She Needs Me! and other lies that are true

So when Katie saw this photo, she says the first thing she thought was "Gammi?" Is it the white "hair"? the fondness for baths? the fingers in the mouth? or maybe just a lovely, lovely face? I don't know but I sure liked looking for Gammi in my sweet daughter and finding a hint or two. Take that Johnson family! We got some Gourlay going on...

Yesterday, I spent the day at Karen's making antipasto. Or to be more accurate, I spent the day with Karen while she made antipasto. I did do some of the shopping and chopping and filled about 7 jars. I also tried to take a few jars out of the big pot of boiling canning water but managed to look dangerous enough to inspire Karen to take over. Meanwhile, Talia and I hung out and enjoyed the warmth and friendliness of Karen's house. It's nice to be in a spot where you're just fine the way you are. Very Grandma and Poppa-ish actually, now that I think of it. Goodness. What a grandparent retrospective this is turning into... I'll find a Pumpa connection before we're done, I swear.

Now, that preamble is getting us to my day's thinking. On the way home, sweet T. fell asleep in her little carseat. So nice. Until she woke up, somewhere around Boundary and 29th. Something about waking up in the carseat is very upsetting to Talia and she just cries and cries. I reach back and give her my hand (awkward in a stick-shift) and I tell her I'm right there, and still she cries and cries. Finally we get home, and as soon as she sees me coming around the car, she stops. Her sobbing slows and as I pull her out of her carseat and bring her to my shoulder, she tucks her head against my neck and does that ragged, snuffling, post-cry breathing.

It is SO nice.

This was really the first time where I thought, "I think it's me she needed." Probably she hasn't quite figured out that MY voice and MY fingers do not mean that *I* am there. So she wakes up in her seat and makes the sweet waking up noises she always does, but instead of Scott or me showing up to play, she gets nothin'! Nothing but the 2004 Jetta upholstery and a carseat toy. For those 20 minutes, she is sure that this is it - she's been abandoned and will have to raise herself and she has not seen a nipple in HOURS.

And then suddenly there is Mummy. ME! She sees ME and all is not lost after all.

So of course, I have to think on this, even while I am loving it. I see how it is addictive, this feeling. How we are made to be needed this way. It feels as though my entire body has been created to pull a warm, cuddly, sobbing body out of carseat and feel it relax against my shoulder. And I want to do it again. I want to be the answer, the solution.




As you can see in this photo, Talia is getting stronger all the time - she is holding herself up there, hanging off the bouncy chair (and breaking every safety guideline for it, I'm sure) all on her own strength. Probably, she will be able to sit on her own in the next months, and stand on her own not too long after that. And chances are, she will figure out that she is okay on her own in the carseat. She'll start being okay on her own with friends, and then at school and sooner or later at work and God forbid, in New Jersey.

And here she has me hooked on her being most okay with ME. I didn't think I would fall for it, but alas I have. Not long until I'm saying "She just hates daycare" while the teachers smirk knowing that she just does the crying for my sake. Maybe it's why grandparents love these little grandbabies so much - they get a hint of that again. It's been so many years since their own babies needed them for a cuddle and they've missed it. I do remember sitting on Pumpa's lap when I was small - while I was savouring the smell of rye and milk, I bet he was soaking up that "she needs ME" feeling. Nice to imagine, I tell you.


Lucky me.