A/N: You guys, seriously. What will I write about when Pam's not pregnant anymore? Also, this story has been in the works for so long. I know I kind of make Jim look maybe too apprehensive here, but I really wanted this idea to work so I ran with it anyway.
Disclaimer: Nothing's mine, just way too much time on my hands.
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I love my dad, I really do. But after I ride the high with Pam, after finding out about the baby (worshipping her in every way I can think of, watching her every move like it's a dance I need to see), it starts to sink in. Just that, as great of a father as my dad is and was, sometimes I just don't think of him as a dad. And I know that doesn't make any sense, but I guess it's hard to explain. It's that moment that I realize maybe we should start out with a girl.
I can't tell Pam that, because when we muse about babies and clothes and names and all of it, she looks up at me with dreamy eyes and says, "As long as it's happy and healthy, it doesn't matter what we get, right?" And I agree, but part of me holds still. You need to agree with your fiancee when she says that though; just because you're scared doesn't mean it isn't true. I nod and tell her absolutely and we're kissing for another hour after that.
I always want to kiss her. I take her into my arms all the time and touch her just to see her pretty face change. My fingertips are light on her body and I make her moan, and my life feels unreal more than ever, but startlingly the opposite, too. I have, more than ever, an overwhelming urge to take care of her. One night, when I'm inside of her and it's slow, and I can tell it's just torture for her, I drop kisses on her eyelids and rest my face on her chest, listening to her breathe as I move. There was a chance that this would never happen, that I'd never marry her or see her like this or hear that we were having a baby. It's the most foreign thing to ever contemplate now, and she knows it, too, when we talk about it a few hours later. That thought is wonderful.
Kelly does some stupid thing at work with a ring on a thread and looks at Pam like she's a fortune teller, simply saying, "Don't you know that means you're going to have a boy?"
And as Angela remarks, "Schedule haircuts" from the other side of the office, I hear nothing, just notice Pam's sheepish smile towards me and the wary pinch I have in my side. I think of being a provider, Tonka trucks (do boys play with those still?) and raising a provider. I'm barely feeling like much of a success in too many things; not depressed or anything, but am I really anything to look up to? Would a son ever aspire to be anything like me?
Pam sets a sandwich in front of me that night and pulls my favorite of her t-shirts down over her stomach. It's like she and I both realize that it doesn't really fit anymore, and as she sneaks a smile at me, I feel exactly what she's feeling and exactly the opposite at the same time.
It's very possible a little boy is on the way, and his time is coming sooner everyday, and I will just have absolutely no idea what to do with that.
Ironically, it comes out in the weirdest way. It's Thanksgiving at my parents' house. My dad and my brothers are outside looking at a shed in the backyard that my dad put up. I'm only inside and not outside with them because Pam's passed out in a spare room. Lately when she's sleeping, it's just too comforting to cling to her. She tends to make things, a lot of things, so much better.
My sisters-in-law are both watching the men outside through the sliding glass door when I come downstairs. I'd had a few beers before I napped with Pam, and I thought I would sleep the buzz off, but it's stubborn and sticking around. I find my mom in the kitchen and she's just standing in front of the refrigerator, looking at the contents like an algebraic equation.
"Hey, babe," she says casually to me, smiling and scratching the back of her head as she sighs and closes the door. "Pam still sleeping?"
I'm not even listening. I throw a look over to the side of the house and it's still just us. "Do you think I'll be an okay dad?"
Her face bends into a frown and she cocks her head at me. My mom loves babies and grandchildren because she's a mom. She loves all things love and happiness, she's just another girl, after all. When she met Pam, she loved her. When she found out about our baby, I think she looked at the two of us long enough to figure out how to hug us both, completely, at the same time.
"You'll be a great daddy," she says, moving closer and rubbing her hand up and down my arm. It's stiff from my hand being shoved into my pocket. She squeezes it gently, and I bow my head. She realizes it's a little more than a shoulder-squeeze, so she gives me a light hug. "I can't wait to my baby as a dad! You're going to have so much fun, Jim."
She tries to smile at me reassuringly, but my buzz speaks up and I start talking about how I don't know how to raise a son. She leans against the counter and lets me talk, one of the reasons I really love my mom (and one of the reasons I suspect I love Pam so much, since they share this quality). It makes me feel better only a little, because I realize that I'm sharing all of this with my mom because I feel like I can. And I'm not really telling any of it to my dad, simply because I feel like I cannot. It's unnerving, but I don't say that out loud.
"I can't let her down," I say with a shrug, my chin gesturing towards the upstairs where Pam sleeps. "And I can't let my own kid down."
"Your dad worried about these same things," she says, and looks off through the kitchen window at the group of them outside. "And I did, too. But I never worried about your dad. I know, I know you have no doubts about Pam. I'm right about that...?"
She looks at me pointedly and I don't even have to think. I don't have a single doubt. "I'm not worried about her, no."
She smiles carefully. "She's not worried about you, and you'll never let her down."
She says mom things, going on about how compassionate I am, how I've always been her sweetest child, and even though it's good to hear it from someone, I'm still uneasy inside. Is this really what all dads go through? And if I'm taking the exact same mindset as my dad so far, is that really a good thing?
I love my dad, I honestly, truly do. He's a great guy. But I just want to be more than he was. I feel instantly terrible for thinking that in my head, but then Pam walks down the stairs and she might be starting to waddle. I think. I'm not going to say it before she does, though; that wouldn't go over well. She has one hand lazy on her belly, her other arm swinging with her strides.
I see her and have to forget about a few things when I do. She greets my mom and my mom says hi back, but I'm already halfway to her with my arms outstretched. She sighs and glides into them. I hug her warm, warm body and kiss her messy hair and never want this moment to go away.
"How was your nap?" I say quietly, and my mom's back to searching for something in the refrigerator.
"Mm, good," she says, bringing two hands up to her belly and rubbing it thoroughly. "He woke me up."
She says "he" all the time, because for some reason it's the equivalent of "it" to her and we're not sure if we want to know what "it" is before we meet... it. My kid's not an alien, I know that for sure at least.
I love Pam so so much. I'm afraid, scared as hell about this baby coming, but seeing her pregnant with our baby is probably the most comforting sight for my sore eyes. She's getting bigger all the time and the gap between our partnership and our family, our forever connection, is getting shorter. I just wrap my arms and eyes around this girl in the middle of this fancy kitchen and we're just there for now.
She says she worries about being a mother and I find it surprisingly easy to push out of her mind. At least for the time being. I see her talk to Angela about a cat or help her mother with a recipe (that she can barely pull of herself) or carefully sketch delicate lines on her special paper. And I just don't see anything but a mother. Oddly enough, it's not that I see her any differently than before, it's just that I recognize it more clearly now. When I tell her I think she was born to be a mother, she blushes. Sometimes she says "I hope so" or "You think so?" Sometimes she hugs me like she's going to attach to me forever and says, "I can't wait to see you as a dad." Sometimes we just smile. Once she cried, but I didn't let her do that again. It was a while ago anyway, when she was kind of all over the place.
This new mother kind of Pam, she's great when she's excited. I feel guilty for not catching up with her sometimes. Last night, she pointed to the grocery cart when I came back with all the milk and cookies she asked for (from the other side of the store, isn't she the best?). I peered over to where she was looking while I set everything in the front of the cart, and saw the smallest Phillies jersey ever. It was one of those things they have in bulk in a bin at groceries stores, you know? We agreed it was the cutest thing in the world, but that implied a lot of boy things and it did give me just a little pause. But she squeezed my arm and we were on the way to the checkout.
I'm still terrified. I feel like a bad dad already for being like this. But it's not all bad, not by a longshot. We're lying in bed now, watching the room get darker. We end up in bed a lot earlier these days. Most of the time it's because she's sore all over and I want to keep her company if she's going to collapse somewhere, on the bed or the couch. She curls into me, and when she gets bigger, it's like we can't avoid thinking about an actual, physical new thing that's coming in our lives. It's right there, we can't help but touch it and think about it. Whenever my fingers splay across her belly, she sighs. She says she's thought about having a family since she was young, and that she can't believe it's happening now. She could never picture this with anyone else, she tells me, and that whenever I put my hands where the baby lies, it's just like she pictured it. She says that she's so happy we fit and that we found each other, and the lull of her words put me to right next to sleep. She says who else could I ever be with? She says, can you believe we're seriously having a baby soon? She says, I'm so glad I have you, Jim. Do you know my mom looked at you once and said, 'Pam, he'll never let you do anything alone.' Did I ever tell you that? I just pull her closer.
I simply tell her I can't wait, because I don't want to ruin this moment by telling her all of my fears about having this baby. And, because truthfully, it's not as bad as I make it sound. We're both so excited, we stay up too late talking about just the baby. Who, by the way, is kicking all the time. It's so real it brings tears to my eyes, but it's always too dark for Pam to see, or she's sleeping already when they come.
She's starting to have these contractions with a name I can't remember, little false ones that apparently hurt almost like the real thing. The first time it scared the shit out of me, and my body jerked when she told me. It's happened a few times, only now she just breathes through them, wincing slightly, while I just hold her hand and look at her. This makes me feel like a pointless dad again, but it's different to think that in my head these days. These bouts of pain she has to endure reminds me that she's going through something, that this is the beginning of the end of the pregnancy, and that we're going to have an entirely different responsibility soon. And I'm still doubting myself? I feel weary just thinking that I'm going to be anything short of good at this, because I feel like I should have it built up by now. I should kind of understand where I'm going, have my lines drawn, put my plan up for both of us to see.
Because she's talking in baby terms now these days, like how long her mom is going to want to stay and how fast they can get to the hospital, or if the weather is going to give the baby a cold, and I feel like I missed a memo. I'm worried about the baby all the time -- and I mean concerned about the baby, not my insecurities. But I didn't know I was supposed to be watching the weather channel or anything. I just put the crib together and rubbed her feet and painted whatever she asked me to. Her dad and I surprised her with the rocker her mother used with her as a baby, all polished and refinished.
One night we have our parents over for dinner (well, our moms and my dad), mostly so all the women can fuss over Pam and the nursery. Her mom touches her belly a lot, and I smile when I see Pam even places my mom's hands there now and then. She's just one of them now, she's just there. She's just a mom, the way she's so affectionate about that addition to herself, that I picture her picking up the baby the moment it's born and never letting it go.
While they're upstairs in the nursery, I'm sitting downstairs in front of the television with my dad. We're making jokes and now and then we hear all three of them upstairs, laughing at once.
"You two all set?" he asks, his gaze fixed on the screen. Somebody earns a point, maybe they even double their score. Whichever sport it is, I certainly haven't been paying attention.
"Yeah, for the most part," I scratch the back of my head and peer down the neck of the beer bottle. I don't even know how to get close to this. "I mean, I think we have everything in the house that we need."
"You've been saving," he says, and it's kind of like a question, but more of a pointed statement. Making sure I've been saving.
Which I have, so I nod resolutely. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely."
He thumps his fist on his thigh in response to the game on the television, then quietly grunts in frustration. They did something wrong, I assume. He looks at me, points his beer at me. "I wish your brothers would've picked up your saving habits. And they're older than you. With multiple children."
I never think to ask my brothers about these things I worry about, all of these baby-related things, because I'm very aware of how different we are. I'm definitely aware that being the youngest, I came out differently. I think my mother shaped me more than the men in my family did. I think for a second that maybe my dad and my brothers didn't have these thoughts. When my dad looks at the television again and groans, I think that I'll just ask him once and take what I can get.
"Did you ever feel ready? When Tom was born?" I say, and it's almost choked. But I do my best to sound nonchalant, maybe even a little smooth like I've had more beers than the one I can't even finish. "Like, just kind of weird about being a dad and everything?"
He looks over at me, and he's genuine. I have to give him that. My dad knows how to give attention to things, even if he doesn't always find the right thing to say, I know he's doing whatever he can. But we're still pretty different people. "It's always going to feel weird, Jim," he says like it's just common sense, shrugging. "You do, and you don't, get used to it."
I stare at him as he turns back to the television. We aren't the same. We're not the same type of man, but that's okay. I grip the beer bottle with real strength, test the weight in my hands and try my best to feel like my own type of man. I just want to be a good dad, and everything at once is getting to me. This buzz, my dad almost brushing me off, my wife's gorgeous laugh filtering into my senses from the kitchen, and something inside me bends a little. I want this baby more than anything, and I realize I already love my new life because I don't worry about pushing aside anything in my life to accomodate love for a baby. It will just be there when it's there and it will be amazing. Why am I acting like such a douchebag? Why can't I just figure these things out?
I close my eyes and promptly pass out in the recliner in front of the television. It's the less comfortable of the two; I told my dad that with a laugh and I nudged him into the better one before the game started. I'm on the edge of waking up because I feel a hand on my shoulder, and then I'm definitely awake. My dad's face is what I see when I wake up and he huffs a laugh, says, "Should we just take the van?" to somewhere behind me before taking the half-empty bottle out of my hands. I'm groggy and I squint at him, before looking outside. It's completely dark; how long have I been asleep?
My eyes aren't even open for too long before they're fall shut again. Stress has been doing this to me lately, and the fact that I'm usually collapsing into bed with Pam all the time at early hours doesn't help break the habit. That's where I should be right now, and in my soft and sleepy state, I imagine just pulling my arms around her, stretching my body around hers and falling asleep with my lips latched to her shoulder. Then I'm being shaken, harder and my dad's laughing.
"Dead to the world," I hear my mom say. And then I hear a sharp inhale, like a gasp but sharper, and my mom murmurs something I can't hear.
I open my eyes stubbornly and my dad's punching me lightly in the shoulder. "Jim, really now, your wife is in labor."
Oh, fuck. Wait, what? Shit.
My eyes open and I'm blinking -- shit, wait, god -- and I throw back the afghan that's covering me. I didn't put that there. How long have I been asleep? It's snowing -- when did that start?
I look over to the kitchen and everyone's shrugging on coats and I feel really out of the loop. I'm the husband, seriously, and I just woke up from a nap? This is how it happens?
"Hey," I say softly, and push my way past my parents and winter coats and go to her side. She's next to the counter, with just one hand on its ledge and she's rubbing her belly with the other. Her face looks tense, and she's bent over like her body's creased in the middle, like a sheet of folded paper. She straightens but not completely and looks at me with very soft and safe eyes, and there's a little fear in them. But, mostly something I can't name catches me by surprise. This is very, very real. I ignore the fact that our parents are all around us, calling to each other to flick off lights and turn off the television. She has a look in her eyes like, just so you know, this time's real and that means everything's going to change soon and that's the scariest thing in the entire world but isn't it crazy and do you know how much I love you? Do I say it enough?
I'm not thinking about the kind of dad I'm going to be in this moment. Do I feel like a little bit of a failure because my poor wife's been having legitimate contractions and I slept through it all? Well, that doesn't really matter right now, because I just want to hold her hand and get her into the passenger seat of the car and just get her to somewhere that can bring the baby into the world. That sounds good.
"Hey," she answers sweetly, a crease in her brow as she looks up at me. It's striking how private this is as our family continues to rush around us, grabbing the bags we've had packed for all of eight hours (good timing, cutting it so close there) for our stay. I'm not seeing much besides her at the moment, and I know, I know I'm a good husband, or at least I try damn hard. This I can do, which is still scary but -- this, this I can do.
I touch her stomach briefly, with just my fingertips, then roll my wrist and let my palm rest there. It's not going to be like this anymore, and the thrill of that is weird. I take her hand and kiss the back of it, and her eyes instantly fill with tears. She laughs one of those watery, amused huffs of laughter that we both do. I grip her hand and pull her towards me, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and kissing her temple.
"They wouldn't let me wake you up for the longest time," she complains, whining into my shoulder.
"Why?" I ask, feeling the tiniest bit infuriated. Her mom pushes her coat at me and I take it, begin to slip it over her.
"They thought I was having Braxton-Hicks contractions again, and I thought I was too at first," she gestures with one hand as she puts the sleeve over her other, "but no, these are definitely --"
When her eyebrows crease and she stops everything, grabbing for my hand and closing her eyes, the moment loses its romance fast. She looks like she just got hit by a fucking car. I mean, seriously, it looks painful. I thought the worst part was when, you know, the baby was actually coming out? Because to me that sounds way more painful.
"Help her breathe through it, Jim!" my mom shouts at me somewhat frantically, which makes me worried. She's not saying it in an angry way, but in a chastising way. Like a mom. How appropriate. I guess you'll always have a mom, no matter how old you are, no matter what your life is doing at some random moment, no matter what you need and what you don't, no matter what mistakes are being made or what kind of shit you have to figure out, no matter --
Huh.
So I hold my lips against Pam's cheek and whisper to her. Something about breathing, but then I'm just telling her I love her and that we'll be at the hospital soon. I don't open my eyes, because I don't want to see her like that, face all crushed in pain. We're in the car a short time later, and my dad wants to take all of us in their van, but I tell them to meet us there. I want to be alone with her more than ever, and besides, they're going to need a car of their own at the hospital at some point.
Our parents are surprisingly calm. Hurried and rushing, but just ecstatic, so calm. Her mom grins as she carries bags to our car.
"Okay," she shouts for all five of us to hear, "Last chance to place bets. Boy or girl, guys?"
I don't hesitate. It's not like I've been hoping for the last nine months, but once choice makes me much more comfortable than the other.
"Uh, girl," I suggest with a fleeting smile and then I help Pam get into the car. She shoos me, says she can still walk and laughs at my smile. We drive in some silence, some intensity, and some other kinds of things.
It's six hours later when I'm watching her sleep. Watching them sleep and going over everything from the previous six hours, the previous nine months. The previous ten years of my life. They're all melting together and it doesn't matter, but really all of it does, and the baby is still so quiet. And Pam's face is absolutely serene. I've never been happier in my life, and I'm on edge with how much my life has changed in such a short amount of time.
Still, I pause. I walk over to the bassinet, the one that Pam just wouldn't banish her baby to for the longest time. I don't suck at picking up a baby. I thought I would. It seems tricky, reaching into the bassinet and sliding your fingers beneath an infant, supporting it from the very beginning and never letting any of its body fall before its against yours.
Then his small, warm body, wrapped up seemingly a dozen times is against my heart. The first time I heard him cry, Pam and I followed immediately. Her hands rested on her chest as she blinked through tears, watching the ceiling. They triumphantly told us he was a boy, and we looked at each other like we witnessed a miracle. And we did. Clearly we did, because there's not a damn thing wrong with him and he peed on one of the nurses right after he was born. The boy has a sense of humor. He's obviously ours, he's definitely mine, and at the time, I couldn't figure out why I'd been so afraid of anything, ever.
But now, aside my complete joy, there's a feeling creeping back up against me like a shadow. I just have to be good at this. This has to be great. I need to be able to figure this out. My first baby is a boy. He's my son. This is our first child together and he's a boy. I repeat the words over and over again in my head. I can't do anything wrong. Not with this. No one's ever going to touch this kid. I have to turn him into so many things, help him become a little boy, a guy, a man. I mean, I can't have him peeing on anyone after a certain age, right? I shake my head.
He isn't awake. He's sleeping like he's just out. That makes me smile, because he was screaming not too long ago; it was the kind of scream that was good to hear, coming from a brand new baby, but after a good few minutes, Pam had looked over at him with worried eyes. "He's still crying. When -- he -- when are they going to bring him over here?" She's a mom. That's just crazy.
I lay my hand over his body. He's so small, or my hand's so big, that it practically covers the tip of his chin to his heels. He's just perfect, and that's a blank canvas. I plead with him in the softest voice, "Don't let me mess you up."
We're so proud of him we show him to everyone. Everyone comes over to the hospital and we feel like a family, catching smiles from each other across the room. She beams at me when the grandmothers hold him. Pam's mom cries because it's her first grandbaby and she's so proud of Pam. Everyone tells us he's beautiful like we don't already know, like we haven't lost sleep already just watching him catch up on his own.
It's pretty much perfect, and it really is the best thing that's ever happened to either of us, and we wonder how you're supposed to worry about much when you can't stop smiling.
We get home, though, and have the steady flow of grandparents helping us out, it's the three of us and that's all. We lose a lot of sleep because the baby cries. A lot. At first we laugh and we both get up in the middle of the night to go to him. Pam says, "It'll be weird when we know what the different cries mean," and I grin at that, patting his back and rocking him, because when we do know that kind of thing, it'll be a strange feeling. We're getting to know him, after all. It was only minutes in before we decided that he couldn't just be anybody's baby. The kid is definitely ours. Inexplicably so, but I feel like they could've birthed him and mixed him into a barrel immediately after he was born, and I would've fished him out from the bottom and knew he was ours.
Wait, that's a weird thought, but still.
He's great, and he's the best thing in our lives, and sometimes when he's asleep we don't know what to do with ourselves. It's either get some well-deserved sleep or go look at the baby. Or clean or eat or shower, but, well, you know.
Now, he screams in the middle of the night and I'm getting ready to go back to work soon. The two of us are so tired anymore that we can't both go to the crib anymore. Instead one of us sleepily surrenders, "I'll get him; you sleep." I kiss her forehead and her cheek all the time, thanking her for everything, and reminding her that even though this is so stressful and new, I love it and I love her. But the situation is definitely mildly stressful and we're in awe of that and a little bit of that fear comes back.
I apologize one morning to her when we're up at six and she's trying to feed the baby. Or at least I'm in the middle of apologizing for being the one to sleep through most of the night, and she's suddenly frowning and looking like she might cry.
"Hey, hey," I say, scooting closer to her in bed to huddle around her. "What's the matter?"
She just shakes her head and pulls the baby closer. "He doesn't latch on. I think I just need to give up on nursing him."
I know this upsets her because she really didn't want to give up on it, and she's been worried that he just wouldn't take to it. I guess I wasn't aware that some babies just don't do that, so I kept telling her to just relax, that it would happen. What do I know?
"It's just kind of upsetting," she says quietly. She rubs a thumb over his small lips.
"It's not your fault," I suggest, because I'm not totally sure what to say.
"I know, but," she just sighs and doesn't finish. "I guess that's the way some things are with this, though." She nods towards the baby.
I think I get it so I don't say anything because I'm tired and my brain is fuzzy but then I look up at her. "Wait, what?"
"I think some things you can do, and some you can't," she yawns. "That's what this is like, this. And you just work around it?"
She looks over at the clock and then hands the baby to me. I take him and look down at him with wider eyes, in light of what Pam has told me, what she's beginning to tell me.
"He's a baby, he has to eat," she says with a smile, the sad look in her face quickly fading away at just the sight of her fidgeting son. She leans over to kiss his forehead. "So, I guess we'll figure it out."
I'm kind of looking up at her like she holds the secrets to the universe. Why does she say ten words about not being able to breastfeed, and I feel like she's telling me everything I'll ever need to know? Or at least, thankfully, she'll be there when and if I fuck things up?
She smiles again, a pretty and sleeping smile before she begins to slip out of bed. I use my hand that's not cradling the baby and place it on the back of her neck, pulling her down for a gentle kiss. She's incredibly soft and there's the sweetest noise when we pull apart. She radiates warmth, just look at her. Her expression never changes, still so sweet and perfect, and she looks down at him. She notes him resting, his entire body in just my forearm and the palm of my hand, before she's walking out of the bedroom in the early light.
We have about ten more of those moments before it really, finally sinks in. And it takes a while, because some times I do feel like a complete failure. I blame it, later on, on my lack of sleep. And when she gets the same feelings, she does, too. We're laid-back people, and our lives form the way around the baby, too. We're so happy to have him here that we don't worry so much about ourselves. But there are still times when it gets to me. I don't like handing the baby off to Pam because I can't make him stop crying, but she nearly always can (although there have been times where it's the opposite and I can't help but feel a little better). There was a time I brought home a cold and gave it to him and felt like a jackass, but babies get sick, Pam said, and then told me to suck it up and pinched my nose, gave me a kiss. And it takes way longer to figure out his cries than we thought it would. Seriously, the way we talked about it, we thought we had some microchip system or cheat sheet for cry configuration. Or something.
I don't know at what point during our conversation of who he looks like most does it happen, but it does and she makes it that way. Well she does, but so does he. Maybe that's why it sinks in. Because both of them, both halves of my life, let me know. She in a more obvious way, clutching my side while I hold him.
He's a few months old and smiling as he's in my arms and we're looking outside at the snow being cleared, the dirty stuff that runs into the drains at the end of winter. It was a really long winter, and it should never snow in May. He's just watching my mouth move like everything I say is completely new and fascinating, and it cracks me up. But I talk to him about all the animals we can see from the window and how it shouldn't snow in May ever again, and how the driveway needs a basketball hoop. What do you say to a three month-old? I never thought I'd be talking about all the rabbits and squirrels I can see from the living room.
Her fist is full of my sweater when she looks up at us, her chin resting on my bicep. "You're such a dad. God, he looks just like you, don't you think so?"
She makes a noise like she just can't believe it, and then she's running water to wash the dishes, but her words are stuck on me. I look down at him and he's looking up at me, and I think I can see something in him that looks like me, maybe, but it's hard to connect those things in your own baby. I think.
It's on the tip of my tongue, a joke at my expense -- sorry, baby, don't listen to your mom; I promise you'll have much better looks than this when you get older. Something along those lines. But he reaches up and touches his palm to chin and smiles really big, and his eyes are so green. He's so damn happy about god knows what, and his hand just rests on my chin, then grips it, then looks at it like he found something. Then he's looking at me like, Hey, did you know this was down here? He thinks I'm the funniest person alive, so Pam tells me everyday.
All of this, he lets me know in a less obvious way.
I never thought I'd watch the snow melt, counting squirrels with a little boy, and feel my life suddenly turn over into something I never even had the understanding of wanting so much.
So, yeah, she was right. I'm thinking we'll pretty much just figure it out.
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