Missing...

It has been over 5 days since I’ve seen my little badger. I’ve come home to the States for funeral and due to costs and my little badger’s penchant for wiggling non-stop during his waking hours, he did not come with. It’s this weird double feeling being away from him for this amount of time. Half of me feels strangely unburdened with schedules. There is no set feeding time. No set bath time. No struggling with naps. No struggling with daily meals and food on the floor. I have the luxury of sleeping in – somewhat, as my body still wakes at 6 expecting cries from another room. I try to appreciate these things as best I can as this week is quickly coming to an end. However, every extra minute I can sleep in or have a decision to leave the house on a moment’s notice is dampened by this sense of sadness that my little Henbot isn’t there giving me waves and big smiles.

I miss him terribly.

It’s strange how being away from him I gloss over the irritation of being woken up 3 times a night because he’s had a bad dream or has just gotten in an uncomfortable position. I laugh at the poop explosion that my husband relayed back to me without fully appreciating how horrible it would be to try to clean it all up without any help.

What I do think about, when I allow myself to dwell and get sad, is how when I hold him his little fist grabs the material on my shoulder to “hold on”. I think about him pulling up to a standing position and smiling at his achievement. I think about him sitting in his stroller, sitting upright and looking around. Mostly I just think about the smiles.

Being away, I seem to have a really hard time looking at babies. I can talk about kids and babies to anyone who cares to go there – but I have problems looking at them. Each baby I see morphs into Henry. If it’s a little baby, I think about what Henry looked like when he was that small. When it’s an older baby, I think about how Henry will look like when he reaches that age.

I always thought of myself as being independent. I don’t believe it occurred to me that after Henry was born I would be anything but relieved to have free time all to myself – to “be myself” as it were. But the fact of the matter is who I am now encompasses “mother”. I am a mother. I’m still me but I’m more than just the “me” that I used to be. And while it’s 8 in the morning and I have yet to shower or feed anybody but myself, the mother in me longs to mother someone. Well, just one person - the one little person who has my eyes and hands and legs – and stubbornness.

Miss you peanut.