I realized with a shock the other night that I was holding a baby who was no longer a baby.
My baby will be five in November. Five. She is still small for her age, and in my mind’s eye, she is even smaller. She curls onto my lap at night, and I rock her before tucking her in. I pretend to myself that she has not changed, not that much.
But of course she has. Hattie Belle is no baby. Neither is her older sister, who falls asleep every night with a Harry Potter book spread across her bony chest.
I watch as their faces take shape, inch closer to the faces of the women they will be. Angles replace curves. Personality half-learned from peers is superimposed upon pure temperament.
A new bumper crop of chubby babies has appeared. Photos zip back and forth across the Internet, in emails and on that funny, funny Facebook. Pregnant bellies, expectant parents, and then, swaddled gorgeous infants.
I see the pictures. Sometimes I see the babies in person. I want to nibble on their soft sweet limbs and cheeks, like I did with my own babies.
I was harried. I was exhausted. I was cranky. I was, occasionally, thoroughly miserable. The motherhood gig has never come easy to me.
But still. There it is, that faint wishing, that mourning of what will probably not be. I am 38.
Hattie, being small, is just now making the shift to a long, “big girl” bed. She’s been in her crib-turned-toddler-bed. Now it’s time to dismantle it, put it away. For what?
And yet, I can’t think of giving it away. Can’t.
We are funny creatures, we humans, in that we possess the dubious ability to miss what we never had in the first place. Our mind’s eye is often sharper in focus than our actual eyes are.
Babies, babies, babies.
{ 39 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, Babies. I am reviving my baby lust lately despite having two lovely kiddos that leave me exhausted every day. Oh to sniff an infant’s head and cradle a chubby little body. *sigh*
As I often remind my own soon to be 5-year old daughter, she will ALWAYS be my baby.
I held a baby at a wedding reception recently, for the better part of an hour and OH MY OVARIES, how they ached! I have been out of babies for at least eight years now (my youngest is 10, my oldest 17) and it always surprises me how drawn to them I still am. In the moment when I’m holding one, I would willingly get pregnant again right that minute. It seems I have forgotten the sleeplessness and the PPD of those early years. I have to keep reminding myself what a privilege it is now to take showers and use the bathroom on MY schedule, lest I might find an available fertile male and make more offspring.
Baby lust…such a bitter sweet ache. Constantly present and growing in intensity as my friends have more and more.
Gorgeous as always, Jenn. My oldest will also be 5 in November, and my little girl will be 2 in January. I already feel the baby lust. I miss the stillness and occasional squeakiness of the infant stage. But no, I cannot in good conscience have a third child. Wah.
But my question goes to Prograstamom: Are you SERIOUS??? You can go to the bathroom whenever you want?? There is light at the end of the tunnel? *faints*
My fourth, and last, is now out of diapers (during the daytime). I’m celebrating now, but still…
-JJ
I have the wist myself. For that smallness. That simplicity of adoration.
I’ve been feeling that ache as of late. I blame The Mook for turning 3. For the Mummies I’ve known since we floated in the pool together that hot summer of 2005 bringing another generation of children into our gatherings.
I think it aches more when rocking the single mummy status, because there’s not a Mister around with which to even contemplate an oops baby.
I find myself realizing now that Patrick is in school that I am one of Those Women, the ones that I used to talk to in waiting rooms or see in church who remembered ‘those days’. I remember having a baby, too, and it doesn’t seem like so long ago… sigh.
I think we are in the same place right now.
My baby is still more of a baby. But still…time keeps moving, moving, moving….
I am going through this as well. And I have 4 kids. We are not having any more, but getting rid of the baby stuff is hard, so hard I haven’t gotten rid of a lot of it yet. I want to cry when I think about it. I’m just not ready to let go, not yet.
I still have the baby stuff – and I don’t even have a uterus anymore….but we are foster parenting now, and it has been wonderful. I highly recommend it – incredibly fulfilling and rewarding. And oh, the heads I can sniff from time to time….
Oh, babies. I just keep wanting babies. There is nothing like babies.
I’m having one in April. You’re more than welcome to visit and nibble and munch to your heart’s content.
My 70 something mother in law just stated this past weekend that she longs for a little one of her own again. Someone who will need her totally for 15-20 years before they move on with adulthood. Guess we never grow out of it.
My thought? You never really lose your babies … they just grow up. And then there are grandbabies to cuddle.
Beautifully written, as usual.
I’m not at the point yet where I’m seeing the baby stage as a watercolor of loveliness. But then, my youngest isn’t even four.
I just got back from the grocery store where the smell of disposable diapers sent me into a tailspin of emotion. I in no way want to have a fourth child to care for. These hard economic times have me often questioning how we can care for three… but somehow that unnatural smell of petroleum products designed for baby bottoms still made me nostalgic for a baby to hold to my breast. How strange we are, indeed
mine is only five weeks old, but she is the last, and i feel the finality of it, hard. harried, i am, but sentimental at the same time…mad combo. i miss what is still here, but will never be again.
I see them too. And I want them desperately on an emotional level. Intellectually, I know I’m done.
For years I declared no second – I was just too infatuated with number 1 to even contemplate it. I just couldn’t see the space for it in my life. But yet, in this last year, as my lovely one has moved from 3 to 4, I’ve been feeling happy for but incredibly jealous of my pregnant friends. For me, it’s as much about the infant as it is thinking that I will not have a life kicking in me again — I adored being pregnant (the PPD not so much). But it feels too late somehow…while I have baby lust, I still can’t see a world where we are four instead of three, where we have a five year old and a newborn. So, for the meantime, I will continue to smell the babies of friends, offer to hold, carry, feed, and babysit, and try and let that be enough.
I don’t even HAVE children yet, but I’m dying for one. Especially after spending the day shopping with my girlfriends — one who has a seven-month-old son and the other with a 2-year-old daughter and another daughter due in January. Ohh, the beautiful little clothes and lotions and cribs!
I so know what you mean. My daughters are 3 and 5 and I can’t believe how quickly they’ve grown. I’d love to have another myself, but eh. I’m nearly 40. But oh I do wish for it some days.
Great post!
This post summed up everything I was feeling yesterday while I cleaned out my kids’ room. I bagged up some of my youngest’s outgrown clothing and I donated everything except this one sweater, which I just can’t bear to part with. His grandfather bought it for him and I remember exactly how he looked in it with his chubby baby face and bright blue eyes. I held that sweater up to one in his current size and nearly cried.
Jenn, I read you often, I love your writing, i never comment.
These lines left me speechless:
“We are funny creatures, we humans, in that we possess the dubious ability to miss what we never had in the first place. Our mind’s eye is often sharper in focus than our actual eyes are.”
thank you.
okay, so new idea for a career. maternity floor nurse!
even with a 6-month-old and 3yr-old in my arms every day I still get the baby itch when i see big bellies, which is almost daily.
my husband says we are done having babies, but i can’t bring myself to set aside the possibility of more babies.
is it just in our nature? our hard wiring?
Oh, well, 38 is not too young for all of us. Trust me. I’m a haggard middle-aged mom (by choice) who might consider a second one if I were half a decade younger!
Aidan is four, and soooo snuggly. Sometime in August, as he bundled himself into my lap and made little mewing noises like a cat, I told him I’ll really miss moments like this when he’s a a big, tough 13 year old. He assured me then, and many times after, that he would ALWAYS want to snuggle with mommy, even when he’s a “big boy teenager.” But last week he wouldn’t hold my hand as we crossed the parking lot on the way into Pre-K. I felt that right in my chest, and clearly envisioned the day when he won’t even walk next to me, let alone hold my hand. *Sigh*
I see them.
I don’t have any….not yet.
I’m 27.
My mother still calls me her baby.
I have an eight-month-old, and her babyhood is flying by. When I see newborns, I am sad that I will never have one again (Tubal ligation).
You could always donate time at the local hospital to hold babies during the day and help change diapers, etc. They don’t mind having people volunteer to hold babies. They just background check you first…which is fine.
See, something to do with your spare time so as not to feel bored or boring…
I am “in the middle of it” right now….and trying to keep my sanity and enjoy that mushed banana lost in some chubby baby leg fold smell all the while trying to keep my two boys from light sabering each other to death….I wonder if I’ll look back and think ahhh..those were the days…right now, it’s Anna-10months, Colin almost 3 and James-5.
Whoa, whose idea was that?
I am five months pregnant with my first baby and this post reminds me to enjoy enjoy enjoy!
Oh, and I am 34 years old and my mother still calls me the baby.
Ha. I was just looking at an early Christmas catalog tonight, and the baby toys (and playing babies) gave me a tiny pause.
My little guy is nearly 4, his big sister nearly 7. I’m done. Also: last month at the mall, I passed a harried mom trying to strap a bucking, screaming toddler into his stroller, and realized — that part of my life is OVER. I NEVER have to do that again!
My first private joke? Every time Sandy called me lucky. Her backside was permanently damp from knee to bum to other knee. A piss horseshoe, I thought.
She was one foster mother who wanted to “slap the scowl from my pretty face because I was lucky to have her.”
Piss horseshoe lucky.
I’m glad to hear a BEAW reader is involved with social services.
It is so important, Vanessa.
I see them, too!
My “baby” turns 6 on Friday. Wah.
My son was the cuddly one of my two. He’s 15 now and will tolerate me putting an arm around him and even lying next to him on the couch as long as I restrain myself. But he used to fit so nicely between my shoulder and my hip. He was such a good nestler.
My daughter is a long, skinny 12 year old. She’ll cuddle with me and is so satisfyingly narrow, it’s fun to hug her. But she used to have the most delicious soft plump abdomen…
When I was around 35 I was visiting my parents. Dad was making Mom a martini and I asked if I could have one, too. He checked with my mom to see if his baby was old enough for such a grown up drink.
I am mere weeks (hopefully) away from meeting my baby! Given that he/she is not even ‘on the outside’ yet, it’s hard to conceive of her/him not being a baby anymore, but I know that time will come sooner than I want it to, so thanks for the reminder to appreciate babyhood. I get the feeling I’m going to need more reminding – it’s all a bit daunting before I even begin!
p.s. FWIW, I just turned 38 2 weeks ago.