Category — Tear Jerkers

The girls have discovered their feet.

It’s been a couple of weeks, actually. But it’s just now striking me how remarkable and profound this is.

It started with a diaper change. I had Althea up on the table. I pulled her teensy feet up in the air to slide a fresh diaper under her tiny little bum, and I saw it. 

The Stare.

It’s the same stare that they’ve been using on their hands for a while now. Exhibit A.

Althea staring at her fist

You also see it in this footsie video. At about  :40, Althea  briefly holds her fist up in front of her face to look at it. Sort of like, “Hey. It’s my fist.”

Well, on this day, Althea saw her foot. The world stopped. Her mind was overwhelmed. She needed to figure out what this new limb was.

Ever since then, she and her sister have been reaching, grabbing, pulling and playing with their feet.

Althea playing with her feet

Yes, it is freakin’ cute. But do you realize, people, that there was a day when you were like that too? One day, when you were 14 or 15 weeks old, you suddenly saw this fat little object with five little toes and you said, “Holy. Shit. Look. At. That. I WANT IT NOW.” And it was marvelous and amazing and momentous? And your parent(s) looked at you and laughed and smiled and thought that you were surely going to be a card-carrying member of MENSA because you had discovered the existence of your own foot?

In case you’re wondering where I’m going with this: These moments with my babies makes me feel deeply apologetic to my mother. I realize now that she felt this wonderful way about me at one point or other. (Who am I kidding. She still feels this wonderful way about me.) She looked at my tiny little face, when I couldn’t even hold up my own head, and thought that I was the most amazing, smart, talented, beautiful, capable, perfect, lovable little thing that ever was born onto this god-forsaken planet.

And then I became a teenager. I told her I hated her. I treated her like she didn’t even deserve to live. I told her to go to hell when I was 11 years old and she spanked me like a child. I deserved it. And then I told her even worse things as I learned even worse words. And she probably bit her tongue. And I probably made her cry more than I am even capable of imagining. 

Now I get it. Ama, I love you and I’m sorry and I surely don’t wish for my kids to treat me the way I treated you. But I know they will. Because that’s what kids do. Generation in and generation out, kids hate their parents. And perhaps . . . well, perhaps parents maybe even hate their kids sometimes. 

But for now? For now, my babies have discovered their perfect little feet, and all is right with the world.

Elise and Althea at 16.5 weeks

It’s Friday.

A few years ago, Friday night meant PARTY. It meant booze and cigarettes and staying up till 4 a.m., gabbing with my girlfriends or throwing a party. It meant falling asleep to bad TV and waking up late, hung over in my hedonism.

Now, it means time. Time to spend catching up. Time to spend with my daughters. Time to snuggle next to my husband under our clean, grown-up-people sheets. It means Chris asleep on the couch at 9 p.m. And tonight, it means staying up late to cry alone.

Tonight was bath night for the girls. I spoke softly to them in Spanish, gently soaping their tender baby skin. I quickly dried them to keep them from getting too cold. I slipped their tiny hands and arms through the tiny sleeves of their tiny clothes. I pulled them up close to me and nursed them, snuggling their little bodies closecloseclose to my sides. They hummed and breathed and swallowed the food my body worked so hard to make just for them. Their short little breaths went from an eager suck-swallow-breathe-suck-swallow-breathe, to the contented hum of a full belly, to the soft, rhythmic breaths of sleeping infants snug up against their mom. They were safe, happy, full, tired.

And then . . . 

And then I cried. I cried and cried and cried. I cried at the feeling of them close next to me. I cried at the sound of their peaceful little sighs. I cried at the realization that these moments will never ever happen again. Their happy little feet won’t dance while nursing at my breasts forever. Their little bodies won’t fit on my nursing pillow much longer. Their clothes are straining at the snaps, their pleasantly chunky bodies outgrowing everything they wear. 

Elise and Althea are going to be three months old on Monday. Is it significant that I’ll be 31 on Monday, too? That Chris turned 35 yesterday? The very thought of it makes me ache and hurt and bleed all over. I feel like screaming NO NO NO at whoever is controlling this whole thing. It hurts and it hurts and it hurts some more. And most of all, I hate the feeling that the everyday just happens and I can’t ever fill myself enough with the now to remember every detail, engage in every sight sound smell taste touch of these painfully perfect babies.

I’m terrified of forgetting today. 

I want to trap these moments in a bottle so that someday I can tell my daughters all about how smitten I am with them.

I can’t believe I ever said I didn’t want to get married or have children. My life has never been more complete than it is with them and my husband.

(This emotional breakdown is courtesy of this slideshow from Dooce and this post from Mommy Melee. Thanks, bitches.)