Impermanence

Dear Adeline,

The other night as I was putting you to bed, after I had nursed you and gave you a bottle, you rolled to your side and curled up against me. You nestled your head against my chest so that your ear was directly over my heart and sucked your thumb as I rocked you, back and forth, back and forth, until you drifted off to sleep.

This was in contrast to our more typical bedtime routine, which, to parrot a greeting card, is less like a Johnson and Johnson commercial, and more like wrestling a 20-pound bag of snakes. Usually, you flail around while I'm feeding you. You alternate between nursing and sitting bolt upright to check out your surroundings before settling back in to nurse. Three seconds later, you're sitting up again, just to be sure that you didn't miss something, like maybe an errant choking hazard that has wandered into your field of view for you to lunge at and put in your mouth.

With the bottle, you're constantly thrashing from side to side, smacking the side of the bottle with your hand, pulling it out of your mouth, inspecting it, and grabbing for it again. All the while, you kick your right leg rhythmically. After you finish the bottle, I shift positions to coax a burp out of you (which is more like waiting for you to belch in my face), and you bounce up and down enthusiastically on my lap, while batting at the back of the rocking chair.

Suffice it to say that I was surprised on the night you actually fell asleep in my arms. You flashed me the sweetest grins as your eyelids started to droop, and I thought, "This is a moment I want to remember forever."

There have been lots of those moments during your short lifetime. It's so easy to take joy in the nooks and crannies of your existence: the exuberant squawks, the cheerful babbling, the way you gently headbutt people when you're trying to be funny, your delighted clapping for minutes on end...

I could go on. And on, and on.

But here's what I realized that same night as I scrambled in my mind to record every last sensation of holding you in my arms while you slept: that moment would pass. And so would the next warm moment, and the less pleasant one after that. (You do have your less pleasant moments, by the way. But everyone does.)

Our lives are just a series of moments, strung together one after the other. And all of them are bound to end. All of them are impermanent.

It's natural to want to cling to the good and pleasurable moments, and to push away from the painful and uncomfortable ones. When it feels like everything is going wrong, people tell us, "This too shall pass." And it's true. But I think it's just as important to remember that the good will pass as surely as the bad. It's the act of trying desperately to hold on to the good, and only the good, that can make life so difficult sometimes.

As you make your way in the world, this is something I hope to impart: that no matter how difficult (or how ebullient) this moment may seem, a new moment will follow soon after. It is a wonderful skill to be able to hold all of the moments in our lives lightly, neither grasping for them, nor pushing them away. It's a lifelong practice, to be sure. (I'm practicing it right now, as I bemoan the winter storm that's supposed to push through tonight.)

Love,

Mama

 Who wouldn't want to hold on to this moment?

 You're not always going to be so boring and philosophical, right mom?

Uh Oh

Dear Adeline,

So, some time has passed since I wrote my last post here. Something like four months, but who's keeping track of these things? Ahem.

You were born squarely in the age of Facebook and Instagram, of Twitter and Pinterest. Who knows if these things will still be in existence by the time you're old enough to read this letter. But for now, the norm, the standard we've all become accustomed to is instant oversharing of the minutiae of life. What did you have for breakfast? Post a picture on Instagram. With whom are you in a relationship? No one, if it's not "Facebook official." And so it goes that much of the documenting of your life thus far hasn't happened in written form - it's been in pictures and captions and comments on various social media platforms.

I'll admit that it's been difficult to keep up with blogging all of the amazing changes you've been cruising through in your typical ho-hum fashion. There are a lot of days when I drift off to sleep thinking that I need to write about the way that you spit like a camel, or how your whole face lights up when your brother enters the room. But then sleep takes over, and before I know it, time has slipped out from under me again.

You've been sitting up on your own for the past few weeks. You're still not so much a fan of rolling over, or spending any time on your stomach at all, really. Now and then I fret silently about whether you're meeting the appropriate developmental milestones, but in the grand scheme of things, your dad and I have always had the sense that you will be just fine. Whether that's your temperament or our maturation as parents remains to be seen, I suppose.

There are still so many moments I want to capture. The way that you shriek gleefully for ten minutes after I've put you down for a nap before conking out. Your new habit of pushing your tongue in and out, like a little lizard. Your face lights up now when I come home from work and peer at you from the front entryway. You have no idea how my heart sings to see the tentative, then full on smile that washes over you when I walk through the door.

I call you monkey, though I don't even know where that nickname came from. I suppose I called your brother monkey too. I still call you squishy. Also gorgeous, and Baby A, and amazing baby. You're starting to recognize your name. You smile sometimes when I say Adeline or Adi. After a moment's pause, a slow grin tugs at the corners of your mouth, as if you're recalling fond memories of an old friend.

Most nights before bed, I sing Billy Joel's Lullaby to you. The last verse is the one I like the most:

Goodnight my angel, now it's time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Some day your child may cry
And if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart, there will always be a part of me

I don't really have a tidy ending to all of this reminiscing. There used to be a time when I would read and re-read everything I wrote, to make sure that I had every last letter in the right place, that every image I tried to evoke with words was picture perfect, that every sentence conveyed just the right sentiment. I'm realizing as time goes by, as you're growing up before me, that getting it just right isn't the important thing. Just getting it down is. So I will keep trying.

Love,

Mama