While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Archives for June 2011

Hindsight

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Note: This post was supposed to go up the day I gave birth to Henry. Due to an insanely fast labor I was unable to publish it. So here it is now, 25 days later. I’m sick of seeing it sit in my draft folder.

 

Two days before Mother’s Day, I received a package in the mail from my mom.

Wrapped in tissue paper inside a small priority shipping box was my baby book, meticulously filled with details and photographs from the first years of my life.

She said it seemed like an appropriate time to pass it along.

The first thing I noticed upon reading my mom’s curly-cue notes was that that her penmanship hasn’t changed in three decades. The second thing I noticed was how young she and my dad looked in the pictures. She was 21 years old. He was 23.

I was two months old when she wrote the note you see above. And 29 years old when I read it for the first time.

♥

 

Rain, babies, coffee and sleep

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This is scattered and I’m OK with that.

I know I’ve been lazy in the Lance department and I’m fine with that, as well.

I’ve been figuring out this mommy thing. Letting it run over me like warm water. Letting it settle into my bones like old age. Letting it hit my synapses like a drug. Letting it happen to me. Letting it be so special that even I, a writer, can’t put it into words. Not yet.

It’s bigger than me. Bigger than Joe. So enormous and so significant that I can’t pin a fancy word on it. You understand I’m sure.

I’m in the thick of it; staring at my kid, his perfect fingers, his big pink feet. They look like his father’s feet. They look like my feet.

His toes curl when he’s angry. His eyes widen when Joe plays the guitar and his brow furrows when he’s cold.

I still can’t believe I made this.

That we made this.

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The King has entered the building.

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Surprise. Surprise.

The King is here.

Holy anticlimactic!

I let 12 days go by after his birth without so much as posting a picture.

Sorry. I’m easily distracted. I’ve had non-stop company and I’ve been nursing a newborn around the clock, which for a novice such as myself, requires both hands.

So yes. I’ve neglected to update my favorite corner of the web.

But what about Henry, you ask.

I’m sure it’s why most of you have pulled up this site repeatedly over the last couple weeks.

The newborn I birthed! Where is he? How did it go? Did the birth center live up to its expectations? Would I recommend natural childbirth? (More on that later…)

I know some of you grew impatient and decided to find my Facebook profile. As cringe-worthy as FB can be sometimes, it’s much less time-consuming than writing a real blog post. For someone whose friends and family are scattered all over the world Facebook is a requisite social networking tool. My profile has been a hub of activity since Henry’s birth.

In this space, however, I like to take my time.

Just like Henry.

Who, by the way, was born at 1:05 p.m., Sunday, June 5 at Breath of Life Birth Center.

He weighed 8 lbs., 12 oz. and measured 21 inches long.

“Ooo! It’s about time we got a trucker,” said my midwife, who sized me up with a disconcerting GRIN as I waddled painfully into the birth center in the throes of active labor. “We’ve had a lot of pipsqueaks lately.”

The most coherent thing I said that morning: “A TRUCKER?! I don’t want a trucker!”

But I got a trucker, who one hour after being born attempted to crawl. No kidding.

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On waiting and wish sticks

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https://www.foxbackdrop.com/collections/solid-backdrops

June 1.

Today is supposed to be Henry’s birthday.

I’m learning, however, that “supposed to” and babies don’t go hand-in-hand. Just like “supposed to” and life doesn’t go hand-in-hand.

I’ve been on maternity leave for a week and half now. That’s a week and half of not having to meet deadlines.

Except for this one: Henry’s due date.

And like any deadline, this one comes with its share of pressure. I feel like I’ve got a massive story due at noon and none of my sources will call me back.

And unlike my job, where I’m lucky if what I produce lines a bird cage at the end of the week, this assignment has generated a captive audience like none I’ve ever seen before.

Between my Facebook page, Joe’s Facebook page, our family, our friends, our neighbors, my bank teller, the bums in the park and the girls who cash us out at the grocery store, the anticipation is so palpable you’d think I’d gone weeks past my due date.

Now I know what it feels like to be a watched kettle.

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