gravidas

Suddenly, they're everywhere again. I'm happy not to be among them. Honestly, I can't imagine going through the last eighteen months again anytime soon. It was a wondrous experience that I will think of with love and amazement for the rest of my life but I am wholeheartedly looking forward to a little autonomy -- for all of us. The baby years mean that someone is always hugging you, lying on you, pulling or pushing at you, wailing at you, sticking things into your nose, whacking you unintentionally in the larynx, and really, why have a child in the first place if you don't enjoy all that to some significant extent, but it is one thing to have that kind of intense interaction with someone periodically throughout the day and kind of another to have it every waking minute, which seems to be the way things start out. And are only now slowly, sloooowly beginning to ease off. Today, for instance, he spent a good fifteen minutes trying to take apart the sewing machine. Luckily, his motor skills do not yet allow him to do any real damage, but I can now foresee a moment in time when he could possibly spend a good hour or so at it, and probably make the machine entirely inoperable in the process, but during that time not be interested in any love-smooshing or entertainment-seeking or stuff-whining at all.

I write this in full knowledge of the fact that I will be desperate for the love-smooshing at some point in the not-so-distant future, when I feel like he's not interested in hugging at all anymore and I will tell him "remember when you were a baby and you cried so much whenever I tried to put you down on the ground because you just wanted me to hold you all the time?" And he'll be like, "yeah, WHATEVER MOM" and then he'll go take apart the sewing machine again. At that point, I might start seeing the appeal of making another of the little clingy ones. But I kind of doubt it, as I might just start carrying the cat around again and possibly be satisfied with that.