April 2009/ April 2010

April 2009


I contain you, within me. Just barely. Just for now.

My skin stretches tauter still with every passing day and it seems it cannot continue much longer or you will burst forth like some terrifying scene from "V" (the first one).

But, for now, here you are, contained.

I sometimes wish I could unstrap this heaving belly like a terrifreakingly huge version of one of those pregnancy cushions from the maternity stores and leave you on the bed for just a minute. But I cannot leave you. Not even for a second.

I lie awake at night, pretending I don't have to pee, wishing the pee away because I'm too tired to get up and too full of pee to go back to sleep. I wish I could effortlessly fly to the bathroom or better yet, pee into the bed without moving, without making a mess.

I put my hands on my belly and ponder your mysterious rumblings. Are you comfortable in there? What does my uterus look like from the inside? Is that a foot? I don't know, I can only guess.

(That's assuming you have feet. Oh please, let you have feet. DO NOT GOOGLE "BABIES WITH NO FEET".)

I imagine your ragged heartbeat, drumming away inside me. How noisy it must be in there with the beat beat beat of two hearts, the woosh of the fluid, the gurgling of my dinner and thumping of my legs as I waddle to the bathroom and HI BABY I'M YOUR BIG SISTER ZOE!

I know this wondering, this containment, this moment will be over soon, so soon.


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April 2010

You aren't supposed to be awake yet. By my rules, it's not officially time to nurse yet.

But here you are, awake and screaming and I cannot leave you.

So I pick you up, of course, and hold you to me. I wonder if you are teething; I don't know, I can only guess.

We rock in the chair and I try to get you to settle in my arms, to contain you. You are so long now that holding your body to my chest means that your feet instantly start to push off my lap and before I know it, you are crawling up my belly, feet jamming into my flesh, head peering over my shoulder, fingernails slashing at my face.

There is no containing you.

I finally get you to settle, place my cheek against yours, hold your head still with the flat of my palm. Your ragged heartbeat drums into my chest and after a few breaths, it ever so slightly settles into a slower rhythm.

I have to pee. OOHH how I have to pee. I think about taking you with me to the bathroom, putting you down on the cool tile floor and trying to speed pee while you scramble over to the tub and manage to reach the open bottle of baby soap and the clump of dirty, wet washcloths and something else dangerous and/or dirty that I can't imagine right now but I KNOW you would find something more. I wonder about laying you down in your crib before you're ready and dashing toward the bathroom and the howls that would, no doubt, wake the whole house at the shiny, happy Saturday morning hour of 4:37 am.

So I cross my legs and think of the dry, dry Sahara because I cannot leave you. Not even for a second.

We rock like this for a long while before I see the clock says it is officially okay to nurse you.

You drink in big hearty gulps, both of us knowing it, this, will be over soon.

(So soon.)