Mother's Day

Mother's Day was always a holiday that belonged to somebody else. It was for my mother - exclusively. So even now that, nearly two years in to baby C's beautiful life, I should be a Mother's Day expert it continues to feel like a borrowed sentiment. Truth be told I've celebrated Mother's Day as the center ring attraction a grand total of four times. Two actual and two "sham" celebrations. Because I suppose I shouldn't count the Mother's Day a couple of months prior to C's arrival (though I still contend that it was well deserved) and of course the Mother's Day I bartered from my husband (which I earned! after six months of sleepless nights).

That was netted one looong wakeful night, back when C was sleeping in twenty minute intervals, that as we finally began drifting off to dreamland we heard the rumblings of our baby once again. At that moment I was completely submitted to exhaustion. I was quite literally sucked dry. Frazzled and frayed. And the circles beneathe my eyes were so pronounced that I looked as though I'd picked a fight with a pack of angry moms at BabiesRUs. And lost. G on the other hand looked pretty well kept. He'd been surviving on a few solid hours of a sleep a night and traveled off into the mystical world outside - somewhere far beyond the land of Spit-Up, through the deep forest of blood curdling screams and passed the kingdom of Boogers and Blow Outs. A land far, far away. There was never a moment that I regretted motherhood - but there were a few that I really missed the outside world (which I began to construe as a fantasy place where the streets were paved with pillows and everyone napped the day away). The months leading up to that fateful night were filled with a lovely little ailment called colic. To my knowledge the term 'colic' by itself bears no true medical significance. It functions as an umbrella for anything that makes a baby cry for hours and hours on end. For so many straight hours that a new unit of time needs to be invented to properly document it. For no perceptable reason. At the highest, most desperate conceivably decibal. Forever and ever and ever or until twelve weeks. Whichever comes last. I remember calling the pediatrician's office, tearful and defeated as a mother. Completely devastated that I could not use my maternal magic to divine what it was that my child needed. That I couldn't fix it. That the crying continued - crying that at first sounded like his pain and then, gradually, my failure. The doctor assured me not to worry, that it was common, and this it would likely subside by the time he was twelve weeks old. At that point I lost consciousness. He was only THREE WEEKS OLD. I had no idea how to make it to twelve weeks. It was an impossible distance measured only in tears. And heartbreak. And infinite oodles of time. There were days that the time passed like an ocean of honey consumed one droplet at a time. Rocking and coddling and swishing and swooshing and swinging and singing and...what time is it? 1am. And cooing and shushing and humming and dancing and...what time is it? 3am.

In those days I had two goals. Get through the night. And get through the day. Once the first rays of sun appeared on the horizon I would feel some sense of relief - we had made it together, alive, and evaded the monsters hunkering in the darkness. Once the sun began to set again I would be simultaneously overcome with a feeling of ease (G was coming home) and also with dread (the night was setting in). There were long, lonely hours between C and I where he would seem panicked, the contortions in his face seemingly asking "WAAAAAHHHhh  Whhhhy? Why did I get stuck with this person? She clearly doesn't know what she's doing!  She hadn't even changed a diaper before I got here! And she's been wearing the same pajamas for four daaaaaayyyyyss!" G would be sleeping, gearing up for the next day of work. And that was fair and our deal and totally meritted - but still very hard. But somehow, in spite of it all, time found a way to go on. And somewhere in that time C and I began to work out 'arrangements'. Arrangements like: If you start to smile, Mommy will smile! (It totally worked! Trying to elicit that chubby little grin had me doing esctatic backflips!), If you let Mommy watch crappy tv with the volume down, you can eat for hours! (I'm sad to admit that on a couple of those long nights I watched some pretty entertaining soft core porn - kudos to the people who come up with titles like The Devil Wears Nada and Cleavagefield. And no - I didn't let C watch.) Eventually, I think we realized we were in this together. And then on Thanksgiving - exactly twelve weeks from the day he was born - the crying stopped. C looked up at me and I swear it was as though a thick, velvet curtain had lifted from that child's eyes. He was alive in the world and there was so much to discover. In many ways, and I know this sounds strange, it was as though C was born that day.

It was C and my "arrangements" that inspired me to turn the table on a sleepy G. Completely fatigued we lay there for several minutes trying to implore the other to take mercy and tend to the baby. Finally, I rolled over and conceded. "I'll get up - for a price." G paused. "I'm listening." "I'll get up - if you give me Father's Day." "DONE!" And so ends the story of how I blackmailed persuaded my husband into have two Mother's Days last year.

It was on Mother's Day last year, at just over nine months old, C had his last breast milk bottle. It was a miracle to me in a number of ways, not the least of which being that he had rejected the bottle for six months. SIX MONTHS. That's six months of nothing but boob. Once we figured that bottle thing out? Sweet merciful Heaven - the liberation! And it was literally only days before I headed back to work. It was as though my stubborn little baby accepted that it would very soon be bottle or hungry belly. And it really cut back on G's argument as to why he couldn't get up in the middle of the night - now we were both working, and we were both able to feed him. It felt like a luxurious victory. Still, as I sat there on the couch with him on that morning last May, there were big, fat tears falling from my cheeks. I had formed such a bond with C from breastfeeding. And some days it felt like the only thing I could do right by him. The only time he seemed truly happy, satisfied and satiated. The only time we had a moment of peace. And of quiet. Sadly, work and pumping and I were a losing equation. My body had ostensibly resigned from that duty - and after a great deal of tears, guilt and consideration - I accepted it. It was just another small end in a very long and wonderful story. But there was such a bittersweetness to that end happening on a day that had evolved from belonging to my own Mother, to belong to me as well. There was a significance there that I did, and will always, appreciate.

A year later and I'm watching Baby C grow into a boy - and I love that boy more than I ever thought one could love. Further than there are miles to measure. And though it's easy to reflect back on those hard times - it's even easier to remember the good. The first smiles. The cuddles. The cooes and giggles. The big eyes that look at you with love and sleepily close with trust. There is nothing better or more rewarding or that fills me up so completely. Thank you little C, for being just who you are. And thank you, G, for your consideration, your tenderness, your appreciation - and for giving me something so spectacular to celebrate. I couldn't ask for anything more - even if I only get one day this year :)