Three months old : The love this child brings

Our children are born incomplete in themselves. They are not like the new foal who wobbles about or even the kitten who stumbles with eyes closed. They are born helpless. Prior to my motherhood I did not appreciate this and I did not appreciate the nourishment a newborn baby gives me. On Tuesday my son passed from newborn to infant and I have left the experience for good. Some might think it odd but I will miss it.

I think of the little babe so dependent on others in those first three months as something precious. It is the trust -- so fleeting in our humanity -- that amazes me. I also think of it, quite selfishly, as my redemption. While a child grows inside me I think they are a part of me. As it happens this does not sharply extinguish for me with birth but instead it dwindles in the flash of time from newborn to infant.

What you need to know about me to understand is that when it comes to me I do not, cannot, always love myself. But this child? It was a part of me, paradox. They arrive, helpless and are unavoidably a piece of me I must love without reservation. I do this wholeheartedly and this redeems me. It seems especially true when they are wee. That is when they are most resonant of what I need to unreservedly love. What am I saying? I should love my pants-crapping/screaming self? Well maybe. Certainly, I should love my unscheduled, nonproductive self - and others. I should love for love's sake and not for worth, industry or ability. And I should trust.

For that while he was that part of me outside my own womb; not entirely himself but in each moment less me and more the individual. But that's over.

It is relentless now. There he is -- his own person. While he still needs to learn to walk then run he is profound in character and spirit. Our boy-o is patient and easy going. He babbles a good bit now, he rushes to hold up his head to see and he wants to sit so badly. Last week he started bringing his two little hands together. Reflex gives way to volition and cries shapechange to calls and chatter. Smiles abound. I love him so much he is amazing.