On Lasts

Monster’s experiencing a bit of a cuddle phase these days.  When he wakes up, be it in the morning or after a nap, he pats his little bed beckoning me to come and lay down.  Then he climbs on top of me, little head resting in that crook between my jaw and collar bones, feet stretching past my knees.  His hands find mine and place them on his back, universal sign for “scratch my back please.”  And I oblige, gladly. 

These moments take me back to the tumultuous year of his infancy.  Monster and I spent many, many hours sleeping this way.  Back then his whole body fit on my chest, our breathing fluctuating in and out of sync.  It was often the only way he would sleep during the day.  After a particularly bad night of sleep, desperate for both of us to catch up we would sometimes spend the entire day like this, nursing in between rounds of sleep.    I both longed for and loathed the hours spend curled up with my first born.  These were perhaps the sweetest of moments of those first months and yet I found myself racked with guilt for the hours spent creating bad sleeping habits and accomplishing nothing of worth.

Of course I was accomplishing the work of most sacred worth.  I was bonding with my boy.  Creating sweet moments I will one day physically long for when Monster is a lanky six foot two teenage boy trying out for the hockey team.  It’s hard to see that in the moment when laundry and emails abound though.

At any rate, before I knew it my baby was six months old and sleeping soundly for hours in his own bed and the only time he curled up on my chest like that was during bouts of sickness.  Unable to breathe properly with his nose stuffed up, his little body found comfort and sleep tucked in that crook again.   These moments were few and far between but I found myself relishing the few times he would sleep on my chest.

I thought about all this the other day as I cuddled with Monster after his nap.  I realized that I don’t remember the last time Monster took a nap on my chest.  Whenever that day was I certainly didn’t realize it would be the last time.  If I had I’d have made a mental not, a memory to savor in the years ahead.  But that’s how it goes.  One month you are taking for granted the hours spent with a newborn on your chest and before you know it you realize, too late, that it never happens any more. 

I understood, in that moment, that someday there would come the last time Monster snuggled with me like that.  Someday I will scratch his little back for the last time.  I won’t likely know it is the last time, won’t savor it or store it in the corners of my memory.

There will be other lasts.  I won’t always have a child popped on one hip, or a hand to hold while crossing the street.  There will be a last time I pour milk into a sippy cup or cut crusts off bread.  A last time I give someone a bath and put shoes on anyone’s feet besides my own.

Here, in the thick of this phase of life, it’s hard to imagine a time when I’m not doing all these things.  I can’t fathom the last time I do any of the above with Monster or Toots, but I know it will come.  I may look forward to throwing out the sippy cups and ushering my kids towards more independence but I wonder if I would grieve more if I understood I was doing some of these things for the last time.  Would I savor it a little more?  Appreciate these endless tasks just a bit?

These years of life with littles, man, the days are long but the years are short.  I am appreciating the truth of this saying in fresh ways today.  And savoring the moments spent with Monster on one hip and Toots underfoot.  One day it will be the last.