A New Baby

We have a new baby. Everyone is thrilled. I think we’re going to name her Naomi.

Rediscovering:

The butter milk smell from the back of babies’ mouths.
The astonishment of free health care.
The convenience of warm spots left on the bed by a large dog that you can put a sleepy baby onto.
The large swaths of hair combed by a dog’s tongue.
The laundry.

Discovering:

The ease of a second child compared to the terror of a first.
The pleasure of being able to purchase a few beautiful items for the baby, which are really mostly for me, with so many items already in our home from Caleb.
Audiobooks during breastfeeding, and ebooks during breastfeeding in the dark. It turns out I am no Luddite after all.
A brother that insists on helping in the most precarious ways.

As I hold her, I marvel a little bit at this new being. She is somehow quite different from Caleb, although I’m not sure if it’s because Caleb was our first and there was a steep learning curve to what a baby is (probably), or if it’s because she is indeed a different sort of creature (probably, also).

There is something that strikes me this time around about the potential of a human being as a baby, before they get messed up by their parents and the world at large. I had some vague notion of the vastness of my role with Caleb, but it was all mixed up with concerns about diapers and crying and vitamin D and the shop and so I sort of let it pass.

In some ways, I watch Caleb and I think about him at 3, already his own willful self, and I love him deeply, knowing that there have been countless ways that Jon and I and our life choices have carved ourselves out into his personality and his character. The other day I discovered the bath tap and the sink tap running at full blast, and I thought to myself: I have no idea where this child came from. He said he was “just turning on the water to see.” And then I suppose he forgot.

This time around things are going smoothly, calmly. Caleb is in preschool, and the days with just the baby and I seem to be sailing by – before I know it it’s time to pick up Caleb and he’s home with his afternoon snack and his off-tune singing and his crazy ideas, like mixing up moisturizer in our kitchen bowls. His bare feet padding around, in whichever direction he chooses.

This time around I’m finding I watch her a lot. After I nurse her, she’s in this tranquil, milky, dream state. She watches me watching her. She occasionally gurgles a little. Even more occasionally a lopsided grin.

I find myself curious about her similarity to me. Jon sometimes remarks on how similar Caleb and I are, but there are some peculiar things about this baby that make me think twice. Like how she has dry skin around her ears. Just the tiniest things that unravel like kite strings connecting her and I.

I think about how my own childhood shaped me and I worry about how she will grow up. There’s a lot of worry and anxiety, but mostly I wonder about how her life will unfurl before us. Taking these days as they come and watching the moments slip through my fingers.