Irrational Fears

We were driving through New Mexico from Kansas, where we lived, to visit my sister in Arizona.  It was the middle of the night, and pouring rain.  I'm not a skittish driver, and I'm not usually afraid of driving at night, or in the rain.  The highway began to curve; it was a long, slow arc to the left, around a rock wall.  The road opened up to the right, but because of the night sky, and the rain, I couldn't see what it was opening up into.  A lake?  A cliff?  It was just open space, and darkness.

As I began to steer slowly to the left, following the curve, I could suddenly see our car sliding rightward.  Toward that open space.  Off the cliff.  Into the lake.  Out into night air and nothingness.  Only we weren't sliding.  And I knew that, but it didn't stop me from seeing it.  I saw it happen, as if it were happening, all the while knowing it wasn't actually happening.

Which is why I called out:  It feels like we're sliding!  It looks like we're going over the edge!  My husband (then-fiance) reassured me that we weren't sliding, or going over the edge, and then offered to drive since I was obviously freaking out.

I thanked him, but continued to drive.  I was 22.  My fears were not going to get the better of me.

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My sister completed grad school last week.  Her graduation was held downtown on Saturday afternoon, and we took the toddler.  Of course, he wasn't able to sit quietly for the two plus hours the ceremony lasted (actually, it was longer than that, but we left after she walked the stage), so the hubby and I took turns playing with him in the spacious hallways while the other one attended the ceremony.

The building is a huge, brick, multi-storied affair, used for theater productions.  We were seated in the balcony, and there are many places where I could look down to the first floor.  Along one of the side walls was a velvet curtain that you could reach out and touch.  It draped from the ceiling past all the levels of seating all the way down to the floor.  I held my son in my arms and let him touch the velvet.

Suddenly, in my mind, I saw him falling over the railing and down, down, down with the velvet to the bottom floor of the auditorium.  I imagined people trying, and failing, to catch him, as he plummeted past.

I walked quickly away from the velvet curtain, and we played elsewhere for the rest of the ceremony.  My heart is thumping in my chest just typing this.

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I never heard the story of Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick until I read Black Water, by Joyce Carol Oates.  It wasn't until I got to the end of the book that I found out it was based on a true event.  Much like the anti-abortion movies I watched as a Catholic child, that book dug its way under my skin and has never quite left.  If the intent of the novel had been to brainwash, it would have been a smashing success in my case.

My biggest irrational fear is getting trapped in a car under water.  Now that I have a child, that fear is so much worse.  Don't get me wrong; it's not something I think about every day, and it has no real effect on my behavior, or my everyday life.  In fact, my mother-in-law, after hearing about my fear, bought me a little hammer designed to break a car window in the event you are trapped under water.  Because my disorganization is larger than my irrational fear, I have no idea where that hammer is now.  I do know it's not in my car.

But I have visualized saving myself, my son and my husband from seatbelts, and windows stuck up, and doors nearly impossible to open and air so far up you can't even see to the surface, so many times it is surely ridiculous.  And again, I must remind myself to breathe--slowly, deeply--while I write this.

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During my first pregnancy, I was blessed with the certainty that everything was going to be just fine.  I felt great; the baby would be healthy, and all was well with the world.  I'm usually pretty happy-go-lucky, so this wasn't out of character, but the depth of my certainty surprised even me.  I just felt it, all the way down to my bones: things were good.

I think it was my miscarriage that has made me more skittish this time.  I'm a little bit afraid to be certain.  I waited with my heart in my throat for the heartbeat at the first sonogram.  I'm still afraid to exhale until the next appointment, when, at twelve weeks, I'll be mostly out of the woods, as far as miscarriage is concerned.  I spent a week battling a crazy little voice inside my head that was just certain this was an ectopic pregnancy, all because I had mild pains low on one side of my abdomen.  I called the doctor's office, and they didn't think they needed to see me, which quieted the voice, but didn't shut her up altogether.  I'd like her to shut up!

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When I was six years old, I came home from school one day, where my mother met me in the hallway with a broom.  She walked me upstairs, explaining that a bird had flown into my bedroom, and she needed me to go in and shoo it out the window with the broom.  I found out later that she had recently watched Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and was in the grip of an irrational fear of her own.  She said that knowing it was irrational allowed her to send me in with the bird without fearing for my safety, but there was no way she was ready to face that bird.

At six, it never occurred to me to ask why I was the one assigned to this particular chore.  I waved the broom overhead like a wild woman, watching the bird dive and weave through the room, until it eventually made its escape.  I thought it was grand adventure.

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A car that drives itself off a cliff can turn into a magic carpet.  A child falling from a great height can grow wings, and begin to fly.  A woman trapped in a car underwater can transform herself into a mermaid and rescue her family with nimble fingers and lightening-quick fins.  An unborn baby dances with danger, like the rest of us do, and a heartbeat is a drumbeat is a story told round a fire about the miracle of us all, living and breathing and loving each other, despite all odds, every day.

I will wave a broom overhead, and whoosh my fears out an open window.  As a girl, I conquered the fear of my mother.  This makes me invincible.  I will remind myself of this every day.  I am 34.  My fears are not going to get the better of me.

Mother's Day and Passing Moments

I woke up this May morning to snow falling fast outside my recently open windows.  While still in bed, my husband said:  We'll have to turn the heat on;  I heard it's supposed to snow.  Honestly, I thought he was a little crazy until I saw it myself.  Then I thought maybe I was crazy.  I settled on the whole world being crazy, and rethought my plan for the day, which had involved hiking.

I couldn't bear the thought of being stuck inside all day long, and the libraries all close on Sunday, so we decided to take the toddler swimming at the YMCA, and then out for pizza afterward.  We had a great time swimming, and since we were over on the side of town where we used to live, decided to hit up one of our old pizza parlor favorites.  Driving down those familiar streets is always pleasant; we lived there for over four years, and the neighborhood was in flux the whole time, and continues to change, so there are always new houses and businesses to see, as well as old friends and familiar haunts.

We ran into our old neighbor, the boy who told me he didn't see any of me in my son right after he was born, and he's so tall now!  A high schooler instead of a middle schooler, and his family moved out of the old neighborhood too.  We passed the hospital where my son was born, and where this next one might not be born, as they just banned VBACs, and I'd like to try one.  Sitting in the pizza shop, cutting a slice into smaller pieces for my son, a Billy Joel song my aunts used to listen to came on the radio, carrying me back to my childhood.  I haven't seen as much of my aunts since my grandmother died a few years ago.  I looked outside and saw the small Vietnamese market where our best friend used to buy egg roll wraps.  He said they were the best in town all those times he tried--and mostly failed--to teach us the homemade egg roll recipe he learned from his Thai mother.  It was the rolling that was so hard to master.  He ended up in Hollywood after a short stint in the psych ward following a suicide attempt and the dissolution of his decade long marriage.  He survived though, and seems to be thriving, after that long summer of fear and uncertainty.  That fall I got pregnant, he left town, and everything changed for us all.  It hasn't stopped changing yet.  His ex-wife and I keep trying to catch up with each other, and our schedules keep conflicting.  They were our closest friends for years.  One of these days we will catch up, but I'm not sure when.

Standing in the gloomy light of a greasy pizza parlor around the corner from the hospital where my son was born, running into an old neighbor who's suddenly more man than boy, listening to a Billy Joel song from my own childhood while cutting pizza for my son, thinking of family lost, and best friends scattered across the country like dandelion wishes, the new life growing inside my body a reminder that nothing ever stays the same ..... that babies become children and children become grownups, and girls become mothers and then grandmothers and then ghosts ..... it sounds sad, but it wasn't.  The past, and the present, and the future welled up inside me like a symphony, and all the sadness and loss mingled with the promise and potential of tomorrow, and I mostly felt very, very happy with today. 

Snow in May, and swimming at the Y, and pizza in a neighborhood that once was mine, and is daily claimed anew by the footprints of children born into this upstate city that isn't mine by birth, but that I claim daily with footprints of my own: the birth of my babies, and the payment of my mortgage, and the upkeep of my home, and the making and losing of friends, all of which are passing events, and will make marks deep enough to be permanent on my heart, but barely shadows in this big, beautiful world where we're lucky enough to spend today celebrating motherhood.

I have no wish for sun today.  Snow in May is beautiful enough, for now.  And my heart is so full.

Happy Mother's Day.

And The Winner Is...

The Kit!!!

Yes, the kit straight whooped the calendar's ass, and where the calendar tried--and failed--for six straight months, the kit swept in and succeeded on it's very first try.  Either that, or it took a few months after I stopped breastfeeding for my body to balance itself out.  All I know is, if we ever have a third, I'm not going to bother with the calendar; I'm going straight for the kit!

The best part is the digital pregnancy test that says "Pregnant" in the box, rather than counting lines.  I was looking at half lines for days, and despite every internet source known to man telling me that a half line eventually grows up into a whole line, seeing the word "Pregnant" in the digital box was very, very exciting.

And then I took a nap.  Because the tiredness is epic.

Other than that, though, I feel wonderful.  And oh, so grateful.  This baby was conceived on or about my birthday, and is due less than a week before Christmas.  A gift.  The best gift I could have received.  I am very, very grateful.

We heard the heartbeat today, for the very first time, and because this is my second time around, I knew enough to ask my husband if he would like to take half a day off from work and accompany me to the appointment.  He missed the first sono last time, because I had no idea they were going to give one until it happened.  So today we were together in the dark, little room, and the sonographer said those magic words: here is the heartbeat, and he reached out and grabbed my foot with such ferocity that I knew I wasn't the only one who has been holding my breath, waiting to hear them, since that first half line began to tease us with it's pseudo-presence.

Have a drink for me, internets!  In fact, feel free to have yourself sevenish months of drinks for me!  I'll be celebrating with ice cream, and don't worry: over the next sevenish months, I'm quite certain I'll have enough ice cream for all of you.

It's All About Relationships

In my line of work, I often hear:  It's all about the relationships you build with families.  In this field, it's all about relationships.

My babysitter, who was a former colleague, and a mentor of sorts to me, used to say it all the time.  It makes me a little prickly, or itchy, when I hear it.  Not because I disagree, but because I'm not, first and foremost, a relationship person.  I'm a strategist, an analyst of data, a planner, a big picture thinker, a pragmatist, but not so much of a relationship builder.

I taught myself how to do small talk in college, when I realized it would be necessary for my teaching career.  I'm best at small talk when it revolves around discussing young children.  I genuinely like young children, observe them closely, and usually have lots to say about how about wonderful and interesting they are.  Parents like to hear about how wonderful and interesting their kids are.  This works for me.

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I teach a yoga class at a middle school in the city where I live.  When I took my maternity leave almost two years ago, we missed the start date to begin classes that fall.  When I was ready to return, the paperwork had been misplaced, and our use of the building had not been approved.  My boss was inclined to forget the whole thing.  The class wasn't a huge money maker, and the hassle of tracking down the paperwork and obtaining permission to use the building seemed like too much work.

The six to eight people enrolled in the class called my boss.  Repeatedly.  Day and night.  They tracked down an alternate location for the class.  Then they tracked down the principal at the middle school, who finally approved the use of the room.  They let my boss know that the space was available, and asked when I would be returning to teach the class.

How many people are in that class?  she asked me.  When I told her, she said:  It seemed like at least twenty!

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This afternoon I woke my son from his nap, and we joined my sister and her grad school class in Ecological Engineering, visiting an after-school program in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.  We worked with children who recently arrived in America from Somalia, to build a series of raised garden beds that will trap and reuse rain water.

I carried my toddler on my shoulders, and we watched as the students dug holes in the soil to plant pear trees.  I mingled with graduate students from all over the world, young girls in hijabs flying plastic kites, boys battling on a basketball court and others cooperating to plant onions in straight rows, and a volunteer who promised to expand the center after he was drafted by the NBA.  My boy shared his goldfish crackers, and tried with little luck to get a kite off the ground. 

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I went back to teaching fitness classes at six weeks postpartum, despite my c-section, and my three month leave from teaching.  I taught a fitness class every weekday evening.  My son was breastfeeding, and I hated pumping, so I breastfed immediately before leaving, dashed out to teach a one hour class, and rushed home to breastfeed again.  He wasn't hungry, but he cried every night for his mama nonetheless.  I persevered, believing it was important for my son to get used to being cared for, and comforted, by his father.  Important for my husband to discover, and prove, his competence, without my breasts always edging in between his efforts and his son's cries.

I came home, for weeks, to a sobbing baby and a despondent husband.  I was close to giving up.  One evening I called my sister while driving home, and poured out the story of the sobbing baby, and the miserable husband.  I'm going to have to give them up, all my classes.  I thought it would get better, but it's not.  I come home to crying every night, and it's just awful.  I'm going to have to quit all my classes.

That night, for the first time, I opened the door to smiles.  My guys had finally figured it out.

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Part of my job now is to recruit families to participate in our program, and this is done through building connections in the community with other programs serving families in poverty.  So today, at the after school gardening program, I introduced myself to the director of the program.  I met her son, and she met mine.  We talked parenting classes, and clashing cultural values, and the role of education in escaping poverty and obtaining independence.  I offered to visit and speak with parents in her program who might be interested in ours.  She invited our families to visit her center anytime.  We exchanged e-mail addresses, showed children where to put displaced worms, and learned new facts about marigolds and basil from the gardening experts.

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He's almost two, and I'm down to two classes a week.  He's just started crying again, every time I leave in the evening.  Last time he cried for 25 minutes.  My poor husband.  The truth is, I'm not so personally dedicated to my fitness classes as I used to be.  I don't usually want to go.  I'm tired in the evenings, and two classes a week is more like treading water than going anywhere.  Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to stick with them.  My baby boy bawling feels like the final straw.

But then I remember how my class members fought for me.  How they rose together in a mighty flurry of phone calls, and took action where my own boss wasn't able, or willing to do so.  I square my shoulders against my son's sad, sobbing face, and remind myself of the importance of competent fathers.  I close my eyes, inhale, and remember the loyalty of my longtime students, of how grateful I am for their faith in my teaching.  I put my foot on the gas peddle, and drive into the evening air, away from the family with whom I spend most evenings, and toward this group of women with whom I have spent the last five years of Monday evenings.

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Tomorrow, I will e-mail the director of the after-school program, and follow up on our conversation.  It's easier to sit in my office, and do my job alone.  But it's far less effective.

After all, in my field, it's all about relationships.

It Snowed Yesterday; 80° Predicted Tomorrow. We Take What We Can Get.

~The Nook ~ 

  














Work in Progress...

Hello Hostas!

Forget Me Not!

Lists and Longings

I talked once before about daydreaming of becoming a stay at home mom.  At that time, it was an idle daydream, and mostly because I was overstressed at work.  It passed, and I returned to my default setting: part-time work is perfect for me.  I've long felt that I get the best of both worlds.  I'm keeping my foot in the door, professionally speaking, but I have afternoons at home with my son.  Suddenly, just in the last day or so, I'm again overtaken by the desire to quit my job and stay at home full time.  Except rather than an idle daydream, this feels...I don't know what, exactly.  It feels so overwhelming, and emotional, and imperative to explore, that I'm taken aback by it.  I suppose this will be my attempt to muddle through the feelings.

• I planned to be a stay-at-home mother for most of my childhood.  I'm fairly sure this had little to nothing to do with my own longings for motherhood, and mostly everything to do with the fact that my mom stayed home.  Had my mother bagged groceries at the corner store, that probably would have been my goal as well.

• I grew up working class, and the notion that people defined themselves through career choices seemed distant from my family's experience and, frankly, a little silly.  After reading a bunch of feminist theory in college, I said to a friend of mine, who also grew up working class:  I don't get why these women felt like their jobs would give them a place to develop their true identities.  She replied:  I know!  It's my damn job that prevents me from having any time to develop my true identity!  We snickered at that, but it really represents where I come from.  My father has spent his entire life working at jobs he hates, so he could feed and house us.  He finds meaning in his life, and develops his identity outside of his work.  That may sound sad to people who do find meaning through work, but it's a basic reality for most people who work because they have to.

• Then, surprise, surprise!  I found a line of work that gave great meaning to my life.  I love what I do.  It does allow me to develop parts of my personality that would otherwise lie dormant.  It was a huge surprise to me to find it, and I think part of why it came about was that I was willing to be very poor rather than do work I hated, but it did eventually come, and I really, truly enjoy what I do.

• I spent the first year of my son's life saying that I didn't think I'd be a very good stay-at-home mother.  I can see myself in the same pajamas three days running.  That's not even a stretch to imagine.  I'm not much of a housekeeper, to tell you the truth.  I don't cook.  And I'm often a homebody, plus we'd be pretty broke, and winter is loooooooong round these parts.  For some reason all of these very practical concerns are not serving as deterrents in my mind anymore.

• Time just seems so short all of a sudden.  I want every minute with my baby boy.  Last week I took him everywhere I went.  We went to parks and libraries, stores and ice cream parlors, out on long walks, and climbing at playgrounds.  We had so much fun!  And now these weird.....feelings.

• Except they're more than just feelings.  I've been adding and subtracting numbers from our budget, interest rates on car loans, and months left until final payments, and minus gas for the work commute, and plus a bread maker so I could make homemade bread and stop paying $8 a loaf for the delicious bakery bread we currently eat, and the numbers?  They keep getting closer and closer to balancing.

And what will I do if, or when, they do?  The question just stops me cold in my tracks.  It leaves me a little breathless.  It's nothing I ever expected to be asking.  I haven't the foggiest idea of how to answer it.

Daddy's Attributes; Mommy's Attitude

My baby boy wakes from his nap, comes into the living room to find me curled up on the couch with a library book, promptly grabs his own library book from a pile on the floor, commands UP! and snuggles into my lap.  He reaches down to pull my blanket up to cover him too, while announcing banky!, then grasps my wrist with one hand and guides it into place so he can put the book into my hand with his other.  BOOK MOMMY! he says, with both excitement and expectation (I'll admit I almost never say no to a book), and then as an afterthought adds: wata?  We scan the area and see his sippy cup on the floor nearby.  I leeeaaannn as far as I can to snag it with my fingers (without losing prime lounging spot on the couch), and toss it up toward him.  He misses, but then picks it up and takes a long sip.  Then, again:  BOOK MOMMY!   Just up from a nap, and the child's first instinct is to lie back down, cuddle up with a blanket, and read a book, while sipping from his ever-present water cup.

I officially have a mini-me. 

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I was nine days overdue, enormous, uncomfortable, and suffered from a severe case of PUP that meant I had to shower three times daily and twice during the night to keep the itching to a manageable level.  It was July, and we had one room in our apartment with an air conditioning unit.  I spent 24 hours a day in. that. room.

Finally, I went into labor, and the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart immediately.  They stayed that way for over an hour, so we went into the natural birthing center and spent another few hours walking the halls, to dilate a sufficient amount before they would officially admit us.  I spent eight hours in labor with no epidural, and then another miserable two with pitocin, waiting for an epidural.  (My deal was, no pitocin, no epidural, but if you give me pit, you better bring the epidural, right quick!  They didn't listen to my deal.  While they managed to smuggle the pitocin into both the natural birthing center and my IV against both hospital policy and birth plan, I had to wait for a hospital transfer to get the epidural.)  I spent another eight hours in active labor, then two hours pushing with no progress whatsoever, followed by a c-section and three days in the hospital.

The day after I brought my baby boy home I ran into my teenage neighbor on the sidewalk between our homes.  Can I see? he asked.  I pulled the blanket down from around his face, and held my hard won bundle of joy out for the teenager to inspect.  He looked at the baby, then up at me, then back at the baby.

Hmmm, he said.  I ain't see none of you in him.

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We drive to the babysitter's house in the morning, yelling at each other.  Angrily?  No, not at all!  We just love to yell.  HEY!  MOMMEH! he shouts with a grin.  I shift the rearview mirror so I can gasp in mock shock, making him grin all the more, and then I holler back HEY!  BABEH!  WHATCHOO YELLIN' AT ME FO?  We laugh and we shout all the way there.

When I pick up the toddler in the afternoon, she greets me with:  He really likes being loud, doesn't he?  As if to prove her point, his eyes light up when he sees me and he shouts:  YAH!  HA YAH MOMMEH!  No karate moves to match the outburst of sound, just the loud, loud sound for it's own sake.

I come home, and tell my husband about it.  I haven't taught him about an indoor voice yet, I muse.  Have you learned about an indoor voice yet? my husband retorts.

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Who does he look like? all the distant relatives would ask over the phone.  I couldn't tell, and so I asked the other relatives, who live nearby.  And they all agreed:  He looks like himself.

But then my husband dug up an old album with his baby pictures, and he looked an awful lot like our son when he was a baby.  He had that same button nose, and made similar expressions with his mouth.  He looks different now, but there's a clear resemblance in baby pictures.

And as our son has gotten older, he's grown to look more like his father.  More people comment on it.  No one ever tells me he looks like me, and fewer people are saying that he doesn't resemble either of us.  I figure it's only fitting; he's a boy.  I wouldn't be a very good looking boy myself, so I don't mind if he looks like his daddy!

Now we tell the faraway relatives that he looks like his dad, which makes them very happy to hear, since it's mostly my husband's family that lives far away.

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My sister and I are taking the toddler to the Erie Canal.  We pack him in the car and he begins to sing, just nonsense words strung together to the tune in his head.  We drive for blocks and blocks through the city before arriving at the on-ramp to the highway, and as I'm making the turn, I notice he's still chatting away amiably in the backseat, though neither of us has spoken to him since we started the drive.

He hasn't shut up since we left the house, has he?  I ask my sister.

No, she laughs.  He just loves the sound of his own voice!

That is definitely my boy!

Yes, he is, she says.

Yes.  He is.