I can enclose Patton's entire fist in my own. I stare at his pudgy hands resting against my chest and reach to stick my thumb in between his tiny fingers so that they are clasped around it. My heart swells up, and in my throat, I feel like I'm swallowing rocks. In the same way that he looks at the world with his mouth agape, his eyes wide and dancing, I look at him.
God, I hope I never forget what this feels like.
It is more than a prayer. It is desperate pleading, a call to whomever listens to it in the hopes that I may be granted a snapshot of this minute to carry with me through the rest of my life.
It is indescribable, the change that happened in my very composition when I became a mother. All at once, it is the most terrifying, captivating and thrilling adventure I have ever set out upon.
And I admit that I am completely unable to describe anything about it with any accuracy. It would be like trying to explain quantum theory: I have neither the vocabulary, nor the understanding.
I have become a woman who needs no sleep. Well, to be fair I do need sleep, but the symptoms of my sleep deprivation are invisible to me, and it's Tim who has to literally put me to bed lest I go on like a drone until I drop in the middle of a sentence. But I have lost my recognition of feeling tired. My body seems to go and go without asking for breaks, and I am happy to wake in the middle of the night to a tiny grunting little man, the love of my life. Of course, at some point I must sleep, and I do. But on top of feeling like I'm wasting time with sleeping, I find a certain amount of guilt in missing any of the fleeting moments my son has to offer me. I hear from others, "Remember this, he won't be this way for long," and instantly I am filled with panic, an immediate desire to rush home and breathe him in. To burn into my brain the images of him small like this, his smell, the sounds that come from his heart-shaped mouth, and the feel of his baby fist inside my own. And so sleep seems wasteful.
I know there will be a day when other priorities return. Not more important ones. By that I mean that I will have more than one priority in the future. But for now, he is the only one. I wake up for Patton. I go to work for Patton. I eat and drink so that I can nourish him; I exercise so that I can live longer for him; I take showers so that Patton will have a nice-smelling mother. Everything I do translates somehow into his benefit, and I am okay with that right now.
I take deep breaths with my nose grazing the top of his head and close my eyes, committing to memory the texture of his hair, the way he smells filling up my lungs with the scent of sweet milk and baby powder. If he weren't sleeping so peacefully, I'd allow myself to cry a little, but for now, I will hold the joyful tears in and stay still, stay quiet. I love him so thoroughly. I don't remember where or who I was before he got here.
Thank you, Whoever Listens. Amen.
