Bending Time
By: Ailian Gan
Tags: Parenthood, Newborn, Baby, Motherhood

My baby is twelve weeks old. Barely a semester, a season, and yet a lifetime. All my experience as a mom. His entire life and counting. In this time, how our worlds have changed.

In his earliest days, time was measured in 3 hour chunks. To feed a baby 8 times a day, we had to feed him every 3 hours. It didn’t matter if it was 2pm or 4am, Tuesday or Thursday. Only the routine mattered — feed, diaper, awake, sleep.

“Routine” is a funny way to put it. It was all the same, but it was always different. Newborns have no sense of schedule, and we were never sure what he needed next. Through trial and error, midnight texts to parent friends, and a ton of internet searches, we stumbled our way through those earliest days. We were learning how to be parents, and he was learning how to be in the world. We were everything he had ever known, and yet we were strangers getting to know each other.

He was changing quickly, but so were we. We were always figuring something out, trying to solve a new puzzle, cross a new obstacle, demystify an unknown. How do we get my milk supply up. Is he eating enough or do we need to supplement with formula. Why is he breathing in that odd way. How do we keep him awake enough for a full feed. Why hasn’t he pooped in two days. Do we diaper change or feed first, if he’s already screaming.

Despite its repetitiveness, it’s impossible to land on a rhythm. We had some schedule in theory. We lived moment to moment, firefighting, in practice.

In those 3 hour chunks, time felt compressed. How is it time to feed him again. How is it time for me to wake up already. How is it, when is it, where in time are we again. But time passes, and before we know it, it’s been a week, two, three, then a month.

And yet those first weeks felt like forever. When friends described their 2- and 3-month-old babies, it was unimaginable that our little bundle would ever get there. “Oh, your nursing sessions will speed up, babies get more efficient,” they tell you. But when? Someone would describe their 30 minute bedtime routine, and it baffled me that we could ever squeeze in a bath, feed, swaddle and have him fall asleep in that short window. A friend said, “In a few months, he’ll be smiling and cooing at you, and you’ll feel totally different about all this.” When, when, when. I was impossibly impatient for him to smile. Every milestone was forever away, hundreds of feeding cycles away.

It didn’t take a few months after all. It was a matter of weeks. He was 6 or 7 weeks old when the smiles slowly emerged. First the edges of his mouth learned to turn up, eyes staring straight. “Was that a smile?” I would wonder, unconvinced but so eager. Over a few weeks, they crept across his face, as bigger and brighter emotions emerged. I must have taken a hundred photos but I found that my phone camera couldn’t capture his smiles. We are so used to holding a pose for pictures, but it turns out that smiles are not a snapshot but an entire motion. They sweep across his face — mouth open, cheeks raised, eyes shining bright, then his entire body wriggles with delight. I find myself mesmerized.

Even now in this newborn phase, I can feel time slipping. He will never be this tiny and precious again. When I’m nursing him, I try to remember to put down my phone or Kindle, and look. I marvel that this small creature can feel so perfect. His little self leans against mine, his closed eyes with long lashes, his hands conducting some imaginary music.

Can you believe we already indulge in nostalgia. Remember the old days when he was a wrinkly old man. When he used to fall asleep at every feed. When he took 45 minutes to nurse and our overnight feeding routines would take over an hour. Remember when we used to double swaddle him with hospital blankets. Remember when the blue striped onesie with the fold over mittens was too big, then fit perfectly, then was too quickly too small. We talk about it like olden times; that was all just weeks ago.

How can you feel nostalgia even as you’re experiencing it in the present. How can you feel sad that it will be gone even as it occurs 8 times a day right now and takes up hours of your day, every day.

Sometimes when a photo is taken at the right angle in the right light, the baby double chin and plump peach cheeks recede, and I get a glimpse of how he will look in the future, when he no longer looks like a baby, when he looks like his future self. A boy. A young man.

There is a lot of talk of the future as I narrate our world to him. There is so little he can do in the present, but there is so much that lies ahead. One day when you can eat foods with us. One day when you can sit up at the table. One day when you’ll get to see a cow or dog or sheep in real life. One day when we can hug our friends again, you will meet them for the first time. One day when we can get on planes again, you will board one for the first time. One day when you will need shoes. One day when you can walk, you will go places and find your way in the world. One day you will tell your children…

But here and now, you are still just twelve weeks old. Here you are in your small perfection. The day you were born feels forever ago, and yet I’ve lived almost my entire life without you, your timeline a tiny fraction of mine. How is it that you make time race, slow to a crawl, compress, stretch, pause, and even disappear. How is it that you can contain so much past and future. How is it that when you smile, I am held in the present.