Tuesday, December 17, 2013

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When I was pregnant, I would sit in the rocking chair in the corner of the nursery and marvel at all we had completed in this room. The room went from a dirty tan color to yellow to blue in a few months. We painted everything multiple times to make the room fresh and clean and ours and we argued over paint colors and when the girl at Sherwin Williams tinted our paint the color of baby poop, we insisted that she try again. Evan painted the room for me, surprising me after letting me sleep in one morning. I woke up to the sound of him rolling the brush along the walls and found him in the nursery putting the first coat of blue paint on the walls. "Um. It's blue." I stated, obviously. Because my vision had been gray. Our daughter cannot sleep in a blue room. Blue is for boys. I was sure of it. But Evan loved it. He loved it more with the second coat and so I closed the door and went back to shopping online for strollers and car seats and cribs and itty bitty baby clothes. I ordered a crib and a rocking chair. I found a dresser and a rug. We returned the rocking chair and found a different one that although green, is the exact style I had wanted, simply $500 cheaper. And so, one rainy day, after finding a table at Goodwill for one dollar and fifty cents, we assembled the rocking chair, pieces parts and nuts and screws strewn about the floor while I read the instructions and Evan assembled the chair. We pushed it into the corner and every time I walked past the room, I stopped and peered in. I would abandon all tasks to go and sit in the rocking chair, rocking back and forth and imaging a baby sleeping in the crib; a baby playing on the rug; a dresser full of baby clothes. And weeks flew by and I rocked in that rocking chair until one day when Evan and I brought home a perfect baby boy from the hospital. We carried his car seat into the house and I lifted him from it and immediately took him into his room and rocked him in our rocking chair. I sat there while Evan put things away and rocked my baby for the very first time. And since then, we sit in our rocking chair and read books and play with toys and watch videos on my phone. I rock Maddox to sleep and feed him and hold him in that chair. Sometimes when he's sleeping in his crib, I rock and pray and pray and rock and watch his chest fill with air as he gives sleeping smiles and coos with whatever it is that babies dream about. And sometimes there are mornings when Evan works from home and he sits on the rug in front of the crib and plays peek-a-boo with Maddox and Maddox reaches his hands through the bars to grip Evan's beard and I sit in the corner and watch my two boys, the two loves of my life and I think about how undeniably happy I am to have this life. How blessed I am to have these two, these memories, these opportunities to sit and be still and to watch and to soak each moment in. And I give thanks because that is all that I can do; I simply give thanks.


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