So this is really, really, really naughty of me. This is next month's magazine column, which means it has not yet been published, which means I might not ought to be posting it on the internet, y'know? 
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It hasn't even been edited yet. But y'all are my girls, and you've been there for me through this entire pregnancy, and I really wanted to share this with you first. Just don't propagate it online any further or email it around or anything, 'kay? Oh, and if you see any typos, by all means let me know.
Happy babymooning, y'all.
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If you Google the word “babymoon,” you’ll discover a thriving niche of the travel industry that caters to parents expecting their first baby. For couples staring down the barrel of six weeks of medically enforced celibacy followed by years of dirty diapers and sippy cups, a babymoon is a packaged vacation designed for “optimum pampering and luxury,” as one online vendor describes it.
Whether it’s at a beach resort sipping virgin pina coladas, or a high-end spa indulging in his ‘n hers manicures, a babymoon is designed for couples to relax, unwind and, presumably, engage in copious amounts of what got the baby there in the first place.
I admit that it sounds like a nice idea, couples taking the time to reconnect and remember why they actually chose to procreate together. But dig a little deeper, past the bustling commerce of the first few pages of Google hits, and you’ll find an alternate definition of the word, one that resonates much more strongly with me.
Babymoon: the blissfully hazy first few days after the birth of a child, in which you devote yourself to falling head over heels in love with your new arrival.
Our babymoon starts 15 minutes after the birth, which occurred at home with a midwife in a hot tub set up in our living room. I lie on a layer of blankets on the sofa, exhilarated beyond belief, as my son nurses for the first time.
The next five days, we don’t leave the house. There are no mad dashes to Target or Wal-Mart for forgotten sundries, no going back to work for either of us. It’s just two brand new parents and one brand new baby, resting up from the birth and delighting in one another. Each day, a few friends and family members trickle in with food and gifts to welcome our son into the community.
Suddenly I understand the purpose of all those months of to-do lists, all that biologically ordained preparation and nesting and organizing. I did all that back then so I could sit here now, not doing anything more than holding the baby and staring at him in awe. Great big chunks of time slip away unnoticed as the sun sinks low over the backyard and nighttime falls on a peaceful house.
New parents are supposed to be exhausted and overwhelmed, but this feels like vacation. We laze in bed with our son until 11 a.m. We eat the food I cooked and stashed in the freezer in the weeks preceding the birth. The new father takes care of us both, cleaning the house without being asked and cuddling the baby to sleep while I soak in a hot shower. I feel protected. I feel loved.
There’s a saying, “When the milk comes, the tears flow.” On the third day, just as the milk comes in, I am holding the baby on the sofa. The big band tune “Longer than Always” is playing on the stereo. “But far beyond forever, you’ll be mine,” Vic Damone sings. I begin to cry, true heaving sobs, because I am flooded with such an overwhelming sense of love for this tiny little human in my arms. If he is mine, then I am his, as surely as we both live and breathe.
The baby gets hungry. He snorts and snuffles into my neck, his soft, fuzzy little head burrowing and rooting up and down on my chest. I’m utterly enchanted; the baby is mommy’s soft fuzzy hungry little snuffaluffagus.
The nipple looms into the baby’s field of view. Suddenly he is pure animal; he is a ravenous predator. With all the sudden speed and ferocity of a rattlesnake he strikes at the nipple and latches on with an intensity that makes my toes curl. I love him for the fierceness of his instinctual, evolutionary desire to feed and stay alive.
Even my German Shepherd has signed up to take the babymoon ride. Still basically a rambunctious puppy, she celebrated her first birthday two weeks before the baby showed up. We knew from the get-go that the next few years would be spent making sure the baby and dogs were never left together unsupervised.
The first couple days after the birth were pretty rough. Our older and calmer Weimaraner was more or less unfazed, but the Shepherd was frantic and uncertain, barking and pacing non-stop.
But on the third day, something clicked. Overnight, it seemed, she grew up and found her maternal side. She decided it was her baby to love and protect, he was part of our family pack, and we as parents were doing an appalling job of keeping him groomed. With extraordinary gentleness but ever so insistently, she made it her mission to bathe the baby at every opportunity, carefully lapping his fragile body with her huge doggy tongue. I’d never admit this to anyone, but I think it’s sort of sweet and funny and sometimes I let her do it.
There is an urge to get back to work, to clear out the projects that have stacked up, and to return to the new normal. And that’s understandable.
“But look at it this way,” I told the new father. “I promise you that on your deathbed, you won’t wish that you had clocked more hours in the office during the first week that your son was alive.”
Though it will be almost a full month before this column appears in print, the baby will be a week old at midnight tonight. These first few days have been closer to idyllic than I ever could have imagined.
I’m not naïve; I know things will change. The baby will be incorporated into the daily grind, and I’ll have moments where I’ll want to scream if I have to change one more pre-dawn dirty diaper. The baby will teethe and throw tantrums and eventually want to know why he can’t borrow the car.
Like a marriage or any other relationship, my interactions with my son will become commonplace. And like a marriage, that’s why it’s so crucial to savor the sweet haziness of the honeymoon period, which by its nature can only come once in a lifetime. The memories of this week are emblazed on my brain, and, hopefully they’ll float back up 15 years from now, as I’m apologizing to the school principal or paying off the bail bond.
We have given ourselves a space and a time to bond with the baby, and I wouldn’t change the first week for the world. As I write, he’s beginning to stretch and stir in my lap, luxuriating in the warmth of his mother’s body. The corners of his mouth twitch into something that looks exactly like a contented smile.
And that’s my cue. Excuse me. I have a babymoon to get back to.
:::It hasn't even been edited yet. But y'all are my girls, and you've been there for me through this entire pregnancy, and I really wanted to share this with you first. Just don't propagate it online any further or email it around or anything, 'kay? Oh, and if you see any typos, by all means let me know.
Happy babymooning, y'all.
-----------
If you Google the word “babymoon,” you’ll discover a thriving niche of the travel industry that caters to parents expecting their first baby. For couples staring down the barrel of six weeks of medically enforced celibacy followed by years of dirty diapers and sippy cups, a babymoon is a packaged vacation designed for “optimum pampering and luxury,” as one online vendor describes it.
Whether it’s at a beach resort sipping virgin pina coladas, or a high-end spa indulging in his ‘n hers manicures, a babymoon is designed for couples to relax, unwind and, presumably, engage in copious amounts of what got the baby there in the first place.
I admit that it sounds like a nice idea, couples taking the time to reconnect and remember why they actually chose to procreate together. But dig a little deeper, past the bustling commerce of the first few pages of Google hits, and you’ll find an alternate definition of the word, one that resonates much more strongly with me.
Babymoon: the blissfully hazy first few days after the birth of a child, in which you devote yourself to falling head over heels in love with your new arrival.
Our babymoon starts 15 minutes after the birth, which occurred at home with a midwife in a hot tub set up in our living room. I lie on a layer of blankets on the sofa, exhilarated beyond belief, as my son nurses for the first time.
The next five days, we don’t leave the house. There are no mad dashes to Target or Wal-Mart for forgotten sundries, no going back to work for either of us. It’s just two brand new parents and one brand new baby, resting up from the birth and delighting in one another. Each day, a few friends and family members trickle in with food and gifts to welcome our son into the community.
Suddenly I understand the purpose of all those months of to-do lists, all that biologically ordained preparation and nesting and organizing. I did all that back then so I could sit here now, not doing anything more than holding the baby and staring at him in awe. Great big chunks of time slip away unnoticed as the sun sinks low over the backyard and nighttime falls on a peaceful house.
New parents are supposed to be exhausted and overwhelmed, but this feels like vacation. We laze in bed with our son until 11 a.m. We eat the food I cooked and stashed in the freezer in the weeks preceding the birth. The new father takes care of us both, cleaning the house without being asked and cuddling the baby to sleep while I soak in a hot shower. I feel protected. I feel loved.
There’s a saying, “When the milk comes, the tears flow.” On the third day, just as the milk comes in, I am holding the baby on the sofa. The big band tune “Longer than Always” is playing on the stereo. “But far beyond forever, you’ll be mine,” Vic Damone sings. I begin to cry, true heaving sobs, because I am flooded with such an overwhelming sense of love for this tiny little human in my arms. If he is mine, then I am his, as surely as we both live and breathe.
The baby gets hungry. He snorts and snuffles into my neck, his soft, fuzzy little head burrowing and rooting up and down on my chest. I’m utterly enchanted; the baby is mommy’s soft fuzzy hungry little snuffaluffagus.
The nipple looms into the baby’s field of view. Suddenly he is pure animal; he is a ravenous predator. With all the sudden speed and ferocity of a rattlesnake he strikes at the nipple and latches on with an intensity that makes my toes curl. I love him for the fierceness of his instinctual, evolutionary desire to feed and stay alive.
Even my German Shepherd has signed up to take the babymoon ride. Still basically a rambunctious puppy, she celebrated her first birthday two weeks before the baby showed up. We knew from the get-go that the next few years would be spent making sure the baby and dogs were never left together unsupervised.
The first couple days after the birth were pretty rough. Our older and calmer Weimaraner was more or less unfazed, but the Shepherd was frantic and uncertain, barking and pacing non-stop.
But on the third day, something clicked. Overnight, it seemed, she grew up and found her maternal side. She decided it was her baby to love and protect, he was part of our family pack, and we as parents were doing an appalling job of keeping him groomed. With extraordinary gentleness but ever so insistently, she made it her mission to bathe the baby at every opportunity, carefully lapping his fragile body with her huge doggy tongue. I’d never admit this to anyone, but I think it’s sort of sweet and funny and sometimes I let her do it.
There is an urge to get back to work, to clear out the projects that have stacked up, and to return to the new normal. And that’s understandable.
“But look at it this way,” I told the new father. “I promise you that on your deathbed, you won’t wish that you had clocked more hours in the office during the first week that your son was alive.”
Though it will be almost a full month before this column appears in print, the baby will be a week old at midnight tonight. These first few days have been closer to idyllic than I ever could have imagined.
I’m not naïve; I know things will change. The baby will be incorporated into the daily grind, and I’ll have moments where I’ll want to scream if I have to change one more pre-dawn dirty diaper. The baby will teethe and throw tantrums and eventually want to know why he can’t borrow the car.
Like a marriage or any other relationship, my interactions with my son will become commonplace. And like a marriage, that’s why it’s so crucial to savor the sweet haziness of the honeymoon period, which by its nature can only come once in a lifetime. The memories of this week are emblazed on my brain, and, hopefully they’ll float back up 15 years from now, as I’m apologizing to the school principal or paying off the bail bond.
We have given ourselves a space and a time to bond with the baby, and I wouldn’t change the first week for the world. As I write, he’s beginning to stretch and stir in my lap, luxuriating in the warmth of his mother’s body. The corners of his mouth twitch into something that looks exactly like a contented smile.
And that’s my cue. Excuse me. I have a babymoon to get back to.
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I've had several MDC dreams too.
