Baby Promises

I lay in bed fighting for a few extra moments of sleep. I had been up at 1.00 AM to feed our baby and again at 4.00 AM when his cries convinced my husband to say "just put him in bed with us, I have to be up in an hour anyway." I looked at Ivan, all swaddled, laying sideways—feet in my face, sleeping serenely and I made a silent promise to him. I silently told him that I would always love him.

Since Ivan was born almost six-months ago, I’ve made numerous promises to him. Some of them spoken “I promise to pick you up after I use the bathroom,” to the unspoken “If you stop crying I promise to let you watch TV when you’re older.” I decided I should start writing these down so I don’t forget them and inadvertently break them.

Here is my short but growing list of promises:

I promise to always love you.

I promise to keep you safe.

I promise to offer you vegetables even if you hate them at first. Perhaps you can even get me to like them more.

I promise not to freak out all of the time, just some of the time.

I promise to read to you and keep books and magazines around, why—just because.

I promise to laugh with you.

I also promise not to laugh at you. Opps, I think I already broke that promise. You may not know this but I was laughing at you when you got stuck trying to roll over. You didn’t like rolling over and being stuck, but I thought it was really funny.

I promise not to dress you too ridiculously; I’ll stop putting green bows on your head just because I can. (No I wasn’t wishing I had a girl. I just thought it would be cute.)

I promise not to freak out over your grades good or bad. If it is good-- great, if it is a bad grade, try again.

I promise to listen to you.

I promise to be the best parent I can. Your dad promises the same. We're not super parents, and we will make mistakes, but we also will try to do better. We ask that you do the same, that you try to do better and be the best Ivan you can be. We promise to teach you compassion, love, resiliency, and forgiveness. All of which we will be on the receiving end of at some point.

Again, we promise to always love you.