I was 26 and I had been in love a few times. I loved my mother madly, and my father insanely (literally), and my siblings to differing degrees at different times and always most loved my little brother Ben. Teenage me had fallen briefly in an intellectually conceived love born on a wave of an imagined intimacy fabricated by sharing untold hours of near nudity in the small space of the practice swim pool. In Colorado, I fell into an ill advised love, the wild love you only feel in college when hormones are at their peak, alcohol is flowing freely, and you do things you were never even allowed to think about a few years earlier. And finally I fell in love with the idea of a family.
Sebastien Michael Hall came into this world a quarter of an hour after nine at night on May 14th, amidst my own screams of pain due to a wide open pit drip and a not at all open epidural drip. The doctor was out to lunch, quite literally, when I decided I wanted, needed, HAD TO push. The nurses told me I was not allowed to and they would go fetch the doc for me. Finally, he arrived putting on his booties and shower cap and robe, just in time to help catch my firstborn. As I held that nearly eight pound baby in my arms, I laughed, and cried, and what felt like Grucci's fireworks went off in my heart. All the walls that had been inadvertently built over the years of compensating for false loves were shattered and oceans and eons of unbridled love rushed out of every pore, I couldn't have contained if I had wanted to, and I certainly didn't want to.
There is a peculiar love that comes along with the first born; marked by a deep desire to do everything right-read all the books, follow all the sage advice, document every second of it-and a crippling fear that you are doing everything wrong. Your first gets your undivided attention. He also gets all your rigidity and trial and erroring (real words for real talk). Really no more than a child, myself, in so many ways, I grew up in raising Sebastien. I learned about deep abiding love, verb love, love that starts out as a chemical imperative and blossoms into an arduous ardor proven through day in and day out choices to get up and try again no matter how many times you fall on your not-so-Mary-Poppins face. I have made my fair share of mistakes - many of them doozies - sometimes I even so resemble my parents in the missteps that they took and I judged them so harshly for, that I can't stand myself. But rearing children and loving them despite yourself (and eventually their selves) helps you grow out of the naivete and hubris that caused you to once think you could parent perfectly. Grace begins to worm her way into your life, and you learn to extend her embrace to the kids and even a little to yourself.
Over the years Sebastien has made it easy for me to make the choice to love him. He has always been ahead of the curve which appeals to my competitive nature: learning to walk around 10 months, being in the 90+ percentile in height for most of his life (you doubt this is important, but it is), having an adorable head of golden blond curls and a sweet, devoted, whole-hearted love for his mom. He is smart. He works hard. This year he decided he wasn't going to go to the local middle school next year and completely on his own applied to, and got into, the Gifted Science, Math and Technology program at the nearby Magnet school. He is a super fast swimmer, even though he isn't on the swim team- thanks to my lack of enthusiasm for the swim team mom life - the swimmer in me likes to see someone swim with correct form and decent speed. This year he has become a pretty righteous defender on the soccer "pitch" (as they'd say in the British Isles). He is even learning the guitar (which has, btw, forced me to try my hands on the six strings, and he is doing a quite a bit better than I).
He will turn eleven on Wednesday. ELEVEN!? It seems ages ago that he was a baby, and only yesterday at the same time. Sebastien forged the way for me to love each and every one of my four sons uniquely and 100%. I can honestly say that I do not have a favorite son, because being a mom has taught me, through experience, that there are many loves, enough loves for all the loves of my life, and each one is unlike anything else...Never the same love twice.
You kick some ass, Sea-bass.
(yep)
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