Bubba Love

Cal turned up the dial on Christmas. This year was even more frantic and dynamic and breathtakingly beautiful.

Cal danced for the first time, helped unwrap his gifts, was mesmerized by the boxes, opened a door by himself, marveled at Christmas trees, made “friends” with a 3-year-old boy, coveted a nutcracker ornament, went on his longest car ride (2 hours + from Grandma Cindy’s), and continued exploring the low range of his voice – growling and grumbling.

For presents, I poured candles in Cal's leftover baby food jars. They were inspired by him since he'll zero in on any lit candle in a room, and direct his pudgy hand toward them, uttering "hot." Well, everyone loved them, loved Cal's leftovers. One of the scents I affectionately named Bubba Love.

He was the pinnacle of the holiday -- walking the halls of people’s houses, pointing out the mundane and the beautiful, giggling with satisfaction, shadowing and snuggling with me. Receiving kisses and kisses so graciously.

He is a marvel. At Cindy’s party, one thoughtful observer commented, “He’s walking and he’s talking.” She said this with sincere wonderment. He’s connecting with the world like never before. He walks and opens doors and feeds himself and falls asleep in his crib and talks and signs. He is not even a year old.

This year has been a small lifetime. I know I’m not supposed to derive so much satisfaction from one little being, but he glows so bright that sometimes I can’t tell who is smiling. I’ve lost a bit of myself in those glowing eyes and elegant laughs. He’ll always have that piece of me, but that’s what I’d meant to happen. The pieces I still have are only stronger and better for it.

That’s not to say this year hasn’t had its dips and turns and difficulties. Mostly sleeping difficulties and carving out moments of silence and solitude. And I am forced to make choices every moment about what self I put forward. The pressure can seem oppressive, if you let it. This is no small matter. I’m helping to spin an important but complicated web of Cal’s first years; I’m planting so many seeds some days, it’s hard to keep track.

Yet I am the supporting actor in his play. He is resilient and perfect, just as whole as the sky is blue. I often say to myself, in the rhythm of the Christmas song: let it go, let it go, let it go. And someday, let him go.

That’s where I’ll leave you, and this blog. I’m starting a new one but these writings are so perfect and strange and of this time, this one year, that I’d like to keep them safe here, a part from everything else. Someday I’ll find them again and laugh at my naïveté and cry at Cal’s enduring beauty. And be humbled once again by the glory of first steps and ephemeral days of babyhood.

kiss, smile, suprise

Calvin made us laugh hard the other night. He kept pushing his tiny face up against the soft purple chair and then snuggling his mouth into his beastly, behemoth white teddy bear.

“What is he doing?” Shaun said between belly laughs. I shook my head, chuckling.

Meanwhile he kept nuzzling everything soft around him. He’s been doing this off and on and I’ve finally realized that this as the first signs of kissing. Sweet, Cal kisses. Today Nana reported he tried to kiss Mill’s pig-dog Valentino; as small animals, they have a sort of kinship. Naturally, he’d want to smooch him.

Something else that makes us break into huge grins is Cal’s chuckling at the oddest, most un-funny moments. In the car, for instance, he issues short bursts of laughter for no apparent reason. And, I guess, why not laugh at 6:30 on a Monday morning? Life is funny enough without anyone even trying to make it that way.

I read this the other day – parenting is love in action. Yes there is a lot of love. But may I add this: it is also complete surrender in every moment. With each moment, let alone each month, Cal brings us sweet surprises, like those kisses. With each day he grows in unpredictable, beautiful and perplexing ways. Surprises seem to fall on us like rain.