motherhood |
Christmas
The meal had come to a halt. The festive table had uncurled
its last party blower and snapped its last cracker. Chocolate mints lay
smeared across the surface, trailing uneaten from their tartan-beribboned
basket. A pudding bowl held up part of the tablecloth on which someone
had spilled red wine and then white "to take the stain of the red
out". The atmosphere was rich with aromas of rum butter, brandy sauce,
orange liqueur, sherry trifle and wine. Even the cat looked tipsy.
Beside the ruins of the feast, surrounded by empty wine bottles and
dropped chipolatas the cat wouldnt touch, baby Jamie was asleep
in his padded car seat. The alcohol-laden air appeared to have affected
him as well. He was deeply asleep, his lips moving slightly in a sucking
motion. Hed lost the dark hair he was born with and his soft head
was anointed with a fine fluffy down.
I sat back in my chair, swinging the front legs slightly as I had never
been allowed to do as a child. I was feeling less like a mummy-machine
than usual, and more like the self-contained balanced woman I had a hazy
memory of. I watched Jamie as he slept. He looked the embodiment of a
baby cherub. Growing wings would be a formality.
In my first days in hospital with him, I had felt as if I were in heaven.
I had lived in a haze: probably induced by the pethidine. My experience
was largely physical; for once in my intellectual life I did not want
to think. Instinct passed the time.
I spent long moments that seemed like aeons gazing into the eyes of
that small baby, raking him with my gaze, examining every microscopic
path of skin, fluffy baby hair, getting to know this creature which was
me, had come from me, still was me. When he fed he suckled from my whole
being and we were one. Once he was asleep in his cot I too curled up on
my side, my knees tucked into my chest, where I could see him clearly
in his transparent-walled cot. We were one, so that I could not tell where
I ended and he began, which was mother and which baby. Perhaps I was the
baby, curled up in bliss.
It was later that he appeared to become a changeling. The day we brought
him home from hospital was it only eight weeks ago? Leo
had walked the floor with him at one a.m. swearing that it was "time
this baby learned to sleep."
At two months Jamie was still waking three or four times a night, and
it was me who walked the floor with him when he needed it, the novelty
having soon worn off for his day-jobbed dad.
Still, Christmas had come as a blessing. Not only was Leo on holiday
for a few precious days, but Jamie had grandparents, aunts and uncles
to coo over him, dote on his every new smile and relieve me of 25-hour
care. I still had the nights to cope with, but at least I could
hand him over for an hour or so while I napped during the day. Unfortunately
I always woke up as soon as he cried -- wherever he was. No-one else could
quieten him, soothe his distress, the way I, his mother, could. No-one
could feed him except me; hed categorically refused to take a bottle
even when it contained my own milk. Still, it was early days, and he was
our first child. No doubt there were techniques I hadn't discovered yet.
I'd have to ask around. What a blessing the mother and baby groups were!
Jamie was certainly thriving. At each feed, once Id settled him
down, hed suck away for hours. Now that was true bliss, when the
baby was contentedly feeding and I had nothing to do but relax and enjoy
his company. He was putting weight on, like a baby elephant rather than
a boy. He fed and fed, every hour sometimes, and then hed go right
off it for a while. I put that down to something I'd eaten, but I was
never sure what.
Everyone else was watching the Queens speech in the lounge. For
once I didnt mind being the one watching the baby. He was so sweet
I could eat him, smother him in butter and honey and cram him back inside
me where it would all be so simple again.
The Queens speech had now finished, and there were sounds of people
moving about in the other rooms of my mother-in-laws big house.
The doorbell rang, voices greeted and the visitors coursed through the
house, great plump people shedding big coats, rolling over me and coming
to rest around the baby seat.
"Isnt he sweet?"
"A little angel! Congratulations!"
"Look at that hair!"
"Can I pick him up?"
I started to say: "But hes asleep." Already, however,
the commotion had dragged him back from milk and teddy dreamland. He looked
from strange face to strange face and seemed to consider for a while whether
it was worth getting upset.
Then his eyes went droopy, his face screwed up and he began to wail.
It took about 10 seconds before back-patting and rocking by the visitor
failed and:
"Hes hungry, I expect. Lets give you back to your Mummy,
dear!"
I accepted the writhing bundle wordlessly and left for the upper regions
of the house and privacy. Guiltily I hoped that the glass of wine Id
had with Christmas dinner would have worked its way through my system
by now and would swiftly put the baby back to his interrupted sleep. Then
I could chat to the visitors, like a real adult.
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