7

“Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger’s touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body.” ~ Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber

It is an interesting thing to simultaneously have a 7 year old and a 7 month old. One with gummy grins potentially growing teeth and one in the process of losing teeth.

One who wakes up showing a gummy smile behind crib bars and one who grumpily gets dragged out of bed to go to school. In these situations, chilled cinnamon rolls that are baked for 12-16 minutes definitely help in luring a 7 and a 5 year old out of bed.

Each age has its own beauty and of course challenges!

Baby H has morphed from a tiny newborn into a round featured baby.  And I have morphed into an older child’s mother back into the mother of a baby. Where basic needs are attended to, over and over again. Where little arms reach reach reach for you and the weight of a baby in one’s arms feels refreshingly heavy and just right.

It is an interesting thing to spoon feed a baby real food after having fed it only milk for so long, and am finding the process more fun than I thought. A, who is now 5 year old, will sometimes offer to feed baby H, hence the pictures above. I remember when Z was a baby and how she did not like to eat and the challenges around that! But when a little baby is willing to eat, it makes the whole process much easier! If anyone has any suggestions of food for a Desi (Indo-Pak) baby, please let me know. I have been making kichri (mushy lentil rice) for her over and over.

And over-and-over seems to be what happens with the movements and process around baby. Feed Baby. Nap Baby. Take Baby to school to drop and pick up Big Sisters Z and A. Change Baby. Bathe Baby. Feed Baby. Sleep Baby.

So that when someone asks what you did all day, you look around at little toy animals scattered on the wood floor, sticky dishes in the sink, scratch your head and can’t really remember what you accomplished per se, but you know that your mind feels mostly full, but the good type of full…

More later!