Week of November 6, 2002
Owen is a joy. We are enthralled watching his quirks and sense of humor form in front of our eyes. He's so completely him, I can't get over it. There's a person in there! Just yesterday he was a needy little blob of hunger and spit up. Now he's Owen.
I find myself worrying that he's a little Felix Unger in the making, and I don't know whether I'll be blaming the environment or heredity one day when I have to justify myself to my kid or my therapist. Is he a little anal from watching me picking up his things, or from the disorder we live in? Or is he just drawn to sorting and organizing the way that I am? I may live with clutter, but there are few categories of merchandise I enjoy more than organizers. Perhaps that's what I'm seeing in Owen, this enjoyment from sorting and ordering.
Is it typical for kids to find just as much pleasure in putting away the things they've just flung out of a container? Or to put back things where they found them? To make sure their containers are right side up? Owen loves to play with our stack of plastic containers in the kitchen, but I think he gets more pleasure from making them all nest again, than he does from taking them apart. And he does a good job of getting them all back to the way they started (lids and all!). Will this quality flit off when he's old enough to be useful? "Yeah, that was fun when I was learning how the world works, but I'm not doing it if you want me to!"
Owen's delight in the world is infectious. People always point out this wonderful quality in kids, and I before Owen, I always filed it under "yeah, yeah I'm sure," paired with the comment "you have no idea what parenthood is like until you're in it." It was just another thing to separate the "us" from the "them," pronouncements that seemed trite and condescending -- I got it, I didn't need to be a parent to get it.
And I did get it, I think. The pure joy that children have, I thought I knew what it was they those parents were describing. They got back something that they'd lost. You got to experience the newness of the world in a way that you can't when you're familiar with it, you get front row seat with that new person. But that's not the whole of the picture, because it's not really that you're re-living the joy, it's that this creatures joy is a whole category unto itself.
Perhaps birth softened my brains, because the joy I get from Owen's joy matters a lot more to me than I expected it to. I get giddy over simple, silly things. I still smile when he points at a dog across the street and goes "Da! Da!" -- shouldn't that have worn off by now? But it hasn't, and I don't want it to. Part of me feels a bliss I was never lucky enough to feel in my life - no evasions, no hiding, no intellectual somersaults to protect myself from future hurt. I live in the moment, and it's startling to see what exists in these moments. Owen is always looking around, and simple things are thrilling to him. And I appreciate his joy more even than the chance to look at these things with freshened eyes. I like watching him watch the world. I like seeing the intensity of his feelings.
Is this softening process what parents are trying to convey with their comments? Am I less critical of their inane attempts to describe their feelings, now that I feel it? Saying that the world feels new again captures a small bit of it, but it's not as though I'm an innocent again, experiencing it all for the first time. And it's not even that I'm seeing it through Owen's eyes, exactly. It's that the intensity of his feelings combats all the protections I've put around my own feelings. And my feelings for Owen are so intense, that they color everything I see with a new depth. It's not that I'm suddenly 2 feet tall, or seeing an elephant for the first times. It's that I'm living with a human who is raw and unprotected, for good and bad. And that alters my perspective. I want to maximize his happiness and protect him from harm, and having to see what a new human feels is humbling.
I had no idea I was that jaded, one step from an Oscar Wilde drawing room. Before I had a child in my life, I thought I still had a childlike sense of wonder. But compared to Owen, I was grizzled. Worn. Empty. I was Neville, filled with ennui.
Perhaps the intensity has to dim a little bit, or children couldn't survive in the world. I'm assuming all the walls we build around ourselves exist to help us navigate an unfriendly world. It staves off the damage and lets us live on cruise control sometimes. If we didn't retreat, I suspect we'd all implode at an early age. Just as our neurons fine tune themselves, shutting off some paths in the name of efficiency, some of that intense feeling has to shut down to keep us from emotional and intellectual overload.
Part of Owen's enthusiasm must come from his role as explorer. He has an infinite landscape to explore that beckons all the time. The world seems like a good place, and there's so much for him to discover so he runs forward. He's stepping into it with glee because of the unquestioning, complete trust he has that Scott and I will keep him safe. He hasn't yet had enough experience to be as fearful as the rest of us. Repetition hasn't dulled his senses. He hasn't discovered anything unpleasant enough to make him question his role of explorer. Every thing is still vibrant and sharp and deep, unblunted by layers of protection that we build around ourselves. Every corner calls out to him because his discoveries remain exciting and filled with promise of fun.
I'm grateful that Owen is too busy figuring out who he is and how things work to be set back by his neuroses and fears. I expect those fears and anxieties will be overtaking him soon, if they haven't already started to encroach on him. Childhood seems to come with a lot of unknowns, and very little control over almost any aspect of your life. There's a lot to be frightened of. For the moment, I admire his fearlessness and hope we can nurture some part of it in him, so he can takes risks and live his life fully. Do you suppose I can do this, while keeping him in a plastic bubble, safe from any harm I can possibly imagine? (And I have an active, anxious mind, that list is long one.)
Moments I'm enjoying:
- Owen's taking some comfort from his soft, pink stuffed elephant. When we put him in the crib for the night and Scott hands him Elphie, he smiles. We love it!
- Pig is his steadfast companion. He's usually in Owen's other hand at night. I wish I had 5 of them because I don't think that snout is going to hold up to much more chewing.
- When we are reading stories, and we start with Barnyard Dance, Owen anticipates "Clap your hands" and starts to clap. Sometimes he'll grab my hands, and have me clap instead. Adorable.
- He hears Scott packing up cereal in the morning and runs into the kitchen for a snack. He's getting much more savvy, and holds out for a graham cracker stick over something more healthful.
- Owen running around waving the remote to the VCR. This also fills me with a bit of horror (Guilt: Owen watches a video tape in the morning, I'm a terrible parent. Fear: How long will!).
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