I used to run for cover whenever my friends offered to show me pictures of their grandchildren.
Then my son and daughter-in-law called to tell me they were pregnant. I burst into tears, immediately announced the news to an entire yoga class full of mostly strangers, and forced everyone to look at ultrasound pictures of a tiny blob taken at seven weeks.
My son and daughter-in-law invited me to be at the hospital when the time came. This was not a simple thing, given that I lived in a town that was 11 hours away by car. I arrived days, weeks it turned out, before the due date, but no matter. When my daughter-in-law finally began what would be a 33-hour labor, I made food runs for my son and bonded with the ever-changing parade of sleep-deprived family members in the Labor & Delivery waiting room.
I got to meet my grandson in those first moments when he was not yet fully of this world, still blurry around the edges. I was there for the “Golden Hour,” the hospital term for post-birth skin-to-skin contact, or what we used to call holding the baby right away. I held his hand while the delivery nurse suctioned mucus, cleaned him up, and gave him a shot. He has a set of lungs on him, that one.
His name is Jett. This has already given rise to ridiculous nicknames that we hope won’t stick, like Jettski, Jettboots, Jetpack, Jetboy. He may be doomed to a life of having his name spellchecked to Jeff. But Jett is an excellent name, easy to rhyme. His mom and I are utterly unself-conscious when we shout “Jett, Jett, the Best Baby Yet.”
It turns out I have an endless capacity to hold this baby boy. He likes to be held. His mom and au pair both use a front carrier that resembles a straitjacket. I’ve tried but it tortures both Jett and me when I put him in the thing, so I rely on cushions and switching him from one arm to the other. If I put him down, he howls and the dog tries to lick his head.
There are many contraptions and devices in this baby’s life. He has a bottle maker that can spit out a perfectly measured portion of formula in a fraction of the time it takes my Keurig to make a cup of coffee. The used bottles are cleaned in their own little bottle sink and then put into a dryer/sterilizer that whirs and steams for an hour. He has white noise machines that play while he sleeps, and something called a Snoo – a kind of automated bassinet with a baby strap-in arrangement that prevents him from moving and basically forces sleep as the only option.
He may have a rough night if there is a power outage.
Jett also has many pieces of equipment to transport him or just park him somewhere. He has a bouncer seat, as well as a swing substitute that looks like a personal roller coaster. I don’t think the manufacturers ever tested that one on an actual baby. Any hard surface in the house can be made usable with a “baby lounger,” a kind of big baby-shaped pillow. His stroller can grow as more babies or dogs are added to the family. If only the Uppa Baby Vista 2 stroller came with a wheelchair and stretcher option, they could advertise it as providing service from the cradle to the grave.
I am pretty sure I still know how to take care of a baby, but some of these devices are headscratchers. The “wipe warmer,” promoted as a more “soothing” way to clean baby bottoms, gave up the ghost about 30 wipes in. Another day the bottle maker flatly refused to cooperate – flashing lights and freezing its operations against the background of a seriously howling baby. I used a measuring spoon for the formula, poured in the distilled water and shook them together. Et voila! Just like 30 years ago, the baby was fed.
Pictures of Jett are uploaded almost daily to a family album. At two months there were 349 photos. At this rate there will be over 37,000 pictures of Jett by the time he graduates high school. I hope to be around to treasure every one.
Much of the new technology has made parenting easier. I once took Jett’s dad to the pediatrician when he was four months old because he had a red ear. If Dr. Google had been around, I could have saved us a trip and rested easy knowing that my baby had just slept on his side (back when sleeping on the side was allowed). But technology only goes so far. As with my own children, when Jett is asleep in his bassinet/Snoo, I creep in to see if he is still breathing.
We are reading books to him as his eyes focus on longer distances. Jett seems to enjoy this, but it was Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler’s distinctive guitar lead-in and deep voice that truly grabbed his attention. He also likes it when I sing Peter, Paul and Mary songs. He listens to my spontaneous, plot-challenged stories about Jett and his friend, Tools the Baby Rabbit. Jett is not a harsh critic.
His mom and dad are growing into their roles as parents even faster than Jett is growing out of his tiny outfits. Seeing their increasing confidence and their love for this child is its own reward. I watch with remembered exhaustion as they calm the baby, run their business, make calls, send emails, juggle schedules, feed the dog, order takeout, do the laundry, take the car in and plan their family’s future. They are consistently grateful when I say yes to every single babysitting request.
When it’s my turn, I just hold the baby. And later send baby pictures to all of my friends and make complete strangers look at the newest ones on my phone.
Grand times, indeed.
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