And Another Thing About Annika...

Walking up the stairs behind Annika tonight on our way up to put her to bed, I said to Lily and Ben, "Can you believe she's going to be two in September?" What I was thinking about was the night before she was born. When you have to schedule your baby's delivery, the twenty-four hours beforehand becomes increasingly, almost intolerably, weighty. That night, I could not fall asleep. Hours after my parents, Ben and Lily had retired for the evening, I sat on the reclining chair trying not to think. I "watched" a Law and Order, then about four more. Five minutes later I couldn't remember the plots of any of them. At some point somebody walked down the hall on the way to the bathroom and said to me, "You really ought to go to sleep. Big day tomorrow!" Can you conceive of more of an understatement? And so I sat, in my favorite lavender maternity shirt and my black leggings, my hands on my belly, feeling the baby kick. I kept thinking I wished I could just slow down the passing of time, although each time I looked at the clock it still seemed like forever until the morning would come. I am not ready, I kept thinking, feeling. Seven more hours. Six. Five. Four-and-three-quarters.

And then it was the morning of September 4th, and we said good-bye to everyone, discussed which route to take--Will there be traffic on 10th this early?--and drove ten minutes up the street to experience the second biggest change of my life, which I knew, thanks to modern medicine, would happen at 8 a.m., shortly thereafter, if the doctor had been forced to wait for her coffee. It seemed so strange: so mundane: so earth-shatteringly insane. And then time flew, of course, and at about the time most people were arriving at work, EST, I was holding this baby, this Annika.

I wasn't intending that preamble. What I had in my head when I started was a quirk of Annika's that seems so her own; it was not something Lily ever did, or does, and Annika has been doing it since she could speak. At many points throughout the day, but especially when she is sleepy or in the car or just with me, Annika will become preoccupied with where each member of her family happens to be. "Lily is?" she will ask. "Dada is?" This means, as clear as day and she's been saying it for six months now: Where is Lily? Where is Dada? "Sadie is? Scout is?" she will ask, and even, when I am holding her, or standing at the counter with her at my feet, "Mama is?"

"Mama is right here," I say. "Right here with Annika." She nods solemnly. She knew this all along, but clearly it comforts her. "Annika is?" I say sometimes, just to revel in her response.

"Annika is," she says each time. Annika is." Not a question, but a statement of fact. Yes. She is.