Number One Son

4 a.m. feedings seem to be when I come up with all my greatest ideas. While feeding and rocking my baby I come up with fabulous conclusions such as my latest opinion on spanking, incredible titles to books I will probably never write, all things birthday for the soon-to-be birthday boy (Kade), and great topics for future blog posts. Almost all of which end up forgotten once I go back to bed. 

But I do remember this: 

The other night as I was rocking Jones, I looked at him and thought I guess this is what it was like for me as a first born child/grandchild on one side. Could it be that once I was just as fawned over and adored as this little guy?

Growing up as the oldest of seven kids, first of nineteen grandchildren on one side and fifth of thirty-nine on the other, I always thought of myself as just a number. Two extra hands to help my mother, one scrubbed bathroom or forty-some-odd dishes washed depending on the week, three speeding tickets which called for two jobs, one broken window, (a desired) five A's three trimesters a year, three years down and the remaining six threw a party celebrating the departure of the one terrorizing, tyrannical big sister.

But having a baby myself gave me a different point of view. Jonah will and never could be just a number to me. He is my stinker boy, my little tiny guy, the only person who could fart repeatedly and I'd laugh, the only one who could poop all over my shirt and I'd still hold him close, the only one who could scream on my shoulder until my eardrums burst and I would continue to bounce and rock him until his tummy felt better--even if that meant hours. He's my baby Jones, and I'd do just about anything for him.

When he gets big enough, I'll teach him to work. To use his two hands for the benefit of himself and others. He'll hate me for it, sure, but one day he'll be able to clean his own house, do his own laundry, be motivated on his own to work hard for a decent, comfortable life. When he gets his first speeding ticket, I'll most likely freak out. Not because of any amount of money required for the ticket or monthly insurance premiums--my child's life does not have a price. His speeding will put me in danger of losing him, and that is what would make me ballistic. When he goes to school, of course I will expect and encourage him to get excellent grades. Not because a column of however many A's looks particularly good on paper, but because his focus and attentiveness in high school will continue on to become dedication and perseverance in some pretty ridiculously difficult college courses, which will then lead to a degree, and on to a job, and on to that decent, comfortable life I've been hoping for him since the beginning. 

It's an incredible and peculiar feeling, the moment you realize you have become your parents. All the years spent angry at them, belittling them, wanting to get as far away from them as you could--all that and you end up in their shoes.

I guess they really did know more than I thought they did.

And I guess I can understand now, that even throughout my teen years, I was more than just a number to them.