My friend had a baby last month, her first child. She’s wanted a baby ever since I met her, back when my two children were still living at home. I remember how clearly her desire came through back then, and I’m ecstatic for her and her partner now. She’s the kind of person who enjoys gaining deep knowledge about a subject, and I know she’ll ace this thing.
I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet, but judging from her Instagram posts, she and her partner are fully immersed in the mom experience, and transforming into lifelong parents before our eyes.
Once you become a parent, Nature slowly makes you forget the person you were when you were childless. You are now a person who has always been a parent, and will be forevermore. Was there a time when you made yourself a cup of hot coffee, sat down, and drank it? When it didn’t sit untouched while you bounced the gassy baby on your shoulder? When your hot oatmeal found its way to your stomach before becoming cold sludge?
No, I guess not. At least not that I can recall.
When Tommy was born, Susan and I decided that it made the most sense financially for me to stay home with him while she went off to work every day. I have very few memories from that time in our lives, but I do remember the feeling of being all wrapped up in him, completely absorbed in the minute-by-minute details of meeting his needs. It was about as selfless a time as I’ve ever had in life.
At the other end of the spectrum now, with both of our children grown and living happily on their own, I’ve got me to myself 24-7. I can absolutely rely on getting to do whatever I set out to do without anyone demanding “Dad! Wipe me!” I can identify any sound on any level of the house with 99% accuracy.
The empty nest that Susan and I share has the same surface characteristics of the house of chaos we presided over 10 or 20 years ago, but it’s just a husk of the original beast. Gone are the daily bouts of Bullet! featuring Tommy clomping breakneck down the stairs as I sat on the couch and fired a pillow at his gut. Repeat 100 times.
Julia’s campaign for a guinea pig still echoes in the house, in the form of a faded photo taped to the inside of a kitchen cabinet with “It is SOOOOOOO cute!” inked on it. But Cleo and Daisy are posthumous now, as is Super the gecko, Beaky the parrot, too many mice and fish to count, and two beagles.
The toys and the bikes and the clothes and all the other paraphernalia of our children’s childhoods are as invisible now as the future. On my way downstairs for an uninterrupted breakfast, I pass the spot where the day’s art project used to take up half the floor. I trip over nothing left where it didn’t belong. I put nothing back in its place, because it’s already there.
What I wish for my friends and their new miracle is time. Time to step back from the intense demands of the moment and see what life has become. Time to capture a finely detailed portrait of this incredible thing the baby just did, and the next, and the next, and lock those precious memories away tight. And time to imagine a future when that child says “Love you” from far away, hangs up, and gets on with the life you gave her.
