Joy
Is holding a newborn baby for an hour while she snuggles like a roly poly bug. Sometimes I place Brielle on my lap so I can watch her new face squint against the light. Her eyes crack open and she darts glances one way, then another. She stares at the window and makes an O with her mouth. She yawns, so big, and sneezes. She sighs. When she begins to get sleepy her eyes twitch and her mouth goes through all the known expressions…. fearful frowns, curious grimaces, and the sweetest newborn smiles.
Most of the time I hold her against my shoulder. She likes Grandma’s cushiness – I’m built to cuddle babies. She squeaks. Once in awhile she squawks and starts rooting. If I need her to wait for a little while for Mama milk, I’ll let her suck on her little fist. She slurps and sucks, slurps and sucks. Or I’ll wear a tank top so she can lick and mouth my neck. Tiny newborn kisses searching for comfort and milk. I know how to keep a baby soothed long enough that she’s just squealing, not screaming, until Mama is there to offer the ever-ready milk.
Joy
Is having my 20-month old grandbaby look to me for comfort when she’s sick or sad. Eliora is having an ear infection, teething molars, and has been displaced as the “baby” all at the same time. Usually the happy-go-lucky smiley-face girl, she’s been crying in the morning or after nap. I pick her up, all drooley and slimey from mucous. She buries her head against my neck and I give up on that clean T-shirt. Her busy toddler body totally slumps and relaxes in my arms. She trusts me, even after I make her scream by wiping her nose. I give her medicine and juice and carry her until her coughing stops. Then her wide-eyed smile takes over and she starts her busy, flirty day.
She brings me two books at a time. She backs her diaper-padded bottom onto my lap. I read the short, rhyming cardboard books with drama and action. I’m confident in my reading… after all I was a school librarian who read to every class every week. I sing the songs and chant the rhymes. When we finish those two books she slides off my lap and trots to the bookcase to get two more. We can read twenty books in a row. Then a book will remind me of a game to try with her.
Eliora and I play a mean round of “Patty Cake.” I clap her hands together; I roll her hands to roll out the dough. She squeals with giggles when I write a “B” on her palm, and she laughs when I stretch her arms up for “Baby and me!!!!” Then she looks at me with big eyes and demands “Den!” I assume that means “again.” So we do patty-cake again, and again. We do patty-cake ten times in a row! I give up before she does. “Eliora, do you want to play in your room?” So we head to her room to play with the xylophone-alligator, or the kitchen, or the blocks.
Joy
Is knowing my four-year-old granddaughter so well, and having her know me well enough to laugh at me and tease me. “Grandma, you’re a silly goose!” Nayeli loves tradition so we do some things every visit… “I love you this much.” “No, I love you this much!” “I love you all the way to the sky.” “No, I love you all the way to the sky!” “I love you as big as the ocean….” Lately she’s been cheating. Out of the blue, “Grandma, I love you as big as the earth.” I scratch my brain trying to think how to top that. She throws her head back and laughs at me.
I always sang lullabyes to Nayeli as part of our bedtime routine. She’s now allowed “only two songs” because she knew she could always drag “just one more” out of this easy target. She’s grown past lullabyes. Just last visit she was still asking for her favorites, like “Horsie, Horsie.” On the way back from visiting Brielle in the hospital on Thursday, however, I sang one silly song after another. She knew she had hit a gold mine. Now when I tuck her in for nap or bedtime she asks for “two new songs.” My mind stretches back past school teaching days, through Girl Scouts, all the way back to the silly songs of my childhood. Every night we exchange “favorites”… “What was your favorite part of the day.” Every day since Brielle was born, the new baby has topped her list, but Sunday Nayeli said “my favorite thing was when you sang the Susanna song, and holding my new baby sister.”
Joy
Is watching my daughter mother my grandchildren. While exhausted from the demands of a newborn she understands the need for her other two to have Mommy time. She cuddles and reads books with Nayeli and Eliora. The most amazing/painful/joy came from watching her read Someday by Alison McGhee and Peter H. Reynolds. I had given this book to her, but it ended up with Nayeli’s books. As soon as Nayeli brought it out to read Rhiannon teared up and said “I don’t think I can read this right now.” She was already filled with stress and confusion and love as she tried to give time to her oldest daughter and middle baby; while dealing with contractions and newly filled breasts. “Don’t touch Mommy when I’m nursing, sweetie, it hurts too much,” falls on deaf four-year-old ears when Nayeli just wants to get close to her baby sister. Eliora is even more persistent, wanting to climb on Mommy’s lap even though there’s a baby in the way, a baby that needs to be shielded from Eliora’s dripping nose and persistent cough.
Rhiannon opens the books, and reads “One day I counted your fingers and kissed each one.” She’s okay during the first couple pages of babyhood and childhood milestones. Then she gets to, “Someday I will stand on this porch and watch your arms waving to me until I no longer see you.” Rhiannon starts sobbing. “Someday you will feel a small weight against your back.” Picture of a mommy with a child in a carrying pack. I’m tearing up now. Nayeli and Eliora look at their mommy, wondering why she’s crying and clutching them to her. Finally, “Someday, a long time from now, your hair will turn silver in the sun…and when that day comes, love, you will remember me.”
