Quick...

Babies are so unpredictable...in the noisiest and most difficult environments they can be angels. As my little one is right now...that's all I can write today.

For No Clear Reason...

For a moment today life came to a perfect standstill. I'd just fed the baby and put him to bed; I was sitting on the old futon couch just a few feet from his crib. I listened to him sigh and grunt a little as he put himself to sleep.

I was thinking to myself--various random thoughts. "Seven months old, still. How nice to have a seven-month-old baby and how quickly it'll pass. He'll be eight months before I know it. How wonderful it is when he leans his full weight against me, already almost asleep, as I lift him and carry him to his bed. How nice to feel his heavy chin balanced against my shoulder, just before I lay him in his crib. How extraordinary all of it is, really."

As I said, various random thoughts, nothing very profound. But as I sat there in the dark, listening to him, I felt completely still and quiet. It felt something like happiness.

Carbon Footprints

It's horrible to think that my baby's carbon footprint is about 35 times greater than that of a baby in, say, Nepal, or Bolivia--i.e., in most of the developing world. It's horrible to think that my own footprint is even worse than my baby's, and that I'm doing little or nothing at the moment to make things better. My house is not very conveniently situated, let's say, and so I'm driving somewhere with the baby almost every day.

It's foolish--because in thirty years, almost no one will be living like this. Almost no one but the extremely rich will be able to do so. And the answer is not hybrid cars. We're idiots if we think hybrid cars or even electric cars will solve the problem (unless the electricity is generated almost exclusively by renewables--solar, wind, and so forth--and that's nowhere on the horizon right now).

The main problem is, not enough people are making the choice to live more simply--to buy houses that are within walking or biking distance from shops, libraries, parks, and schools; to travel less; to eat lower down on the food chain, and buy food at farmer's markets; to stop buying so much unnecessary crap in general. And we need to develop communities designed for this kind of simple living. Most people realize this; and some people are even making these kinds of changes in their lives.

I see my own family making these changes, but it might take us five years, not the next one or two--for various reasons which I won't discuss here. However--in five years, I hope to be setting a much better example for the little guy. And there are plenty of changes I could make tomorrow, if I wanted to badly enough.

Well. It's time to stop talking about it and do something. I hate to think of the kind of world my son could inherit when he reaches adulthood.

Learning and "Toys"

Like all children, my son often prefers the "toys" that are not available in any toy store. Today the toy that he played with for over fifteen minutes during dinner was the take-out menu from our favorite Chinese restaurant. He came up with about twenty different things to do with it--slap it against the table, fold it, scrunch it up, slap his hand against it, wave it in the air, drop it on the floor, watch Mommy and Daddy pick it up, observe the English and Chinese written on it, and so on. His face is a study in concentration when he plays with these simple objects. He seems determined to unravel some untold mystery at the heart of each new thing he plays with.

Learning is not just about pleasure for him, then. Learning is also about intense desire.

The Pleasures of Learning; the Learning of Pleasure

Raising a baby reminds me of the degree to which language learning--learning of all kinds, perhaps--is based on pleasure. Once again this evening, the little guy laughed when I said, while he was nursing, "Your mommy and daddy love you very much." I'm sure he didn't understand the words, but he understood the tone of voice I was using. And he was completely bored with a toy I showed him yesterday--four cloth birds sitting in a cloth birdhouse--but when I made peeping noises and had them marching through the door into the house, then lifted the top of the house and they all came tumbling out, it was better than any action-adventure film for him. And whenever I read to him, and come to his favorite pictures, his eyes light up every single time--and this is what amazes me--he has different smiles or laughs for each of the pictures that he prefers. For pictures of tigers it's a look of intense pleasure. For the "Red" character in Hop on Pop, it's as if he's rediscovering an old friend. For the monkey in a pop-up book, it's a slight but intense giggle. He reacts differently for the different pictures, but in almost the same way each time one of his favorite pictures appears.

Just seeing his eyes light up once while I'm reading him a book or talking to him or playing a game with him, reminds me of the rich pleasures life offers those who are truly open to it. It's just my damn good fortune that it often happens several times a day.

Thursday Morning 9 am

Cold, grey morning, fog off the coast. Low inspiration for anything, including this blog. But I continue to believe something will be gained if I write every day...what, exactly? Perhaps, a transcendence of the heaviness of spirit that comes with being too focused on the practicalities of motherhood.

When one is feeling low inspiration, the best thing to write about (to shake things up a little) is what one finds terrifying.

I'm still terrified by the possibility that I won't "make the grade" as a mother; on my worst days I even imagine that someone will step forward and identify me as a sham, a charlatan, a "fake mom."

I look at my son--this evolving little person--with such a spirit for life, love, happiness, fun, and exploration, already shining out from him--I watch him in his crib, his face pressed against an old velour top of mine, sleeping, so tiny, so completely fragile and alone--and know that I'm looking at something more than I ever imagined possible in my life, something totally inexpressible in its beauty.

And seeing all that--I see the whole history of my time on this planet in stark relief, for the mess that it really is; and wonder, how on earth did I ever think I was qualified for this job?

And at 9 am on Thursday morning, I don't have any answer for this question.

What's in a Name

I find it difficult to call my child by his name. I like his name--very much--but somehow, it doesn't roll off the tongue. I end up calling him "Baby" or "Baby-Cake" or "Sweetie-pie" or "Sweetpea" most of the time, or even "Mister" or "Mister Baby." He's getting to an age where he really listens, and observes, and notices things. This has happened maybe in the last couple of weeks--the quality of his attention has shifted, if not the quantity--and I've guiltily made more of an effort to use his actual name, so that by the time he's talking, he isn't telling people "My name is Baby Cake."

The name I wanted to call a son (when I was having those miscarriages, mentioned in an earlier post) ended up becoming the middle name of our child--and I'm not sorry it worked out that way. As I said, I like his actual first name. And in a sense (though this may sound morbid) the middle name is in memory of those three babies who came before him. Both names are part of his story.

That's really what a name is, I suppose--a story.