It is the 15th anniversary of the day I first laid eyes on you. I had seen some sonograms. I had spent some time trying to roll with you when you woke up jamming at 4 a.m. But this day was my first meeting in real time, full color. Turns out, as hard as we tried to check you out in advance, test your lungs, and plan every last detail ahead, you still weren’t ready to make your entrance. You’ve never liked getting up or out early. You like your sleep.
You were born on a Tuesday afternoon and placed immediately up against me for a first hold in this world. After about a minute of a strained cry, the doctor determined you weren’t quite all right, so they plucked you from my cradled grip and ushered you away from me for the next 8 hours. That was an exhausting 8 hours, swollen with anxiety about what was actually happening in the NICU. As it turned out, it was fairly standard stuff. But it isn’t standard to not have your arms around the baby you’ve loved for 9 months and who has only been in the world for a few hours. There is nothing that feels standard about that. When they finally let me see you again, it was about 8 p.m. I was shot all to c-section pieces, but still so happy to be headed down that corridor in a wheelchair. You were hungry. And screaming. Really. Really. Screaming. You still make shocking amounts of noise 15 years later. I scrubbed my hands, rolled around by your bassinet, and the nurse handed your pink, wrinkly disgruntled self. I hugged you to me and said quietly,
“Hey, boy. It’s mama.”
And in that exact instant, you stopped crying. Not a peep. And then I started up. Because I couldn’t believe that you were here and you were mine. And that the sound of my words could be a salve to your caterwauling soul. It was a moment I will remember until I don’t remember how to string two words together anymore.
That was the day you became my mama’s boy.
Even today, it is my privilege to be the one to cart you to a trampoline arena with 3 of your buddies and then on to eat our favorite, MEXICAN FOOD. You don’t need me for as much now. You don’t hug me quite as often. You outgrew your rather extreme lisp and don’t look over your shoulder anymore to see where I am in relation to where you are. But you’re still you and I love you exponentially more than I did that day when I suddenly got woozy and handed you back to a nurse right before throwing up in a cup someone handed me.
Hey, it can’t all be swaddles and lullabies.
You are rap music (clean version only), and marching quads, and jokes pushed too far, and extreme sports, and expensive shoes, and so many pairs of shoes, and fluffy hair, and oversleeping, and sidestepping the siblings who take swipes at you when you have poked the bear one time too many. You are kind when you need to be, funny to a fault, and really bad at drawing trees. Your words, not mine.
You will always be my mama’s boy.
But we can just keep that between us.
Happy Birthday, boy,
Mom
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