freewrite: baby lust

motherlove is such a feral, physical thing, full of touching, kissing, belly rubs, tickling, snuggling, comforting. when words and songs cannot suffice, a simple hand held out, rested on a tiny chest, grabbed by tiny hands, can calm the beating in that chest and slow the quaking of those hands. i am constantly holding chubby feet in my hands as i nurse him. i am constantly cleaning out lint and dog hair from his tiny folds and nooks and crannies. he is delicious and addictive.

and i want more. i already want more babies now. i want the thrill of the secret, knowing a new life is growing before anyone can see it. i want the endless curves of a pregnant body. i want the tiny kicks in my belly, the yoga stretches and ninja flips. i want the flood of post-birth hormones that lasted for weeks and made me love everyone, every thing, all of the time. i want the double joy of watching my son as he grows and knowing that i’ll get to watch all of these milestones again soon soon – holding up the head, finding fingers and toes, the tiny yawns and sneezes, the rolling, and all of the things i haven’t seen yet. we’re out of the four-month growth spurt and i have such a clever little boy now, exploring and seeking and responding, and i’m already forgetting the baby reflux and the weeks of waiting for my body to heal. i have a habit of looking back with rose-colored glasses. always have. even when i tell myself, in medias res, to remember it all, the lonely, the tough, the painful, but i don’t. i look back at so many times i know were difficult and see only the romance, the perfect moments. even now, even when he is fussing and i’m trying to edit (work! real work!) and my brain is like half-melted butter, even when i ask myself if i really wish i had another… i still do.

i have practical reasons, too, to want our children close together. i don’t want to be a breastfeeding, stay-at-home mother forever – i want the baby phase to be over at some point so that i can reclaim my body and my work. i want these babes to be close to one another as friends, to have an overlap of friends.

but mostly, it’s baby lust. tiny bodies, tiny rough-hewn voices. tiny cackling giggles. tiny eyelashes on tiny eyes too young for their color to yet be determined. tiny people whose entire lifetimes can be measured in days, weeks, months. i love it.