One night last week, as my family and I were walking on the boardwalk, my mom offered to 'wear' Isaac. Right now Isaac's main form of transportation is a sling, so I wear him around when we go out. Anyway, my back was starting to bother me from wearing him more than usual, and she offered to help out.
As I got them all set in the sling and ready to go, I was struck by something. As usual, it was something obvious (I always seem to be struck by the obvious): This kid is cute. I kept looking at him and swooning. I wanted to jump up and down because he was so cute.
A few days later Dave joined us at the beach and he and I went out to lunch with the boys. Andrew was making trains out of sugar packets. Now he does this frequently. It's how he passes the time at restaurants while he waits for the food. He lines up the sugar for a white train, the Splenda for a yellow train and the Sweet and Low for a pink train. But it happened again. I was struck by how cute he was. I could have watched him make sugar packet trains for hours.
Later I was wondering about the sudden onset of emotion in those two situations. I had spent all of my time with these guys for the last few days. Really, the last few weeks. What made them seem so new to me? Here is my guess. I think that sometimes I spend my time and energy caring for my boys and that I don't really see them. I am so concerned about meeting their needs that I don't really take, or have, the time to enjoy them. In both scenarios I had handed over their care to someone else, Isaac's to my mom and Andrew's to Dave. And doing that helped me see them differently. They were not just mouths to feed and diapers to change. The were Observers of Brights Lights, Builders of Trains, Boys with Big Eyes, Boys with Tiny Feet.
I guess it just struck me that sometimes taking a step back isn't really a step back at all.
1 comment:
Sometimes I feel silly to comment on your posts, because on almost every single one (unless you're baking something elaborate), I want to say, "I KNOW what you mean! I can relate!" and I sound like a broken record. But I can. the other day my friend held Enzo for a minute and I had a good look at him. I thought (and said), "Wow. He really does look like Chris. Everybody is right." And with Atticus, it's so rare for me to be with him without thoughts like, "does he need a snack?", "Should I suggest he go to the bathroom?", "I should wipe his messy face", etc. When I can be with him (like you said, usually with someone else there helping out) and really BE with him, it reminds me how much I really love him and why it's worth it to do all the taking care of.
Sometimes you write blog posts that I could have written about myself, but better.
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