Mmmmgrrph… stupid back to everything normal. Here goes.
It’s Sunday afternoon and there’s a tight spot in my chest and an thinness to my attentions; it’s a mild sense of dread. Not an excited dread either, like being poised at the apex of a roller coaster or dropping in on a big wave. No it’s a dread-dread, in the Websters sense, and it’s because I return to work tomorrow. This time with family has been perfect and I don’t want it to end. The feeling is compounded with the fact that there are at least two, if not more, difficult issues waiting for me to be dealt with once I’m back. Being away from work with those things looming made the time even more sweet, but now coming back looms doubly with the weight of them. O but Lord I don’t want to go back!
But let’s stay away from the drudgery and keep things positive. All things in the world of our new four-person archetypal American family unit are going well. Cohen seems to have picked up the “great baby” torch passed along be his big sister Keaton, and is super low-maintenance – only waking us twice at night for feeding (one late feeding before bedtime for mom and dad, one in the dead of the still of the night, and one right around sunrise). He doesn’t fuss (yet), doesn’t spit-up (yet), eats well and sleeps well. His beef-jerky belly button fell of without fanfare last week and he’s already recovered much of the birthweight he lost in those first few days.
Just as Keaton before him, he was an instant source of joy for me; the kid shines with some magical sheen I can get lost in – some aura that I can stare into for hours. They are so precious, new babies. I wondered, before he was born, how he’d “impact” the strong feelings and ties I have to Keaton – our firstborn. Wondered if my attentions or passions would be split or multiplexed or somehow diminished. Seems so silly now, it just adds together in heaps… you fill this huge space you didn’t even know you had. My heart swelled the moment the slimy ruddy little man broke free and screamed from his toothless little mouth, and it’s roomier for each yawn and gurgle and startle. The love I have for Keaton is the love I have for my big, four-and-a-half year old girl. For Cohen my newborn boy. Apples and oranges yet both innate and instinctive.
So anyway I’m depressed about having to go back and trade all this for eight hours of that.
Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- puerile politics - 2011
- redeemed by keaton - 2007
- to pork or not to pork - 2006
- waiting for the bus to take me to college - 2004