Day 36

I get why people don't like children.  They're loud.  They say exactly what they think.  They have dirt in the corners of their mouths and don't care if you don't like them licking the ice cream bowl in the restaurant.  They run off and pet strange dogs and get upset if you try to stop them.  Children blatantly stare and don't look away no matter how much you stare back (unless you pick your nose them.)  They eat boogers and some of them even smear poop.  Plus, THEY'RE LOUD!

So I get why some people don't like them.  The most important reason, though, is other people are not attached to your child.  They haven't held your child through an entire nap to feel his weight on their chest.  They haven't seen his first smile.  They don't know his soul.  I know by the slightest change in the slope of his cheek whether he has food or an imminent smile or a building scream in there.  I know what it feels like to nuzzle against the back of his head and let my arm go numb and my shoulder pinch while he sleeps.  I have held him every day since the day he was born, many times until parts of my back tingled for days.  I have eaten food out of his mouth and know how terrible his shit stinks.

I know what it is to want to smack him because I'm out of ideas for how to get him to do what I need him to do.  I know what it is to hear him try to say and sign "love you" for the first time unprompted.  I know the peaceful stolen moments in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep which have been just ours.  I know the price the next day for such moments and have paid that toll many times. 

I know that what I don't know is the most exciting part.  What is to come and what is this moment.  How he changes me now and now and now: again, again, again.  And it is the most beautiful part of life.  It's loud, and gross though.