“Kiss the babies for me.”
I was talking to an old friend, and she said this when we signed off. This is something that she has said for years — she knows my babies — but it was still amusing to hear. I have always identified my three children as “my babies,” though the oldest is now my “grandchild delivery device,” and the two youngest each carry two decades of life.
In the backyard of the house I live in, a nesting mallard warms twelve eggs. I told a friend of this and she hoped that I might see the ducklings hatch. She said that within 24 hours of birth, the ducklings can walk, and will follow the mother in a line. She asked me if I had ever seen ducklings doing that. I told her that another acquaintance had characterized what she had witnessed with my babies and me in that way.
“You were not interacting with them; you walked down the street, and they followed directly behind you, lined up like little ducklings,” she said. The two “ducklings” were about 7 or 8, and though it may have appeared that I was not interacting with them, I was, in my way.
When their visitations with me occurred when I did not have vacation time, I took my babies to work with me. In good weather, the three of us would walk the eight blocks to the department store that employed me, for I wanted them to be aware of their surroundings, to be oriented to the ground. Neither of my babies liked to walk, and in the early morning, they wobbled behind me like a dragline. I worked downtown, and as we passed stores and restaurants, we three would be reflected in the windows. If my son ranged ahead, his curiosity would pull my daughter. As they would approach an intersection, I would repeat a mantra: stop at the corner. If they were behind me, I would stop, and flick out my hands. Two small ones would slide into mine, and once we saw the “walk” sign, we would cross the street, hand-in-hand.
At the store, we three would approach the employee’s entrance. I would tell the babies to line up behind me, and we would stand in front of a camera, where I would present my identification. The security guard would buzz open the door, and we would file into the store. (This charade was carried out for years; non-employees were not allowed in the store before business hours, unless accompanied by an employee to conduct store business. One guard, who had gone on to join the city’s police force, later told me in an amused voice, “I used to see you sneaking your kids into the store.”)
When our babies first learn to walk, we walk with them, net spread to soften a fall. We want to teach them that their parents will always try to protect them from falling, but sometimes, we must let them fall. They must learn how to get up from a fall, for in life, we always fall. In my communications with Bride Two, I would refer to “the babies” long after they were not. I would ask her to “kiss the babies,” or “hug the babies” for me. I say that now to my eldest, who has two babies of her own.
In their walking and falling and growing and learning, I always hoped that my little ducklings, once flown, would remember when they were babies, and believed in the strength of the back they followed to life’s lake, and remember when I would kiss the babies.