Watching Love Unfold

Apologies for my recent silence. Its been one of those funky weeks; a heat wave, a huge fight that I am still processing, all night teething, a sinus infection. Its not to say that its been all bad, peanut is starting to cruise, standing on anything and everything and everybody and its wonderful to watch. Although its stressful, too, because there have been bumps and toppling over and letting it happen goes so against your nature but sometimes you just have to let them fall, let them figure it out. All this just to say that I am thoroughly exhausted, and as I write this its 10:02AM.

But I am noticing something kind of spectacular. Something I didn't know I would be able to literally see. I am watching a love story. A love happening between L and M that is beyond any words I can muster up - sleep deprived or not. 

L has always been a wonderful dad. In a way, he has been a more natural nuturer than I have been. Our second night in the hospital together (the first that he could stay over) after the fifth wheeling in of our little one, who was hungry but couldn't latch, L swaddled him up and put M on his chest, covered them with a warm blanket and slept like that. For hours. They slept peacefully and I watched them and felt confusion and all sorts of things that you might feel after giving birth and not sleeping and not being able to nurse and hurting and loving. He has always been kind, he was the master swaddler in the early days, now he is the master rocker at night. He carries M on his shoulders and tosses him in the air, he secretly feeds him almond croissants in the morning while I 'sleep in' and he carries him in the ergo while he works, oblivious to M's tuggings of noses and hair. He is a rockstar dad, and though I was kind of expecting it, it really does blow me away.

But.. he's also the dad. He doesn't wake at M's first cry, he has aways been the 'leave him in his crib and let him cry he's fine' one between the two of us, after a few glasses of wine he would rather talk politics than the sweetness of the back of M's head, with new curls springing up daily. 

Until yesterday. Something happened yesterday, something subtle but I watched it. I put M down for his morning nap. Usually he goes right out, might hum a bit or do his mama's and dada's, but its pretty soon he will be in dreamland. But yesterday was all tears, cries, wails. We could see in his video monitor that he was sitting up in his crib, crying, pleading. I went to the bathroom to distract myself with a shower, all the while hearing L's "Leave him in his crib and let him cry" line going in my head.. repeating.. even now, 10 months in, those cries are needles pricking into my every pore. When the water was off there were still cries. So I stayed in the bathroom a few extra minutes, hoping he would be asleep any moment. I had left the door cracked to let the steam out and make sure I could hear everything, and I see L walk into the room and silence. M is silent. I look in the monitor and there is L, rocking M, there is M closing his eyes, and L keeps holding him and looking at him, and I SEE it. I could see it. I could see a dad falling in love. Deep. When L emerged, his eyes were wet and he said "I just love him so much, I love him so much" and I knew exactly what was happening. Because it had happened to me, earlier, but not instantly. And I think by and large it may happen to dads a little bit later. They might need the time to settle into their role, to share their partners body that was once more theirs, to understand what all of the fuss was about. I fell slowly and softly in love, with mixed feelings and fear and worry. L fell hard and fast, and just like that, we spent our last night with too much wine and talking about the dimples on M's elbows and the noises he makes when he's happy. So here is one of the simplest, complicated, deepest loves between a father and son. I gave M a good one. It wasn't all bad, its really all good.

balance

                                                         Photo by: Julie Blackmon

I was reading this post in the Times about the work/life balance.. oh the balance.. is there such a thing? If it exists or not, it is something I think of often. When I was pregnant with M, I worked until the day before my water broke. I took the subway back and forth to midtown, oftentimes not getting a seat, I carried my groceries up the two flights of steep steps to our apartment, I went to a photo shoot that week before giving birth, on my feet for a stretch of 8 hours, trying not to complain to the young cute photo dudes blasting Arcade Fire and watching me with a nervous eye, hoping my labor didn't start in their studio. I'm no super-woman, if anything I think I was in a bit of denial about the whole thing. I didn't take it easy, I couldn't. Taking it easy meant giving in, meant this was real, meant my body wasn't my own.. and it wasn't and it still isn't and that's a hard thing to accept when you're not used to an alien being kicking you from within, making your skin sallow, your hips separate and your nerves frazzle. Two weeks before M was born, I did take a taxi to work - and only because I brought a huge load of framed prints to decorate my office with. I was 8 1/2 months pregnant, standing on an office chair with a hammer and nails yammering away, annoying my coworkers, marking my territory. My office was small, dark and without windows - but it was mine. My room of ones own. And having an office in the Time Life building seemed to me, back then, to be a very big deal.

In hindsight, I was scared.. terrified, really, that I might not come back. That the love for this little thing moving about, hiccuping every afternoon, would be so great that I wouldn't return to my little cave-like office in midtown. I think I knew it might happen, and it shook me. So when M was born, my coworkers were the first ones invited to see him, I pumped hundreds of ounces of milk in little sterile bags marked with dates and amounts.. I interviews over a dozen nannies, called references, bought large black dress pants and read endless articles on returning back to work. I walked around in a daze, with M in my coat, sleeping huddled next to me, his lips parted and sweet breath on my chest. I was a wreck, and for weeks I walked around Brooklyn in hopes of finding an answer. I wanted to be supermom. I missed my routine, I missed my coffee breaks and the water-cooler banter and the subway ride and deadlines and photo shoots and lunch breaks. I missed getting dressed in the morning, I missed being part of that mass of people heading to work, pissed and excited and annoyed and eager. Everything I knew about myself was gone, I wasn't one thing or another, I was lost.

After extending my unpaid maternity leave as far as I could, after asking every woman on the street with a child what should I do, after finding a job I could do from home, after staring at my baby and even asking him what he would like.. I decided I couldn't go back to my spot on 50th street. Not yet, not just yet. In fact I remember the very moment I knew, and it hurt my heart in a way I can't explain.. I was at some takeout place on St. Marks street, getting a falafal with a new mom friend, and I was telling her about a nanny I had met and liked, and that perhaps bringing home $57 a week after paying for said nanny was still better than staying home, and M was in his stroller and wearing his onesie with little turtles printed on it.. and he looked up and me, and I looked down at him, and for some reason he looked scared to me (was there a noise? did I make a look? perhaps I was just projecting) and I knew.. I knew.. I couldn't go just yet.

Suffice to say I guess I knew that all along. I guess my hammering photos onto office walls days before hitting the L&D floor was my way of pretending that I would be back. I guess my extending my maternity leave as long as possible was an attempt to fake that my heart was in returning to the grind. And it was and it is and its not and sometimes I am afraid that it never will be again..

I'm not sure why I am putting this out here, because there is no advice, no words of wisdom. Going to work is hard, staying home is hard, being away from your babies is hard and not getting a break is hard. There is just no right way. But I am thinking that instead of what I used to consider being super-woman, the ones that juggle impressive careers and a family of five and a house and two dogs.. that maybe every day we are being super-moms, whether we are in our little cave's in midtown or our little caves in Brooklyn (or DC).. whether we dress in dark work pants or dark yoga pants, we're doing it our way and it will change but there is no right.. Perhaps the balance is the exception and chaos is the rule.

for the next go-around

i took milo to sing-a-long at the dean street cafe this morning with a couple of mom friends and their wee ones. its amazing to see how different the babes are, the 10 month old is walking! while milo's friend hannah sat contently and milo got bored and started his high pitched wails until he found the mirror behind us (always the mirror.. if they had mirror tattoos i would be all over that..) and made it through to the last song, a 'rock' rendition of the itsy bitsy spider..

anywhoo.. this is all to say that afterwards my friend julia and i took the kiddos to the nearby park for some quick swing action.. apparently every parent and nanny from our sing-a-long had the same brilliant idea and swings were taken so we sat awkwardly in the middle of the playground chatting while trying to keep the littles entertained without licking the tarmac.. julia and i got onto the subject of how big they were getting, how crazy it is this first year.. and when do we plan on having the next little ones, should we be so lucky.. ugh what a loaded question, eh? when i think about me and you and you and me i think -- oh, right away! lets make m a best friend.. but there is the other side, i like that i can focus on milo now, that he has all of me. that when he does something new i am watching it, that he is first on my mind.. there are good sides to having that not be the case, sure, but im not sure that i want things to happen so quickly that i can't soak in this unique time with my one and only. and though i can't imagine loving another baby remotely close to how i love m.. i can't imagine it.. i also know that all moms feel that way and according to our, very loving and devoted mum "your love just grows" so i will trust in that..

so it got me thinking that i should make a list for the next go-around, of the things i would want to tell myself.. here goes:

-you will probably have nursing issues again, unless you have a champion sucker who doesn't mind that mama's boobies resemble mountains with a tick tack on top.. if thats the case, you can stop reading now, but if you are knee-deep in nipple shields, spoon feeding, sores, poor latches and tears; give that babe a bottle. you were so afraid of giving m a bottle at first but really - your commitment to breastfeeding is strong but you have to give yourself a break.. m was able to latch because he got bigger, he got it. keep trying and keep at it but dont spend your days crying over it. it will get good again.

-don't invite everyone you know to the hospital and/or the apartment the first two weeks. give yourself and the hubs and the babies some time to adjust and to recover together. don't feel the great need to just 'be yourself' a day after giving birth - its huge and you will never quite be yourself again. give your family some time to be together without dishes and deep conversation. breath it in.

-try not to spend all of your time on your phone while you are nursing/babe is sleeping on you.. thats not to say that its bad to read a novel during those marathon nursing sessions or to dull your mind from the fact that your limbs have fallen asleep due to the little ones positioning - but - there is something to be said about being in the present.

-ask for help. take help. dont be humble about it. you will give it back.

-trust in your body that it will get back to where it needs to be. don't feel bad that the water weight is making you look like the hulk.. go with it.. mu-mu it out and don't think twice.

-if you have decided to do a hospital birth and you are in your labor room and its hurting real bad.. get that epidural. stat.

i'm sure in the next few weeks i'll have more to add to this list, but i wanted to get it out while it was still lingering in my head..

**and don't feel bad when certain people tell you not to let the little sleep on you.. because one day they wont and you will ache for it.

the moments between only us

for the past couple of nights, M's nursing sessions have shortened dramatically. aside from the fact that this pretty much guarantees a plugged duct, it made me.. well.. SAD. this is our thing, our nightly ritual - bath, jammies, sleep sack, lullaby, nursing, rocking, bed. i'm not sure if its teething, developmental things, the fact that our co-sleeping means that he is nursing more in the middle of the night, or it may be the new lovey "nancy" that has distracted my boy from the boob. so tonight as i was rocking him, he was squirming around and i thought, oh, he just wants to be in his bed, he doesn't want to be rocked. it took me a while to figure that out and when i put him down he rolled onto his belly and wiggled his bum and prepared for sleep. and i stood above him, my sweet baby boy, in his little crib, and i watched him, and i didn't know what to do with myself because our nighttime routine is clearly not only for him, apparently i need it, too.

on monday M will be 9 months.. 9 months in, 9 months out.. amazing. solids are slowly taking over, new tastes and textures are more exciting then the same old milk. i hope to always be comfort to him, but now with the crawling, he's all about moving.. sometimes away from me.. usually away from me.. and i know we're in the midst of great changes - extraordinary changes, development, mil(o)stones.. but im realizing how much i love these quiet moments.. the dark room, the noise machine, M in my arms, the nursing that in the beginning was so hard, that has become so wonderful, who's end might be near, those moments.. oh those moments.. i will never forget a night of it. every time i question my decisions about staying home i think of our evenings together, of being in that room, brushing his hair back as he nurses, his little breaths between sips, humming a dylan or marley tune to him, nothing else mattering, just us.. only us..

Charlie and I had so much fun having family in town... not to mention a set of wheels to whiz us around Washington D.C. We got to stroll through different neighborhoods, test restaurants with the stroller; Charlie frequented his first toy store, and I conquered breastfeeding in public (or survived it anyway). That old saying 'It takes a village,' feels particularly potent after each of these (too short) visits. Alone with my little dude, I am suddenly reminded of how daunting the simplest of tasks can feel when you're flying solo. Today, Charlie and I are working through these transition blues by lingering in our pajamas a little longer than usual, and I am trying to remember how brave I am capable of being. Here are a few snap shots from our weekend adventures- any interest in a trip down south(ish) soon?

on THOSE things..

There are more than a few things that scare me about being a mom. Most are involving safety and what-ifs, the other are considerably more silly and based around self-consciousness. Lumpy solid foods. Bathing M by myself (which I pat myself on the back for every.single.night). Outlets. Cords. Litter on the floor. Iron in the diet. The list goes on.. Then there are the weirder ones like.. Taking M on the swings by myself. I have taken him a few times with my friend Maia, and often run into her on the street where she has just taken her daughter, alone. For some reason, taking my little infant who can't really partake in much of the playground activities, putting him in a (probably way too big) swing, trying to swing him enough to make him smile but not tip forward.. it just seemed intimidating, to say the least. Amongst those professional mama's and nannies, I felt insecure. But the first day of Spring came, and despite the bitter wind and gray day, I stuffed my little man in his hand-me-down snowsuit and to the swings we went.

At first it was a little awkward, I'm not going to lie. He is a bit too small for the swing, doesn't totally get it, and all of the moms seemed to be congregating to the other side of the swings.. so of course I worried that I was on the 'bad' side. But then M started smiling, looking around, the chilly March wind hitting his face, he got into the rhythm and I stopped worrying so much, and right then a nice mama with a 19-month old (side note: when do we stop counting months??) put her little girl, Lake, in the swing next to us and we chatted for a while about those things moms talk about.. I asked her a million things about sleep and development.. when the swings became less amusing, I got him into the Ergo without making a total ass of myself (only a semi-ass..) and we went on our merry way. Yes, most people can take their babes to the park and it aint no thang. But I couldn't help but pat myself on the back a little, anyway.