Mama-Come-Lately

First, some housekeeping: This post is partially about boobs and what they were made to do.

For the record: I am pro-breastfeeding. But I am neither pro- nor anti-formula, despite having raised my kid on it.

For the non-parents: When a formula baby turns one, it’s time to switch to cow’s milk. This blessed event happened recently at our house, and man. So great. No more measuring, carefully jiggering sticky powder into a bottle, shaking like mad, hoping it all dissolved. No more calculating how many bottles I’d need over the next 24 hours (they turn to poison after that!). And a bit more ease in the budget — even though the price of milk is way up these days, formula is still vastly more expensive.

I did not plan to use formula. For reasons including an unexpected C-section and other events around the birth that left me rattled and sad, and perhaps the simple, hard fact of my age, my body never produced what my baby needed to thrive. This, despite trying everything I had the energy for while caring for and worrying about my newborn: Pumping around the clock. Going to a lactation consultant when the baby was two weeks old. Drinking a certain tea. Eating certain foods. Keeping the baby in skin-to-skin contact as much as I could, so much so that I dozed off with him on my chest a few times and scared the bejesus out of myself.

Now, if you’ve met me, you know what a cruel irony this is. I am built like a peasant. I broke an underwire bra last week, for crying out loud. And still, I could not get my inborn faucets to turn on.

For a long time, I couldn’t think about this intensely personal failure without crying, which sounds dramatic, and was dramatic. But it was just one more disappointment, one more baby-related thing that didn’t go the way I thought it should have. So being bitch-slapped by the reality that my body was once again not going to do what it was designed to do was heartbreaking, and infuriating. The one consolation: Baboo didn’t give up on my boobs until he was five months old.

All of this, the totality of my experience, is why I am neither pro- nor anti-formula. I didn’t want to use it. I called it horrible names. But I needed it. My baby needed it. I am grateful for it.

I still believe breast is best, but if that’s not the best option for whatever reason, then go Ye with my blessings and spend your precious ducats on formula. I will not judge you, not only because that’s not my job, but I judged myself so harshly, and guess what? It didn’t help, and it didn’t change anything.

And if you do use formula, oh Honey! Call me on the day you get to ditch it for cow’s milk — I’ll come to your house and cheer as you crack open that first, liberating gallon of milk.

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If I catch the baby in the right mood and moment and ask him, “Who am I?” while patting my chest, he will say, ever so softly and sweetly, “mama.” Oddly, the right moment is often just after a diaper change — somehow, vanquishing a dirty behind leads to a tranquil interlude.

I’ve known for a long time that he knows who I am, but there’s something profound about hearing the word issue from his little baby mouth. He babbles all the time, but this is different. He thinks about it, locks eyes with me, and carefully forms the word. I should really be recording that, I suppose, but so far I’ve been too busy enjoying it. Also, the sight of the phone would almost certainly distract him from his appointed task, i.e., making his mama cry a few tears of pure joy.

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With Baboo about to hit the year mark, I’ve been thinking about not just how mind-blowing his growth and development have been, but how much has changed for me. Herewith, a brief list:

– From creeping up the stairs (I had a C-section) to finding reasons to hike up and down them, the better to burn a few calories.

– From utter anxiety about the baby gaining weight to trusting that he’ll tell me when he’s hungry or full, if only by taking off his bib.

– From wolfing down cereal bars for breakfast to having one as an occasional treat.

– From a robe to maternity sweatpants to maternity pants to real jeans.

– From charting every feeding, nap and diaper change to thinking, “Hey, it’s been four or five hours since his last bottle.”

– From zombielike staring at the video monitor to sometimes forgetting to turn it on.

– From washing bottles twice a day to washing them every other day.

– From crying at dog food commercials to crying at the thought of any commercial with a baby in it.

See, now, that last one is going to make my Aunt Paulette think I’m depressed. I’m not — it’s just that sometimes my emotional river overflows its banks. And since I’ve long been a fan of feeling my feelings, that’s yet another change that’s fine with me.

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During a few spare minutes, I relaxed on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet, knees bent. Baboo came over and pulled up to standing with astonishing fluidity and confidence. One hand let go of my corduroys. Then the other. He weaved side to side ever so gently, a look of revelation on his face. His hands found my leg again within seconds, but in those few moments I gasped and then held my breath.

Standing. My baby was standing.

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My husband Mowgli (not his real name) is from Southern India, and as such, has certain traditions he follows when it comes to babies. Among these: Not cutting the baby’s hair for the first 11 months. Here’s some information on the custom if you’re curious.

I do not share my husband’s beliefs, but I support them, as he supports mine. Which is why I did my best to keep my kvetching to a dull roar during the four or five months I had to deal with the baby’s increasingly unruly hair. Here’s the kvetchitude post on that in case you missed it.

The date of Baboo’s haircut was fixed by consulting the Hindu astrological calendar. Rather, my mother-in-law, who lives in India, consulted a priest who consulted said calendar. If we lived there, we would likely have had a ceremony in a temple, but since we don’t, we simply plunked the baby in his high chair, put some Cheerios in front of him, and started snipping.

My mother was on hand to help us — a good thing, because not only was my husband sick, but she used to cut my and my brothers’ hair, and my hair cutting experience is limited to clumsy attempts at giving myself bangs in the mid ’80s. This is something I should never attempted, as I have a massive cowlick.

Grammie and I took turns making sure the baby was distracted by the aforementioned Cheerios or a glass of water while the other one wielded the scissors and tried to neither stab the baby in the neck nor give him a bowl cut. These twin goals were rendered more difficult to achieve by the baby’s insistence on whipping his head around to find the source of the snipping sounds.

Every last bit of hair we cut off Baboo’s little noggin was deposited on a paper towel so that it could be bundled with some money in a hankie that had been soaked in turmeric water and dried. This package will be sent to Mowgli’s mom so she can take it to a temple and do what needs to be done with it to complete the process.

After half an hour, with Baboo starting to get fussy, we called it good. There are a few spots we’re going to refine, but generally, we now have a baby who looks much more like a little boy than an infant.

And yes, that means I cried a little when I stepped back to look at the overall effect and recognized the transformation. Because even though I was more than done with being a baby hair wrangler, I don’t think I’ll ever be done with thinking of my baby as a bay-bee.

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