The Baby

I’m always moving.

Buzzing from here to there, filling requests for this and fetching that, dragging laundry up and down stairs, loading and unloading the dishwasher.

I stand in front of my laptop, strategically placed in the center of the kitchen, typing email replies with one hand while the other fills a bottle. I murmur my assent to queries half-heard and realize, after five hours, that I should probably empty my bladder.

Then there is that rare moment, like this evening, when I sit quietly with my youngest child, my baby.

***

I put him down at 7:30. I knew he wasn’t ready, but I was. He is all energy, kicking and bucking and smashing his face against mine. Holding him is a physical endeavor that more often than not ends with a bruise on some tender part of my body.

He’s a boy, my mother reminds me. Boys are different.

When she says this I roll my eyes on the other end of the phone, but in my secret heart I believe. He is different, this child of mine. He won’t snuggle, he doesn’t want to be embraced. He stands on my thighs, feet planted in my soft flesh, fists wrapped around my index fingers.

He bounces and lunges, trying with all his might to get away from me; he wants to be on the floor, in the mix, playing with the big kids. He watches his sister run and jump and spin with a curiously adult mixture of envy and admiration.

I can see it it his eyes. The desire.

***

At 8 p.m., he began to cry.

I waited the Ferber-prescribed 20 minutes—silence.

At 8:25, he began again.

Sighing, I climbed the stairs to the nursery. Tears on his cheeks, he waved two small, pajama-clad feet in the air, blankets torn asunder with indignation. I lifted his sturdy body from the crib.

When did he get so big? When did he start to feel like such a big boy?

I pulled him into my lap and we sat together in the rocker. Slowly, slowly, his body softened against my own. Our cheeks pressed together, I whispered nonsense in his ear.

Baby baby baby, you’re OK, baby, you’re safe. You are my baby, more precious than rubies, more valuable than gold. My baby, you’ll always be my littlest baby, I love you, my baby.

His cries faded and I held him away from me. He looked in my eyes, seeking.

Whoo, he said. Whooo!

Finally, he was quiet.

Rubbing his eyes now. I watched as the Sandman tossed his magic dust. His head bobbed, chin meeting chest in a gesture of surrender. I pulled him close again, breathing in his sweet skin and kissing a neck unbearably soft.

With a pang of regret, I gently laid the baby back in his crib.

The baby, my littlest baby. More precious than rubies, more valuable than gold.