Watching and Waiting

I’ve cleaned the bathroom, packed bags for the hospital, cleaned the car seat and figured out how to thread the darn straps through, finished a jigsaw puzzle, baked cookies, caught up on my e-mails, got my son dressed, fed and off to school, defrosted chicken for dinner, brought down baby clothes that are too big for now, brought up toilet paper and paper towels and baby wipes, found the baby bath, refilled the hand soap dispenser, checked the mailbox, made breakfast, snack, tea, lunch, put clothes away… and missed a doctor’s appointment that I swore was at two, but was alas at one.

Why is it that I feel like I’ve gotten nothing done?

Is this what maternity leave will feel like – my hands and body busy in one place, my brain left somewhere in another room? Constant activity but no sense of accomplishment? What on earth does one accomplish moreso than growing a baby? You would think that I could at least acknowledge my success in that.

I am not living in the moment. I am living outside of the moment. In some foggy, Baby Brain land, where time never runs on schedule and I speak in a foreign tongue.

Baby will arrive next week. I am ready – and not. Same as Baby, I imagine. We will have to learn each other, outside-in, instead of inside-out. I will once again not believe that I could have created such a creature, carried, borne, birthed. My world, and my body, will continue to become increasingly strange, before eventually settling into something vaguely familiar.

The music of a snowstorm seeps in through the window, car tires slushing, shushing along. This could be the last storm of the season, winter too waiting for the arrival of something new. Perhaps this sound will forever mean hope to me, now. A melting, messy, quiet-loud, soothing hope, one that grows with each trickling hour.

Come, Baby, into this waiting space. It is waiting for you.

An everything boy

A large, glistening, naked boy fresh from the bath runs up to me, gives me a sideways lean, and whispers to my belly:
“I love you Baby.”
And runs, dripping, away.
I stand there, rotund, bemused, slightly shocked.
This was the first time Bonhomme has said such a thing. Everyone keeps asking me whether he’s excited to become a big brother, and I am forced to tell them that after all these months, I’m still not sure. He seems worried, or uninterested, mostly. Until tonight.
“What kind of brother are you going to be, do you think?” I ask him, after stories.
“An everything brother,” he replies, smiling a small, shy smile.
An everything brother.
Sounds just about right.