It has been over two weeks since Levi was born. I cannot believe it. He is already growing out of some of his onesies and has gained one pound, per his two week checkup with Dr. Abbott. His feet and hands are peeling and we are starting to see a little baby acne around his face. His hair, dirty blonde, has already grown some and we joke about taking him to get a trim. I’ve cut his fingernails once (it was an attempt while he was sleeping) and we’ve given him two baths. He’s peed all over himself at least 20 times and I’m on my third batch of doing his laundry. Time does fly, as they say.
I already miss Levi’s first days of being born. I miss the hospital and being pampered by the nurses and annoyed by the lactation consultants. I miss waking up to his face in the morning and holding him in my bed and studying his arms and legs for the first few moments of his life. I miss being tucked away with Isaac in our room with just the three of us while we basked in the joy of our newfound love and took turns looking at him in amazement. I miss laughing at Isaac’s uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, a sad little pull-out chair stationed in our room. I miss ordering breakfast and taking a sip of coffee, without guilt, for the first time in nine months. I miss Isaac running to Bonefish to get dinner and bringing back bang-bang shrimp for a late night snack and I miss the way he looked after my needs more closely than he ever has in our 12-year relationship.
The affection, the attention, the care, and the love from those surrounding our camp helped build so many memories that I am already longing for all over again. Although it is still early in the Levi game, his innocence and the longing I feel for his frailty and inevitable dwindling need for dependence upon me is already burning a hole in my heart. At two weeks old, I’m desperate to relive the first time I laid eyes on him and for his tiny newborn hands and feet.
So, what’s left after all the excitement, the newborn buzz, the short-term attention, the baby fan clubs knocking at your door eager to see his cute new face, and a husband back at work? A desperation for establishing routine. Fatigue. A bit of loneliness. A longing for establishing some sense of the normalcy you once had. Nostalgia for all the aforementioned.
After all the hype, reality sets in. Someone has to get up when the baby cries at 3 a.m. because the nurses will not be there to do it for you. You become responsible for nurturing and growing this being you created. You stress about what the right thing to feed him is and when and if he is getting enough. You worry about his head bopping around in the car seat that swallows him and bringing him out in public because of germs and because he may cry. You wonder when the right time to put him in his crib is and how you should bathe him. And everything you read goes out the window because all you want to do is get him to stop crying at those 0 dark 30 moments, and you’ll do anything to make that happen. Anything.
Something inside yourself changes as you realize that your life revolves around this new person. That you no longer have the free will to do what you please and that your life is now centered around caring not for yourself full-time, but for someone else.
Yet even though all these things are settling in at once as a rushing wave over your head, this new person dependent upon you is yours to smother, to love, to look at, to raise exactly how you want. Suddenly you care less about your stretch marks and more about your baby’s coughs and cries and habits. You look at him 900 times a day and awake at every coo, wondering if he is ok. You dress him in cute clothes for your friends and kiss him on the cheek at every stolen glance.
When all the hype fades, it’s hard to face the reality of being responsible for a new life. But the long-term benefits that come with being a parent make everything worth living for.
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