Benjamin Penguin

Dear Benjamin,

Let me start this letter by boldly stating that somehow, in some manner, you introduced a virus into our lives that has rendered us all prisoner to a horrible case of the sniffles. Now, I don’t blame you because, honestly, how could I? My suspicion is that you picked it up at the children’s museum. So I blame the parents that think it is totally appropriate to take their coughing, mucous-encrusted children to a public, indoor play place in the middle of winter and think nothing of exposing other children to their precious wee one’s various maladies. So let’s be mad together at those parents. Because of them, both you and I have spent the past week awake at 4am hacking up our respective lungs. And since I am an appropriate, respectful parent, I am going to keep you home and away from other children until such a time that you seem quite well enough to interact. It’s very simple, really, but simplicity does not always translate into compliance. <collects papers and steps down from soapbox>

It has been about a month since the glorious heydays of the holiday season. I miss those times not just for the abundance of cake devoured in the span of one week, but because I have limited professional and academic obligations at these times and I am able to spend a large amount of time with you totally guilt-free. When I return to working and classes, I still try and spend a lot of time with you, but that time is tempered by this nagging voice in my head that states “Those journal articles aren’t going to read themselves, you know.” When you were younger and less aware of your world, I didn’t feel as guilty about the amount of work I had to complete and how much time it sometimes took away from you. Now, however, you are a much more conscious, much more aware little individual and I feel bad when I have to ask Daddy to take you away into the other room so that I can finish writing something up. I have to orchestrate this delicate balance between meeting your needs, meeting the needs of my job and the needs of my academic program. It means that I essentially have a full 16-hour day and that I am verging on the deliriously tired almost every day of the week. Sometimes I stop myself and wonder why I am doing this. I think you will be too young to remember the times I have had to choose work or coursework over spending time with you, but if, at age 18, you suddenly have a flashback of me wielding a highlighter and desperately motioning to Daddy to come and collect you as you are attempting to insert the entire mouse into your mouth, I want you to have an explanation to lean on to help you know why I am doing this.

Daddy and I recently had a conversation about our lives and the role of family, work and self. It was an interesting conversation, in part because it reminded me yet again that Daddy and I generally see the world in the same color family, but in very different hues. Daddy sees the world through shocking red lenses and I see things as a nice, dusty pink. Daddy sees traffic light yellow. I see lemon sorbet. So Daddy and I were having this conversation about you and how you have made such a big difference in our lives and Daddy said that you were the center of his universe and that everything revolved around you. He asked me if I felt the same way and I stopped to think about that for a second. It was such a great question and I felt it deserved a thoughtful answer. I’ve continued to think about it, and I’d like to share my thoughts with you, as I think I have reached some form of a conclusion. The short answer is yes. But the long answer is Yes, but…

Everything that I do now, everything I think about, every plan that I make or contemplate making gets filtered through my new-ish role as a mother. In the past, when I was planning my day, I thought about how my decisions would impact the relationship between me and Daddy and then how they would impact me individually. If I thought it wouldn’t mortify Daddy then I would proceed. If I thought it would, I would debate the severity of his mortification and then proceed accordingly. Sometimes, in the past, I made decisions and took actions even if I knew it would drive Daddy up a wall because I was most interested in myself at that moment and would rather deal with the repercussions of an irritated Daddy than a longing for whatever it was I was longing to do. Fast forward to having you and that has all changed. Now, when I am thinking about how to organize my day, or our lives, all thoughts and plans and possibilities get filtered through how they will impact you. And unlike past experiences, I rarely default to a position in which I just expect you to deal with some of my decisions even though I know they will irritate you. I say rarely because I think there were a few occasions when you would have liked to leave the zoo about an hour earlier than we did but I kept walking around because I couldn’t handle the thought of going home to a quiet apartment. I fully fess up to preserving my own self-interest there. But as a whole, almost all of my direction during a particular day flows from your needs and how to best work with those while still maintaining some of the things I need for myself.

So when I was sitting at the table with Daddy on the day in question and he asked me if you were the center of my universe and I said yes, but… I am pretty sure I shocked him. His answer to his own question was so quick and so assured. Of course you are the center of his universe. And should I not have immediately said the exact same thing? Because I think the answer that every mother is supposed to give is an emphatic yes. Yes, every movement that I make in a day as a mother is crafted around you and your needs. Now, this is, to some extent true. As I said above, everything I do and want to do is filtered through whether it will work for you and your needs. But, there are moments where I have to do things, and even moments where I want to do things, that are not remotely for you. I want to talk a long walk by myself because I love the feeling of my legs carrying me across the ground, the wind hitting me in the face, the scenery that unfolds around me and the stillness of not having to have a conversation with anyone but the voices in my own head. I look forward to going into work some mornings because I have a task list laid out before me that will challenge my mental faculties and really make me think about the best way to approach the problems. I read some journal articles not because I have to but because I get a thrill out of learning new information. I want you to go to bed early one night not because you seem extra sleepy but because I want to cuddle up next to Daddy on the daybed and hold him and talk to him. All of these things – these things that seem to have nothing to do with you – do have something to do with you in a much broader sense. These things make me feel happy and when I feel happy I feel like a better Mama. So when I ask Daddy to take you into the living room to play because I need to write some paragraph that is admittedly quite inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, I’m doing so because even though I’ll feel bad in the moment, that small paragraph is leading to a paper that will lead to the completion of my course that will lead me to my degree that will lead me to a fulfilling job that will lead me to life satisfaction and THAT will directly translate into my ability to be a happy, healthy functioning Mama for you. So yes, sweetheart, you are the center of my universe in a very profound way, but in order to make that happen, my universe has to be very large and contain a number of celestial bodies. I will make every effort to shine my light on you every single day, but some days those beams will have to be shared and I hope you can still find ways to bask in the warmth I am able to provide.

I think the most important thing for you to know is that with every passing month, I am loving motherhood more and more. You’ve started to become so interesting and fun to be around and I am taking such joy in the time we spend together. You’ve started to let Daddy and I know when you want or need something, and this has had the added benefit of fewer tears because we kinda, sorta maybe can figure out what it is that you would like to have in your hands at any given moment. Your newest means of communication is to point and make an “enhh” sound. I think I love the pointing the most because it is quite adorable to see your little chubby finger crookedly pointing to an object of interest. You start by raising your arm quickly into the air, extending your pointer finger. The finger starts out pointing forward but for some reason, you then turn your wrist inward and actually point in the opposite direction of what you are trying to draw attention to. I always find it funny, but you seem to find it incredibly frustrating if Daddy nor I saw you pointing from the start because your crooked point will lead us in the wrong direction. We usually figure it out, but not without a lot of gesturing and furrowed brows on your part. Sometimes you do a double fisted point and send us scattering in opposite directions in an attempt to figure out what exactly it is you are looking at. Thankfully, on most occasions it is the dancing Christmas penguin, the infant cheese puffs or your pacifier that you most desire, so we have some reliable items to default back on if we truly can’t figure it out.

Your most endearing characteristic is your love of sharing. You try to share everything with everyone. You are always trying to hand Daddy or I the pacifier or toy that you are playing with and you are always trying to feed us your snacks and bits of your meals. But the love doesn’t stop there, as you have also tried to share your snacks, pacifiers and toys with other children, other family members, random restaurant servers and strangers passing by on the street. I am not sure if all children go through a period in which they do this before they are suddenly hit with the realization that the world revolves around them or if this is an anomaly for which we should be truly grateful, but I’ll just go ahead and enjoy it while it lasts in case it is the former. You’ve also become something of a little helper and just love to assist Daddy or I in unpacking groceries, washing the dishes or putting things into containers. If ever Daddy or I have a pressing need to move an item from the plastic Jewel bag to the paper Whole Foods bag or feel compelled to store your baby food in the Snapple drink box, we know that we can always rely on you to lend a helping hand in such endeavors. You are also quite adept at reorganizing the kitchen cabinets and expertly storing the microwave popcorn bags on my bookshelf and your crayons in the plastic bottle of baby crack puffies. It’s almost like every day is Easter morning – I smile to think of all the unexpected places I will uncover your little treasures. Just yesterday you were found stuffing my business cards into the DVD player on our PC and right now I am observing you place jars of baby food into a mesh storage tote. Good times!

There are so many little things that you are doing now that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep track of all of them. You are not walking just yet, but you will hang on to things and move around the items in a spritely little dance. You’ve also made the transition from your favored army crawl to a hands-and-knees crawl, and in this position, you can get pretty far pretty fast. Just the other day I set you down in the dining room to pick up something before moving us to the living room for play time and when I looked up you had darted down the hall and were ritually dunking your hands into the dog’s water bowl. I say it all the time, but this place needs serious toddler-proofing. Your increased agility and movement allows you to do things that often catch us unaware and we find that we are always attempting to redirect you post priori rather than outsmarting you in the first place. I also think you are a bright little guy. You seem to pick up on things really quickly. You are a tremendous fan of hummus and you often observe us taking your baby spoon to scoop the hummus onto your tray for you. If we place the spoon on your tray, you generally let us know you want more by picking up your spoon and trying to put it into the hummus container. You also seem to have quite a good memory. Yesterday, Daddy and I had a very nice date night together and you spent time with your Grandma. She put your toy bag in front of you – the one adorned with kittens and flowers and a little bird – and asked you to point to the little bird. And you did just that. Then she asked you to point to the kittens, and your little chubby finger fell squarely onto a kitten’s face.

For me, one of the sweetest things that I have experienced is your intentional use of the word Mama. When I come in from work, you are generally in the kitchen with Daddy as he is preparing dinner. You can’t see me just yet because you can’t see the hallway from the kitchen, but you hear me coming in and you hear me greeting LuLu and before I can even enter the kitchen to say hello, I can hear “Mama, Mama, Mama” tumbling out of your little mouth. There are also nights that I sometimes pass out on the daybed in the living room and don’t sleep with you and Daddy in the bedroom and I can hear you say “Mama, Mama, Mama” when you awake in the morning. It is such a soft, sweet sound that I have to confess – I sometimes linger a little bit before going to you just so that I can hear it a little bit longer. You are also starting to do this with the word Dada and when you are trying to get Daddy’s attention, you will sometimes be heard to say “Dada, Dada.” This morning, Daddy was sleeping with his back to you and when you awoke, you started tapping him on the back with your pacifier and calling “Dada, dada.” When he awoke and turned towards you, you smiled and put your pacifier in his mouth. And this is why, even though we’ve sometimes heard or read negative comments about the family bed, we continue to share a sleeping space together. You’ll hit an age where the last thing in the world you want to do is to cuddle with your parents. Right now, you think it is just about the best thing ever, and so do we. I’ll never regret spending all the stolen moments with you that I can and it makes waking up in the morning to go to work all day that much easier knowing that I was there in bed with my hand on your arm all night.

Love,

Mama