Very Last First Times

I am simply watching his face tonight. He doesn't sleep; at least, not for more than a moment or two at a time. Perhaps its his dreams, or transient gas, but his smile wakens him as it flashes across his face. I cannot help but adore his expression, here in these quiet, dark moments in the night.

I'm tired. I, too, remain awake, although reluctantly. My energy wanes as his re-surges. He wants to play, eat, babble...while all I desire is the deliverance of sweet sleep. Most nights, my frustration level escalates along with the numbers on the clock. Dawn gathers like storm clouds on the horizonof my soul as I face another weary day.

Despite this, tonight I am content. I mimic his little laugh. I mirror his great grin. I'm not sure if it is because I know tomorrow will change things. That as I hold him skin-to-skin, our days together like this are numbered. And the number is small, ever-decreasing, winding--no, rushing--down to a zero-threshold, a moment of no return. Tonight, I have the premonition that it is the beginning of the end. That as we lie here on the couch it is one of our very last first times.

As the youngest child, I wonder if he knows. If he'll ever understand. His is my last first laugh. It is the last time I will ever be someone's first love. Our last secret moments before the day steals him away from me, and after that, the years.

I've been here before. My other baby boy is now a little man who would rather leap from my arms than burrow into them. He slept for the first six weeks right on my chest, and breathing in sync, we snuggled. Now, he is all his own. I love him, lead him, teach him, kiss his bruises and boo-boos. But long gone are the long nights of infancy.

I don't wish them back. Not really, not yet. Someday I'm sure I will. The first time they spend the night with a friend. The first birthday they're away from home. The night they marry and suddenly belong to some other woman. It seems so distant sometimes, this future I know is only a split second from being the present. But not tonight.

Tonight feels suspended between reality and regret. This chasm of sleeplessness can only be crossed by relinquishing the right to these tiny moments of terrible joy. I entertain the knowledge that as we press forward, I may be forever glancing backward, trying to remember the joy of it--my very last first time. I'm not even sure which moments to memorialize. Is it my last time nursing him, or only nearly so? And which time is the last time I'll swaddle him to sleep?

He cries now. Hungry? Lonely? Tired? Just for tonight I have all the patience he demands. I have willing arms and waiting sustenance. I have a spot saved by my side for his sleeping. And I cry with him. Not for sleep this time. Tonight my tears are for these deep blessings. For the mystery of these momentary miracles. For all the last first times of being mommy.

"But Mary treasured up all these things

and pondered them in her heart"

--Luke 2:19