When I was pregnant, I was the kind of mummy-to-be who did everything she could to bond with her would-be baby. From Day One. Well okay, starting from when I was six-and-a-half-weeks along.
The shock and trepidation gave away quickly to borrowing baby books, Mozart CDs playing every night and reading stories out loud to Dobbes. Any excuse to be close to him, to commune and to eke out whatever information I could about the being within me.
What I got was such a strong sense of his personality from very early on. Call it sixth sense or a Mother's intuition but I knew what made Dobbes Dobbes.
It was in his insistence for making his presence felt, his need to be spoken to, to feel close to the people around him and his enthusiasm to meet the big bad world. He somersaulted his way through 10 months in the tummy, always excited, so much so that he would get hiccups more than twice a day.
The first few days after he was born, Dobbes was in neutral mode, pretty much a benign baby who seemed watchful and observing of the ways of the people around him. He slept a lot and fed just enough, but when he was awake, he was alert and quiet, as if planning something. More than one person remarked on how wise he seemed, how it was as if he knew what whoever carried him was thinking.
Then the days passed and Angel-baby very quickly became a force to be reckoned with. Not for him the clockwork two-hourly feeds and being googoo-gaga'd to. In defiance of what the baby books said a newborn ought to be capable of, he started showing strength very quickly, raising his head high by the end of his first week, standing on his little feet determinedly for a couple of seconds before his quivering knees bested him. He cries at night for conversation and companionship and demands to be spoken to in proper sentences, else he'd look away or roll his eyes.
It did not really come as a surprise to me nor was it a complete turnabout. My sweet monster is the same baby who used to nudge me violently in the ribs from my seventh month of pregnancy and who would kick me reassuringly when his Daddy was away in camp and I was sad.
He seems to save the basic baby 'tude for his Daddy. He has already peed on Mobbes twice and shat all over him once. It's like him saying, "Well, you didn't have to carry me for ten months like my Momma, so here's some extra payback."
Most times Dobbes just wants what every baby want: breast, clean diaper, the room temperature just so and to be jiggled to sleep correctly. But sometimes when it's just him and me again, I catch him smiling that sweet, secret smile and I know that he remembers a time when we were joined by a cord, blood, body and soul.
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