A tyranny of
infant proportions
We’d danced to the beat of the spice girls
the last of the expressed milk
had been voraciously snuffled.
I had run out of options; bereft
I had changed the nappy, examined the skin
for protuberances, pins -
nothing!
His rage uncontainable, I’d phoned the mother;
suddenly the spasms subsided - he lay
in my arms with an eerie stillness, gazed
with a probing eye that left me
a novice at the shrine of his power -
just as she swept through the door
wondering. Then hunger restored him
shrank him to a soft pink parcel of dependence.
“I know now that everything changes, and it’s usually too quickly.”*
Having children reminds us of the changing nature of ourselves and our world. Before children entered my life, years could go by and I would usually have external events to mark them. Now, years are remembered for my children’s birth or ages, and our experiences together. (And the time before the birth of my first child feels like a thousand years ago!). Their growth seems rapid and shockingly sudden – and my time with them is all the more precious for knowing that.
* © from 'Being Mummy' by Anne‑marie Taplin, published April 2007