Repetitive Motion

Sometimes, while washing bottles for the fourth time in a day, or unloading the dishwasher, or folding laundry (why do all the things I do make it seem like I'm a 1950's housewife?), I try to do the math on how many times in a lifetime I will do such tasks.  How many times will I wash my hands?  Take out the trash?  Straighten a pile of crap on the table or slam a car door?

Wait, what are we looking at?

Probably not worth thinking about, but now the repetitive motions of my day include changing Milo's diaper, feeding him, putting him down for a nap or just picking him up and holding him while walking from room to room.  And there is a new dimension to these movements because, although there's obviously some utility to them, there's a difference between doing them and putting away forks and spoons.  First, there's the tenderness quotient.  Taking the opportunity to kiss the Moosh's belly while changing his diaper adds a layer of meaning to an otherwise ordinary task.  And also, I'm almost always aware as I do these things that I won't be doing them for too very much longer.  Newsflash: he won't be a baby forever.  Won't be in diapers; won't clutch my hand when having a feeding; won't look at me with eyes that at once seem to see me with such freshness and sweet familiarity.  

Someday, he will be pimply and sullen, and won't want to look at me at all when he finishes up at the orthodontist's office with a bad freakin' attitude just in time to get dropped off at school to change for gym class.  But until then, I'll just continue to take pleasure as much in the 478th time of doing things with Milo as with his first times -- the rolling over, the new vocalizations, the gurgle-giggles -- and try to pay such close attention, because each time something happens, that's one less time it's going to happen, and I'll sure miss it when it's gone.