Playing Catch-up

It was even worse than I thought: Wombat performed admirably, and then the doctor pronounced him perfectly normal and "maybe even a little ahead of schedule." Excuse me--normal? Maybe ahead of schedule? Are we talking about the same baby here? Did you not see the way he can stand and then sit and then stand and then sit again? Perhaps you were looking at your clipboard when he tried to crawl off the exam table at top speed? I did tell you he could say "mama," didn't I? Yes, come to think of it, I'm fairly sure I told you twice.

I could also swear I alerted you to my baby's freakshow proportions with the proper level of alarm in my voice (but he's soooo taaaallllll!), and yet you looked at the charts and assured me that he was fine, perfectly fine, just long and lean, which is undoubtedly genetic (read: it's all my fault). O kind and wise doctor, I only wish I could appreciate your cool, laid-back approach the way it is intended instead of interpreting it as distracted nonchalance. Just as when I'd lumber into the OBGYN and she'd tell me I was a perfectly normal pregnant woman (and maybe even a little ahead of schedule...for weight gain; oof), something about going to a medical professional and having her shrug and go "Eh, you're fine" really rankles my cankles. The more you tell me there's nothing wrong, the more I want to unfurl a list of symptoms that surely presage certain death or at least temporary quarantine. "He's too skinny!" No, he's not. "But he doesn't eat enough!" Yes, he does. "He's growing so fast he's going to rip through all his plaid shirts Incredible Hulk-style!" No, he's not. Of course, I know as well as anyone that if it were the doc pointing out problems instead of me, I'd be the one swatting them away like flies: I don't know what you're talking about lady, because we're all perfectly fine and completely normal and only maybe a little bit ahead of schedule, nothing to see here, move along, kthxbye. *swat swat*

Gee, I can be a contrary little thing, can't I? Damned if you do, et cetera, but what can I say other than that I want to get some fight out of my forty-dollar co-pay? Highway robbery, that.

So, 30 inches (90thish percentile), 18 lbs., 10.5 ounces* (20thish percentile), and perfectly normal (harumph), albeit LOUD. Happy loud (until shots, at least), but still LOUD. I hear my mother's cackles echoing through the Wasatch Basin as her "I hope you get a child Just Like You" curse comes to fruition at last. Oh, look, here he is now--pissing and moaning just like dear old mom.

I would like to say, though, that having a baby who is, all of a sudden, nine (and a half) months old is a humbling experience; he's learning and teaching so much so fast that my head is spinning, and the more I think I know what's coming next (or even what just happened, or what day it is today), the more I set myself up for a smackdown. I feel like the word I most often used to describe my parenting experience is "surprise," and the latest installment is that I'm surprised to realize how little of that whole sunrise-sunset aspect of having children is beyond our control.

I always thought that a parent's realization of the cruel swiftness of time only ever came in retrospect, and that it was a product of having failed to relish the present. And so it was that I sought to not only relish but overthink and obsessively document the present, all in hopes that I would never have cause to look back with regret. I'm so terrified of regret that I'm ever conscious of avoiding it, and I thought that eliminating all sources of regret (e.g., working too much, complaining too much, not taking enough pictures or writing enough stories or making enough memories) would somehow also eliminate the feeling that it's all going too fast, that my baby is slipping away, that I didn't spend enough time enjoying him as he was, in that particular moment of his all-too-brief babyhood.

But...surprise! Apparently time is a motherfucking speedracer whether you're mindful of its passage or not, and it is possible to feel sadness and loss without also feeling the profound regret I'd always assumed was necessarily harnessed to those emotions as they relate to watching kids grow up. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing as wonderful as watching a baby grow from an infant into a person right before my eyes, but that doesn't mean I don't still snivel at the keyboard when I scroll back iPhoto to Wombat's earliest days and wonder how in the world I got to Here from There overnight. It's just...happening so fast.

Simon, meanwhile, compares Wombat's infancy to his own experience of high school: it was great while it was happening, it lasted exactly long enough, and when it was over he was ready for it to be over so he could move on to the next big thing (which for him was growing out his hair and learning to strut in fishnets and platform heels, but I've already told you that one).

I felt the same way about high school, but that's not at all how I feel about Wombat. With him in my life, never have I so desperately wanted there to be truth to the idea of a block universe, in which, as I understand it, time is not a continuum but a dimension, with everything in the history of everything happening in a single moment. Imagine...if we only knew how to access that dimension, we could hopscotch through our lives at will, suckle our newborns in one moment and then kiss them off to college in the next. When we got sick of feeding the cranky baby who won't stop smearing food up his nose and behind his ears and in his hair, we could just beam over to the snuggly baby curled up in bed all milky-breathed and warm in his footy jammies. I wonder, though, would this freedom give us more respect for our experiences or less? This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm not a physicist.

Meanwhile, back down on earth, one of the most interesting differences in how Simon and I are handling parenting is this: Simon says he enjoys the time he spends with the baby and then doesn't miss him at all when he's not around, whereas I--guiltily--don't always enjoy the time I'm "on duty" (and putting it that way says so, so much), but then I miss him terribly when he's away, and there you find me, spending my free time looking at photos of the kid who's finally, blessedly asleep in the next room.

Contrarian. See?

Wombat's next doctor's appointment is for his one-year checkup, and the doctor assured us that next time we wouldn't have to carry his fish-flopping corpus through the office doors because he'd be running through them on his own two skinny legs. Unreal.

We took photos at yesterday's appointment, of course (document! document!), and in processing them this morning I realized I never posted the ones from his four- and five-month visits. (Sadly, none from the sixer, since Simon couldn't make it that day.) Here they are. Try not to snivel.

*My nine and a half month old baby still weighs less than this porker! Holy absolutely necessary c-section, Batman!

wrote Leah at 4:34 PM | Comments (6)