I experience with Kalev—when
I hold him for an hour or more, relishing in this closeness, the quietness, the
love; when we curl together throughout the night and wake up, like we did this
morning, snuggled so closely together I am almost off the bed (poor Matt, all
alone with the other ¾ of the bed!); when I give him an extra squeeze and block
out those images of an eight year old boy losing his life in Boston yesterday
because I really, really can’t go there; when in sleep his hand flutters
against my cheek and I know this moment is magical for him too. What will I do
when this slides away? When he no longer wants to fall asleep in my arms or
sleep curled against me at night? And what will I do if I cause this magic
moment to slip away sooner because of the new baby I so desperately wanted?
When I have to make choices and one of those choices might be to hold the other
child and nurse that child to sleep?
I can’t imagine my life without these magic moments for us.
All this thinking makes my heart heavy. I don’t like change
and I especially don’t like thinking about my little boy changing so much that
he no longer is my little baby in my arms. I know it happens, that it needs to
happen, that one of my jobs as a mother is to give Kalev the tools and the love
so that he can be independent … but how do you handle it? How do mothers and
fathers let these magic moments slip away? And again and again with each child?
It’s too much for me on this spring morning. I just want to snuggle in bed with
my baby.
The lesson that I’m trying to teach myself in all this is to
not focus on the sliding away. It’s inevitable, like so many things, but it
hurts (also like so many things darnit!). But I’m hoping that maybe the change
will be gradual, and in a way and time that it works for both of us. We believe
in lots of child-led things—weaning, potty training, family bed—so I have to
trust (or I try to tell myself to trust) that these changes happen gradually
and usually happen as they are meant to, and the relationship we have with
Kalev is gradually adjusted and accepting of this new phase. Oftentimes, like
the potty training, we greet it with joy. I don’t think I will greet the whole
no more magic moment of sweet angelic sleep in my arms with joy, but I am
hopeful it will happen at a time when both Kalev and I are ready and willing to
accept the transformation to some other magic moment. And until then, I really
want to teach myself to use this magic moment as the meditation it can be—focus
on the moment, on the feel of him against me, of the joy I feel having this
experience, the peace it brings me, the assurance that even with crazy days and
horrible evil people doing bad things in this world everything is ok at the
foundation of my world because of the love I have with this special baby. And I
will definitely give him some extra snuggles tonight :-)
Just a few days after Kalev was born
Loved how we used to sleep face to face, nose to nose
My big boy, growing up and slowly sliding away
