All the Difference

It’s been just over two weeks ago that I returned to work. I have to say that working is easier than taking care of a baby. Easier, but not better. It’s the missing him part that’s so incredibly hard. . . (that and not being able to sleep during the day when he’s napping). I’ve had fits of tear-blurred eyes at work, in the grocery store, but have come to find that the only safe place to cry is in the shower. I miss that little face so much some days that it hurts.

Yesterday I returned to work from a 4-day weekend of uninterrupted baby and daddy time. I held up better than I imagined I would. Only one episode of blurry, tear-filled vision all day. You can’t blame me, really. The boy’s grandparents took pictures of him and e-mailed them to me. It was a given that I should get verklempt.

This past weekend, when I was less emotional, I worked on his room. (I almost typed “nursery” but M said this past weekend how much he hates that reference, so I deleted it and said “room”.) It’s finally done. (It only took 3 months!) Last week, as I was going through the clothes he’s outgrown, I kept running in and interrupting M’s studies with a hurried whisper (so as not to wake the sleeping baby),“Look at how tiny this is! He fit into this! Can you believe it?”

There’s a comfort and a strange concoction of contentment, pride and anticipation in saying “I’ll put it away for the next baby!” followed by the underlying, nagging thought of “what happens when there’s no ‘next baby’?”

When I think of places we’ve been and things we’ve done and picture them in my head, I have a hard time realizing that it was “BC” – Before C. It feels like he’s always been here, and yet, there was a whole life before him. (Whole, certainly, but incomplete, no?)

On my first day back to work, people asked “how do you feel being back?” and my honest response came as both a shock and a revelation to me: “I feel like a different person.” How true that is: I am a different person.

Before C, I would look at pregnant women and think “ugh! That just doesn’t look like fun!” and then I got (and stayed) pregnant, had a baby and am now a card-carrying member of the mommy brigade. Recently, I gushingly congratulated someone on being pregnant for the second time and was a little surprised about how excited I really was for her. How excited I am for all those in my ward who are in the same poopy-pantsed-just-starting-our-childrearing-years boat as me. How I l-o-v-e LOVE to watch all these new moms with their babies, how touched I was to watch a mom with her 2-week old newborn and see how her face positively lit up as his dad handed him to her, and to know that I light up the same way when I’m with my boy.

It’s quite amazing how much one little person can change you. (There I go getting all verklempt again! )

(Give me moment while my eyes clear. .. .)

This past Saturday, C was blessed by his Tata in our home. I forgot that Tata gets all verklempt too, and when he does, he whispers. I had to ask M later what was said in the blessing. I was surprised to find that I already knew almost all of it, though it was tough to hear at the time. As his Tata pronounced the blessing, mostly in whispers, the Spirit whispered it to me. That boy is an incredibly special little spirit and it’s just mind boggling that I’m his mom.

On so many occasions lately, I find myself grateful.

~Nichole