Remember

When I was pregnant with Cass, I worried about everything I didn’t know. How to hold a baby. How I would get through labor. How to breastfeed. And all the things I thought I needed. The right stroller. The soft-as-a-baby-bottom layette. The clean-lined crib that didn’t cost a fortune. Baby toys he wouldn’t choke on. The safest car seat as rated by a cross-pollinated formula of baby consumer resources, stacks of swaddling blankets, a swing with music OR nature sounds, baby sling, sound machine, a colorful mobile, bird decals for the ochre walls of his gender-neutral nursery.

With this pregnancy, I have all that stuff down (or have realized it doesn’t mean diddly, as my dad would say). But I still worry. Only this time around, I worry about different things. Mostly, I worry about Cass. And I worry about forgetting. Not forgetting my bags at the grocery store (which I have done) or my parents’ anniversary (which I have also done), but really forgetting. While experience has taught more than 15 various “gas holds” and that I will never use a Snap-n-Go, it has also prepared me for the daily reality that as he grows up, I lose a little bit of the person he leaves behind. Only two years after I slept with him every day on my chest, I can not remember what it feels like to hold my newborn son in my hands. I remember doing it, but I cannot remember what it feels like, the football-feather heft of Cass’ little baby body faded from the memory of my arms. And on days like today when I try summon the physical sensation, as Cass makes giant leaps into toddlerhood with his little brother foot-tapping the reminder of his existence against my insides, it nearly breaks my heart in half that I can’t.

I look at Cass now, and there’s so much more at stake! Words I don’t want to lose. Strings of them together. Full-blown sentences that have somehow evolved into real, back-and-forth conversations. Discoveries manifested in facial expressions I’ve never seen before. The sweetness I’d like to package for a crappy day (“Mommy, you look pretty” when I’m laying on the bed pretending to nap). I wish all the different versions of Cass could live in the backyard of my brain, playing with one another. (Maybe the two-and-a-half version of Cass could teach the 6-month-old one how to sleep through the night.) With another baby to feed, change, launder, nourish, love… I worry about hanging onto these tender, hilarious and, yes, even exasperating moments. The truth I’m coming to terms with lately: I probably won’t. I guess I'll just keep trying.

Some recent efforts worth sharing:

Mom: Yep, the baby’s in here (pointing to my belly)

Cass: I want to see. I hug the baby (hugging my belly)

Then, looking up at me, curious, hopeful and tickled with the possibility of his idea: Will you open the door now?

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Liz, looking through our front window: Oh, there’s Michael

Cass: Aw, He’s cute

Liz: Do you know Michael? He works at Slows

Cass: um-hmm

Liz: He works in the kitchen

Cass: In the kitchen?

Liz: He makes the food

Cass: No, he POOPS in the food!

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Driving to school this morning:

Cass: You are a bad driver.

Mom: What? Who told you to say that?

Cass: Nobody.