Minotaurs
"…be careful! Minotaurs lie in wait in the labyrinths of memory." – Isabel Allende
I’m getting the feeling that everyone who hands out advice, or writes it down, carefully forgets the first two months – at least. Nothing applies yet. And I only know that now after running in circles trying to make things apply. He barely fits in the carriers; no, he is not sleeping through the night for godssake. Perhaps eager to show me another world of caretaking, people are obsessed with asking if he’s started to smile. No. Not that either. He’s too little. He’s little. Little. He makes some killer faces, but none of them include smiles. This is the raw stuff. Just hard.
My emotions ping pong violently around in a tiny box that I think is labeled "Monster." There is nowhere for them to go. If I feel them, I subject my baby to them. If I don't, I swallow them for later. They are trapped. And everything is true for only about an hour at a time. I don't know how to describe this.
The old ladies that staff the benefit thrift shops downtown love to coo over Isaac. Like everyone else, they have advice for me: Cherish this time, they tell me. It goes too fast and life can get pretty lonely. Memory is a funny thing. Spend ten hours alone in a little apartment with a five-week old and then we can talk about lonely.
Stumble It!
3 comments:
We watched the National Geographic special, "In the Womb" the other night with some friends who are pregnant...
And they say there is some chemical released during labor that inhibits the mother's memory of the whole ordeal. Maybe some women have a delayed release of that chemical??
We were looking through family photos--you know that box of pictures that you plan on making into an album "one day"? Well, I came across several photos of this particularly ugly baby. Dark skin, dark hair, very shriveled. And seriously ugly. Couldn't figure out who it was, but we had like a dozen of them.
About 3 days later I realized that they were pictures of my one and only son. Everyone remembers T as a baby. He was cute, chubby and had almost white blonde hair. The most handsome kid you have ever seen. Which is what he looked like from about 3 months of age.
I had completley forgotten what he looked like when he was a newborn!
I think you're right. We forget those first two or three months!
My daughter had a definite 'simian' look about her at birth...long muzzle, black, spiky hair. Now she is gorgeous. Have faith. It may be all you have room, time or energy for at this point.
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