Hobbes Debunked

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of your child wrapping their small arms around your neck and laying their head on your chest.

Marcel didn’t do it as an infant. If you picked her up, she might lay her head on your chest but her arms would certainly be hanging down by her side. Usually, though, her head was on a swivel trying to figure out what was going around her. Marcel didn’t start hugging until she was a toddler.  Marcel was much more of a kisser.

Tristan, on the other hand, hugged almost immediately.  In recent weeks, she’s started to develop swivel-itis and, thus, the feeling might not last.  Yet, a full bottle in a quiet room can still, almost always, induce a nice, long hug.

The result is that, now, I get that feeling all of the time from both of my daughters.

And, thus, my life is sweet, loving and full.

 

Being Special

I went to my brother-in-law’s, this week, to baby-sit their kid so he could join his wife at the emergency room. (His wife got drugs, so she’s fine.) Their baby, almost a year younger than Marcel, was already asleep so, before he left for the emergency room, we went over what happens if she awakens. Turns out, they do the same thing we did with Marcel at that age—give her a few moments to go back to sleep on her own before going in to rock her.

This took me back to Marcel’s birth, where we spent the three days in the hospital after her delivery supplementing our new parent classes with hands on instruction in diapering, swaddling and breastfeeding from the wonderfully knowledgeable and patient nurses.

Prior to Marcel’s birth, I was skeptical of the old, folkways. My skepticism—fear really—wasn’t about whether they would work, but whether they would work for my child. I mean every child is special, right? Turns out, however, that swaddling, shushing and rocking worked on my baby, Marcel, just like it worked on every other baby.

This doesn’t mean that Marcel wasn’t a special newborn. She was very special. For instance, Marcel didn’t smile after the first month, like babies are supposed to do. This, of course, caused me great concern. I worried if she liked me. I worried if she were mentally slow. I was concerned about how “special” she really was.

Turns out she wasn’t the “special” one. I was.

For the first two months, I never smiled at Marcel. This lack of smiling was not due to a lack of love and joy but, rather, an overabundance of awe and responsibility. I failed to smile because I was too busy studying her…and paying homage with kisses.

For hours, it seems in retrospect, I would constantly hold her. (I took the first month of her life off from work.) I would hold her to feed her. I would hold her to rock her. I would hold her to hold her and to look at her and to know her…and it would move me…to kiss her…over and over and over.

Then one day, while I was in the midst of the kissing part, she straightened her back, thrust forward her head and poked out her lips, mouth still open. It startled me. She did it again. I turned her all around to inspect her little body and see what was wrong. She did it, yet again. Then it dawned on me. She was trying to kiss me back!

Marcel didn’t know smiles, but she knew love. My love. And she was giving it back.

And she made me feel like the special one.