Tag Archives: mothering

Yes Sir, That’s My Baby…I Think.

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I had such an odd moment today.  A friend–whose son has been in the same daycare as Carlos since they were tiny babies–emailed me a photo.  Her message said, “That’s Carlos, right?”

I double clicked the attachment and recognized her son instantly.  Then I looked at the other two babies and had a moment of panic.  Um…I think that’s my baby… yes….but I can only see his profile and his feet… no?…I don’t recognize that onesie…but it’s Brasilian colors so that must be him.

Yes Sir, That's My Baby!

Yes Sir, That’s My Baby!

With a big dose of guilt, I replied, “YES!”  But I worried that I had picked the wrong baby.  What if she emailed me back and said, “Oops!  I sent you the wrong picture!  Here’s the one with Carlos…”

The moment took me back to the night after he was born when I let the nurse take him to the nursery so I could get a few hours of sleep.  He made a tiny clicking noise with every breath for about 24 hours (until his lungs cleared out).  I couldn’t turn my mom radar off and not hear it, so I hadn’t had any rest.  The nurse took him for a few hours while I napped.

But I woke up having a panic attack.  It was about 2 a.m.  G had gone home to sleep.  The unit was quiet and dark.  My heart raced like it was going to leave and go find my baby.  My skin prickled with anxiety and every part of me flushed to 104 degrees in an instant.  I couldn’t get a breath.  I didn’t want to trouble anyone so I sat on the side of the bed and tried to calm myself.

After a while, the feelings weren’t going away, so I wandered down the hall to the newborn nursery.  Two nurses worked with the fresh babies.  A couple of babies lay swaddled in bassinets.  The door was locked so I had to knock on the window.  Up popped my friend, Amy, one of the lactation consultants.  I’m so glad it was her because I didn’t feel stupid when I said, “I’m feeling really anxious and I need to see my baby.”  One of the nurses said, “He’s just starting to wake up.  Let me change his diaper for you and check him out.”  Amy sat me down in a rocking chair and brought me a little ginger ale with a bendy straw.  Then she gave me a back rub and a few pats on the head.  I started to relax.  She and I talked for a few minutes, until I started to feel like myself again.

That’s when the nurse came back over and said, “He’s all fixed up and ready to go!”  Then she went back to her tasks.

Um.

There were two bassinets by the window.  Each bore a blue card that proclaimed, “I’m a breastfed boy!”  Two swaddled bundles with little white knit caps.  I walked slowly…squinting to try to make out the names.  What if I picked the wrong one?  The anxiety came flooding back because I couldn’t find my baby.  Then I realized that I was looking for HIS last name and the card had MY last name on it.  Duh.  I found my baby.

Have you ever had a moment like that?  One where you think you’re watching your kid on the playground then you realize that your kid is standing next to the one you were watching?  You look into the crowd at Pump It Up and can’t recall what clothes they were wearing when the party started?  I’ve had moments where I stood at the one-way mirrored window at daycare, searching for a dark head in the sea of blondes.

Now I look at the picture that my friend sent of our boys and I can’t NOT see Carlos.  His lips are the same.  The curve of his ear.  Those are the shiny brown eyes that gazed up into mine while I fed him.  Even the side of his foot is familiar to me.  Every cell of his body, part of me.

So strange.  He’s my very own heart, walking around outside my body but I can’t always recognize it.

Mom-tor

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The role of MENTOR sounds daunting if you think too hard on it.  Kind of like being a mom, right?  My column over at Work It, Mom! today is about the parallels between the roles of mentor and mom.  Click the pic to scoot on over…you might discover that you are ready to be a mentor.  

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The Smile on His Mama’s Face

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baby MLK

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has compiled 30 photographs from the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I learned so much from them that I thought I would share the link with you today.  Click here to view the gallery.  As a picture is worth a thousand words, this gallery left me speechless.  

Dr. King died before I was born, so I’ve only ever known about his life along with the knowledge of his end–that’s why that smiling laughing picture on the balcony in Memphis is so heartbreaking to me.  We can’t look at it these days without also hearing the sound of the gun cracking.  It’s hard to see a moment for what it is, when we know how it all worked out.  Some of these pictures took me back to see the joy of his life.  The hard work that was worth it.  The delight in living.  The great well of love that drives courage.  Before today, I had never seen the smile on his mama’s face.  

Giving Up on Being a Good Mother

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I’ve quit trying to be a good mother and I hope you’ll join me in this resolution.  If you’re intrigued by that concept, click on over to my column today at Work It, Mom!  It’s called “Stop Trying to Be a Good Mother.”  About 10 of you faithful readers are quoted in it!

A sample:

Next time you find yourself asking, “Am I a good mother?” strike the “good” and replace it with…(read the rest)

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Fourth Trimester Bodies

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Fourth Trimester Bodies

Allison Prejna and her child photographed by Ashlee Wells Jackson

What’s the first word that comes to mind when you look at this photograph?  

Softness?  Nourish?  Mother?  Comfort?  Completion?  Beautiful?  Joy?  

Flab?  Fat?  Cellulite?  Dimples?  Ripples?  Sag?  

This picture makes me ache for the days when I nursed my babies, when they fit so exactly into the curves of my body and the curves of my body were made for sheltering and nourishing them.  For forty weeks, my body gave itself over to the making of another person.  Every cell, every breath, every bite was dedicated to their creation. My body transformed itself–twice–into a ship that carried my two favorite people to this world.  For the first six months after they arrived, my body and not a drop of anything else kept them alive and caused them to flourish.  Even after they began to eat other foods, my daughter and my son returned to me and my body for over a year for nourishment and comfort.  My soft body was and still is their safe harbor.  

This ship, this harbor is a holy place to my children.  Now it is my ship alone, the only vessel I have to navigate the rest of my life.  How can I find its holiness again?  How can I honor it for the work it has done and the adventure that is yet to be had?  

I can look at this picture of a mother and hear the words “softness,” “beautiful,” “completion.”  But were I to pose the same way and fit my toddler in my lap, I am afraid that I would look at the image of my miraculous body and hear the biting words “fat,” “sag,” and “flabby.”  When I walk by a mirror naked, I don’t stop and say, “Wow, this body has done some incredible things!  Thank you!”  Instead, I turn to the side and suck in, poke and prod and sigh.  Or I don’t even stop at the mirror to say hello.  

Today a friend who has recently had a baby confided that she is feeling these “fat” words and fighting with her image of herself.  I knew just what to say to her and meant every word, but if I try to say the same things to myself….well.  So I knew it was a serendipitous gift when another friend posted a link to this wonderful article on Huffington Post about Ashlee Wells Jackson and her Fourth Trimester Bodies Project, “a photo series that embraces the changes brought to women’s bodies by motherhood.  By showcasing moms, Jackson hopes to shine a light on cultural interpretations of female beauty and change women’s expectations for themselves and those around them.” Please click through that link to see a gallery of 27 images of mother bodies.  Jackson is raising funds for her project and hopes to publish a book of images next summer.  She also calls for models!  

There are people who survive to adulthood with intact healthy body images–hooray for them–but many of us have been brainwashed by the Photoshopped, hypersexualised glossy magazine ideal that we hardly know what to think about a lumpy body that bears the marks of life.  I am practicing accepting this body, honoring it for the favors it has done me, and strengthening it for the journey ahead.  

Today’s challenge:  stop by a mirror and say hello.  Look yourself right in the eye for 10 seconds.  Then smile.  Say “Hello, Gorgeous!”   

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Sleep, Baby, Sleep

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When it’s time to go to bed, I can’t walk past my children’s bedrooms without stopping in to check on them while they sleep.  Tonight, I took an extra moment to sit still beside them.  I rested my hand on Vivi’s chest and felt her heart tapping along beneath my palm.  Peace.  In Carlos’ room, I pushed the sweaty curls off his brow.  He stirred then sighed.  I put my hand over his heart and breathed in the quiet in his dark little haven.

There is no faster path to the present moment than feeling my child’s heart beating.

Léon Bazille Perrault [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Léon Bazille Perrault “A Mother With Her Sleeping Child,” via Wikimedia Commons

Bringer of Great Joy

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I have told stories about boys for three days now–a boy who filled my heart, a boy who fills the world with art, a boy who left an empty place when he left.  Today, let’s talk about a vivacious pair of girls!  

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicated this week.  She is now styled Princess Beatrix and her son rules as King Willem-Alexander.  He is the first Dutch king in over a century and will be succeeded by his daughter…let’s hear it for the girls!

The first trip I ever took overseas with my late husband, Richard, was to the Netherlands.  I read everything I could find about the country before we went.  He laughed at me for buying a Dutch phrase book then forwarded me a news story that reported Dutch high school students have a broader English vocabulary than American high school students.  Ah.  I turned to less educational and more atmospheric reading about this tiny country.  Bill Bryson, one of the most entertaining travel writers in the history of passports, tells a story about the great love the Dutch felt for their Queen Bea.  It was her habit to walk freely around the city, running errands and greeting her fellow citizens.  When Bryson heard this, he remarked, “But who protects her?”  His Dutch friend laughed at the silly question and replied, “We all do!”

Our Vivi’s middle name is “Beatriz,” the Portuguese spelling of Beatrix or Beatrice.  I’ve always loved the name, ever since reading about Petrarch’s sonnets to his love, Beatrice.  G and I had already picked the first name and were tossing around ideas for a middle name when I rediscovered Beatrice.  It was a done deal once I heard him pronounce it “BAY-ah-treez.”  The name means “bringer of great joy” and never was a name more aptly applied to a little girl.  Her first name means “vibrant and full of life.”  Yes.  Yes she is.

She is naturally VIVACIOUS

vivi model

Often times AUDACIOUS

vivi dozer

Even sometimes VEXATIOUS

vivi tongue

She’s got a streak of RAMBUNCTIOUS

howl at the moon

And a double dose of LOQUACIOUS

vivi note to g

Even at five, she is SAGACIOUS

vivi geode

And just a touch PUGNACIOUS

vivi wreck

Oh my gracious, I love her so.

vivi asleep