Matching Tracksuits

When I was in Poland, I eventually reached a point in my linguistic development at which I understood everything going on around me. It wasn’t fluency, because in any given sentence there might be one or even two words I didn’t know, or couldn’t immediately place, but I learned that understanding 100% of the language doesn’t mean understanding 100% of the words spoken.

Once I reached that linguistic milestone, it felt I’d always been at that point. It felt like I’d always been able to understand everything, even though I knew it wasn’t the case. Like swimming and reading, understanding Polish was something I couldn’t remember what it was like not to be able to do. (What an awful example as a teacher I’m setting with that sentence! And this one…)

Today, we went to see my cousin and her recently-adopted baby. The little girl — S — is six weeks. She’s about a pound heavier than L when she was born. And I looked at that little girl, her eyes still mostly closed, and I couldn’t imagine L being that size. I know she was. We have the pictures to prove it. But, as with the language, I just feel she’s always been this size; that she’s always been able to hold her head up; that she’s always been able to look around, to smile, to cry from boredom, to giggle, to coo.

And then, a little voice: “That is how you’ll wake up one morning and realize she’s going off to college and for a brief moment, feel complete unprepared for it, and feel she’s completely unprepared for it.”

It’s not quite synonymous with “taking for granted,” but it’s awfully close.

And I think that’s one reason why I’m trying so hard to write in this silly blog so often. To mark the lines of development; to make a record for later — to make an online baby book.

Besides, what else am I going to write about in my newly realigned universe?

When playing with your child, some common sense is in order. After eating, for example, is not the best time for bouncy play.

That’s fairly logical, but there’s a derivative from this: after eating (up to, say, an hour after), avoid any play that places the child’s head directly above your head.

As a newly washed car is to a bird, so your face, with it’s stupid, wide-open-mouth smile, is to your child…

For the first time in ages, K and I slept in the dark last night.

No, not the “first time in ages.” The first time in almost four months.

Since L’s birth, we’ve kept a small red light on beside the bed. You never know when the girl’s going to wake up in a pacifier panic, or spit up and need emergency cleaning, or any number of other horrid, life-threatening things.

But  last night, K thought we should do an experiment — open the blind to the window on her side of the bed and see if that provides enough light. And it did.

And so for the first time in weeks and weeks, I lay there in the dark, no red light filling the room with an oddly calm-yet-angry glow (red light is just really not all that pleasant at all), and it honestly felt as if it was the firs time in my life that I’d slept in the dark. It felt like going to bed without brushing my teeth, or coming home without hugging, kissing, and playing with the girl, or eating cereal with skim milk — it just felt unnatural.

Next step — get the girl to stay in her crib all night, even in the midst of needing a 1:00 a.m. feeding…