The End of August

August 28, 2009

We are putting away the co-sleeper just as the light changes in the sky showing me that really, Summer is coming to an end. All in all this is proving to be a really hard combination for me, my stomach is tight and I am at the edge of tears every time I think about where we are in the seasons outside and in our house, as things move forward.

Through my pregnancy with Abe the co-sleeper is that piece of baby gear I dreamed about pulling back out from the basement where it went live when Lily was done with it. It was the only thing the baby would need at first to come home and have a space to lay next to me, attached to my side of the bed. And as with Lily, when it replaced my night table it became a holder for all the things I needed to get through his first few months of nighttimes. It is stuffed with lip balm and nipple ointment, the journal I keep about Abe’s development and issues of magazines that have arrived over these first six months of Abe’s life and somehow gone unread, brought up here to my bedside in case I ever found the time to look through them. There has, in fact, been time enough for me to read as I sat here nursing through many nights, just never the extra energy to open pages and read anything that required my brain. No, in all these months that Abe slept beside me I have only had eyes to look at his sweet face and learn its intricacies and the way he changes his expression as we took care of him in the dark and as the sun came up after the long nights.

Abe has moved out, just about 8 paces down our hall into the room he shares with Lily and it means that I will get my night table back with the reading lamp I had before, I will trade in the clip on light we have used on the co-sleeper so it could face away and leave the baby undisturbed. This is a healthy change for us both and I know it in my head, but my heart feels so heavy. It was troubling for me when I reached this point with Lily, too, where we were coming out of our bubble where we had lived the first six months. But even my body knew that there would be another round of it all, and now this second time of having a new born in our midst has come and gone and I am not sure I will ever have another time to be in such an intimate place with a child of mine. Even at this six month mark I know there is letting go I need to start learning with Abe so he can start being able to be more self sufficient, the thing I have both wished for and dreaded these last six months because I knew we would get here. All those nights that he threw up on our sheets feeding after feeding and I was annoyed to be lying here on the wet spots of early babyhood are the times I want to have all over again. I wish I could go back and have every second of the last half a year to live over again. There is not one thing I would live differently, I just long for all these first moments that will never come again.

Having an older kid shows me that there is still just as much to give even as they sleep apart from me, and go to school, and don dress up clothes and bargain for a third lollipop in the day, it’s just how my proximity to my child will change with the passing of days. This week I will leave Abe behind for one full day in my return to the store and that fills me with dread. I can repeat every cliché about him being ready…it’s time!...the space will be good for us both!...it’s just two days a week…and it’s all true. It is time and we will both come through just fine. Abe is sleeping straight through the majority of nights in his crib down the hall and that means that in the near future I may not need two cups of coffee just to open my eyes. It will be nice to have Nat be the only man in my bedroom again, I have missed the energy and the space to have those end of day conversations cuddled up together with the man I chose long before I even knew what a co-sleeper was. But just as the sun starts showing a different light in the sky this last week in August it’s a whole new season of time for me and Abe, together and apart.

As we take down the co-sleeper I am putting away all the things that were stacked inside for him when he spent all his sleeping time in there, the outfits that are a size too small now, all the swaddling blankets that would be way too little to hold him now even if he would let us, the diapers that he sized out of in June, probably. It’s all in there, an archeological dig through the first months of Abe’s life by my side. Now the things he needs are too much to fit into a small little rectangle of space in our bedroom, he is moving and wriggling on spots on the floor and on the contraptions we have stashed in every inch of available space downstairs. Obviously there is no need to keep a nursing pillow up here if it is only being used to balance the laptop upon which I write, it’s intended use long passed as Abe has exploded in size and surpassed the ability of this little doughnut shaped paraphernalia. Every time I feed him another bite of a first food and watch his face take in the taste and texture with amazement I see how many “firsts” are ahead of us still and yet each second takes me further away from the beginning, and I wonder if I will ever stop missing that moment when I held him for the first time and had it all ahead of me still…