Falling for M.B.

It’s been three weeks. The days and nights are a blur as he reaches for me, again and again. We spend so much time in bed together, tummy to tummy, chest to chest, that on most days I don’t bother changing out of my pajamas. When I try to steal a few minutes to myself for the most basic upkeep — a shower, something to eat, an email session, some sleep — he cries out for me. A part of me questions being with someone so needy, so demanding, but then I feel the softness of his palm, his underarm, the surface of his foot. He stares at me with his disarming sea-blue eyes, and when he reaches, for the umpteenth time, for my breast, I acquiesce. Never have I been this wanted, this essential. Never have I been so indescribably in love.

Mama’s Boy was born on Christmas Eve. I’ll save the details of the birth and of the first few days and weeks for my next column. M.B. has been sleeping in his favorite pose, between my tummy and breasts (a place he knows well from his time in utero) for the last half hour, but is waking up, and reaching for me again.