Babies

Saturday, May 17

I woke up this morning around 5:30 with a pungent teetee diaper in my face. After a happily busy Graduation day, we got to have a little sleepover weekend with Sweet Baby James. (He is currently staying at the home of an angelic friend named Anna.) He fussed a little around 1:00 a.m., so I used that as an excuse for some nocturnal cuddle time.  I slept the rest of the night on about 6 inches of bed, but it was so worth it. I got to sneak little touches of velvety thunder thighs throughout the rest of the night.

I have to confess that Katherine slept in our bed a good bit when she was a baby.  She was colicky, so Brooks would go get her and walk her around the house until we’d finally give up and I’d just let her nurse again.....and again.  We were usually too lazy to take her back to her own bed after that.  Dr. Nancy assured us that people have been sleeping with babies for centuries, and you’d have to be knocked  unconscious not to realize that you were lying on top of one long enough to smother it.  So sleeping with James brings back happy flashbacks of that euphoric first baby magic.

God’s Timing........just go figure.  I ponder many things. For instance,I wonder why James came when he did, several years ahead of schedule. The doctors are stunned that the AVM rupture wasn’t precipitated by his birth. Being the strong, stubborn pioneer woman that she is, Katherine refused all offers of pain relief when James was trying to make his debut. Although it wasn’t part of the original plan, Amie and I got to stay in the birthing room throughout the whole process.  The doctor didn’t want to come in until Kat was dilated 10 centimeters, but that time never came.  Jay and I were enlisted into service, holding hands, lifting legs, administering oxygen, doing whatever the brave nurse told us to do in that interminable interval between her final call and the doctor’s arrival at the hospital. There was quite a bit of purple-faced pushing in there.  Why did the AVM remain intact through all of that, calmly continuing its time-bomb ticking until an inauspicious day in April when James was six months old?  I am confident that there is a reason, even if I don’t have a clue what it is.

It is a little strange caring for James before going to the hospital.  James cannot yet feed himself.  Neither can his mother.  James cannot walk, talk, change his own diapers, or bathe himself.   His mother needs assistant in these areas as well.  James can hold his head up now, something his mother has not yet relearned how to do. But she’s got one up on him in that she can communicate with hand signals. Both can get their points across with tears.  When James cries at night for no apparent reason, I let him get in bed with me and I rub him gently until he falls asleep.  When a tear drips down his mother’s face, I sometimes get in bed with her and rub her, too.

They can learn new things together, God willing.

I guess it’s a good thing that I absolutely love babies.

“And he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”” (Matt. 18:3)