23 Months

Dear Sophia,

I missed the very day you turned 23 months because I was in between a trip for business and a trip for pleasure. I am not really sure what to say about 23 months because the last month has been fun and so full of developments, yet I am filled with mixed feelings because next month you will turn two. This just seems like too soon for me, as I will have to stop buying "infant" everything, like Motrin, and search for the shelves for things that say "Children's." I know, this is hardly the point where I leave you at some university and cry for a month, but still...

I have to talk about my trip for pleasure because it made me realize a couple of big hopes that I have for you. I traveled to the shore of North Carolina for a wedding of a friend, Jessica, with my two friends Kathy and Cindy. We managed to stay in a condo right on the beach, which brings me to my first hope: That you will be able to have the opportunity to wake up to the sound of the shore. Nothing is more grounding than seeing the sun appear over a black ocean and watching the whole thing turn slowly to blue.

Second, I hope that you will find friends that you will be able to run your mouth with. You will learn that as soon as you learn to string words together in sentences that actually make sense, you will have to choose your words in order to fit into some social order that does not make you seem like you should be placed in a mental institution. I hope you find friends that don't care about this social order. From the moment I met Cindy and Kathy at the airport, we fell into a constant stream-of-consciousness chatter that did not end until we hugged goodbye at the airport two days later. For some reason, when we are around each other, we feel the need to talk about, comment on, and recap everything. This is important. This takes you out of your own head and allows you to just be. This helps you laugh. May you learn that these friends are the most precious.

I am glad that you spent the weekend with your father and had a great time, but I felt lost only having to care for myself. I realized that no matter how often I longingly think back to having "me" as my only concern, there is no way to go back. There is a part of me, most of me, that I have already given to you. It is yours to keep, and I don't want it back, because you have transformed this part of me into the person that I want to be.

Twenty three months and already changing lives. That's my girl.

Love,
Mom

What I have failed to do...

Right now I am separating baby/toddler clothing into three piles. "Donate" or "Keepsake Clothing" or "Needs Now." Every time I go through this process, I pour myself a big glass of red wine and let myself cry over everything that goes in "Keepsake Clothing" or "Donate." The donation pile is a growing reminder that we are thinking that our daughter will be our only child. Our family feels complete. She is great, easy and fun, but I don't think I can hack this twice, and I should just leave things as is. So I cry a little, big deal. I don't need to bring another person into the world. There are plenty of people already, yet I love the person I did bring into the world so much. Tonight the ritual is holding up every piece of clothing to my face to breathe that person in before tossing it in "Donate."

God, why is motherhood such psycho-love? I need a restraining order.

And why does a sub-two-year-old have this much clothing, you ask? Because most mothers do not do what I am doing tonight. Most mothers loiter outside of Babies-R-US, wiping drool from their faces every time they spot a swelling woman. When I gave birth, I received clothing from mothers I grew up with, mothers I had just met, mothers I didn't know...and yes, much of this clothing came complete with spit-up-stain-not-of-my-own-DNA. As for that misunderstanding that a stork delivers a baby? Oh no, you gotta have sex for that baby. That stork delivers every other mother's baby's stuff...and the story of when that baby used, wore and spit-up on that stuff. It is almost as if donating an item to charity would be like handing your Mom-Card over to the poor. But seeing someone else's kid of your same social status wear or play with something that your kid wore or played with? It must be pure joy without the vaginal tearing. I cannot insert judgment here because I see how hard it is to grasp the fact that your maternal life is evolving, or that you will never use the 0-3 month pumpkin costume or the "Baby's First Christmas" PJ set again. Yet tonight this momma is facing it...Me, 16,000 outfits and a big glass of wine.

My husband is out of town. We have a house showing in the morning. We have to move and I don't want to. I keep screwing up at work. My boss is my father and it kills him to keep telling me that I am screwing up. I keep cleaning the same floors over and over, picking up my same long, graying hairs. Dora The Explorer gets to spend more time with my daughter than I do. I have to travel all next week, which has ruined my appetite this week. Want to lose a quick 7 pounds? Think about leaving your child for a week. You won't fail. I have friends that need to be called. I have childless friends that need to be called, and these friends think I am a schlump. I can hear their thoughts in their strained voicemails, "Call me when you get a chance...," like that chance would be when I decide to stop eating the bon-bons off my breasts and pick up the phone. The breaking point tonight was when I was so distracted giving my daughter a bath, I turned off the cold water faucet a whole 0.000001 seconds before turning off the hot water faucet. In toddler time, this was just enough to stick a hand in the burning stream of water. Her screaming and the guilt did me in, and I curled up on the bathroom floor and wept. Seeing this, my daughter decided that this was the perfect moment to show me how over it she was by lobbing yellow, squeaky ducks at my head.

To summarize, I am done procreating, and I am failing as a mother, wife, home keeper, employee and friend.

There is also this ache that I cannot name. This pain that I do not know much about, because I am in denial by saying that "I just can't watch the news anymore." You don't have to admit to me that you have said these words this week, but I know you did. We all did, all of us who are lucky enough to have the option. Most of us did not take enough math classes to even conceive of the number of lives that were lost in China and in Myanmar this week. Once you let yourself go there, to think about those numbers, or to consider one individual that was lost...you cannot turn back.

So that is what I am doing. Separating clothing, breathing in and letting go. And tears, there are tears. Not over the summary of woes that plague my mind, but over the soul-weight of the Earth that is so much lighter tonight. I am pretty sure I needed most of those souls. We need those souls. We need the smile in the grocery store aisle, the hand that writes the donation check, the arms that embrace the elderly and the one who lobbs the squeaky duck at a tired head.

What would be said anyway? Of these mere things that I am carefully piling and holding onto from the mother in China or Myanmar who is mother no more?

Don't even bother reading on...

...unless you are a Dooce fan.  If you are, please check out her post today about her interview with Kathy Lee and someone-else-or-other-interviewer.  This is the other person on the couch whose name I could not catch because no one who is in the same room with Kathy Lee can get a word in over her...uh, talking, shall we call it?

Anyway, I loved the post from Dooce, and just as she said, I felt the interview was a little awkward, but I have come to terms with it as comedic.  There is one part in the interview where Heather (Dooce) says that although you are putting yourself and your family out there in the blogging world, it is important for moms to talk about how difficult it is and to stop feeling alone with that thinking.  Every time I watch that segment (going on five times now), I sob.  For like a whole minute.  Luckily, Kathy Lee starts talking again and I have to stop sobbing.  To go vomit.

A couple of months ago I went to a therapist to help me figure out why I was feeling so sad all of the time in my completely lucky and charmed life.  Just as I suspected, every one of those 50 minutes made my skin crawl because the therapist was bugging me with a whole bunch of questions about me.  What a quack.  Anyway, she said she suspected I had unaddressed postpartum issues.  Even though I never went back to see her or any other therapist, I kind of knew she hit it right on the head.  In fact, she was probably thanking her stars that I never called back after she discovered that I was just another postpartum, isolated freak.  Nothing exciting to call her other therapist friends about...like strange sex dreams or addictions or murderous thoughts.  Ha!  I win!  If the session was 51 minutes instead of 50, she would have learned that she totally hit the jackpot with me.

As an update, yeah, there are probably some postpartum issues that I can work with...by myself.  No.  I take that back.  By myself, with Dooce, with Snickollet, with MamaWilson, and every other blogger that puts herself out there to make the rest of us feel a little bit normal.

Kathy Lee, I see why this scares you, healing means you have to heal and will probably not want to talk about yourself so much.  Yeah, that and the fact that my therapy is WAY CHEAPER than yours.   

Prayer

I have never been particularly good at prayer. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I feel God is internal and not external. I do, however, see the usefulness of verbalizing gratitude and even a plea at times.

Right now, I really suck at prayer, and I have SO many friends and family that need it right now. IN UNIMAGINABLY LARGE WAYS. I am so paralyzed by the shit storm that all of these people seem to be living in, that I want to spend my whole day in prayer. Is this why people turn to things like rosaries and prayer beads? Should I? Because in the last few weeks, my prayer has been like this:

God, I thank you for the strength you have provided for me to see this day through. But...
FUCK!
Dammit!
FUCK!**

You know what?
Even with a prayer like that, I feel a gentle breath move through my spirit.
God smiles and must be used to those types of prayers.

Don't worry, I am off to buy a rosary or something.



**You will rarely ever hear me use these words. I think that it is a form of expression that is only useful when they are used when the rest of the lame English language fails us. This is one of those times. If I offended any readers, bear with me. I have been failed by the English language here, not by God. Never by God.

Mother's Day

A happy day (tomorrow) to all of you mothers, potential mothers and people who have endured being mothered. I suppose it is a day to celebrate surviving that complex relationship, no matter which end of it you are on.

This Mother's Day, even though it is only my second, feels a little strange to me. I feel like I don't quite deserve it right now. The past few weeks my daughter Sophia has been working through a spring cold, cough and runny nose that just won't stop. In the midst of this, we took a trip to Florida to visit Grandma and Grandpa without my husband. I am worn down from the whinyness, the constant worrying about the cough and the nose, and the hassle of travel and schedule-busting. Also, I am in no position to handle the terrible two's that have already begun.

Last week in Florida we were having a particularly bad day. By dinner time, Sophia wasn't eating, but was throwing food around the porch, in the pool and at me. Something in me snapped and I yanked her out of her booster seat, stood her on the ground and said, "Just get lost." I even gave her a shove toward a basket of toys. "Also, try not to talk to me for a day," I added.

Then my heart cracked in a way that I don't think can be repaired. I shoved her away and she did not look back. She tottered off to talk with a miniature plastic princess, when a vivid memory came back to me. Growing up, I often felt like I was on my mom's last nerve, and I learned to cower inward and not ask for help because of this. My mom was a terrific mom, but I was the type of kid who picked up and any sort of aggravation or exhaustion from her. Now the way I deal with things is not by complaining, not by talking them through. Instead I find ways of escape in sometimes productive, but mostly dangerous ways.

I shoved her away and she did not look back.

Since then, she has not changed, not that I expect a two year old to change. In fact, on the plane flight home, she made me cry so hard that my tears spilled onto her face. She just stared and touched the tears. This time I said, "I am tired. I am sad. I need to cry. These are tears, aren't they kind of funny? I don't think they are going to stop for a while." She did not shove me away at that moment. She gave me a soft kiss that was a bit slimy from her runny nose, and I have never felt so accepted in my life.

To all the mothers out there, I know it seems like you are doing all of the loving with no pay back or reward, and it kills the spirit at times. I am slowly learning that my child can act like a maniac, a crap-head, an angel and a comedian around me because she trusts me that much. I am slowly learning to never, never shove that gift away.

Change

You can talk about it and dream about it until the change you wanted to make changes, and you can't remember what it sounded like and looked like. That is the danger of just not doing it in the first place. I suppose it is simply time.

Fossil Bag

The other night I had to run errands after my husband and I put our daughter to bed. It had been a hell of a day, week, month. Do you know the nights when your head is pounding so hard with noise that you are not even seeing what you are looking at? I mean, without alcohol? That is me right now. I even get behind the wheel of a car and drive this way.

Anyway, I had to run to Macy's to try to find a suitable luggage piece that would somehow make traveling alone tomorrow with a toddler a piece of cake. I didn't find it. Instead I found some absurd, horribly blue, stiff luggage piece that had more compartments than room. I was even sweating and crying a little. No, for real. Real sweat and real tears.

As I was leaving with that damn bag and all of my self-pity, I saw it. A purse made by Fossil that is so completely me or at least how I see me: slouchy, impractical looking and accommodating. It was expensive and perfect...it fits diapers, wipes, wallet, cell phone, rice cakes, a Blue's Clues book, and chap stick.

The rest is a blur. I bought it and I promise you, Internet, instantly my boobs perked up, my eyelashes grew, and stomach flattened. Suddenly everything else seemed fine too.

I am not usually subject to this type of retail therapy, but that brings me to another thing that this purchase taught me: to let go of the need to explain myself.
Look at me...all grown up.