August Exclusive - "Sparkly Objects " - Part 3

You’re too stressed. You need to take a break. You’re going to burn out.

This is not what Nathan hears from Julia.

“What a wide-awake boy! Look at those bright eyes!”

It’s nothing but positive feedback from Julia this morning. Nathan feels the dopamine hit as her brightly pitched, sing-song words reach his ears. It’s stronger and more emphatic than any reaction to a Facebook like or Twitter retweet.

“Look at that smile! Are you happy? Are you Mommy’s happy baby?”

Yes, he smiles. Yes, he’s happy. His universe has shrunk down to a perfectly manageable size; one where Julia is in charge and where Nathan is the sole focus.

And so what if he’s tiny? So what if his memories of the time before today are an incomprehensible muddle? He decides not to dwell on things he can’t understand, and instead raises his hands clumsily but sincerely, an invitation for Julia to pick him up and say good morning to him properly. With kisses and cuddles. With a diaper change.

“Let’s take look-see…oh yes, you’re all wet. Mommy’s gonna fix that, and then we’re gonna have a nummy breakfast, yes we are!”

Nathan hears the pop of the snaps as Julia undresses him. He’s pink, he’s tiny, out of the white pajamas and into his six-month-old skin. The Wet Wipes are cool, but Julia is good enough to apologize, competent enough to distract Nathan with her sugar-sweet commentary and compliments.

“You’re being so good for Mommy. There we go, clean as a cucumber. Yes, you are! And I don’t think we need to dress you all up, do we, I think just a diaper will do for now. You want your breakfast now, or you want some sleepy cuddles?”

Good question. Nathan looks up at Julia’s giant face, feels her hands swamping his own, as if she wants to read his thoughts through his fingers. “I think…we should have a sleepy cuddle.”

Nathan agrees. Kind of. He’s still waking up after all, he isn’t quite…with it. Something happened before, last night, something amazing. It started…Nathan ponders the where and when, while Julia lifts him into her arms and sits down on the rocking chair.

It wasn’t here. It was on the couch when it happened. Couch. It’s a funny word, and Nathan doesn’t try to spell it, but he does close his eyes and try to picture it. Where Julia sits. And where Nathan sits? No. Nathan sits on Julia. Because Nathan is just a baby. Nathan can only just sit up by himself. He needs laps, he needs holding.

“What shall we do today?” Julia says with a languid tone. As if the sky is the limit. The options she lists aren’t as impressive. There will be breakfast, there will be play time. A trip to the library, Julia promises in a hushed voice, and then she reveals that they will be visiting Auntie Kate and Ollie.

“Won’t that be fun?”

It’s not a real question. Which is fine because Nathan is barely registering the words anyway. It’s little more than a song to his ears, accompanied by soporific pats on his diapered rear, strokes on his back, kisses on his head.

Nathan kicks his feet. He can do that. That’s his job. To be held, patted, sung to. And to kick his feet.

It’s such a quiet, relaxing start to the day. Julia rocks gently back and forth, and the sensation is soporific, it is…hypnotic.

Like before. Like the sparkles.

Where did the sparkles go? Where did they come from in the first place? Julia will know the answer because she is the one who showed Nathan the sparkles. Before now, before…last night.

He can push against Julia’s chest. These actions make Julia laugh. “What a wriggler you are this morning! Are you telling Mommy it’s time for breakfast? Do you want your num-nums?” She brings her face to Nathan’s, and it is all he can see. A bright smile, the amused eyes. For a moment, Nathan is certain that she means to eat him. She will open her mouth and swallow him whole. Because she looks hungry. She looks more than capable.

But it’s just a moment. Nathan knows that Julia won’t eat him. Mommies don’t eat babies. That’s not a thing. And Nathan is an expert in babies, after all. Even more so, after last night.

It was an ordinary evening, until something got in Nathan’s eyes. Something so bright, so beautiful and overwhelming, there was no space for anything else. Certainly no space for decisions, for coherent ideas. The sparling light got in Nathan’s eyes, and he was lost.

No, not lost. He was found. Julia found him. Mommy did.

When? Before the bath. Before the most bubbles Nathan had ever seen, in the biggest bath he has ever enjoyed.

Yes, it all happened before the bath. Nathan contemplates the idea while Julia stands up and carries him downstairs, chattering perfect nonsense about nummy-nums. She tells him that he is a big boy, which is why he gets to sit in the highchair. She keeps on chattering while she makes breakfast. There’s coffee, but that’s only for Julia. Nathan has to wait for the nummy-nums, whatever that might be.

He sits in the chair, patting the plastic tray experimentally with the palms of his tiny hands. The surface is shiny, it is smooth and somehow reassuring. He watches Julia as she stands at the stove, and soon there is the smell of food cooking.

“This what Ollie’s having for breakfast,” says Julia casually, “so I figured you could have it too.” She turns to wink at Nathan. “You can compare tasting notes when we visit with them later on.” She laughs, so that must be a joke. Nathan doesn’t laugh back, but he enjoys the sound Julia makes, the smile on her face. She’s so bright and cheerful, she’s so relaxed. She’s so in control. Of course she is. Mommy’s in charge. Mommy’s everything.

Julia looks back at the stove, and Nathan gets the chance to look down at his hands. And again, he thinks of last night and the giant bubble bath.

It didn’t start off giant. It started off normal-sized. He had something between his legs at first, something hard that pressed for attention, but that faded as soon as he was in the tub, surrounded by bubbles and more sparkles.

Strange, but the water kept rising up, the tub kept spreading out, and Julia reached for the plug a number of times, to let out the water, to stop Nathan from being submerged. All the way, Julia told Nathan how good he was being, how proud she was of him. As if this was a decision he had made, a contract he had signed, instead of something thrown at him, something thrust upon him, after he had unbuttoned the top of Julia’s blouse.

Yes, the sparkles. They had existed behind Julia’s top. Would she show them to him again? In his highchair, Nathan gazes at Julia’s back. The idea of him tackling the buttons by himself is preposterous. He will need Julia to show him. Julia is in charge of all the buttons in the world, his and hers. She is in charge of the buttons and snaps and zippers.

Does Nathan want to see the sparkles? It’s a good question. He has a confusing thought; the sparkles are good, and they are bad, they are both things at the same time.

But if he does want to see them, can he ask Julia? Can he make a request?

No. He can repeat sounds. He can say, “Ma-ma-ma.” He can say “Buh-buh-buh.” He finds himself making noises like that, and when Julia smiles at him, when she calls him her clever, clever boy, Nathan feels himself getting carried away, babbling more, because there’s nothing in the world more satisfying now than Julia’s approval.

In the bath, Julia had kept talking to him, washing him, and gushing at him – because wasn’t he getting so little and cute, wasn’t this such an amazing reminder of the old photo album and all his childhood snapshots? Until he was so small that Julia declared him just right, as if she were baking bread, and she said he was the same size as Ollie – They can share outfits! They can play with the same toys! They’ll be cousins! – and Nathan found the idea so strange and silly that he reacted with giggles and babbling, his adult erection forgotten like so much else of his ancient history, his old urges faded away and then returning as infantile desires to taste, touch and be held.

“Nummy-nums!”

Julia brings the food to the table, and after tying a bib around Nathan’s neck, she spoon-feeds him the scrambled egg. Nathan is sure that it is excellent, a taste sensation, waving his arms with satisfaction, reaching for the spoon in his enthusiasm, even though he’s not old enough for spoons.

Julia declares Nathan a good eater and a good boy, and also a messy boy. Nathan sits in his special chair, and he doesn’t care that he’s wearing no more than a bib and a diaper, he is unfazed by the sticky mess around his mouth and on his hands.

This is all manageable, more than bearable, especially when Julia presents him with cut-up pieces of buttered toast, something for to grab at and cram into his mouth. Eating is the best, eating is far more satisfying than wondering about sparkly objects.

The morning continues, with cleaning up, with a messy diaper that surprises Nathan with its suddenness before he relaxes into it (the warm squish more comforting than anything else), and then a diaper change, and then some play, and then a bottle of formula, and then a nap, and finally another diaper change, this time followed by Julia dressing Nathan in a striped, long-sleeve romper that she tells him is honey-colored.

“You’re Mommy’s sweet honey, yes you are!”

“Ba-ba-ba,” says Nathan agreeably. “Muh-muh-muh.”

And then they’re off to visit with Ollie and Auntie. Nathan sits in the living room with the other six-month-old, and he likes the toys, although he mostly ignores his cousin.

But the thing that sparks Nathan’s curiosity the most are the words he hears coming from Julia and her sister.

Yard sale.

Maternity leave.

These are words from both yesterday and today. And what strikes Nathan as most interesting is how normal this is, how every day. Because he hasn’t been sure, as he shakes and mouths the toy that makes the best sound in the world (the noise that makes Julia and Auntie both cheer, as if Nathan is making miracles happen when she shakes it) that this really is every day. On the contrary, it seems special, it feels like one-of-a-kind.

It’s Nathan’s auntie that solves that puzzle.

Julia’s sister puts both babies down for a nap; Ollie in his crib, and Nathan in a pack n’ play.

Julia holds Nathan close. “You love your auntie, don’t you.” She strokes his head, swings him gently in her arms. “I heard you, well, the baby monitor did. I know that all strong men really want is to be dominated. You said it yourself. Jealous of Ollie. And now you’ve got just what you want. I told Julia while you were clearing up after the yard sale.”

She lowers him carefully into the pack n’ play. “Julia didn’t believe me at first, because after all, you’re always acted like a big, strong boy.” She smiles down at him. “But it’s okay, I was able to persuade her.” Her smile broadens, transforms into a grin. “With a little help from a sparkly necklace. By the time you were done cleaning up, she was set on making you her sweet baby boy right there, but she had to wait until I’d made the arrangements.”

Julia dulls the lights, turns on the noise machine. “You’re welcome,” she says.

And she spins the mobile above the pack n’ play spin, and Nathan notices it for the first time. He notices the sparkles, and he gurgles and babbles with recognition, and he gazes at the sparkly object, transfixed by it, and as the remaining shreds of his old thoughts and understanding fade away, he giggles and drools as he soaks his diaper.

THE END

"A stressed young man notes a baby’s fascination with sparkly objects - and sarcastically wishes he could be so easily satisfied" - DukoDukoNe