One Month
Oliver, Ollie — formerly almost Oli, the spelling settled in the last ten minutes with the quiet authority of his Mom, turned one month old today. 30 days ago he entered into mix and changed our lives forever. At home, this first few weeks has felt relatively serene compared to what I must have built up in my mind. All that could go wrong, or right, its felt less than any of it and I say that with true appreciation. What has come instead is something mostly tender, more elemental. The slow assemblage of moments, each distilled to its sensory core. As slow as I can make them, for as long as I can have them. That’s been the vibe.
His breath has a faint but natural butter scent to it. The soundtrack he’s putting out is an album’s worth of small sounds that range from super cute coos to gargly gremlin. The soft animal noises of feeding, the restless shifting on his back and earnest exertion of tummy time. Even his cries, for now, are more curious than they are distressing. A puzzle to be solved more than a crisis to be averted. Calming him is a negotiation conducted without language, a matter of energy and intuition. To coax a burp from him, or to ease him into sleep, is to participate in a ritual as old as the species, and every time it works, even when it’s easy, it feels like a minor miracle. I love the creases on the bottom his feet and the little wrinkles on the top of both ears. He’s taking new shapes and making fresh expressions with each day.
Ollie is fascinated with windows, The light is obvious but I have this sense he is drawn to movement given to us by the natural world. Tree branches swaying in the wind and light reflections. The name, now officially spelled Ollie, was chosen by his Mom who declared, with a smile that brokered no dissent, her preference for “two L’s and an E.” That was that.
Watching them together, mother and son, has been a revelatory joy. There is a force in maternal love that is both primal and unyielding, a fact that no amount of travel or adventure could have prepared me for. I have seen remarkable places, witnessed radical things, but nothing compares to the love drama unfolding in their first month together.
Me? Well I confess: I am not in the shape I imagined I’d be for this. I have become adept at rationalizing my inertia, convincing myself, and others, that the time for exercise is always tomorrow. In the meantime, I have acquired new skills like the ability to perform basic tasks with one hand, while the other is occupied by a ten-pound, wiggling sack of potatoes. A reference to a phrase I heard a lot as a child, not much any longer. It is not a talent that comes naturally, but necessity is a relentless instructor. I suspect Ollie will force me into better shape, if only to keep up with him when he inevitably outruns me, throws father than I do and jumps higher. I’ll be proud, if not entirely enthusiastic.
There are moments, too, of pure comedy… the baby, hungry and fussy, escalating from mild complaint to sustained protest, only to be instantly pacified by the right motion, the right offering. The transformation from distress to determined feeding, is so abrupt it borders on silly. The boy can eat. On that front specifically we feel fortunate hearing about how it often times goes the other way where infants have a challenge eating and gaining weight.
Many of my closest friends and family who’ve embarked on the adventure before us have assured me it only gets better, that the years ahead are richer still. For now, I am content to slow time, to take up as long as lease of these early days as fully as I can, knowing that the inception stage is fleeting, and that its astonishments will not last forever.
Glory to this family 🐣🐥