My Baby’s a Velociraptor, Now What?

May 6, 2020, began the 46-hour labor that brought my little boy, sweet, sweet Graham into the world. Now, a year later…

If you want to find the cover of a bowl in this house, check under the bed for the lid. Lids and plastic containers are everywhere, in every corner of every room, as are the contents of my bathroom drawers. It is not uncommon to find hair brushes in the kitchen, a curling iron in the hall (watch out for the cord).

When is the last time I curled my hair? Who the hell has the time? Did I put deodorant on today? (sniff test) Nope, must’ve been yesterday.

My son is better at finding floor “food” than the dog. Floor food is not limited to “food” in the traditional sense. Sure, it may include dropped and forgotten pieces of cheese or crumbs from dinner too small to tempt the dog, but it extends to all manner of bite-sized things: tiny rocks, paper scraps, pieces of plastic of God-knows-what from devil-knows-where. I’m thinking of serving my son on the floor because he’s more interested in eating the dirt carried in on someone’s shoe than any of the actual food on his tray—most of which he drops unceremoniously from his left hand like an offering to the dog who eagerly awaits the windfall.

Sometimes I want to scream. At him. Like the monster I feel brewing inside. Is it appropriate to yell at a one-year-old? Probably not. It feels right, though. Melissa Ambrosini would never do it. But he’s going for the goddamn fireplace again, and seriously how many times must he try to unplug the cords before I snap? He looks at me, grinning like the Cheshire cat, because he knows Mommy is about to raise her voice and for some reason that is hilarious. Uncontrollable laughter ensues; joy in my anguish. By the tenth time it’s no longer hard for me to keep a straight face.

Yes, Mommy is hysterical. Totally a joke.

Fuck, this kid can see right through me already.

Yes, I desperately want to scream but he’s a baby, so he screams—a guttural, unnatural noise—when I remove him from the situation (again), as if he’s saying that if it’s not dangerous it just isn’t fun, and I realize this is how I will go insane.

I just watched him pull a plastic hanger from a laundry basket, lose his precious balance, fall on his butt then graze his giant melon on the only toy in a five-foot radius. If there is a way to hit his head, this child will find it. Even in his own room, the most Graham-proofed space in the house, he managed to give himself a black eye. I was right beside him when it happened.

You’ve got to be quicker than that!

He used to like to stand in the middle of a room and lift things—particularly heavy, awkward things—and one day when he was about nine months old, he started carrying one of those things across the floor. I hollered to my husband: You have to see this honey. You’ll never believe it.

Proud parents we were. Nine months old and our son was walking.

Wait. Our son is walking. Shiiiiiit.

Now he pinballs from one thing to the next to the next looking for something to destroy. He reminds me of the Terminator swiping his head from side to side until he finds something he hasn’t fucked with in a while—a couch pillow, the air purifier, Dad’s fish fry dinner, a cat—and enacts his own brand of chaos: conquering and obliteration. Every now and then as he sets out to annihilate a space and all its inhabitants, some unforeseen thing upsets him and he unleashes a scream that likely splits the neighbors’ ears, before continuing, unabated, to his next unsuspecting victim.

“But he’s so cute. Look at that blonde hair! What an angel.”

That’s how he gets you. You’ve never seen him wail with delight with tufts of fur in his fingers and cat hair between his teeth.

I am perhaps most susceptible to his game because my love is a kind of desperation. I’m desperate for him to be safe and happy. Desperate for confirmation that he loves me for more than just his precious “booby milk.” My heart skips a beat when he wraps his arms around my neck (finally, a hug!)…then I feel his teeth sink into my neck, the tiny razor blades that popped way too early, and have to scrounge whatever logic I have left to remind myself that he’s not doing it to be a bastard. He’s just a baby.

But is it normal? When exactly did my dear sweet Graham Graham become a velociraptor? I’ve ripped the ends of my fingers off (just a terrible, disgusting thing I do) because I just don’t know. When he walks around grunting like a caveman, or bonks his head again, I start to wonder if I’m failing. It’s all I can do to keep this kid from too many nics and bruises, following in his wake to temper his more perilous pursuits as he explores his world. They never told me how hard it is to keep a child alive and—more importantly—entertained.

When he looks me in the eye as he lets out another devastating scream, I know he’s trying to tell me something. But what? What child, what?

In the moments when I still have a shred of calm (right before calamity) I answer in my most logical voice, “What do you need, honey?” Blankness, then the acute frustration of a child who is devastatingly smart but also wickedly impatient. Another scream and my ears begin to bleed.

I look down at my son as he’s nursing, and remember the days when love was less painful: on my heart, my ego, my eardrums, my skin. He’s picking at a scab on my chest of a scratch he created, and it hurts. I remove his hand a dozen or more times, but he keeps coming back with the tiny nails he won’t let me file. If he would just close his eyes, I might find a moment of peace. No sooner do I dare to hope that this is it—this is naptime—than he clamps down with those mighty chomps and I pry his mouth off what’s left of my nipple while he giggles (because it’s obviously hilarious), set him on the floor, and fight the urge to cry. I can’t cry because he’s crying—he has the monopoly on that—because I’m a jerk for ending the nursing session. I feel like one. How is that possible? I’m the one injured and the asshole?

Some days I long for the privilege of a quiet, solo pee, or the ability to read a book unabated. He’s worth it, I know. This is love like none other. So I stuff more cotton in my ears to save what hearing I still have, wipe the bananas off the floor that neither my son nor the dog are interested in, and change another diaper. Next time when he starts to scream I’m quick with the music because his hips can’t ignore a good beat. While entranced by the song for a few blessed seconds he’s occupied, and I take a deep breath. It’s worth it—bleeding ears and all. Every beautiful, agonizing, amazing, and terrible moment is worth every bite, cut, and cry, and that’s why we have babies, these beautiful, terrible little monsters.

Miracles. I meant “miracles.”

Reveling in the exquisite mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion of the first year of my son’s life, I look up and realize he’s made a mountain of clothes beneath his bedroom window to stand on so he can look outside. He’s bested me again. This time I’m not mad. I take a picture.

I love you Graham, you perfect little angel.

Happy Birthday.