Babies and Their Future as People

My ten year old still has soft, little boy cheeks. I can bury my nose in them as I did when he was really small. Tonight he tried to stay up late with us while his sister was away at a sleepover. After a day of activity and several hours of baseball practice, he just could not make it much past 9:30pm. As I lay with him and he fell asleep, I marveled at those soft cheeks. Within a few years, which will speed by like only the years of a child’s soft cheeks can, he will sprout whiskers and start shaving. His soft cheeks will be gone forever. It is an unbearable thought for me yet I smile at the thought of how wonderful he will be as a man. How proud I will be to see him tall and handsome doing whatever it is that he will do.

Parenthood is a constant oscillation between overwhelming emotions: I will keep you forever in the Mommy Cave. Get out of my cave this instant. Inhale their sweet smell while locked in an embrace. Barely attempt to quiet your roar as you become, yet again, a giant human napkin or perhaps, hanky. We grip our sweet peas close and yet lay tire exiting car line on the first day of school with utter glee clawing its way out of our mouths in a primal scream while we exceed the speed limit driving to Starbucks to meet our other recently liberated comrades.

There is really nothing to be done about this excruciating waffle of emotions and its bittersweet taste. You must simply live through them otherwise missing some of the best of parenthood. You must have tears to enjoy the laughter, strife to achieve serenity and noise to appreciate the silence. There must be hour upon hour of togetherness to really wrap your head around the majestic beauty of a 2 ½ year old who is taking a nap.

We become parents by birth or adoption or marriage and by offering a bit of ourselves to our children, they become people. Babies are mere packages containing those people. They are soft, defenseless and needy – but inside are those who they become. Inside are the husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, joyful and weeping, thoughtful and insensitive, innocent and learned, amazing creatures yet to be. They are waiting to unwrap themselves. Ensure the arrival of those fantastic and unrealized futures by carefully tending their beginnings.

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