Apologies for my recent silence. Its been one of those funky weeks; a heat wave, a huge fight that I am still processing, all night teething, a sinus infection. Its not to say that its been all bad, peanut is starting to cruise, standing on anything and everything and everybody and its wonderful to watch. Although its stressful, too, because there have been bumps and toppling over and letting it happen goes so against your nature but sometimes you just have to let them fall, let them figure it out. All this just to say that I am thoroughly exhausted, and as I write this its 10:02AM.
But I am noticing something kind of spectacular. Something I didn't know I would be able to literally see. I am watching a love story. A love happening between L and M that is beyond any words I can muster up - sleep deprived or not.
L has always been a wonderful dad. In a way, he has been a more natural nuturer than I have been. Our second night in the hospital together (the first that he could stay over) after the fifth wheeling in of our little one, who was hungry but couldn't latch, L swaddled him up and put M on his chest, covered them with a warm blanket and slept like that. For hours. They slept peacefully and I watched them and felt confusion and all sorts of things that you might feel after giving birth and not sleeping and not being able to nurse and hurting and loving. He has always been kind, he was the master swaddler in the early days, now he is the master rocker at night. He carries M on his shoulders and tosses him in the air, he secretly feeds him almond croissants in the morning while I 'sleep in' and he carries him in the ergo while he works, oblivious to M's tuggings of noses and hair. He is a rockstar dad, and though I was kind of expecting it, it really does blow me away.
But.. he's also the dad. He doesn't wake at M's first cry, he has aways been the 'leave him in his crib and let him cry he's fine' one between the two of us, after a few glasses of wine he would rather talk politics than the sweetness of the back of M's head, with new curls springing up daily.
Until yesterday. Something happened yesterday, something subtle but I watched it. I put M down for his morning nap. Usually he goes right out, might hum a bit or do his mama's and dada's, but its pretty soon he will be in dreamland. But yesterday was all tears, cries, wails. We could see in his video monitor that he was sitting up in his crib, crying, pleading. I went to the bathroom to distract myself with a shower, all the while hearing L's "Leave him in his crib and let him cry" line going in my head.. repeating.. even now, 10 months in, those cries are needles pricking into my every pore. When the water was off there were still cries. So I stayed in the bathroom a few extra minutes, hoping he would be asleep any moment. I had left the door cracked to let the steam out and make sure I could hear everything, and I see L walk into the room and silence. M is silent. I look in the monitor and there is L, rocking M, there is M closing his eyes, and L keeps holding him and looking at him, and I SEE it. I could see it. I could see a dad falling in love. Deep. When L emerged, his eyes were wet and he said "I just love him so much, I love him so much" and I knew exactly what was happening. Because it had happened to me, earlier, but not instantly. And I think by and large it may happen to dads a little bit later. They might need the time to settle into their role, to share their partners body that was once more theirs, to understand what all of the fuss was about. I fell slowly and softly in love, with mixed feelings and fear and worry. L fell hard and fast, and just like that, we spent our last night with too much wine and talking about the dimples on M's elbows and the noises he makes when he's happy. So here is one of the simplest, complicated, deepest loves between a father and son. I gave M a good one. It wasn't all bad, its really all good.
No comments:
Post a Comment