Other People's Baby Whisperer.

We still get baby magazines in the mail.  You know the ones you never signed up for but somehow arrive month after month.  There is Parents, Parenting, Baby Talk, American Baby, all bright and glossy, with happy smiling babies and in my post office box waiting for me.  Can you unsubscribe from a magazine you didn't subscribe to?  I wouldn't want to if I could.

I love snuggling under the covers and pouring over the pages of cheerful advice on food allergies, teething, BPA in baby food, sleep training, and getting along with other moms by not judging their parenting (we need an article to tell us that?).  It has been over three months since I needed to make a parenting decision but still I spend Sunday afternoons hiding under the covers with my magazines, pretending I am going to apply all this knowledge to mothering Jack.

Babies R Us is still sending their mailers with 20% off coupons -let me know if you want me to save them for you.  Each one reminds me of the gift card in my wallet.  We were waiting to spend the generous baby shower gift on a bouncy seat when we got home from the hospital.  We didn't get to buy that bouncer.  Just this week I took that card out of my wallet.  We aren't shopping at baby stores these days.

And then there are the emails...Emails from Gymboree and Old Navy suck me into 30 minutes of looking at baby boy clothes on-line.  I marked Gymboree as Spam but I still see them when I clean out my Spam folder.  I can't quite bring myself to unsubscribe.   Recently, seeing Jack's jeans from this summer on sale for 50% off hit me hard.  We have done such a thorough job of packing away all of Jack's things, that it has started to feel like he was just a dream.  We have pictures of him everywhere, but we were in such a fog this fall, it is just now lifting.  I had a baby.  And then he went to heaven.  What?  Seeing those tiny jeans online reminded me that it has not been that long since my baby was here.  Here in my arms and in our home.  Sigh.  This is real.

Probably the toughest reminders that I cannot seem to dodge are the emails from Baby Center each month, telling me my baby is now 8 months and should be starting to crawl soon.  Yes, he should be.  But our story was not the one we thought it should be.  As many times as I unsubscribe to that monthly email, they keep coming, like a weed.

Even our new puppy Lucy reminds me of our loss.  She is such a cuddly lovebug, I wish Jack could have know her.  I can imagine his joyful giggling as she licks his face.  I can imagine it because last week Lucy and I went and visited our friends' little boy, Oscar.  Oscar was born a couple weeks before Jack and Lucy just loved licking his chubby little face.  It was precious.

When I was pregnant I thought a lot about how fun it was that so many of my friends -at least 8- were having babies within a few months of me.  I daydreamed about them growing up together, play dates, school, scouts, sports, block parties....my biggest concern was if we could move back to the midwest so we could all grow up together.

Now I get to watch those beautiful babies grow up through the miracle of Facebook.  Some days it is really hard to see the photos of them sitting up, getting ready to crawl, growing hair....but I love it just the same.  As much as it hurts to think of what Jack is not doing here on earth, it also reminds me that he was real.  He was here.  He was loved.

The strangest thing has happened since Jack went to heaven, I have developed a magic touch with other people's babies.  I can think of 6 cranky babies that I have been able to lull when nothing else was working for their parents.  It started happening over the holidays when we were visiting friends with babies around Jack's age.  They would start to fuss and I would offer to hold them.  Their mom would say "Oh, she doesn't like new people and this is her fussy time".  I would insist and within about 30 seconds, the baby would be settled and on her way to sleep.

This has happened over and over again.  My friends have started calling me the Baby Whisperer.  As a big fan of Caesar Milan, the dog whisperer, I am honored by this title.  I have always been good with babies, but this seems to be different.  They truly settle almost immediately in my arms.  On Christmas Eve, I was able to take turns holding Josh's cousin's twins who had been born 2 days before Jack in May.  These little darlings were tired and fussy.  At first I wasn't sure I would be able to hold them.  My heart was breaking for the first Christmas we would not spend with Jack and I was feeling something bordering on jealousy for a dear family who have not one but two babies.  But I felt drawn to them, so I hopped up and offered to hold the baby boy.  He had been really worked up but within a minute, he was relaxed and still.   People marveled.  A little bit later, baby girl was giving another auntie a hard time.  I offered my services and she quieted in about 20 seconds.  To be totally honest, as much as I loved holding those little darlings, I did have to step away for  bit.  I walked down the hall, away from the merriment, and wept for a while.  This is not easy.

Even little Oscar relaxed into a snuggle bunny in my arms last week and his moms said he never lets anyone hold him like that.

I am by no means saying that I am doing anything myself that their mothers can't do.  I do have a special hold and bounce move that I can show you sometime but something is different since Jack went to heaven.  I don't think I am imagining this.  Every baby I see seems to smile at me.  Big smiles.  They stop crying and smile.  People have offered explanations for this.  Maybe I have a guardian angel following me around and the babies can see him.  Maybe they have a way of knowing that I am Jack's mama.  I have always thought that babies and children can "see" angles among us until we convince them that they cannot.

I think it is a God thing.  I think He has given me an increased ability to comfort others through my pain.  I pray every single day that God make something beautiful out of this tragedy. That He use me to do His work in other people's lives.  That He use this pain to comfort others.  I believe He is.

So, give me a buzz when your baby is fussy and nothing else is doing the trick.  I will do my best to send her off to sleep.  I still get an emotional "hangover", a sharp pain of missing Jack in my heart, the next day after playing with babies.  It is worth that spike of pain to hold a warm soft bundle of baby and feel the weight in my arms as I bounce from side to side.  That feeling that is just so right, I can't pass it up.