Baby Toes

My youngest grandchild, Ava, has just turned 6 months old this week. She is all big blue eyes and pink cheeks, full of good cheer, just looking for something to gnaw on to relieve her teething. She's smiley and loves the outdoors, but mostly she adores the wind blowing through the trees making them sway.

She's an observer, this baby. Ava watches each person who comes through the door or walks by the yard and wants to make eye contact right off. Of all my grandchildren, for some reason, I notice the changes she makes each week. Before, I would sit her on my knee facing outwards, and she would be happy for a long time. Now, all of a sudden, Ava turns her body around to smile at me and to respond to my voice. I can almost see all her synapses firing at once.

A few weeks ago she began to sit up. We went over to my son's house. My daughter in law has one of those things called a "boppie"  that sits on your lap for nursing. Well, it seemed like a great safety net to put behind Ava while she sat on the floor with some toys around her. It worked for awhile, but I think Ava'a back gets tired. She slumped forward, then realized she could reach her toes, grabbed her big toe and began to suck on it. The baby looked up at me, smiled, then went back to sucking her toe.

Babies

I feel so blessed. In the last 10 months, I've had two new little granddaughters born. It is an embarrassment of riches, more grandchildren than arms. These little girls are so beautiful, all blue eyes and reddish blond hair, little bow mouths and pink cheeks, sqeezable chubby legs, bright sundress wearing, kissable feet and bellies, sweet necks and soft wispy hair on their heads to press my lips to. When I hold them I have to remind myself this is real. Two little girls at once.

I am learning about them and they are getting to know me, too. Angel is 9 months, petite, understands every word said to her, and is all doe-eyed. When I go to babysit, Angel smiles big, then looks at her mother, then me again and, she opens her mouth and screams bloody murder.   She knows her mom is going out. She knows me and yet, she doesn't. While we wait out her stranger anxiety, Angel cries until her nose is running, her tears flood her cheeks, I hold her over my shoulder and pat her back and bottom until she gives up and goes to sleep. When she wakes up, I change her diapers, kissing the bottoms of her feet and her toes. She's happy until she remembers...Mom is out. I try to distract her-we play with a Kleenex first on my head, then hers, she laughs and laughs, and then she remembers again...more tears.  Peek a boo works for awhile. Then her sorrow wells up again. We are getting there, soon she'll trust me and as I keep whispering in her ear, "You don't know it yet, but I'm going to be your best friend."

The newest baby, Ava, just turned 12 weeks old. All of a sudden she is all smiles, delicious chubby legs, pink cheeked, squirmy, cooing, sticking her tongue in and out copying me make faces at her. This week she made a noise like "Mom." My daughter and I looked at each other. My daughter said, "Did she just say Mom?" I think she did. We could be wrong, but we both heard the same thing.

The days are really beginning to feel like spring so I sat in the shade, wrapped her in a big orange blanket, and we watched birds, wind in the trees, listened to bird song, felt the balmy breeze. Not much talking. We just sat in comfortable silence. She likes to bounce on my right knee as we sit outside. Not my left knee ever.  Ava doesn't like being put over my shoulder at all. She misses her mom because my daughter went back to work this week and I'm filling in between her husband leaving to work in the afternoon. She's not eating much or sleeping much. She's bereft, of course, but she'll be fine. At 3:30 my daughter comes home, Ava screams at the sound of Mama in the house, then begins nuzzling, and settles in to nurse. 

Babies are amazing. It's like all their neurons are suddenly firing a million miles per hour. I think of all I want to say to them and teach them about the world. Then I think about my favorite Kurt Vonnegut quote:

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "    That's more than enough.

Mother's Day: Here are a Few of My Favorite Things

Photo-My Mother's Teacup

Mother's Day. Most people think it was invented by Hallmark, some kind of made up holiday to sell cards and flowers. It wasn't. Julia Ward Howe began it as a day to unite mothers around the world in world peace.  I thought that might be too lofty a goal, so I told my kids I didn't care what we did, I just wanted us to all be together in the same room at the same time.   

It turned out to be a fun day because I went to see a local children's theater production of "Sound of Music" with three of my grandchildren, my daughter, and Aiden's maternal grandmother. The movie with Julie Andrew's is  the all time  favorite of Rebecca's and mine. We've watched it over and over during our sleepovers and we mostly have the words down for most of the songs. So, for the two of us, it took everything we had not to sing along, loudly. The newest baby, 11 week old  Belle, slept and nursed through the whole play. Aiden, although he behaved beautifully, started squirming an hour into it. After the musical, my son and his wife with 9 month old baby Lily joined us at a popular local restaurant.

I looked around the table at Rebecca, Aiden, Lily, and little baby Belle, my son and his wife and my daughter and understood how incredibly rich I am, how fortunate to have so many people to love and who love me in my life. Rebecca sipped blueberry lemonade and ate Mac and Cheese, Aiden munched on vegetables, Lily sat in a high chair and banged her spoon on the table. Lily had a white lacey headband on around her head al a Olivia Newton-John. I played peek-a-boo with her and she giggled. Aiden crawled under the table and came for a hug. Rebecca, in her blue velvet dress, alternated between leaning next to me and trying to get Lily to laugh. Belle slept through the whole thing. I opened presents; a mini-food processor, a tile with Belle's baby footprint, and a super dooper expensive razor that I wouldn't buy for myself. I had a recent bad encounter with a dollar store razor and my daughter took mercy on me.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe began Mother's Day as time for women to gather for the purpose of ending war. The first time I read her speech, I knew exactly what she was saying. My own son, then 20, would have been eligible to be drafted for the first Gulf War. I knew that I hadn't raised him to be taken from me for nonsensical reasons by a president I saw as hasty and full of ego. It was not only sons who are the casualties of war, but the civilians, mothers, daughters, husbands, all loved and precious to their families. I knew that mothers all over the world loved their children with the same fierce intensity as I did.

These are Howe's words:

"Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn

All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,

Will be too tender of those of another country

To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

Amen, Julia. Happy Mother's Day!