My Wild Thing

This morning, when Jude and I were still in our pajamas, I held him in my arms and swayed back and forth, back and forth. He in his "I love Daddy" crazy giraffe footsie pjs and me in my blue checkered pajama pants. My hair, now tamed back into a droopy ponytail, rumpled from a long night of getting up and up and up and up to feed Jude. I hummed a little tune into his ear, softly, the only sound in the small universe of our apartment. Jude's head lay on my chest, quiet and still, his eyes wide open. His generally wiggling body laid tired against my body. We swayed and hummed for what seemed like a long time. The bright morning sun streamed in through the blinds, bathing us in a warm glow, a baptism of light.

I love moments like this. Or the one, later today, when we laid on the floor of his room, on his little doggie blankie, and read "Where the Wild Things Are" together. He mostly sucked on his whole hand. And then the other one. Little chubby fingers dripping with spit. He didn't seem to like the word, "terrible." But, I think he liked the idea of being king of the Wild Things. He is, after all, our King Jude.

Or the moment last night, when the quiche was made and in the oven, and I scooped him up from his sous-chef station in his rocker and tickled his belly until he giggled wildly. A rare moment of inexplicable laughter. He kept cracking himself up and looking to me to laugh more. My cheek muscles hurt afterwards from smiling too much.

These moments balance the others like last night when he broke my heart with tired crying. He resists sleep like some men fight for air when drowning. I try to put him down and walk away, frazzled. Holding him doesn't seem to help. And then, I capitulate every time, helpless, helpless, helpless. I pick him up and sway and sway and sway until he is quiet and still, little tears pooled under his closing eyes. Then I place the floppy bundle of his tired body back down and he sleeps.

Or other moments like two nights ago when his diaper leaked urine all over him, me and our bed at 3:00 AM. I could barely open my eyes for exhaustion. I fumbled around our apartment for new pajamas for both Jude and I in the pitch dark. Light would have only been a further insult. Once both of us were dry and clean, we all went back to sleep. I slept on a towel until morning when I washed our sheets, again. I seem to do that alot lately.

Although most moments are decidedly between these two extremes, I tend to forget about the tired crying and sleeping in urine all night and hold, rather, onto the remembrance of quiet waltzes in the morning sunlight and his impossibly bright blue eyes looking at me, the two of us laughing out loud.