Friday, July 26

"the only place I ever need to be"


We lay on the bed in the middle of the afternoon, the baby and I. I am stretched out and he is swaddled, nursing and napping. I doubt I will get to sleep. I watch shows on my phone, and when he unlatches and sighs and settles, I roll away from him, onto my stomach and into the sweet relief of my favorite sleep position, knowing it'll only be for a few minutes. Twenty's about the upper limit of how long he will go, and when he starts to fuss and flail, and I roll back in close, line up my nipple to his tiny rosebud mouth. I think back on my first son's infancy, how the story has become that he would not sleep unless nursing or being worn, though I don't really know now if that's actually true or whether it just feels true. How stuck and panicked I felt all the time, literally being sucked dry. How all through my pregnancy I swore that things would be different with this second baby. Who, growing more and more aware each day, seems to have some distinctly different ideas than mine. I think ahead to the future, next week, next month, wondering how how how will I survive this again if he doesn't, as his brother didn't, ever let go. The painful past and fearful future crowd in around us on the bed, tuck us in close, breathing in my face and down my neck, so that it's all but impossible to just be here, this afternoon, in this fleeting moment with my sweet nursing baby. Which is the only place I ever need to be.


Linking up with Christina Rosalie's Just One Paragraph.

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