While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Kids. Plural.

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Photography Backdrops -Newbor&Children

I ran across a fellow mommy blogger yesterday at my neighborhood’s July 4th bike parade. She mentioned that she never has time to write despite her valiant attempt to carve out solitude.

Why? Because she’s wrangling THREE KIDS UNDER THE AGE OF SIX from sun-up to sun-down.

“Never mind blogging,” I said. “How the hell do you find time to shower?”

Anytime I meet any woman with kids PLURAL, I want to bow before them, hand them a beer and possibly a joint. As a woman at home with a kid SINGULAR, I spend a lot of time immersed in the natural habitats of stay-at-home moms: parks, libraries, children’s gyms, public pools, science museums, Target and Chick-fil-A, to name a few. In these environments I’ve observed many women with kids PLURAL performing their motherly duties on a scale of EFFORTLESS to EXHAUSTING.

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To chase a career or a kid?

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Before I had Henry I was impatient with the world, critical of myself and sometimes of others.

I thought stay-at-home moms had it easy. Worse yet, I thought they were devoid of interests beyond the confines of motherhood. I pictured them schlepping kids from Gymboree class to play dates, dressed in yoga pants and a pained smile. I pictured them chained to the kitchen, the SUV, the laundry basket and the obligatory spin class. I pictured them dutifully scheduling time for mommy pep rallies that celebrate the pleasantries of breastfeeding, cloth diapering, baby wearing and holistic nutrition. (Dear Earth Mamas: I see nothing wrong with these things. As topics of discussion, however, I find them boring.)

I thought I’d lose my identity as a stay-at-home-mom. I thought I’d compromise my self-worth and freedom. I thought I’d be resentful of my husband and pissed at myself for having failed at being a working mother: the ultimate wonder woman. I thought I’d be considered a disgrace to the radical feminists who came before me and a quitter to the overachieving, have-it-all multitaskers of my generation.

Leaving my job at the newspaper would mean I’d dropped a significant ball in the heroic juggling act that is regularly executed by the modern working mother. I’d be forced to rethink everything I thought I’d do or wouldn’t do as a parent, as if you really know these things before you bring a tiny, demanding, Bambi-eyed being into this world.

I was wrong about working mothers AND stay-at-home mothers. (As an aside, I was right about yoga pants.)

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The little yard that could

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This is Henry’s little red chair. I’ve got a thing for Adirondack chairs, no? Now my boy can sit in style next to his mother, who when she does sit, likes to sit in style. (Hello Sky Chair.)

The picket fence in the background was something of a neighborhood project. Without the help of family, friends, neighbors and virtual strangers, I’d still be sulking around St. Pete, grumbling about my fugly front yard.

Oh, but I love my house.

Well. Let me rephrase that. I’ve always loved the inside of my house. It’s got a cozy bungalow feel. It’s filled with comfortable furniture, meaningful art, an adorable toddler tyrant, a handsome husband and a fat, happy pug. What more could a gal want?

The front of my house, however, has always been a sore spot. Up until last month it had zero curb appeal. Our lawn was balding. Our once valiant attempt at a vegetable garden had become an angry bed of weeds, littered with bent fragments of metal fencing and forgotten plant markers. Our porch was about as inviting as a parking lot. With the exception of an overly shellacked manatee statue – a gift form my Oma – the entrance to our house was, in fact, off-putting.

We did try to jazz things up. Or rather, well-meaning family gardeners tried to jazz things up.

Two years ago, Oma took pity on us and came over when I was at work to lay down mulch and plant flowers in the sad beds by our front door. Despite diligent watering, her landscaping eventually gave way to weeds. Fed up with these failed attempts at beautification, we decided to let the one thing that wouldn’t die continue to grow – a frail Jacaranda tree in the center of our circular driveway that resembled a stooped-over geriatric.

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In the shadows of a supermom

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Every day I try to be more like my mother and every day I fall short.

She exudes goodness. It follows her like a pretty scent on a warm day.

I’ll never be as good.

My mother’s goodness can’t be learned. It doesn’t come from reading self-help books, practicing yoga or going to church. It’s inherently selfless and unaware. It’s ingrained in such a way that my unassuming mother would never laud herself for possessing such a redeeming character trait.

If she’s reading this right now — even if it’s alone in her house in the afternoon hours before my father comes home from work — she’s probably blushing. She has red hair and a freckled complexion that easily flushes.

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Crazy is in the eye of the beholder

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When I was in sixth grade, my teacher pulled me aside to “have a talk” in the hallway.

This happened in the middle of the day, in front of all my classmates. I was embarrassed and nervous. I had no idea what I had done wrong to prompt this private discussion.

I remember it better than I should.

My desk was pushed into a square with six other students’ desks. I know now that this was to encourage teamwork. For me, it mostly encouraged talking. I’m chatty. And goofy. A storyteller. I like to make people laugh. This was true even as a child. I figured a hallway scolding meant I’d done something disruptive in the talking department. It wasn’t the first time I’d been reprimanded for not shutting up.

Oh, but I had been on a roll of good behavior!

We had been writing that week, a lot of open-ended stuff. I had turned in a few wild short stories; stories I was proud of, though for the life of me I can’t remember what they were about.

Man, I wish I could.

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The day Henry had ice cream

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photography backdrops

(I started writing this Tuesday – and then Henry woke from a nap.)

There are a million things about motherhood that are exhausting. But for all of the things that are exhausting there are an equal number of things that are beautiful.

Sometimes the exhausting ones cloud the beautiful ones. Such is the way of life I suppose.

So right now, at 4:45 in the afternoon, when I’ve got work piled high on my plate, when Henry is down for an afternoon nap, when I should do be doing something more productive with my time…

like dishes, laundry, journalism

…marinating the chicken breast I’m grilling for dinner.

When I should be doing that and then some, I’m doing this instead:

Tipping my hat to Henry, to the baby who is well on his way to six months old, who is already so strong and bursting with personality.

When he falls asleep in my arms I count the tiny blue veins in his eyelids. They’re subtle, but when you notice them, they look like fireworks petering out in the night sky.

In these quiet moments, I try to picture the man he’s going to grow up to be.

And then I get hung up on the “man” part.

I’ve been told it happens fast.

So for all the moments when I could or should be doing something else, I’m going to do my best to do this instead:

be calm, be happy, be grateful, be easy.

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All hail Josephine the Plumber

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The kitchen sink

….

I often give my father credit for tackling most of our home repairs. Whenever he’s down from Buffalo, Joe and I shamelessly hand him a piece of paper listing all the broken crap in our house and within two days he’s crossed off every item.

We’re embarrassingly incompetent when it comes to plumbing, electrical wiring, woodworking and anything beyond changing a light bulb and replacing a dirty A/C filter. Since I grew up in a family that prides itself on self-reliance, my ineptitude is a secret source of shame.

In my family, if it’s broke, we fix it — even if what we’re fixing should really be thrown away.

Take for example my Oma, who uses a plastic laundry basket that my Opa repaired with a steel bracket 20 years ago. Even my sister Heelya is handy. I don’t get it.  We both grew up watching the same ridiculous episodes of Home Improvement. Yet it seems the only surface on which I can build something is paper.

My mother is the most resourceful of them all.

She’s a female MacGyver. Give her a flathead screw driver, a stainless steel ice cream scoop and a coat hanger and she’ll solve most of your household problems.

She’s fixed the toilet in the baby cave back when it was still a man cave. She’s unclogged the bathroom sink, installed cordless window shades and fixed the dumpster in our alley. She’s made curtain rods out of discarded bamboo stalks, used an old candle to remove a stubborn table leaf and twice mended a shattered pig figurine with super glue.

This week during her stay in Florida, she fixed the plumbing under our kitchen sink. I served as her hapless assistant. It took an entire afternoon, during which time Mothership referred to herself as “Josephine the Plumber.”

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When words fail: a movie for my baby

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Writer’s block is a funny thing. Whenever I come down with an especially paralyzing case, I usually end up funneling creative juices into something else. In this case, I made a movie. (I also painted and redecorated our bedroom, but that was because I was inspired by how AWESOME the king’s lair, ie:  The Baby Cave, turned out.)

For Henry at two months is a compilation of short video clips shot in the weeks before and after Henry’s birth. It illustrates everything I’ve struggled to articulate lately.

It’s 12 minutes long, which might seem ridiculous given that Henry can’t sit, speak or crawl. Yet with the proper music and edits, the seemingly mundane life of a newborn suddenly becomes much more enchanting.

You might be asking yourself how shitty diapers and curdled puke could possibly be enchanting.

Well, I’m here to tell you the magic happens in the breakthroughs in between; in the moments of joyful firsts and simple (yet herculean) milestones that sneak up on you when you’re knee-deep in life-altering muck. They make the diapers, vomit and sleep deprivation all worth it. You hear parents utter this nonsense all the time. Now that I’m a parent I can tell you it’s clichéd, but true.

My baby giggled today for the first time. It happened while I was playing THIS movie for him. We were dancing to the last song, an infectious little ditty by Lykke Li called Dance, Dance, Dance.

His giggle was so adorable it didn’t sound real.

“Henry!” I squealed. “You found your laugh!”

I was hoping he’d do it again, but no amount of prompting seemed to spark another one. I guess I’ll just have to wait for it to occur as it occurred the first time: organically and delightfully without warning.

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PS. The shot of me dancing was taken during a senior citizen pool party at my grandparent’s mobile home park in Nokomis, Fla. Talk about fortuitous sunbathing! You can thank Joe for capturing it.

PPS. Music by Norah Jones (Man of the Hour), Grizzly Bear (Two Weeks), Scott Matthews (Eyes Wider Than Before), Van Morrison (They Sold Me Out) and Lykke Li (Dance, Dance, Dance)

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.

♥