Monday 9 January 2017

Microblog Mondays: This Child

I feel like I've been living a dual existence lately: caught up in the process of trying to make a second child (I'll update on how that's going another time: basically, Not Good), while being riveted by AJ and how she is growing.

She really isn't a baby anymore. Of course, I still call her Baby Girl, and probably will when she's 20 if she'll let me. There are moments where I fleetingly see the newborn in her (a certain sleepy, secretive smile, the shape of her head and way her ears stick out when looked at from the back, the way her face crumples up when she cries). Will I also still be seeing those flashes of the newborn when she's 20, I wonder? But most of the time, she's busy reminding us over and over again she's Not a Baby.

I have four photo collages up in the dining room, two big rectangles with 12 photos apiece and two smaller ones, 8 photos each. In theory these are supposed to be updated every year; in reality this job is procrastinated because sorting, printing and displaying photos is a terribly time consuming and therefore difficult and stressful. So the photos have not been changed since shortly before AJ's first birthday, and they are all of her in the first year of life. Lately, I'm thinking I really have to change them up, because she Does. Not. Look. Like. That. Baby. Anymore.

I don't know; those (not so) old photos have somehow brought it home in a way that everything else, even all the developmental milestones, haven't. The baby is a child.

In a way it's therapeutic: As AJ grows into an individual, she grows away from the whole process of conception and pregnancy and even birth and infancy. It's nice to be reminded that life is evolving and surprising and meant to flower beyond its (amazing) beginnings. Her growth and change is a reminder that the future is unwritten and could be very different from the past and from the future I imagined in the past. And that's.....sad and delightful and frightening and liberating all at once.

I savour the moments that I have with this child, this totally unique life.

Also here is the Susan Aglukark song with the same name as this post. Because.



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10 comments:

  1. It's amazing how fast they grow and change. I also see glimpses of the babies the Beats were. But I'm also seeing glimpses of who they will become. It's fascinating, exciting but also sad. I see why people get baby fever around this stage. A longing for what was.

    Hugs to you as you go through this transition.

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    1. Thanks! you are so right about seeing glimpses of who they were, who they will be. I dunno if I have baby fever. I guess I do. I'm kind of obsessed and in denial at the same time, which is deeply weird. But I do love the present, quandaries and all.

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  2. Susan Aglukark has a lovely voice - I haven't heard of her or played any of her stuff before. Poignant words.

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    1. Thanks. She is a wonderful artist and person. Great courage in in music and life. One of my teenage music crushes. (And she's still very much alive).

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  3. It's bittersweet when you notice them growing, changing. It's all good -- I enjoy each stage more than the last (yes, even middle school), but it's also teary at the same time. Sending a hug.

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    1. So true! Thanks! Sending the same solidarity back to you.

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  4. I both love to watch B grow and am nostalgic for the baby snuggles, coos, nursing, etc. It's a catch 22 for sure.

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    1. Yes indeed! It really feels like time speeds up when a child is born. Every moment counts for something, marks a change.

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  5. It must be surreal to see AJ morphing from baby to child like that, to realize that the pictures don't represent her as she is but as she was. So much to celebrate in the passage of time, but there's that loss of a time that is so special (from what I hear). I'm thinking of you as you work through processes for a possible next child, but also as you celebrate This Child, and her transition from babyhood to childhood. I love the song, too.

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    1. I'm glad you enjoyed the song! There's a line from a different song that often comes to mind: "time started moving on the day we met." It's written for lovers but applies to a child to, I think. Thanks for reading and for your support. I feel like this is such an interesting, difficult, beautiful transitional time in my life. A time for analyzing assumptions and watching reality evolve. It's really exhausting at times and sometimes I feel like I don't know who I am anymore. It means a lot that you read along.

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