Junk Drawer

Autumn smells like Luna to me. I remember the first time we left the house five days after arriving home from the hospital and the air tasted different. It felt like the material conditions of the world had changed, and I was an alien walking around this imperceptibly altered planet. Now I think, as the October days ticked on, the air was just getting colder.

I remember the darkness setting in early and the condensation on the windows. Luna and I lived in our nest of blankets and cushions in the corner of the couch. At night, the glow of the TV quietly blazed in our lamplit living room.

It was a treat if Luna fell asleep as dinner was ready and I could put her down for a moment while we watched Scottish murder drama Shetland. Sometimes she woke up and I spilled food on her head while she fed while I fed.

We watched Hocus Pocus with my in-laws. These were the glory days of 90s kids movies, when a seven-year-old could joke about her older brother’s virginity and reference him checking out his crush’s yabbos. My yabbos were anointed yabbos that day.

Bedtime is a nightmare right now. No matter how action packed a day or eye-rubby Luna is as bedtime closes in, a new wave of energy arrives the second we get upstairs. I just started reading Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder. I didn’t realise the child was a toddler and how perfectly suited to my current moment it would be. The unnamed mother describes the rage she feels when her son won’t go back to sleep, and I’m so relieved it’s not just me. I thought that we were past the difficult nights.

When she woke up multiple times a night as a newborn, I would feed her and walk the outline of the bed in our old flat. I would burp her and brace myself for how many attempts I’d need to make to put her back in the bassinet. I would look out the window at the dark garden two floors below, wet grass, black leaves, moonlight reflecting off the surface of a car. A train would shutter past, disrupt the still life and remind me that I was not the only one awake.

It feels harder now. The generous haze of memory has already dulled the sting and drag and desperation of those infinite hours. I do remember dreading the darkness. But the light would always come.

It’s hard to remember exactly what she was like then, other than tiny and warm and the centre of the universe. She slept so much. She fed so much. It’s hard to remember breastfeeding, how painful it was when the latch wasn’t right, how inadequate I felt. I do remember the wonder.

We met our friends’ 17 day old baby on the weekend, born 11 days (plus two years) after Luna. She was tiny and warm and the center of their universe, and it was a portal back to that cocoon of time, of yawning lips, poo explosions, grasping fingers. We exchanged stories about what it feels like when the rest of the baby slithers out after the head and the strange high of gas and air.

Luna darted between rooms as we chatted and I got drunk on baby. She played with toys on the floor, put the bunny to sleep in her pram and sang songs, waved a fly swatter around the kitchen. When I went to check on her, she stuck her palm out in a stop gesture and said “no no no no go backa living room and talk”. She has grasped the use of nouns and verbs and often puts them together in surprising and effective ways. She is a giant next to the newborn.

Last night was another battle after a midnight wake. Following intensive screaming and arching and scratching, she finally fell asleep in my arms to the sound of me listing everything I could see out the window. I had a runny nose, but both of my hands were firmly wedged under her bum, so the wet mucus ran down my lips and chin like lost tears.

The fury evaporates as soon as her eyes close and breathing slows. The baby fit snugly in my arms and now her head is on my shoulder and her toes almost reach my knees. My back hurts but I don’t want to put her down.