[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj-4t9drUlM&feature=related]
I have two sons. I share them with lots of people, their father, my parents, my aunts, cousins, friends. The boys are loved by people near and far, and I am so grateful for that. The people who love me, love them. And that network of acceptance and care is invaluable.
Today, Clinton is 10. I’ve been thinking about his birth. What it was like for me to give birth for the second time. My sons are only 15 months apart and when number 2’s due date drew near, the surreal, painful and exhausting birth of number 1 was still fresh in my mind.
When Ethan was born and I held him face to face for the first time I felt oddly reunited. Like one of the puzzle pieces to my life had finally been found under the couch, or rather up my uterus, and slid into place seamlessly. I still have those feelings. There are pieces of me that haven’t been found yet. But with Ethan it was so completely obvious that I knew him and he knew me, and now, things could start happening.
So, naturally, I assumed it would be that way with the next birth… a moment of recognition and reunion. I held him close looked into his eyes and… zap! Who is this? I smiled at the little bundle of mystery that I had made. I had no idea who this being was. He felt wild to me. He felt like pure cosmic energy that I had given a body to. I was scared for a moment, but then I smiled. I remember thinking to him, as I snuggled him close for our first of many sleeps together, “I don’t know who you are, but we are going to have an adventure.”
10 years. And I was right. I can never tell what direction Clinton is going to come at me from. I can maybe sometimes predict where he’s going, but insofar as the only real constant to my second son is that he reserves the right to change our course at any moment. It’s like a stubborn free-spiritedness. He is much more emotional than Ethan and I allow ourselves to be. He hates the intellectual debates that keep Ethan and I connected. Clinton still needs snuggles, to be held close sometimes just for me to say to him, “We’re in this adventure together.”
When Ethan turned 10 it hit me that I had been a mom for a decade. Now that Clinton is 10, it hits me that my baby days are long gone.