Silence and Noises

I just dropped off Nick at day care, and as I sit at my new home office desk, listening to the Today Show blaring, music coming from my computer, and Whinnie barking at the squirrels eating out of our bird feeder in the front yard, I can't help but feel like I'm surrounded by silence. And to be honest? I don't love it. Since the day we brought Nick home from the hospital, every second of my day has been filled with some sort of noise. It started with his dull, quiet newborn cry...they kind of cry that once you become a parent, you recognize it anywhere -- in the mall, at a restaurant, in Starbucks -- and it is so sweet and innocent, you are not bothered by it in the slightest. You simply tilt your head to the side, stick out your bottom lip, and say "awww, that's a new baby!" Unless of course, it's coming from your own newborn, in which case you are bothered -- but only because you are panicked wondering why he is crying -- is he cold? hot? hungry? poopy? tired? hurting? sad? Then the noises turned into more specific demands. The newborn cry turned in to full fledged "I'M FRICKIN' HUNGRY, MOM!" cries. The kind that are comprised of deep, lung lurching "Waaaaaaahhhhh, Waaaaaahhhhhhhh, Waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh's". This noise, (I was lucky enough to experience), was accompanied by a scream letting me know he could not figure out how to fit my ginormous boob in to his tiny newborn mouth. That's when the "Waaahhh's" got louder, the screams sharper. Eventually he figured out eating from a bottle, and the screams only came in intermittent intervals -- as in each time I pulled the bottle out of his mouth to burp him, he became so angry that I took it away that he would pierce my ear drum in protest. And speaking of burps... OH the burps. I thought I had them bad during pregnancy. This kid has me beat. Granted most of his burps are immediately followed by the gurgling sound of spit up flying out of his mouth and either in to my hair, down my cleavage, or all over daddy's clean white t-shirt. But those burps are like a chainsaw. And often accompanied with the burps, are the farts. I also thought I had that bad during pregnancy... but again, I have been outdone. More than a few times while Todd has been feeding Nick and a fart has escaped, I've had to ask Todd "was that you, or the baby?" In addition to those grand noises, were the grunts. The baby grunts. Think wild boar...only more high pitched. Later we learned these grunts had a lot to do with his acid reflux, and the Zantac has since helped. That, and leaving his arms out when we swaddle him...otherwise he makes the grunting noises until he pulls his arms out of the swaddle. But in the past week and a half, to two weeks time, the noises have evolved. The goo-goo, gah-gah's are real. I always thought it was just an annoying set of noises that old ladies had developed to pretend they knew how to communicate with babies. Turns out, the babies use them to communicate with old ladies! And the rest of the world! And with the goo-goo, gah-gah's (ok, so it's more a goo here, and a gah there...not repetitive goo-goo, gah-gah), comes the cooing. And the laughing. And oh, the sweet babbling. These noises are the kind that make you look in to his eyes and say "you can keep me up all night, if you just keep smiling and making those noises". And so as I sit here at my desk, listening to the birds chirping loudly outside my window, and Taylor Swift's "Mine" play from my speakers...I can't help but feel like it is so quiet. My hungry baby isn't screaming for a bottle from his crib. My happy baby isn't talking to his baby Einstein toys. Because he's doing all of that at day care. And I am so happy to be sitting here missing his noises. I feel so blessed to get to experience all that he has to say. And I can't wait to go pick him up this afternoon, ask him how his day was, and listen to him tell me all about it. Because there are no sweeter sounds in the world, than those made by your own baby.