A Year Gone By
By Tiffany Lewis

I think I’m beginning to understand why some parents end up having more children than they ever bargained for. You think the days are endless, then you look over one morning and your “baby” is saying, “I’m all done,” and lobbing his sippy cup across the floor.

And you realize your baby is no longer a baby.  He’s 13 months old, with bright blue eyes and curly red hair sprouting out like poppies.  He faces forward in his car seat and I catch his eye in the rearview mirror. He laughs and the world melts. Where has this year gone? Is this hefty boy with marshmallow cheeks the same infant who lay helpless in the newborn ICU? Has it really been more than 365 days, 52 weeks, since I pushed and screamed this child into the world? In all those precious minutes, what have I done with my time, his time?

Well, I’ve changed enough diapers to overflow a landfill. I’ve washed a lot of dirty clothes and crusty dishes. I’ve eaten Cheerios and rolled on the floor with my boys. I’ve done a thousand under-doggies at the park. I’ve bathed a lot of slippery bodies.

In a year my son has learned to roll over, sit up, spit up, chew chicken, pull his brother’s hair, search for hidden objects, hold his own bottle, and take a few tentative steps. Can I say I’ve grown that much? Well, I can do the splits again, and jog around the block without keeling over.

But can I hold my temper? Have I learned to be kinder, gentler?

How many new recipes have I tried? How many new nonfiction books have I read? Have I taken any steps toward achieving my lifetime goals? Did I make an effort to get to know that cashier’s name at the grocery store? Have I always reacted the way I should when people were unkind? Am I any more Christ-like than I was 12 months ago? When was the last time I wrote my grandfather?

I’m afraid that I worried too much about keeping a clean floor, instead of dropping down to a child’s level to play chase. Caught up in the frenzy of ticking minutes, perhaps I’ve been too concerned about “picking up” instead of picking up on the cues that all my boys wanted was for me to play trucks. Maybe I’ve shut out the sunshine too many times, instead of letting us all go barefoot in the grass. Was I so afraid of getting wet and dirty that I kept us in on a rainy day, forgetting that glorious childhood experience of water running like a river down the forehead to the corner of the mouth, of feeling a shirt soaked through and feet crinkled and pink from splashing in puddles, and the comfort of coming inside, peeling off wet clothes and climbing into a tingling warm bath?

Did I lose my temper one too many times, only to turn around and tell my son he needed to “BE MORE PATIENT!”  How many teaching moments did I let slide by? How many times did I stop to hug my children, or my husband, not because they did anything special, but because they simply were themselves?

I hope that in the end, I can say that I’ve learned as much from my son as he’s learned from me. I’ve taught him to say “ball,” “bird,” “moon,” “water,” “bottle.” I’ve taught him to roll a ball across the room, hold a sippy cup, and crawl up the stairs. Okay, I’m kidding myself. He taught himself all those things; he didn’t need me around. I’m there to catch the ball, clap at the new word, pick up the sippy cup, and scream in fright when I find him on the top step of our stairs, laughing and giggling.

But here’s what he’s taught me: From watching him try something over and over again, I’ve learned that I give up far too easily. He has taught me how to throw my head back and laugh, and laugh, and laugh until the joy rises up from bottom to top, and you really do feel like you’re in that scene from Mary Poppins, floating high above the ground, all because you said the word “zook” and your child found that funny. He has taught me how to find joy in the flicker of a candle and the thin, rainbow film of a soap bubble. I’ve learned that love is not contingent, because despite my weaknesses, I am still the person he loves most (at least until that first girlfriend comes along).

My son, at 13 months, still hasn’t learned to walk. While I cook, or clean, or do anything requiring mobility, he clings to my leg with one hand. I am his stabilizer. He knows that through the fatigue, the hunger, the wet diapers and bonks on the head, there is a mother who is there, always there, to love him, to pick him up, to show him the mysteries that happen high above him. This year, this promising year of 2005, I will be right by his side, as we learn to take steps forward through this great big world together.