While My Computer Gently Weeps

By Megan

Wouldn’t y’all think writing a post on the topic of parenting’d be the easiest thing in the world for a woman in my position? I’ve got a peppy, way-too-clever-and-articulate three-year-old and a 5 week old baby boy who’s already got little fat rolls on his chubby little thighs and has suddenly found both his smile and laugh mechanisms, which he’s been busy testing out on everyone from Bean and Clifford the Big Red Dog to Terry and Howie on FoxSports for the past 4 days.

(I tend to smile at Terry and Howie too. And you know what? Speaking of FoxSports, I once rode in an elevator with Jimmy Johnson at a hotel out by the airport in Nawlins. He was chewing on a piece of gum like it was fightin’ back or something, just like I’d seen him do on TV when he was coaching, and I have this hee-yuge pet peeve about chewing and mouth noises, so I was not particularly impressed with Mr. Johnson at that moment and I didn’t say anything to him, I just sorta turned my head and rolled my eyes in disgust, but I really do enjoy his NFL commentary on Sundays. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with parenting per se, except don’t you bet somewhere on the FoxSports set on Sundays there’s a low-level production assistant whose sole job it is to run over to Jimmy right before he goes on-air, hold out her hand and say, “Spit!” and then to walk off the set with a little wad of gum in her hand and throw it in the nearest waste basket? And oh man, does THAT sound like anyone you know?)

So anyway, with the two little critters I’ve got livin’ in my house with me, I should be overflowin’ with blog fodder. But I’m not. Because right now, in these particular moments, with this particular combination of children – The Typically Confounding Newborn and The Early Preschooler with the Need for Constant Entertainment and Supervision – there’s no time for thinking. Heck, there’s no time for showering, pottying or conversing with that cute guy who seems to live in the house with me. (I can’t remember his name. I’ve just been calling him, “I-Give-Up-It’s-Your-Turn-to-Try-for-a-Burp” and he responds to that, usually.)

It’s not that Good Stuff isn’t happening. It is. It SO is.

Last week Bean started preschool, and she loved it because WE GOT TO PLAY WIF PINK PLAY-DOH! and WE HAD CHOC-O-LATE PUDDIN’ FER SNACK, MAMA! and WE GOT TO GO INNA BAND ROOM AN’ PLAY WITH BALLS BECAUSE IT WAS RAININ’ OUSSIDE! Oh, y’all, her enthusiasm has totally blown me away. I’d been so worried she’d cry and cling and meet me at the door wailin’ her lungs out come time to pick her up each afternoon that I wasn’t at all prepared for how much she LOVES this new foray into independence and play and learning and friends all her own. But that bright, expectant smile and the way she hoists her little backpack up onto her shoulders and trucks off into the school building like she’s been doing it all her life make me the happiest, proudest mother ever in the history of the world.

I should be sad to see her make these first steps away from me, but I’m not, because the confidence and self-assurance I see in those tiny shoulders as she marches to her cubby and her coat peg and flashes a good-morning grin at her teacher have been so hard-won, and they are the ultimate rewards for three years of worrying and reassuring and nurturing and BEING there for that shy little sprite of mine.

Rewards like that’ll make your heart soar with gratitude and validation, my friends.

Plus, Peanut had his one-month check-up with the pediatrician this week, and he already weighs ten pounds! When we brought him home from the hospital five weeks ago today, we nicknamed him “Chicken Wing” because he was so scrawny and meatless. Now he’s about as wide as he is long, and we call him, among many other flattering things, “Mr. Chubby Cheeks.” He’s growing and thriving and healthy and beautiful, this boy of ours who now, amidst the crying and the pooping and the sleep-fighting and the eating, eating, eating, eating, occasionally bestows upon us a larval little wrinkly-nosed smile or a tiny gasping chortle that reduces us to puddles of goo and makes us do and say all sorts of ridiculous, un-grown-up-like things to get him to do it again.

And sometimes, in the middle of the night when I’m up feeding him (again), he’ll look up into my eyes and yawn a great big yawn and then, as if he’s ninety years old and weary to the bone from his hard, long life, he’ll sigh this long, shuddering sigh, collapse against me, snuggle in close and fall asleep, his little chest rising and falling quickly, then more and more slowly as he sinks deeper and deeper into dreamland, totally trusting my arms to hold him and my eyes to watch over him. As tired as I am and desperate to return to my own bed and sleep, I’m held captive by his sweetness for long moments, and stirred to my core with amazement at his creation and his arrival and the miracle of himness God has brought about in such a tiny, young boy.

Yes, plenty of Good Stuff is happening. But the day-to-day busy-ness of keeping everybody alive and fed and clean and clothed and entertained and loved-on wrestles my mind away from reflection and appreciation and even humor, and my body into purposeful action and organization and later, exhaustion. And all but the very best of the Good Stuff gets filed away unheralded and undocumented for a more still, less frantic time of life, when hopefully I’ll be able to pull these moments from the recesses of my mind and give them all the time and the cherishing they deserve.

I hope I’m still bloggin’ by then.

Find Megan also writing at Fried Okra.