When I Wasn’t Looking

Time seemed frozen when The Poo was little.

Every stage lasted an eternity—sleepless nights, teething, learning to walk—it all felt as though she would be that age forever. Then, all of a sudden, we were putting away the bottles and helping her learn to use the potty.

Then, she had a brother.

And it felt like someone pressed the fast-forward button. Blurry days fly by my eyes, and I shake my head and wake up one cold February morning, and my second-born is 6 months old and crawling.

It’s a kind of angry, backwards army-crawl, but it is locomotive. Friday I left him on his favorite blanket with a pile of toys on the family-room carpet, and, alerted by the sound of small hands smacking wood, found him in the living room.

The living room, which is five feet from the family room.

The golden afternoon sun lit up the fuzz on his small head, as he joyfully whacked the floor with his flat palm. His face, red and wet from the unrelenting drool of teething, was split in half by a ridiculous, triumphant grin.

OOOOOOOO, he yelled. EEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I stood there, time suspended around me.

Practical matters like baby-proofing and gates on stairs crowded my thoughts, but I pushed them aside to revel in his achievement. Much like his first teeth, I found myself gobsmacked by the fleeting nature of his babyhood.

Where does the time go? Where was I looking when this happened? Why wasn’t I paying attention?

Shaggy is my last baby, and we gleefully give away the artifacts of his infanthood. Bassinet, swing, swaddling blankets … all promised to others or on their way to new owners via eBay or Craigslist or the consignment shop.

I work more than I ever did when The Poo was this age, despite the fact that my old job involved a brick-and-mortar office and a nine-to-five day. I am on call, so to speak, all the time. Flexibility has it’s downside and frankly, I never expected to be a full-time work-at-home-mother.

But I am, out of both emotional and fiscal necessity.

Now, however, I find myself wishing I was more present. Willing myself to shut my laptop, to ignore the melodic “ping!” of my email in-box. To set my Skype to “unavailable,” to tell the babysitter no, thanks, you can skip Monday.

Because the boy … he crawls.

And soon he will walk. And then he will give up the bottle, and along with it, the rich, delicious moment of being in my arms, heavy with sleep, his sighing face pressed up against my own as he languidly takes his last feeding of the night.

I whisper secrets in his ear and he pats my cheek with one small hand. We rock and we rock and time, she holds still for just a moment, just for us.

It’s time to open my eyes, because the baby is crawling.