Dragon Feet

For half an hour this Sunday morning, I watched our baby sleep.  Such bliss I have never known.  There are beautiful moments, every day, even sad days.  I may doubt my career aspirations, my artistic ability, my look, my – anything else.  But I will never doubt my wifehood or my motherhood, or how it’s changed me for the better, even now, in its (and my son’s) infancy.  I don’t know much, but I know I love you, and that may be all there is to know. (Thank you Aaron Neville.)

 

He’s wearing a dragon sleeper.  The feet are little dragons, and they are tucked up near his bum.  This is how he sleeps – feet curled up, arms flailed wide.  A tiny blue bird embroidered on his chest is rising up and down, up and down with his breath.  The bird is dressed like a knight, off to slay the dragon, but both are smiling.  Without malice.  The blue room is dim and quiet.  He makes no noise.  His mouth is open, his face smooth.  He is so relaxed, the splotches between his eyes – flaming red in times of stress – are invisible (a newborn feature, something to do with maternal hormones in the womb – they are euphemistically known as "Angel’s Kisses".)  Every once in a while he stirs – balling up tiny fists, chin thrust forward, head jerking side to side, and then once more relaxed.

 

As he’s sleeping, expressions are flitting across his face.  His eyebrows waggle, and then he wrinkles his nose, and then a quick wide smile, and then his tiny mouth suckling.  At one point, he frowns deeply and his breathing changes, and all of a sudden I hear him warm his trousers – and afterwards, still sleeping, he lets out such a contented, guttural sigh that I laugh.  Such gusto.  Aunt Amanda and I took him to the pool yesterday for the first time ever, and I wonder if he’s dreaming about this, being gently rocked by the water, splashed by rowdy kids, the chatter of excited children on summer break.  Do three month old children dream in such ways?  What is his as-yet unsophisticated mind capable of?  Patrick and I wonder this every day.

 

I am captivated lately by horrible things in the news.  This happened also just before I got married.  Maybe it is that when you have so much to live for, you become more afraid of dying, or of loss?

 

I look at him, at the bluebird "knight"-without-a-sword stitched on his pjs, the smiling dragon, the cloud of hair fuzz on his head, getting redder and redder every day, and the whole wide world spins on the vortex at which he is the center, and I know now how strange it is and how lucky I am that I am liked by my mother-in-law.

 

The dragon is breathing fire.  Must go meet his needs.  Hour after hour, day after day.  I act the slave, but with joy in my heart.