Onward

It was a big weekend in still other ways. Clara has been weaned. She has been weaned from bottles for some time, but Julie had still been nursing her in the morning and the evening. A trip for work to Washington, DC in the offing provided a ready break, and a ready break of some other making was probably needed. As Ted commented to Julie, she'd nurse until they were 18 without one. He exaggerates, but it is true that Joe and Clara took this change at their respective times much more in stride than Julie did. What Julie said in response to Ted, through sobs, was, "But she can't even hold a spoon yet!" So you see, Dear Readers, the variety of perspectives--or, perhaps, that one person has it, and one does not.

Nursing Clara was different from nursing Joe. It's not that Julie thought it would be the same, she just didn't think it would be so different. Still, she loved it just as much, for different reasons. She read so many books nursing Joe on the porch, and then in the corner of the sofa when the weather turned. She couldn't read as much nursing Baby Bird. For one thing, she had to nurse Baby Bird lying down if she could, and for another, Baby Bird flapped around too much. But this means Julie has so many memories of being tucked up with Clara in the blankets while the rain came down on the roof, the sun was rising, or evening was falling. The Birds napped a lot together. Julie never would have done this with Joe. For one thing, he probably would have spit up. For another, she wouldn't have thought she was wrecking his sleep habits forever to let him fall asleep on top of her chest. She knew better by Birdie's time. Lately, the Birds had been playing peek-a-boo in the mornings with the blankets. It's that little pocket of time in the morning, just Birds, that Julie is going to miss.

So a week or two ago, Julie and Clara dropped the nighttime feeding. Julie did what she always does when she's gloomy: she headed straight for the bookstore and picked up a whole raft of new board books to read to Birdie before bed. When the Birds read before Baby Bird goes down for the night, Julie holds Clara in her lap, facing out. Clara puts her first two fingers on her left hand in her mouth, and tosses her right hand up to find some of Julie's hair to twirl.

And then this morning, Clara sat down to breakfast at the table for the first time. Joe pulled a fast one--wanted cereal instead of waffles! Julie told Clara weekend breakfast was usually better than cold cereal, but Birdie's feathers seemed unruffled.

One of the books Julie bought in her effort to lighten her heavy heart a few weeks ago is called You Are My I Love You. How she missed this book until now, she will never know. It begins, "I am your parent; you are my child. I am your quiet place; you are my wild." It continues on in this vein for some pages. Julie finds this is just the sort of book that she and probably all bookworm-type parents love--and leave their children sighing and squirming. Birdie, especially, has no patience for the things she has no patience for and so Julie had sort of low expectations for this book. But Birdie settled right in for it the first time Julie read it, and she has every time since.

Somewhere toward the middle of the book are these lines, "I am your way home; you are my new path." Julie thinks it's the best description of parenting she's seen, and she keeps thinking about as she rounds this bend in the path.