TeamDavis

As I was holding my sleeping 7 week old, like many days the past two months, I was realizing how much his nose had grown.  I spend enough time within 8 inches of his face that I can even notice the change in the smallest of his features.   As he wakes up, I know pretty well the order of things he will do — his stretches, his scrunched up face, his movement, his looking around, his recognition of hunger.  And as he starts to show patterns in his lifestyle, I begin to know the pattern of his breathing changing into the breathing that means he’s finally in deep sleep — at one point he lets out a sigh and his whole body goes calm and limp.

If we knew this about any other peer, we’d be called an obsessed fanatic!  It’s amazing how intimately attentive I have become naturally as a mom.  The funniest thing is that I’ve started to analyze my own habits and movements and wonder if they are influenced by my full awareness of Josiah’s, or if I always did those things.  When I wake up in the morning, did I stretch before?  Did I scrunch my face?  Was it always like that? I have no idea.  Being so intimately intertwined into a little life and watching him most minutes of the day watching for the slightest changes is what helps us to learn our children who can not communicate, and helps us to know, too, when changes occur.  Changes can indicate development and growth, or they can indicate something is wrong.  So we must be attentive to the details and intricacies.  We learn the range of a cry, the fluctuations in the waa-ahh-ahs to start to know when it’s just fussing, when there’s gas to be passed, when there is discomfort or another need to be met.

We’ve watched the gestures so closely of Josiah waiting for him to lock eyes with us and smile.  He has gone from no response, and only gesturing and making faces in his sleep to now making more purposeful and responsive facial expressions that acknowledge his feeling.  Sometimes when Scott makes faces or sounds towards him, he raises his eye brows, or smiles big and makes a little cooing sound; even his crying faces have changed, he has developed a strong pout and tears.

It is like nothing else, and it’s the most intimately wonderful thing.  When you get married, a similar thing occurs.  you do start to recognize the smallest of gestures, quirks, and variations in lifestyle of your spouse.  Some of it is endearing, some bugs you, but you embrace it all (well, you try).  With a child, I guess it is a bit more intricate level because of what I described — in needing to learn their needs, and watching for slight changes that can indicate something important or not.

It is pretty intense — the relationship between mother and child.  I knew this before, the intimacy and sometimes even ferocious care and protectiveness; the strong bond of the child to parent.  But experiencing it myself is completely different.  Much more strongly than getting to know other people’s children; although that can provide some amount of that same feeling at times of connectedness and knowing the details given enough relationship over time with a child.  I believe that experience is part of what drew us more into wanting to have children.

I love staring at my son.  So many people told me I would enjoy this for hours, and I do.  I try even to enjoy him when he’s screaming.  Sometimes that’s easier than others.  But seeing the intricacies of how he was created and “knitted together” in my womb is quite overwhelming.  Especially as his body grows and develops, it’s quite amazing.

So I will continue to enjoy the sweet moments of staring at my child, especially when he’s asleep or happy.  As he snuggles into my neck and chest for a nap, I will appreciate it.  In the not too distant future, he’ll be too squirmy to enjoy and appreciate that as often.  As he plays in my lap looking all around to take everything in; then locks eyes with me — those big blue beautiful bright eyes — I will gaze back and soak it in.  I will continue to know every inch of his body well.  I will continue to softly caress his cheeks and ears when he sleeps and pray that he feels the love that his parents have for him.

And as he grows, I will forget the sleepless nights. I will forget the intensity of his wailing that causes me at times to cry.  The nights where I come to the end of myself will blur in my memory, thankfully.  And I will be thankful for the blessing of the time we have had with our child, and look forward to what is ahead.