OF LOVE AND IMPERFECTIONS
Kintsugi, also known as kintsukuroi, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.
Flaws turned into something stunning.
My baby slurped at his bottle with a commendable, if not alarming, focus and ferocity. One would think he hadn’t eaten in ages, when in actuality it was more like two hours. Towards the end of the bottle, his eyes fastened onto mine. He stared in the unabashed way of babies, then his face broke into a smile. I grinned back, my heart melting.
“What am I going to do, not smile back?” I teased.
He had been oh so fussy that afternoon. It had taken a ion of soothing before he settled down to eat. Was he gassy? Teething? Simply tired and hungry? I’d gone through a merry-go-round of offerings before he finally, finally, decided he wanted milk and settled down to eat.
“You really put your mama through it,” I told him, his little body wiggling away in my arms even as he sucked down the milk. Then, slowly, he’d fully quieted and calmed. Then he smiled at me, and it wasn’t any feeble affair; it was the kind of smile he gives me first thing in the morning when he opens his eyes and I’m there, smiling back at him.
“Good morning!” I tell him. “It’s a brand-new day. We get to spend another day together.”
Those first morning moments are some of the sweetest. It doesn’t matter if he was restless during the night or fighting sleep at bedtime. His smile - the purest thing I’ve seen - makes me feel so incredibly lucky.
“If every person on earth could receive one of your smiles, there’d be world peace,” I tell him. His blue eyes gaze at me, listening intently even though he doesn’t yet understand.
I talk to my baby continuously. He loves to ride around the house on my hip while I do various tasks, or sit on the bathroom counter with one of my arms around him while I put on makeup with the other, so since he wants to be a part of things, I talk to him about it! My husband Andy has walked in while I’m chatting to our baby about anything from why I’m putting on moisturizer to what we might do that day. I laugh at the possibly funny sight, yet continue, having read how good intentional speech is for a baby’s development.
Talking to him (including singing and reading) is something I feel I’m doing right, or at least well, though there are plenty of times when I doubt myself. When he accidentally scratches his face, I seethe at myself for not trimming his tiny nails sooner. When I began to have trouble producing enough breastmilk, I felt inadequate about having to supplement with formula. When he fusses and fusses, especially when tears accompany his wails, I ache for him, wanting to give anything so he’ll be happy and at peace.
Yet - we get through each trial. His scratches heal without seeming to bother him in the slightest. On a combination of breastmilk and formula, he is thriving. After a long bout of fussiness, he smiles at me, ear to ear, cooing and content. Redemption.
It can be easy, I find, to get tangled up in life’s unavoidable imperfections. We each have things we love which we want to do without blemish, and parenting is no exception. My husband and I marvel at how much we love our son: all he had to do was be born, and we love him in measures overflowing. Even so, we are novices when it comes to caring for him, just doing our best day by day. We’re learning and growing, and the one constant is simply love.
I tend to have a bit of a perfectionism streak in me. I think part of it stems from being a first-born; when helping out my parents with my younger siblings or other tasks, I craved flawless approval. Now, as a parent myself, I know that I will love my son even when he gets things wrong, and know that it is crucial to show him that love even when I’m disappointed. Somehow, it can be easier to have a mindset of grace towards others than for myself. There is a time to be critical of myself and work on improving, and a time to be kind. I can berate myself my flaws and mistakes, or I can use them as a learning opportunity. Whatever I model, my son may mirror, and likely, it will happen much sooner than I think. So, I am working on learning from my mistakes, grace-filled. Treating myself well is a continuous process, one which effects myself and my relationships, particularly with my husband and son. The story of how my son treats himself and the world is just beginning. I know my influence will be far from perfect, despite it all, yet still I’ll try, believing that kindness for myself is the best place to start.
Sitting on the couch with my baby smiling at me, I knew without a doubt that he felt my love. At the end of it all, nothing else matters except my baby knowing that even though I mess up and make mistakes, I love him. His daddy and I love him with our whole hearts, more than we ever thought possible. My baby smiles at me and I smile back, holding him close and hoping one thing: that he can carry some of this love in his heart for the rest of his life.
