The Education Of Babies And Their Grandmothers

One of the things I love most about taking care of Owen is observing how quickly he is learning. I see him just often enough to get to notice every change and every change in him is just so freaking amazing to me, even though I know that every baby goes through the same stages, learns the same things, does the same things.

It's not at all unlike being a mother- our own babies' progress stuns and amazes us, even as we know it's natural. And makes us sad, too, because we know they are growing up, even as they are only a few months old, and that means that eventually our babies won't be babies any more and that is why we have more babies.

To experience that magic once again.

Somehow it's just not quite as cute when your toddler learns to say "NO!" as it is when your baby learns to put his fingers in his mouth and not as enchanting when your three-year old learns to lie as it is when your three-month old learns to put his fingers in YOUR mouth for a nibble and then a grin is given back.

Where is my baby? we moan, and sure enough, the baby is gone and a child has taken its place, albeit a child we love and adore, but then we go and get pregnant again so we'll have a baby around.

And so it goes and Mother Nature is one smart old bitch.

And I think that's part of the joy and charm of being a grandmother. We have gone through the grief and mourning of not having any more babies and we have resigned ourselves to the fact that there will be no more babies and then TA-DAH! There is another baby.

Another baby for us to fall completely and utterly in love with, to sing silly songs to, to hold and feed and rock and watch as they grow, as they change, as they fall asleep in our arms, their impossibly long eye-lashes resting on their cheeks.

And so it is with Owen. When he was very little and I would sit in the back seat with him while his mother drove, I would rock his car seat and sing him a little song that goes, "Rock-a-rock-a-roni, Ride him like a pony." And this song keeps getting more and more verses.
"Rock-a-rock-a-roni, Ride him like a pony,
Give me macaroni,
Don't feed me no bologna, (pronounced, of course, baloney)
I'll call you on my phone-y,
I'm not too fat or bony,
Watch me on your Sony,
If I were Mormon I'd believe in the Angel Moroni,
Etc."

Amazing how many things rhyme with roni.

And he likes it, that silly song. I sing it to him when he is sitting on my lap and I am rocking him or when he's getting his diaper changed. He loves lying on his back and having your face right up next to his. He's starting to do that conversational thing babies do where they fold their little hands under their chins and look at you so seriously and then begin to speak in Child-ish.
Oh. Melt my damn heart, why don't you?

"Do you love me?" I ask him. "Is that what you're saying?"
And he looks at me with those big brown eyes and says that yes, he loves me.
I understand Child-ish. I speak it fluently.

He reaches out now to grab a toy and can hold on to it. He holds my fingers tightly and he smiles at me when I talk to him or blow raspberries on his belly and when I change his diaper.
And we all try to make him smile. His Pop-pop, his mama, his daddy, his Aunt Jessie, his Uncle Hank, his Aunt May. We kiss him and kiss him and then we kiss him some more. Jessie was talking to him in his little bouncy seat and I was folding laundry five steps away and I had to come back into the kitchen with every garment to watch him and kiss him again because I can't stay five steps away without taking those steps to come and see, to kiss.


I have decided that babies are lip magnets. Their heads, their mouths, their hands, their feet, their bellies- they all have a huge lip-gravitational pull and we must, we MUST give in and kiss, kiss, kiss.

Hell. Damn. I have fallen completely in love with this little man cub we have. I honestly had no idea what this was going to be like. I had a suspicion, knowing what I know about how one falls in love with ones own baby but still- I didn't know for sure.
And now I do.
And it's like, well, another part of my heart has busted wide open and the love that has burst out has me in awe.

So. That's how my day ended up- being with Owen. And it's been a good day. Hank's visit and I cleaned up the chicken coop and I am still doing laundry and I made a big pot of beans and one of greens and I watered all the plants and I collected five gorgeous eggs and Mr. Moon and Jessie put lights up in front of the house.

And now Mr. Moon and Jessie are off to a basketball game and I am going to wash the dishes and finish the laundry and then it'll be time for bed. And tomorrow- I get Owen again.

We will sing and we will rock and we will stroll around the yard in the All Terrain Stroller that my ex gave me after his grandchild didn't need it any more.

Yes. It's good. Almost too good and as Owen grows and changes, this grandmother is paying attention. This grandmother is taking it all in. As Owen's eyes focus and learn, so are mine.

Mother Nature is a grandmother. Take my word for this.

A smart old grandmother who delights in her nefarious schemes to make us have babies and then love taking care of them and then love taking care of their babies.

No. I am not ready for Christmas but who cares? I have the Baby.
And that, my friends, is the meaning of it all.
The promise of the baby, each one holy, each one precious, each one God.

And that's what I think. That's what this grandmother thinks as Christmas draws near, as the Baby grows up, and all of us who pay attention are the Wise Men. And Wise Women.

Hallalujah.