Category Archives: Mothering

This is Not That Child

The one that came before, with whom I’ve done this bedtime with two years ago,

the bedtime of endless crying, little body rolling over and over and over again as if on a spit

head plowing into the pillows, head butting the walls

the instinctive need to ambulate

the ability not quite there but so close

impossible to let the trying go, and yet

here sleep is, here it is, there now, hush.

This is not that child,

The one who slept in closets or on boards

just for the fun of it

who emptied her drawers to sleep on a bed of clothes

who remembers all these nighttime rituals thirty years later, and only now gives a sympathetic thought to that child’s mother, who never got enough sleep

that child can bring up from the depths of memory a particular smell

that she always knew was her mother’s scent but

only now when it soaks her own clothes, pouring freely in little white rivers for this child

understands that all this time, it was the milk.

the scent memory so strong, animal in its ability to tie infant to mother so tightly that they can find one another even in the dark, breast and mouth,

smells like love, like eggs, like dark warm, like head in lap, like eyes hiding in a warm neck, like cows in fresh hay, like female skin, like celery, like sweat, like blankets, like a mother’s pillow.

This is not either of these children,

but like happens and has happened a thousand thousand times before

the sleep will come, milky and heavy

stillness will settle into small limbs, and you, my child, will assume the shape of all-surrender.

I’ll place the blanket over you, and while you’ll be half-aware, your body will not move. Like when, after waking in the middle of the night you might lift yourself from the mattress to peer outside and discover that a blanket of snow covers everything in the world, but this change will just invite more sleep. Stillness and silence, these are discoveries.

By the blankets, we know the world has changed, but all the better for sleeping, and so we shall.

Driving to Write

My toddler takes his afternoon nap by falling asleep in the car. Usually it takes about 20 minutes of riding in the car seat for him to finally surrender. Driving around for nap today, I keep getting writing ideas and turn into the parking lot at every municipal park that we pass to jot down notes on the phone. At least I’m not trying to do it while driving. But the frequent stopping to type a few sentences is throwing off the rhythm of the car ride, and it’s keeping him awake. “Oh! This one!” he says when we pull in somewhere else. “Ok! Go out!”

“Sorry honey, Mommy just needs to write some more words down. We ‘ll come back here and get out another day.” He’s supposed to be asleep by now anyway, dammit. The baby is dutifully snoring in his car seat, why can’t the two-year-old just forget about the choo-choo train and about going over railroad tracks and just go the fuck to sleep already so I can get down my ideas before I forget this brilliant turn of phrase about the beautiful things he did today?

Twenty minutes stretches into forty, then sixty. Still no sleeping two-year-old. Now I have to pee, so I start heading back toward the house, thinking maybe he’ll close his eyes by the time we pull in the driveway. He asks for “Snowman again” each time Frosty ends on the Raffi Christmas CD. This is not a good sign– he’s too aware of his surroundings to be asleep three minutes from now.

As I pull in and turn off the car, I’ve accepted the fact that nap time isn’t happening and we’re going back inside. I’m steeling myself for a late afternoon with a toddler who didn’t-quite-nap. Ok, I got this. I’m putting the phone away and I’m going to be fully present with my children, who miss Mama and are tired and hungry. “I have to go pee, honey. I’ll be right back.” I jump out of the car with the keys, my bladder exploding and put all I’ve got into my post-perineal-tear Kegels.

“No! My turn go peepee!” I hear him say as I close the car door. Not a chance, kid. I flash him a sweet I Love You smile and unlock the front door.

I pee alone, and in silence.

Ok. I’m ready for this nap-free afternoon. Let’s do this. I go back outside and take out the baby in his car seat, still snoring. I carefully set the car seat in his crib, and go back for the no-napper. “No! I do it!” he whines as I slide open his door. I reach for his car seat buckles. “NO! I DO IT!”

“Oh. OK,” I say. I know what this means. This means that he really does want to go to sleep but he really doesn’t want to go to sleep, and if I unbuckle his car seat, he is going to flip his shit and everything is going to be the wrong thing for him for the next four hours. Poor guy. I’m not going to let that happen to either one of us, so back in the car we go. I turn around and go back  inside to get the baby, still snoring, and gingerly re-click him into the car.

“Back in?”

“Yes, honey. Back in.” As I start the car he looks longingly to the front door.

“Hoooome” he whimpers.

“I know, you want to go home.” I turn off Frosty as we get to the stop sign. No talking, no music. He’ll be asleep halfway through our usual loop. I check his drooping eyelids in the rear view mirror. The next red light is particularly long, and I listen to his breaths getting deeper over the traffic noise. I flick on my right turn signal. We’re going home.

I get a full hour of writing time sitting in the parked car in the driveway, the soft sounds of two boys in slumber the only background noise. Miracle. Eventually the baby stirs. We transfer inside, the no-napper still asleep as I slowly lower him onto his bed with all my love and tenderness. In that moment he embodies all the fleeting, fragile miracles in the world, and I am full of gratitude.

The Giver

It’s Winter Solstice and Christmas time. The meditation this morning at the UU Fellowship was, “Who are you during this season? What are you made of? What are you called to do, to be during this season?”  In a delicious moment of silence, I had the following insights:

This year, I am foremost a mother of small children. This year, I am THE GIVER.

I give my milk. I give my sleep, my time, energy, love, and patience to my children.  I give them my mental space.

Not just in this holiday season, but in this season of my life, I am the giver. I give my family the gifts of healthy food, structure and routine, security and safety, reassurance and a steadfast presence that can be trusted.

I’m ok with this (and I’m a feminist). The Giver is not the same as The Martyr. Martyrs operate as though their greatest worth comes from fully giving up themselves for others, with no hope or expectation of ever getting one’s self back.  Givers know they can grow within themselves through the practice of giving. They find a deep well on which to draw from to nourish themselves so that they can do the work of nourishing others.  It’s not the same as losing yourself. It’s making a long term investment in relationships that really matter.

I’m at peace with this role, because it is one of many seasons in my life. I can give this much because this is the season to do so, and I know that I will be replenished.

Someday, a soon day in the course of my whole life, no one will need me to turn the food I eat into milk for them to drink as their sole source of sustenance. No one will need me to rock them back to sleep at 2am. No one will need me to help them learn how to use the toilet, or how to button their shirt.  Someday I will get a full night of sleep, and someday I won’t need to make anyone’s lunch but my own. Hell, someday someone will make lunch for me.

As exhausting as life is right now with a five-month-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old, this is how it’s supposed to be during this season of life. It Just Is. And it won’t always be. More space and time will open up for new pursuits, new challenges, and new dimensions of my self.

And to be clear, I sure as hell don’t always feel this gracious about my role. But today I do, and that is something worth writing about.