Maternal Bliss. It exists.
How I love to look at this baby boy sleeping! The chunky cheeks, the tiny hands across the chest or above his head, the legs finally still. I just want to squeeze him or eat him up or something.. something has to be done, what else to do with my feelings?
I've slept in the same bed with all my babies and while it's often exhausting, I've come to love it more with every one of them. I think right now it's my favorite thing to do with Nikola. He is a solid sleeper, so that helps. Every night when I curl up around him I fall asleep thinking how perfect this is and how privileged I am. His delicious baby smell surrounds us as I listen to him breathing with those typical fast paced baby-sighs. He lies there completely relaxed, stretching occasionally, utterly confident that everything around him is ok. Usually at those times I also have to fight an avalanche of what-if-type thoughts. His obvious trust puts all the darkness of the world on my back. I can spend a long time thinking how to preserve this innocence, how to somehow make sure nothing bad will ever happen. It's not rational, but still somehow, I must...
Fortunately most of the time sleep saves me from trying to come up with a universal solution for suffering. Other times I end up trying to discipline myself from letting fear overwhelm me. Maybe for the time being I should rather let his peaceful trust take over me instead of making myself believe that I can keep the sky from falling. When you sleep with a baby it's hard not to believe that in the end we will all live happily ever after.
Posted at 10:23 AM on August 01, 2008
Oh, what a beautiful post, Dinka! I know the feeling of having the weight of all the world and its evils on my shoulders as well... it's not easy to be a mother. But those cute babies are sure worth it!