Dear Baby Wonderful: Grandma's Here!

Dear Baby Wonderful,

When I sat down at the computer this morning I wasn't sure if I remembered how to blog. It's been so long since the last post--May was a month of stories that weren't mine to share, which is an occupational hazard for family bloggers. You might notice that this is the first post to lead with your beautiful face in almost three months.

The world you joined has been, quite frankly, a mess during that quarter of a year. Everyone has been socially distanced and societally outraged, economically shattered and politically appalled.

You, my dear one, have been pretty much the best thing in the world and you were six hours away. But the initial wave of pandemic was subsiding a couple weeks ago when your dad called me.

"I don't know if you'd be interested, but our parental leave will run out two weeks before Baby Wonderful's spot in day care opens up. Any chance you'd like to come over for a week and be a nanny?"

 Remember that gif I posted a couple decades months ago? Yeah. Pretty much that.

I have to admit that I was a little nervous about being the grown-up in the room for a full week with you. I mean, it's been a long time since I held a baby that I didn't return to its proper owners within a few minutes. We've been FaceTiming with you almost every day since you were born, but you have a shocking tendency to be bored with your grandparents' faces within a few seconds. I know! It seems impossible that we wouldn't be riveting conversationalists, and yet...

As it turns out, some things have changed.

Stuffed toys and board books are so pre-pandemic as gifts to be pulled out of the tote bag on arrival. Note the bee-themed mask in your photo today--a colorful AND practical house gift. (Also totally a photo prop since the internet misled Grandma and she severely underestimated the pumpkin-sized noggin you inherited from your paternal grandparents' sides of the family. It almost pulled your sweet little ears completely off but you were a good sport for the five seconds it took to snap the picture.)

 Also mind-boggling are the strides that have been made in baby gear during the past few decades. Somewhere I have a picture of your father in his umbrella stroller. Umbrella strollers are essentially a sling of fabric between two cane-shaped rods that are attached to a cheap set of wheels, and your dad was slumped in that thing like a half-raised batch of bread dough. Your stroller, on the other hand, had dual sun blockers, a five-point harness system, and solid state ignition. (Okay, it didn't have solid state ignition. Or at least I didn't use that feature.) Ditto on the advances for the swing, and we won't even mention your fancy bassinet that not only rocks you to sleep, it also senses if you get squirmy in the night and ROCKS YOU BACK TO SLEEP. I'm not kidding when I say it has a back-up camera so that your parents can check on you from any room in the house.

But some things haven't changed.

You, like your father and uncles, are a chatty baby. The best part of each day was the moment in the morning when I came out of the guest room to find you in your spot next to the breakfast table, and said "Why good morning, Baby Wonderful!" Your grin took over your whole body, and you wiggled and laughed. Often you would wind up to tell me something, pursing your lips and gazing at me intently before saying something unutterably wise. At least I assume it was wise; you gave it great depth.

You, like your father and uncles, are easily roused from naps. That was an easy fix, though, because once you drifted off to sleep on my shoulder I had the luxury of just holding you until you woke up, even if that meant we dozed in the recliner for hours. Nothing is more soporific than the presence of a sleeping baby, and I would like to apologize to your parents for ruining your bed-napping forever.

I spent a full week kissing your neck, watching you knot and unknot your hands as if casting baby magic, and making you put up with my irresistible urge to patty-cake your feet together.

And I discovered something I had known instinctively but had never experienced.

I found I could forgive you pretty much anything. I laughed when you barfed on me within seconds of my arrival and didn't mind that I smelled like baby spit-up, except for brief moments immediately  after showering, for the next five days. Or there was the day I was changing your dirty diaper when you decided it would be appropriate to deposit the second stage of that intestinal evacuation directly into my palm. With any other kid I would have had to amputate my hand but with you, again, I laughed.

You see, there is something deep and primeval about the bond of kinship. With rare exceptions my interest in babies has been minimal for the past 27 years. I loved your father and uncles instinctively, totally, rawly, with a bond nearly visible in its intensity. No other baby had ignited that same fierce emotion when I held them and I was afraid it might be gone forever.

But then there was you, my Baby Wonderful.

I can't wait to kiss your neck again.

Much love,

GrandmaQueenBee

Dear Baby Wonderful: The World Turned Upside Down

Dear Baby Wonderful,

Before you were born I had imagined a whole new world with you in it. I imagined how just knowing you were here, with your brains and your personality and your potential, would change my entire outlook. I imagined the books I would read to you, using different voices for every character and not even caring if you decided to turn the pages right to left instead of left to right. I imagined tucking you in and singing "I'll be loving you, always..." to lull you to sleep just like I did your daddy and uncles. I imagined a clean junk drawer in the kitchen.

(Not really on that last item. But two weeks ago I was suddenly struck with the irresistible urge to organize the drawer under the coffeepots that has always been the repository of birthday candles, the upstairs hammer and pliers, pizza coupons, picture-hanging paraphernalia, gum, and other miscellaneous stuff. For years that drawer hasn't opened except under duress, but that day I had HAD it with that mess. Seven hours later I saw your face for the first time. Nesting: It Isn't Just For Parents.)

(Also, since we're being all parenthetical now, the reason there's a picture of the junk drawer instead of the one we got yesterday of you grinning in your sleep and wearing a HI! onesie is because your Dad and Mom are understandably reluctant to share the innermost workings of your life with the internet. I think that's an excellent decision, but may lead to some interesting illustrations.)

Anyway, you were the big news that day but since then you've been knocked off the front pages by...what do we even call this turn of events? Circumstances, let's say.

The very day we kissed you goodbye and headed back to the House on the Corner we began to find out that the scientists had been correct, and shockingly, the politicians had been wrong when they told us there was nothing to worry about from that virus clear across the world. (Here is your first bit of English instruction for today: You notice the word "shockingly" in the last sentence? That's known as sarcasm, and you'll find that your grandmother fights her tendency to use sarcasm but that the sarcasm often wins.)

The very next day we started washing our hands every time we saw a faucet, and since then we've stopped hugging, kept our distance from other people, and now are having lunch with our friends through the Zoom app on our computers.

It's been quite an adjustment for me. Schools have been cancelled, so I'm not working. All of my regular groups and clubs are not meeting. Music contests and lessons were called off.

I vividly remember taking out my phone and deleting every event on the calendar, one after another, for the next two months.

Your parents have been wonderful about FaceTiming every evening so we can see you--what a beautiful boy you are! And five whole ounces above your birth weight! (Your doctor said you're a "champion eater," so we know with certainty that you're part of our family.)

You're often asleep during those video sessions and every once in a while you suddenly throw out an arm, or kick a tiny leg. I understand this is quite normal, as your nervous system begins to figure out the world.

That kick, that startled jerk, is what I've been feeling as we begin to figure out our own new world. Our schedules, the daily-ness of our days, was the womb that was nice and tight around us to make us feel secure. (That, dear one, is a metaphor.)

We're figuring out life, just as you are. It's still spring so it's lovely and bright, but there are times when it's quite scary and we have to train our reflexes. In this case, we're taming the impulse to be social so that we can get back to the parts of the world we miss--the hugs, the handshakes, the smiles.

We're fighting the impulse to be scared.

The "before" world we had just a few weeks ago has been turned upside down, but the "after" will be a world with you in it. You'll come visit the House on the Corner and we'll read books and bake cookies and I'll let you get a piece of gum out of the junk drawer as soon as you have teeth.

The snuggles and hugs with you will make all of this staying apart to stay safe worthwhile.


And I'll be loving you, always, 

GrandmaQueenBee

I'll Love You Forever

Dear Baby Wonderful,

It was a week ago, almost to the minute, that your father sent the text:

"Hi, all. (LovelyGirl#) went into labor last night, and they admitted her to the hospital this AM. If all goes according to plan, Baby Insertnamehere will arrive sometime today."

Oh, my.

I was in the second day of spring break, so I had been having a leisurely morning, exercise bike and a walk before the New York Times crossword and a large cappucino. I shrieked and grabbed the phone to call your grandfather, who was just coming out of a meeting with a client.

"So what do we do now?" he asked innocently. I was not so gentle in my answer.

"GET IN THE CAR!"

Within minutes I had showered and we had thrown overnight bags together. (You would think that having gone through four births first-hand we would have known to have those bags ready, but we apparently had forgotten that babies don't always wait until their due dates.) And then we were on the road for the six-hour trip to where you were about to make your entrance. Boy#4 marked the moment in our ongoing family group text:

Racing Speeding GIF from Racing GIFs

"Mom and Dad right now," he texted.


Not really. We drove safely and carefully, like, well, like your grandpa and grandma do, and by late afternoon we were within half an hour of the hospital. A text came from your father: "How far out were we?" I turned to my husband--"I think we're grandparents."

Sure enough, when we walked into the hospital room, there was your mother, sitting on the bed looking tired but beaming, holding a tiny baby-burrito bundle. I gave my son a quick, hard hug, fighting back tears as he told us that you had been named after your two grandfathers.

Then I bent down to look inro your face for the very first time.

Your eyes were open, and you were looking around. Without exaggeration, you were the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen. Your father and uncles were in my heart, grown under it and possessing it from the time they took their first breaths. But they were not beautiful.

You? You had perfect skin, lovely features, and those eyes. They were wise and attentive, calmly taking in what must have been an overwhelming variety of sights.

"Oh, it's you," I told you. "We have waited for you for a long time, and you are so, so beautiful."

Later I would let you know that you also appeared to be smart and kind, just so you wouldn't get hung up on physical appearance. But you only get one chance to make a first impression, and in that first millisecond I fell in love with you.

Later we would find out that your warrior mother had been in labor all of the previous day, but didn't want to go to the hospital too early so she went to work, then made it through the night. You will know an important thing about your parents when you realize that they waited, timing increasingly frequent contractions, until the polls opened so they could be voters 3 and 4 in the state primary.

The next day I cried again when we left for home. The emotions at seeing my child holding his child were just too overwhelming to not leak out of my eyes and trickle down my cheeks.

And then, of course, the world changed completely. What had just a couple of days before been laughed at as a hoax by people who should have known better finally was recognized as the threat it had been for weeks and weeks. We were told to stay at home, to not touch each other, to not gather in groups.

If you had decided to wait until your due date to enter the world we would probably been kept from greeting you and holding you, but now I have the unforgettable memory of cuddling you into my neck and whispering to you.

Today your parents make a point of calling every night and turning the FaceTime camera on you so that we can watch you sleep, or kick your long, narrow feet. I do color commentary on every changing expression of your face--"Look! He's smiling!" "Was that a yawn or a frown?" "He's changing so fast!"  I croon to you, hoping you'll recognize my voice the next time we see you--"Hey, Baby Wonderful!" "Hey, Big Fella!"

It will be a while before we are able to hold you again. It looks as if things will get much worse before they get better, and while I'm doubly furious at the people who STILL aren't taking this seriously, your grandfather and I have taken to heart the two catchphrases that meant nothing even two weeks ago--social distancing, and flattening the curve.

We want to stay safe and healthy because we want to be in your life for a long, long time. I want to read every book in the world to you, and comb your hair funny, like grandmas do.

I can't wait to hold you again.


Much love,

GrandmaQueenBee

He Is Wonderful

Two hours old

The Lord bless you and keep you, 

the Lord make His face shine upon you 

and be gracious unto you,

the Lord lift up His countenance upon you

and give you peace.

You Will Be Born in the Spring

Dear Baby Wonderful,

This morning I took my usual walk that circles the three blocks nearest the House on the Corner. You know that walk--it's the one that comes after I've spent half an hour on the exercise bike in the basement, when I go out to cool down and pretend everyone has suddenly been struck blind and can't see me in my workout clothes.

We had thought, as we do every day now, that yesterday might be the day we would get the call that would catapult us into the car and down the road toward where you'll make your appearance some time very soon. It wasn't your day, though, and as I walked this morning I saw earthworms that had migrated to the sidewalks after last night's showers, and rhubarb poking its wrinkled leaves through the rotting leaves of last year's crop. I saw a robin making a breakfast of one of those worms, and even though it was kind of gross, it made me smile.

And I was glad you hadn't been born yesterday, because until today I hadn't yet been struck with the wonder: You will be born in the spring.

You see, we're having kind of a crappy time on earth right now. Some day you'll read about it in history books; maybe your dad and mom will mention it when they tell you about your birth day. All over the world people are scared to touch each other, so we bump our elbows together or wave nervously across a room. The global economic system is scared, too, and is wiping out a lot of the resources us old people have worked to retire on. And in our country people are just so angry, so tired, so filled with rage at the political system.

I saw a wall plaque once, though, that said "Babies are God's opinion that the world should go on."

If you know me at all by now you know that the sentiments on most wall plaques make me roll my eyes. Today that sentiment made so much sense to me.

Even with everything that's going on, we have spring. We have rhubarb and robins and showers that lull us to sleep.

You, my Wonderful? You have even more than that. You have a mother who made me wish you would be born on the International Day of the Woman--she's so smart and strong, so persistent. You have a father who feels things so deeply and takes care of all of us, and who will protect you fiercely. And they're so, so funny, so compassionate. So kind. Don't ever forget how important that is.

You have a world out there waiting to go on, waiting for you.

And you will be born in the spring.

Much love,

G.

Ending an Era With Gratitude

Tree of Life afghan, knit with HoneyBee yarn for Baby Wonderful

I've always been noticeably behind my peers in life stages, if you judge those stages by nursery rhymes 

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes (insert name here) with a baby carriage!"

With the notable exception of Jimmy Caraway (true name), who slipped an enormous and elaborate valentine into my desk in third grade and had me counting the years until I could marry him, I was always behind the romantic curve. For as long as I could remember marriage and a family were the only things I truly yearned for in life but I didn't date in high school, or in college, or during my first professional job. By the time I'd finished my Peace Corps years unattached I was convinced that I had been the left-over button when God was matching up the buttons and buttonholes of humanity. I was still single with no prospects at age 28.

"Fine!" I finally told the Creator, half acceptance and half defiance. "I'll be the best single person ever. I'll travel, and I'll be the crazy aunt, and I'll take all the classes at the Free University." 

Within weeks of this surrender I met Husband, and directly in my ear heard God laughing. 

Once the nursery rhyme wheels creaked into motion, the love to marriage to baby carriage sequence was fast and joyful. And it turned out I had been right all along: Marriage and family were what my heart knew I needed. Boy#4 was born when Boy#1 was five years old. 

It was during those first sleep-deprived days of motherhood that my own wise mother gave me the best parenting advice I would ever hear. 

"Don't wish away any stage," she told me. "Ever stage has its own delights--you can miss a lot of sweet moments if you're only waiting for them to sleep through the night or walk or whatever you're waiting for."

I have thought of that hundreds, thousands of times over the past 34 years. While I was deliriously tired, I learned to cherish the middle-of-the-night stillness of a nursing baby. I consciously reminded myself that a toddler throwing a tantrum would in a few hours be hugging me straight into his neck. Even when our own Boys followed their parents' example and did not marry young, I consciously appreciated the opportunities that can come to young adults who do not have mortgages.

And while I've been waiting longingly for grandchildren, I've been loving so, so much this stage when the Boys are grown up and finding their Lovely Girls. The Christmas mornings that are unhurried and unscheduled. The solicitude of adult offspring for their parents, and their willingness (nay, eagerness) to drive and navigate. The never carrying luggage because my sons watch out for my wonky shoulder. The late nights listening to them playing board games that are way beyond my comprehension. 

I have not wished this era away, in spite of my delight in looking forward to the next stage of our family's history. 

As I prepare to enter the world of being GrandmaQueenBee, I'm grateful we've had a few years when we've had Lovely Girls in our lives but not yet Babies Wonderful. Even as I knit myself into a carpal-tunneled frenzy of baby blankets and booties, I'm remembering those years with joy and gratitude.

I have loved this stage, and I will love the next one.

The Big News You've Been Waiting For

Or maybe it's just the Big News I have been waiting to share with you?

Yes! The lineage of the House on the Corner will be expanding by one generation in the next few weeks--Boy#1 and Lovely Girl#1 are in the final stages of preparation for Grandbaby#1. And in a month or so, that means I'll be GrandmaQueenBee.

I have been waiting for this moment more or less (mostly less) patiently ever since my Much Older Sister began having grandchildren and rhapsodizing about the indescribable wonder of this stage of life. The baby hugs! The tiny sweaters! The handing them back to the parents when they begin to cry!

And because I have always wanted every wonderful thing MOS has had, that means I have been tapping my toe impatiently as I waited to catch up with her for FOURTEEN YEARS, never mind that my own children didn't start marrying until five years or so ago. I'm embarrassed to say that as soon as Boy#1 let us know he and his freshman orientation leader were more than casual friends, I loudly proclaimed my readiness for grandchildren. And I'm even more embarrassed to say that I did that more than once. Or twice, or several times. Finally Boy#2 pulled me aside. "Mom," he told me, "you've got to cool it on the grandkids thing. You're freaking One out."

Ahem.

Last weekend Husband and I crossed state lines to (me) oooh and aaaah at the adorable baby paraphernalia LG's friends lovingly provided at a shower, and (Husband) hang out with One and reassure him on the daddy-ing gig.

It's not as if they needed much advice, though. So far our children are making good parenting choices. They didn't spread the news of the impending blessed event too early, making the pregnancy seem shorter for everyone else. In fact, Baby Wonderful was almost halfway to delivery date (17 weeks) when they told the prospective grandparents, and even closer (21 weeks) when the embargo on sharing the news was lifted. They also have decided to be surprised on the baby's sex, a decision I wholeheartedly endorse. Not only is it fun to speculate (I'm guessing girl; the parents are guessing boy), it also avoids the necessity of a gender reveal party, which is second only to preschool graduation mortarboards in my list of Newfangled Things That I Do Not Like.

After the shower Husband and I helped stow the piles of diapers and pound nails for some nursery decor. We marveled at the kinds of gadgets now available to make life easier for the caretakers of tiny ones who can't blow their own noses, and agreed that while those gadgets may be marvelous the thought of physically sucking the blockage out of those tiny nostrils seems pretty gross. We talked about watching YouTube videos on swaddling techniques, something that apparently had fallen into disuse between the first Christmas until after our Boys were born but has come roaring back in the past few years.

And as I cheated and read the baby's books before I put them on the shelf, it struck me that the next time I see the room in today's beauty shot there will be a tiny child in that crib. Oh, the places he'll go and the things that she'll do.

I can't wait.