Dance, dance, dance

Watching the pandemic baby turn into a toddler

Our second son—the baby who was born in May 2020—is not really a baby anymore, and he’s about to start preschool in a couple weeks. He was born just two months after the pandemic came to Nashville, and I can’t help but look at his growth as an indicator of how long the pandemic has lasted for us. The vaccines came out when he started to pull himself up. He walked with confidence when the Delta variant hit. Now, as the case counts have dipped once more, the baby dances to David Bowie while stomping his little feet and repeating over and over, “DANCE! DANCE! DANCE!”

I’m excited for our son—who I’ll still call “the baby” because I’m not ready to let that go just yet—to start this new phase in preschool, and interact with other humans, both big and small. I’m also excited for the hours that will open up for me to focus on writing and teaching. Yes, this is good. Growth is good. At the same time, I’m also sensing a kind of anticipatory grief for the many months (17 to be exact) that I spent with the baby practically glued to my chest, until he wasn’t, and he began the necessary journey of walking—running—away from my grip.

It didn’t feel quite this way when our first son began preschool, and the pandemic has everything to do with it. With our first baby, I used to fill up our hours with visits to all branches of the public library, the art museum, the science museum, bring-your-own-baby yoga classes, singalong music classes, and playdates at various people’s houses. When I got pregnant with the second baby in 2019, I was expecting to repeat the same routine with the same resources. Having to parent the second baby without all of that, relying instead on spacious park outings and too much money spent on video subscriptions and indoor toys, has made me an entirely different kind of parent than the parent I was the first time around. The baby and I clung to each other out of necessity and safety, but also because he had nothing else to cling onto.

So it is, that as the start date looms for him to become entrusted in other people’s care, I must let go of this extra attachment I’ve developed for the baby.

Just as my emotional pain scale shifted following the death of my mother to take into account the pain I’d never felt before, my joy scale, if you will, has also shifted to take more pleasure in the moments I may have previously ignored. I already miss the early months of the baby falling asleep in my carrier, his neck still limp and doll-like. I miss seeing his genuine surprise every time we played peek-a-boo. (It takes a lot more effort to surprise him now.) I miss being one of just a few people in the world to really know him.

If you say run
I'll run with you
And if you say hide
We'll hide
Because my love for you
Would break my heart in two
If you should fall into my arms
And tremble like a flower

Let's dance…

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What I’m reading: Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar. Part-work, part-pleasure. I’m teaching some excerpts for my ongoing Autofiction class at the Porch, and it’s unlike any book I’ve read—or maybe it’s a combination of a lot of different books and articles mashed together. Some chapters feel like self-important monologues by a smart, self-deprecating Pulitzer-winning playwright showing off all of his ideas in one go. Then there are moments that pull me back in because he’s right there in front of me, talking/writing, vulnerable, confused, and struggling. The book seems to break all the traditional “rules” of writing a book, and sometimes he pulls it off, and other times it falls flat. But the parts that don’t work are also exciting to me, because it feels like I’m witnessing a new art-in-progress. It feels bold. May not be everyone’s cup-of-tea, but if you happen to read it, I’d love to discuss it with you.

What I’m listening to: Still lots of 80s pop.

What I’m watching: Succession. It’s so forcefully anti-language (words don’t mean anything to any of the characters, they’re constantly lying to everyone and themselves), that it’s oddly relaxing to watch after hours of teaching classes on why language matters.