In a Happy Holding Pattern

PORTLAND, OREGON — I have the best summer job ever. 

I can do it sitting or standing. It requires so little physical or mental effort that I can doze off while doing it. 

All that’s required of me is that I hold the baby.

Holding the baby is a job for which I am eminently qualified. Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I held, successively, three babies. And by that I don’t mean that I held babies on three separate occasions, but that I held three babies daily, throughout their babyhoods, the babies in question being my children.

Now one of those babies has had babies of her own. Her second one, Beatrice Louise, was born 10 days ago here in Portland.  

(Preferred pronunciation is Be-A-trice with three syllables, though I also enjoy calling her Beat-Rice and the Dantesque Bay-a-tri-chay. She’ll probably mostly get called Bea, though.)

As sole nutrition provider, Beatrice’s mom, Sylvie, holds her the most, followed by her dad, Nick. But when Sylvie, who, after carrying Beatrice around for 40 weeks, wants to be unencumbered for a bit, and Nick is occupied with getting big sister Penelope ready for bed, I am standing by, ready to hold Beatrice until such times as she indicates that she’s ready for her next meal, which is above my pay grade.

Perhaps it sounds boring, sitting, standing or pacing while holding a baby. It is not, or at least, it is not if one happens to be the baby’s grandpa. Just as I did when Penelope was born in 2018, I don’t just hold Beatrice; I study her. There is much to take in. 

Her ear alone merits close examination, its ridges and curves reminiscent of an Edward Weston photo of a bell pepper.

Also worthy of inspection are the flaring of her nostrils as her little chest heaves with every breath; the more spasmodic heaving that signals a case of the hiccups; her fleeting, beatific smiles; the curling and uncurling of her tiny toes; the expressive raising and lowering of her eyebrows; the grunts, squeaks and squawks she makes as she snoozes and digests.

She is an impulsive sort, this Beatrice. Sylvie and Nick left for the hospital during Penelope’s afternoon nap, checking in around 4 p.m. Beatrice emerged two hours later. Penelope gave us the quote of the week when she said, “I didn’t know I was growing up into a big sister while I was napping.”

Everyone has worked extra hard to assure Penelope that she is not being replaced, but she can feel the shift of attention. When she returns from an outing and asks, “Is my baby sister still here?” she echoes her mom’s ambivalent response to sister Rosa’s arrival: “I like the new baby, but how long is she going to stay?”

Sylvie has her answer: Auntie Rosie is also in Portland, taking her turn at holding Beatrice and playing with Penelope, as needed. Sibs stay forever.

I must tell you it’s a powerfully sweet thing for me to gaze upon my two daughters and two granddaughters all at one go. (A third granddaughter, Elleka, daughter of my stepson Schuyler, remains maddeningly out of reach across the Canadian border in Vancouver. We were hoping they would reopen the border while we were out here. They didn’t. We haven’t seen Elleka in person since she was born in September 2019.)

Holding Beatrice is only a part-time job. My other job since I’ve been in Portland is entertaining Penelope. Back in June, this was my main job. The family had just moved from Colorado: new jobs, new city, first-time homeowners, no daycare yet. There was much for the grownups to do, but Penelope isn’t a grownup and as a grandpa, I don’t need to act like one either. 

So while the grownups got organized, I took Penelope to various playgrounds, gave her horsey rides on my back, waltzed her around on my feet, bought her cupcakes, read her books, told her stories and generally behaved in ways unbecoming a professor at a prestigious university. 

Then we went to California for a month. I mention this only because you may have heard about Portland’s historic 116-degree day. We missed it. While much of the rest of the West sizzled, we wisely hunkered down in the fog-cooled San Francisco Bay Area. 

When we returned for Beatrice’s birth, there was a new heat wave, not record-setting, but hotter than was pleasant or that Portlanders are used to. It has rained exactly once in the two months we have been in Oregon and California: the new normal we keep hearing about. 

Despite the dire state of the world, we have seen no end of babies and pregnant women in Portland. Kids in their 20s say they can’t afford and can’t justify having children. Kids in their 30s have ‘em anyway. 

Does it make sense? Maybe not. Am I glad that our 30-somethings have made me a grandpa? I am.