RED BALL. YELLOW BLOCK. BLUE CONE. Among these objects, each light, plastic, hollow, an infant struggled. A soft flannel cover disguised the tough, water-resistant mat of the playpen in which, belly-up, the infant waved puffy arms and then slammed its right hand down. Two parents gazed upon their firstborn, now fourteen weeks along.
"Should it be like that, on its back?"
"Dunno. Can't remember if it's the back or stomach that's bad."
"Great, SIDS, fifty-fifty chance."
"What do you want to do, call Dr. Townsley? Now? Nine-thirty?"
"Nah, I'll do a Web search."
The infant seemed blissfully beyond any talk of a life threat. Then, for its own reason it pushed--did not strike--its right hand on the flannel cover, as if trying to lever and roll its body stomachward. But the effort stalled. The short arm of the infant could not change where its body lay one whit.
Intense, more focussed than weeks before, the eyes of the infant took in its parents. What did it know with those blue, watery eyes? This was the guessing game for the parents: What did the infant see? What did the infant feel? And most important, What did the infant want?
As if giving up on the effort, the infant stopped pushing its right fist to the mat and instead raised overhead, to the hovering parents, the chubby hand with a crooked forefinger no longer than a crayon stub. The forefinger pointing upward to what it saw.
Two faces. One face on taller body with glass spectacles in front of eyes. Face with short hair. Hair color like curtain sunlight. Mouth, turned down at corners, opens, closes. "V guvax ur'f ybbxvat ng zr."
Mouth in other face on shorter body does not open, close. Thick lips, glossy red, smile. Long hair falls to shoulders, hair color like curtain sunlight too.
On mat, neck and back hurt. Head and body cannot turn over on mat. Taller body, shorter body can pick up body here. Neck, back hurt.
Both faces stop smiling. Hold up arm and hand and finger to touch face on shorter body, face with long hair. Cannot reach face. Face bends over close. Finger cannot reach face.
Mouth in closer face opens, closes. "Jung qbrf ur jnag? Ur whfg unq uvf sbezhyn."
Face moves away. Finger cannot touch face. Face moves further away. Neck and back still hurt. Arm, hand, finger pointing high at face, cannot touch. Bring back hand to face, bring both hands to face, now warm. WAAAAAHHHHH. Wet tears on warm face. Both hands hold face. WAAAAAHHHHH.
Two faces up there with mouths turned down at corners.
"Qba'g cvpx uvz hc."
WAAAAAHHHHH.
Finger cannot touch face up there. Hands of shorter body do not reach down and pick up body. Arms and hands beside body wave up and down. Faces up there frown.
Faces on bodies up there turn around and only hair on heads up there shows. Bodies leave. Light in room leaves. Darkness falls here.
WAAAAAHHHHH.
Face here wet with tears. Neck, back still hurt. Red ball, yellow block, blue cone go away in darkness.
Eyes open. Body sits strapped in car seat held by seat belt to rear seat of auto. Moving, moving. Other side of glass window, building, big truck, another auto, streetlight pole, utility wire, cloud, tree, tree, patch of blue sky, plastic sign for store, billboard. Moving, moving. Two bodies in front seat of auto have hairy head tops and one with shorter hair turns sideways. Mouth opens, closes.
"Ur frrzf gb rawbl gur evqr fb sne."
"Gung'f tbbq."
Moving, moving. Stomach feels bad. Moving makes stomach feel bad. Moving, moving. Past window glides auto, auto, auto, truck, bus, spangled white cloud and faraway blue sky, electric wire drooping between pole, pole, pole. Then auto slows, stops. Stomach feels really bad.
"Waaaaahhhhh."
The auto halted at a traffic intersection, and the father, wrist topping the steering wheel, gave the mother an I-told-you-so glance. Earlier that week, they had disagreed about whether to accept the evening's dinner invitation if they didn't have, didn't know, a sitter.
"What's with that kid?"
The mother turned and in the car seat, the swaddled baby was strapped in tight as if he were an astronaut ready for a spaceflight launch. His nose, a facial bump with the smallest of nostrils, crinkled. He had stopped crying, yet his eyes kept an intensity suggesting he might not have finished.
"He's hungry." She was guessing. Her husband frowned and he pulled away from the intersection. Everything with baby was in the back seat: diapers, bottles of formula, the whole change bag. She thought forty-five minutes across town wouldn't be a big deal, but her neighbor Stephanie had warned first trips were always a trial.
"I can't pull over."
"Waaaaahhhhh." The infant waved his arms in the air as if struggling to be free of the straps. "Waaaaahhhhh." The mother saw her husband clinch the steering wheel and knew before long he would turn his irritation on her. It was only a baby and yet this new bundle of life could bring them to bicker with just a cry.
"You have to pull over," she said. The face back there, no bigger than her hand, was wrinkled pink. "His bag's in the back seat."
"Okay, but next time, we're gonna think about a sitter." She had been so busy since coming home from the hospital, the thought of who might eventually baby-sit had escaped her. But Trinity, down the block on 18th, might like earning the money. She always seemed to come by anyway with various sales pitches: fancy chocolates, fun-run pledges, magazine subscriptions--all raising money, Trinity said, for her school. Yes, and Trinity was about the right age, ten.
The next day, the infant was back in the playpen, surrounded by the familiar red ball, yellow block, and blue cone. The infant slept on its back, entangled in a small blanket, the fingers of one hand in its mouth.
The mother came in, saw the sleeping infant, the tangle of blanket. She bent over to fix the blanket and make the baby more comfortable. When she did this, the infant stirred.
"Waaaaahhhhh." The infant seemed ready for another crying jag. At times, she didn't know what to make of his discomfort. His needs appeared simple. Eating, sleeping, diaper changes.
And she had taken care of those needs--he'd been sleeping, his diaper was okay, and he ate within the hour. What else could make him cry?
"Waaaaahhhhh."
When he took to crying, the one thing the infant did not want was to be ignored. And yet the mother did not want to always give him attention. If she did, she reasoned, before long the baby (and future adult) would believe the world worked on whining.
So, she decided to keep him as unspoiled as she could manage and hope that would make him more independent. Despite this resolve, she did bend down this time and pick up her cuddly human. For, to be fair, it was she who disturbed him, untangling his blanket. But she was getting systematic about when to answer his cries and when not to.
But this wasn't time to choose: She had disturbed him.
She held him close, feeling the warmth from such a small body.
"Waaaaahhhhh."
Cooing him soft nonsense words, words that other times lulled him to sleep, she walked to an end table and retrieved a formula bottle.
Inverted, the bottle's white content flowed to the orangy tip that she let his saliva-rich lips guzzle, his lips so small that they seemed not much bigger than the nipple itself.
He suckled the latex nipple and as if to affirm his contentment, he raised the free arm that was away from her and with his hand and forefinger pointed upward at her face as if he also wanted to touch her too.
Suck. Suck. Warm liquid, good taste. Fills mouth. Swallow, goes down throat. Suck, suck. Long hair, color like curtain sunlight. Fingers reach, hold hair. Warm liquid in throat, in stomach. Suck. Suck.
Face with long hair, color like curtain sunlight, swings and moves while suck, suck, more warm liquid in throat, in stomach.
Suck. Suck. More warm liquid in throat, in stomach. Full in stomach. Full in throat. Stomach hurt. Too much warm liquid. Pressure in throat. Cannot suck, suck.
Nipple in mouth. Cannot suck, suck. Too full. Shake head. Nipple in face, nipple at lips. Shake head. Too much warm liquid.
WAAAAAHHHHH.
Pressure in throat. Pressure in stomach. Pressure in chest. Too much warm liquid. Nipple and bottle go away. Swing, swing, to and fro. Hand pat back. Pressure inside. Hand pat back. Pressure different. Pressure moves. Pressure moves up throat.
BLOOOSHHH. BLOOOSHHH. Wet lips, warm liquid goes out wet lips.
"Tbbq onol, tbbq onol."
Hand pat back. Hand pat back.
Hands lower body to playpen mat, then body goes away, returns with towel. Hands use towel to wipe liquid off lips and then face with long hair goes away. Darkness falls in room.
WAAAAAHHHHH.
In darkness, no red ball.
WAAAAAHHHHH.
The mother gave up expecting things would soon change. And they didn't. For her baby was learning quickly to demand. Whenever he was hungry, he cried. Oh, how he howled. And nothing as blatantly deceptive as a pacifier would stop the bawling if he were hungry. So out came one of the formula bottles she vigilantly had at the ready when the keening call came. And if she was unlucky enough to run out of bottles, that was the pits, something she did only once.
He would gulp the liquid down--always too fast--as if famished and she knew he was swallowing all the more air. Then, bloated, he needed to burp. He would take to crying again and a pacifier was no answer. She had to lift him and begin coaxing his stomach to release the trapped air. She'd bounce him lightly on her arm, his screaming face on the towel at her shoulder and she would wait for that bloosh. Invariably, the burp seemed to startle him and stop the crying. She'd clean him off and bounce him in her arms to enjoy, if only for minutes, the welcome calm.
But before long, with the exertion of eating, then struggling at the dogged compulsion to burp, he seemed to be exhausted, about to drop off into the unknown world, sleep. With this exhaustion came resistance. He fought sleep with more crying. Only then did the pacifier work. Munching away on the orangy nipple, the eyelids would droop and then relief, he was asleep.
When he awoke hours later, the cycle would start anew. And he awoke anytime during the twenty-four hours of each and every day. But the mother found she could endure, knowing that Friday, she would have an evening respite of at least six hours. Trinity was coming to baby-sit for the first time. The mother yearned for that relief and was all the more grateful Trinity lived but a few doors away.
The parents were gone and Trinity, who the mother learned had done a fair amount of baby-sitting, was particularly anxious to have a good time with the baby. She was warned, somewhat indirectly, he might need a lot of attention. They were in the family room, the playpen a center stage, and Trinity studied a stack of CDs by the stereo. There was something about music and babies. They liked music.
She sifted the CDs, saw a Scott Joplin, dropped it in the player. The infant who had been quiet up to now, who seemed to be taking in the new face--hers--grinned with the rousing melody of "Maple Leaf Rag." The music animated him. He raised a leg and let it happily drop.
Trinity was pleased that this baby, too, took a liking to music. She bent over the playpen to share more closely his soft gurgling. His mouth dribbled with happy gurgles.
"Wanna dance, big guy?"
She reached in and clutched him close. He was her dance partner. They circled the room slowly. To each run of the piano, they stepped and bounced gently until they were back where they started. She put him down when a new song started; she felt he had enough excitement for the moment. He sat there, propped up against the wooden bars of the playpen.
The infant seemed to roll around--for he was not yet old enough to crawl--to face the wooden fence that confined him. And up went an arm, the hand and fingers extended in a grabbing gesture at one of the upright slats.
Hand holds wooden bar. Fingers squeeze smooth wood. Hand holds bar until fingers hurt, until fingers turn to wood and hand now part of wooden bar too. Body pulls back, rolls back to leave hand on wooden bar, leave it there. Body pulls harder so hand comes off and stays on wooden bar. Body keeps pulling, then hand comes loose from wooden bar.
WAAAAAHHHHH.
Arm still has hand. Hand won't come off and stay on wooden bar.
WAAAAAHHHHH.
Trinity picked another CD to play, but saw him struggling with the playpen, as if he wanted out or something. She bent over and gently scooted him next to the red ball at the center of the mat. His right arm went out, his hand seemingly drawn to the red object.
Red ball by blue cone. Two hands grab red ball, one to each side. Hold red ball tightly. Hands wave up and down. Red ball goes up and down. Body pulls away from red ball. Red ball moves too. Red ball can't stay like wooden bar. Red ball moves with hands, with arms, with body.
Hands go away from red ball. Red ball falls.
Then both hands grab red ball again. Hands wave up and down. Red ball goes up and down. More music. Wave red ball with loud music, up and down. Hands leave red ball and red ball goes up in air and hits wooden bar and rolls on mat.
WAAAAAHHHHH.
He was amazing, she decided: a two-handed toss of the red ball that bounced off the side of the playpen. Now, could he do it again? Trinity bent over and put the ball close by him. Immediately, his right hand shot out, his pointing finger tipping the ball.
Hands hold red ball and wave up and down. Red ball goes up and down. Hands go back and go forward and then let go of red ball. Red ball goes to wooden bars and bounces and hits mat.
Yellow block. Hands grab yellow block. Hold it tightly and wave up and down. Hands go back and then go forward. Yellow block goes to wooden bar, bouncing to mat like red ball. Yellow block hits red ball.
Hands, arms, body make red ball, yellow block move. Hands grab blue cone. Blue cone flies across playpen too. Hands, arms, body, all one. Hands stay with arms, body. Red ball, yellow block, blue cone do not stay with hands, move away. Hands, arms, body make red ball fly through air, hands grab red ball and wave up and down. Hands, arms, body, all one.
Body with face comes to playpen and puts red ball right before hands, arms, body. Hands, arms, body pick up red ball and wave up and down at wooden bars that do not stay with hands, do not move like red ball moves. Hands wave higher and let go red ball. Red ball flies up in air, above wooden bars, falls outside.
WAAAAAHHHHH.
"Home run, big guy!" Trinity yelled. She stooped down to pick up the red ball, still rolling, and all-smiles set it down next to her young charge, who waved his arms with an obvious frenzy to keep throwing the red ball.
Hands grab red ball and wave up and down and red ball flies above wooden bars.
Hands and arms and body want to throw red ball again.
Hands and arms and body, all one want.
Hands and arms and body make red ball fly through air. Hands, arms, body, all one want. One want--I want. I make red ball fly through air. I want.
I want.
When the parents returned that evening, they had at first no inkling something had changed with the infant. The mother could not put her finger on it, but weeks later, she noticed he cried less and seemed more content in his playpen, tossing about toys. The red ball, especially, caught his eye. He delighted in hurling it out of the playpen. The mother, with some idle notion he might go to college on an athletic scholarship, rushed over every time his toss of the red ball cleared the playpen guardrail and restored his toy to its rightful place so he could keep up the practice.
Whenever she did this, he would gurgle happily and raise his arm and hand, with forefinger extended, as if he wanted to take the ball from her.
I want to make red ball fly and I grab red ball. Red ball flies out of playpen. Bounce. Roll. Stop. BA-BA-BA.