You Want to Make it Hard on Me

It is.. not fun. We’ll find him drinking out of water glasses, but at least never breaking them, and hey – learning to drink from cups is important! (although we have a few years until glasses) I’ve also caught him opening up Cassidy’s laptop and banging away at the keyboard like there’s no tomorrow. Also, not fun, but hey – learning how to craft proper emails is important! (although we hopefully have decades before he has to answer boring work emails, if ever) I’ve also caught him standing proudly on the table, fully in shoes that have just trounced upon our germy, melty deck doing a little song and dance and stomp number. He really is a marvel, isn’t he? See, I have always said that he’s a bit mischievous compared to his older siblings, but it’s a lot. Scarlet had her share of mischief, but Des was always our cautious angel. Well, at least we got one of those.

Sometimes Des will look at me with such goodness and innocence, like when I’m having an internal monologue in my head about International Women’s Day being important and about how women get the job done. Scarlet and I will sort of shake our heads together at a sheer lack of common sense we might see from Des, or from Cassidy just being rushed and brusque and also interruptive. I don’t have to say anything to her, which is good, because I don’t want to have to say anything to her. I want Scarlet and Des to be better than we are, or despite us. I can feel so alone, in the long days of working, being pregnant, watching Rider, paying bills, doing light housework. None of that focus is on myself. I don’t take the time to walk or take a bath or rest, unless I know I fully can. When my eyes met Des’ dark eyes last night, before one of my internal monologues, I just saw wide-eyed goodness and innocence. Like he knew what I was thinking and he felt both helpless, but also inspired to not make me stressed. It caught me by the heart.

Speaking of which, when Rider was “learning” to climb up on the table, he started with the chairs. At first he would climb onto the dining room chairs and settle himself adorably. I wish that had been enough. During one of those climbs, he fell backwards from the chair. It was a very short distance to fall, and he sort of hit his chin on the chair and then rolled softly for a bit. He got an adorable face scrape next to his adorable chin dimple. The cry he gave out, though he wasn’t badly hurt, caught me by the heart. I’d never heard him make that noise, so of course I scooped him up and we rocked and he stopped crying. Even though I was having an internal dialogue of saying to him, “Well, what did you expect would happen just now, you foolish boy?”

I am stressed about the lack of time we have left, even though to me, this has been the longest pregnancy EVER. I mean, I feel like it’s been YEARS. I’ve suddenly gone from wanting time to move faster, to worrying and panicking that both babies (the born one and the unborn one) are already so big. Rider’s hair is now long. It’s unruly at times and winter-static straight at other times. He just got his fifth tooth and we wouldn’t have even known it was in the works if not for a few days of a facial rash. He learns new words every day and has started to run, and sometimes fall, instead of just wobble duck walk. It’s like a wobble duck run. He’s in a time vacuum, the way a baby is at birth. A phase or series of phases of rapid growth. Scarlet and Des aren’t currently in time vacuums, or so I think, until I see a picture of them from two years ago, just before COVID.

I’m in a time vacuum of my own, of course, with the pregnancy changing by the week. 35 weeks today. That seems like the big leagues. I could have the baby today, and it would probably be ok. The time vacuums are dizzying, but somehow they didn’t bother me when Scarlet was younger. Even though I thought she would be my only child, which is laughable now, I was ok with it all because I was in my 20s. The younger you are, it seems that time moves slower. And when Des was born, the beginning was so rough, that I wanted time to pass faster and for him to be older and less fragile. Less all sunken head and alien limbs. Then after that, I couldn’t wrap my head around having two kids, and especially being so close to his birth, even after an entire year had passed. I couldn’t believe that I was still so close to the experience of carrying and delivering a child. And I couldn’t fathom passing, passing, and then being past something so deeply sacred.

Another Thursday night checks off a sleepy writing session, a countdown to midnight, and then a new pregnancy week. The baby moves more frantically when I’m silent and still, as if she or he is doing an unborn version of a countdown to midnight, a new gestational week; getting closer to meeting the voices and lights. I wonder if this baby will be as healthy and joyous and hearty as Rider has always been. So far, all of the tests and ultrasounds seem to indicate a 4th Bowman like the other three. So similar, and so, so different. At times, I can feel postpartum from Rider.

It blurs together, again and again, and I can’t fathom how to do it all over, but with everything I’ve taken on and learned and unlearned since. The pangs and pains and traumas; in sickness and in health, and the crazy swirl of the noises of the world swiftly coming and going. I am so excited, and so, so incredibly scared. Of all that I have known, long ago and not very long ago at all, and all of the promise of the power and love despite that. The incredible hope that again doesn’t mean worse or harder. It just means again. We’re in for it, but I also am all IN for it. Time swirls crazily, and also precariously. I want time to move fast, and also to slow its tempo just so.