It is just a building of brick and mortar. It is just a place to kick off your shoes after a long day of business, or being a kid at the local area attractions. It is one of so many hotels that dot the landscape of the strip we are driving, but still…I find myself holding back tears as my husband turns the car around the circular drive and there we are smack in front of the sign that says, Welcome to the Extended Stay.
Remember when this was home, Mom? For almost two weeks, almost three years ago. Remember when this was home? I look over and my mother is crying too.
My son was born almost three years ago. He was born in a state that I did not live in, from between two legs that were not mine. I did not grow his small body from fish-like thing to squirmy baby toes and fingers in the water of my womb. Instead, I carried him in my heart for six months prior to his birth. Hope is a road that lengthens itself across the Pennsylvania turnpike.
This weekend, I traveled with my son, who is not yet three but so close to being three we can almost taste the pink frosting of the cupcakes he has already requested upon understanding that his birthday is fast approaching. I traveled with my son and my daughter, my husband, and my parents to Pennsylvania. We were celebrating the fact that my son and daughter will both be having birthdays in the next few weeks. Celebrating with Elmo, Big Bird, and Cookie Monster at Sesame Place.
I have been planning this trip since the week my son was born, looking longingly at the glossy photos of the park’s brochure as I laid my back against hotel pillows and fed my son his first bottles.
Those of you who have read me for awhile know that Bug is adopted. Some of you know that when my son was born I traveled to Pennsylvania for his birth, and have been his mother ever since. What you might not know is that having adopted in a state I did not reside in, I had to wait for something called the Interstate Compact to clear before I could leave Pennsylvania and take my son home. My husband was a new teacher, then, and could not stay in Pennsylvania the two weeks it took for this paperwork to be processed. That left me, with the help of my mother, to wake up each morning in a foreign hotel room and learn what it would mean to mother my son.
Bug was such an easy baby. He would wake with hunger and easily take to the bottle, curl up in my arms, and drink himself back to sleep. I can still remember the way he would rest one small hand against the freckled warmth of my breastbone. The other hand he would use to grip around my thumb in propriety fashion. In those days and nights of efficiency kitchens and cable TV, he was marking me as mother. Each time he cried, and it was my arms that comforted him in the dark, we laid down the lines of this story. My son and I, the ache that eased into belonging, together, my baby and me. I think of this and smile as I listen to my son pepper his grandfather with endless questions as we sit in front of the hotel.
What we doing, Pa? Where Elmo’s house? Whose house is this? Can I have a pretzel? Are we gonna see Big Bird, now?
I pull out my camera and we take a picture. Bug and I are all octopus arms around each other with big silly grins plastered on our faces. This is where we started, my lovely. I tell him as I plant kisses on his cheeks, his nose, his lips.
Ahhh…I missed you Momma.
This is something new that my son does. Each time I hug him, which is countless times a day, he sighs like a man that has come to water after a month of drought. He sighs as he sinks against my body that curves itself in the shape of his little boy form.
I missed you Momma. I love you so much.
That I would love my son was a foregone conclusion. I had a dream a few months before he was born. I was sitting in a rocking chair holding a child dressed in blue. He had a full head of dark hair. When Bug was born and he was bald, I wondered about that dream. Until, the nurses put him into my arms and he turned the contours of his perfectly shaped nose and lips towards mine. Then there was no question. I had a dream of my son months before he was mine. I had a dream of my son that came true.
I know you. I have always known you. This is the first thing I ever said to Bug.
And I do, I know my son, and what I know delights me. I am amazed that he can tell the difference between a Phillips head screwdriver and an Allen wrench, or that he is so tall that all the other mothers at the park mistake him for five. I love that he can sing the lyrics to over seventeen songs, and can count to 25 in both English and Spanish. I know that he is afraid of the hand dryers in public bathrooms and prefers to wipe his wet hands against my pant legs. I love that when I ask him what he wants for breakfast every morning without fail, he will throw his arms out beside him and shout, ice cream, before breaking into giggles. When he goes to sleep at night, he likes to wind his fingers through the curls of my hair and listen as I tell him Once Upon A Time stories where little boys named Bug always land their rocket-ships on the moon.
Oh, Bug, my Bug. You are stubborn, and sweet, and smart, and almost turning three. Someday you will read this, see the picture of us laughing against the ordinary landscape of an extended stay hotel all smiles and octupos arms, on our way to a toddler amusement park. On the day that you do, I want you to know how full my heart was in that picture, in the moment, in the day to day I am so fortunate to spend with you. Please know that you, my lovely boy, are the greatest wish I ever asked against a night illuminated by stars as the backdrop for my longing. Standing in that driveway, looking at the place I called home for two weeks when you were born, just days before your third birthday, felt like a homecoming, a completing of the circle we’ll keep turning. You and me, tumbling together through this crazy world.
Happy Birthday, my baby boy. Momma loves you so much.