Tina Fey

I found this by Tina Fey and wanted to keep it here for you to read someday. The "all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love" is so very, very true - the most accurate description. And so is the poop everywhere. One of the things that breaks my heart is that if something were to happen to me now, you might never understand how much I loved you, how much I cared for you, how much I gave to you when I was so beyond having anything to give. I want you to know that someone loved you like that, because now that I've done it, I can safely say, no one, ever in your whole in entire life, will love you as much I as do. And no one will love me as much as my mother. Knowing that is the gift you gave me....

A mother's prayer:

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance.Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,”she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

In the Teeth of the Marketing Machine

Recently, we had to run into the hideously named "BuyBuyBaby" (honestly, not even a thinly veiled blatant commercialism?) to purchase a thing or two for you. We were making a lap through the store, which sort of reminded me of that Bugs Bunny cartoon where Yosemite Sam is tiptoeing through the lion den as a Roman gladiator, trying not to make eye contact, but just get through intact. And we made it about as far as the cribs in the back when I started to tear up.

Rationally, this makes no sense. I know this. I know you have no need for any of these things. I know you can't possibly have a desire for them. I know that most of them are cheap imported junk made from molded plastic and stapled laminated wood and fabrics awash with flame retardants. And yet I found myself feeling awful that you didn't have the "perfect" room with a set of matching furniture (furniture your father summarily dismissed as "garbage") with matching ribbon-embroidered rosettes and your name on every available flat surface.

Your father gently reminded me that my ability or my willingness to purchase things for you did not define my parenting abilities or the quality of your childhood and then he said, "You know, you shouldn't feel guilty. What you should feel is mad. You should be angry that corporate executives are all too happy to mine a mother's desire to do the best for her child in order to create this kind of guilt just to make a buck." And the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. I should feel angry about that, that someone has figured out how to manipulate my best biological instincts, to subvert my intentions and my hopes, just to make money, that I should feel hurt or "bad" or upset that despite being home with you and nursing you and turning my body over for the repeated pummeling that is pregnancy and childbirth and breastfeeding, I'm still made to feel as if I've not done enough for you because you don't have a rug emblazoned with your initials or large "N" bookends shellacked with white enamel paint. Selling emotionally raw people that kind of idea is a lousy thing to do.

And, while we're on the subject, I'm also annoyed that society tends to make mothers feel like their instincts aren't good enough. If you're doing this someday without me and I can't tell you anything else, I'll tell you this: trust your instincts. I hope you'll mother in a different world, but the one we're in currently makes a lot of money off of telling mothers all sorts of things that just muddy the waters. Child health and safety have improved dramatically, but women have been raising children literally since the dawn of man. Literally. Think about that for a moment. And there were no baby safe feeders or baby monitors with lcd displays or talking heads spouting off endless nonsense about what sort of emotional problems sleeping issues will cause. It has to be an instinctual process and it is, if you can just get everything else out of the way and not doubt what your gut tells you to do. We have somehow decided to let people tell us how to do something that we've known how to do for centuries.

I'm off to assuage my guilt by reading to you lots and lots and lots. I will read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? until I'm hoarse, but I'll probably still be thinking of those $&*# embroidered crib blankets....

Orbit

In the beginning, we were a very different kind of us. Not a you-and-me, give-and-take, back-and-forth us, but an us that neither one of us will really ever be with anyone else. An US us, welded together.

And then we took our first step apart and became just an us like every other pair with your birth. We formed a close, tight orbit, a dizzying and suffocating spin around and around each other. Initially, it seemed as though you were the center, but I'm come to realize it may be me. For months, I thought I shifted around you, that you were the only fixed point in the world and I was bound by you, unable to wander far from the course you permitted. But now, I think it may be different, that it's my job to sit, steadily anchoring the center of your universe.

Strangely, I'm a little flummoxed by this, not sure whether it is better or preferable or enviable to be the orbiter or the orbitee, but in the end, what I think about it doesn't matter. Maybe your rotations seem to be on a daily basis now, still snugged up close to me, but as time goes on, you'll become your own increasingly independent little universe, only coming close periodically. Perhaps there'll even come a day when you're very distant, stretching the bounds of my ability to hold you in balance, far enough from me that you're barely able to see the light of my love, let alone feel its warmth. But it will not be your job to be fixed and I will never set my compass by you as you will by me.

I'm a bit frightened by the idea of being a center for anyone and sometimes it seems so cosmically sad, the idea of being a sun, but perhaps it is a metaphor for motherhood. You burn with a fierce light, your nurturing makes life on the "planet" of your child possible, and too tight an orbit burns them up, while charting too wide a track freezes them out. And then you glow and glow with a self-immolating intensity....

Never Go Anywhere Empty-Handed

We're past that initial exhilaration and desperation, and somehow, those first months are already fading in my memory. When I think back, I can only seem to muster a handful of extremes. Short on sleep, pain of nursing, drowning in adoration, all spent in either whole days on the couch or what seem like whole years on the road, nursing and changing you in rest area parking lots, behind gas stations, corners of park-and-ride lots, staring at the front of outlet malls. You're sleeping on your own, soundly, only nursing about four times a day, and seeming more and more contented to drift a little further away.

So it seems like a good time to begin offering little bits of advice and life philosophies and all those things that you'll be hearing from me constantly and not really be interested in until I'm dead and you find yourself saying them to your own children. And there's no better place to start than your namesake's favorite - "Never go anywhere empty-handed."

Your great-grandmother said this all the time. This could be because when I knew her, she lived in a beautiful split-level house that was positively state of the art when your grandfather built it in the late 1950s or early 1960s. (I know it was state of the art because there's a newspaper article somewhere of your grandfather standing with his cows in the field that refers to the house and it's "state of the art" or "latest style" or "up to the minute" or something else equally valued in the 1950s....) Anyway, this meant that you walked in to a wide tiled entryway (which was always the coolest place in my world in the summer - they had central air and we never did) with a "rec room" off to the left ("rec rooms" being a must in 1950s homes). Straight ahead, and this seemed completely normally then, but completely strange now, was a half bathroom where your grandfather could scrub up before really coming into the house. The strange part is that there was also a file cabinet in there with a roll-top desk where all the household accounts and documents from his businesses were stored. Anyway, from there, you could go down seven steps to the basement (which always smelled so good because your great-grandmother used gallons of fabric softener - your grandmother never did - and she line-dried all the sheets) or, from the hallway, go up seven steps to the living room, dining room and kitchen. The three bedrooms and only full bath were up another flight of seven stairs.

Anyway, living in a house where you had to go up seven steps to go to the bathroom or down fourteen steps to do laundry probably made her very efficient. As a result, if she had to up to use the bathroom, she'd take the shampoo she bought at the store. When she came down, she'd bring the dirty laundry. If she had to go the basement with the dirty laundry, she'd come back up with the cans of tomatoes she'd need for dinner. Once we got big enough to do her bidding, she'd send us to the basement for potatoes or frozen vegetables from the chest freezer, but before we could dart off, she'd press something into our hands with instructions on what to do with it on the way.

Like most good instructions, it seems simple on the surface of things, but only deepens with examination. To never go anywhere empty-handed requires forethought, planning, awareness, and remembering. It fostered in my small self a sense of intention and later, it served well as social advice too, reminding me to always bring a hostess gift, a willingness to help. "Life's complicated," it says, "so think about what you're going to do, make a plan, and go out into the world prepared." The world is full of people who show up, metaphysically and literally, with their hands empty, and I don't want you to be like that. Show up with something to offer, show up with your hands full.

Skinless

Two weeks ago, when you hit the six-month mark, I wished you a happy birthday on Facebook. I thought about celebrating with a post about the mammoth accomplishment that has been nursing you. Over the couple of years I've been on Facebook, I've seen posts about all sorts of celebratory things: weight loss, wedding anniversaries, ultrasounds, healthy babies. Every single one of those things is bound to be a struggle for someone reading them - someone's got a friend who is 50 pounds overweight, someone who has recently been divorced, someone who can't carry a baby to term or has a child with health problems. I wouldn't be angry or feel judged by someone who lost weight, but being a mother's not like that.

Being a mother, at least being a new mother (I can only hope this fades somewhat), is like having no skin. Skin is an intermediary for nerves, a big down comforter that strips the experiences of the world down to a manageable level. Skin softens the sensory overload of the world to a tolerable point. But now I find myself walking around with no skin, and even the gentlest, most well-intentioned "touches" from contact with other people burn like fire. Even the most commonplace interactions can suddenly leave me feeling flayed open, internally wide-eyed at the rapid delivery of distress and panic and inadequacy, like having a house dropped on me out of a clear blue conversational sky.

Speaking to me now, at least in an ideal way, would probably be akin to speaking to a wild animal or a mental patient. It's best to make no sudden movements, to speak softly and slowly and roll the weight of every word around before dispensing it. Sometimes, all of a sudden, language seems awash with vast gulfs of meaning, and instead of standing on a secure shoreline with gentle waves, I find myself miles from anything solid, casting about, sucked into the trough between "Is she..." and "Isn't she...." "Is she..." implies hope and future and growth and potential, while "Isn't she..." seems filled with recrimination and criticism and uncertainty. "Is she..." means she will, but "Isn't she..." means she should be by now.

Initially, I was sure this was the fault of other people (and I still make regular vows to myself about the kinds of things I'll say to new mothers), but I think some people are just more firmly anchored, so moored to their secure sense of being right and doing right that there aren't places between the words for them to fall. I realize now it's a testament to my carefully constructed facade, to my years of studying how best to approximate normal, that someone can look at me and see a confident sailor, at the helm of a steady little craft skimming across smooth water instead of a small vessel floundering in dark, rough seas, struggling to find keel, to keep from taking on water.

At one time, I would have been sure this was my curse, comfortable with the sharp irony that my talent was my undoing, but now, I just wonder if maybe, just maybe, they might be right and I might be wrong. Could my understanding of myself possibly be so skewed? There's irony in that as well, I suppose. Perhaps, like the Velveteen Rabbit, after years of being pretend, I've finally been made Real, and somehow I'm the only one who doesn't know it yet.

Six Months!

Woohoo! You've been here six months! Six whole months and it seems like years and years, but in a good way. I look at all we've learned over the past six months, and I don't know who to be more impressed with. Okay, I'm more impressed with you, but only because you didn't have access to the internet. :)

I've learned so much about you. I've been reading Bill Bryson's memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and he talks about how intimately you know the world as a child, and it struck a chord with me, because I remember knowing my childhood world that way. I knew how many stairs there were down to the basement, what the gas furnace sounded like when it clicked on, how many times Mom would answer the phone on Saturday morning before getting out of bed, the number of tiles on my bedroom ceiling and where the brown water stains were, how long I could run the garden hose before getting caught, where the warped spots were on the ping-pong table in my grandparents' basement, what name to call your uncle to start a fight. I knew the smells of everything: my grandpa's workshirts, the cabinet under the sink, the loft in the garage, my grandmother's lotion, my mother's perfume, the hot plastic smell of our Buick in summer, the burners on the gas stove. (This, by the way, is why you'll someday be annoyed with the "I don't remembers" you get from all adults in your life; you'll not be able to fathom how such a fundamental understanding of our world slipped away from us. I can't either.)

But now, suddenly, I know something so microscopically again: you.

Paper Moon

Parenting is a controlled illusion and an illusion of control.  We struggle so much with teenagers because we feel as though we're losing control, but in reality, I realize already, we've never had control.  Never, not for one moment of a child's existence.  We snap inwardly at parents with unruly children, muttering, "Control your child!" or "He's completely out of control!"  Yet actual control is not what we ended up wresting for, but rather a sort of cotton candy control, all puffed and spun and empty.

I'm not sure why we're so surprised, so baffled and wounded, when our elaborately constructed, self-proclaimed authority comes crashing down around our ears.  Perhaps it's because we have spent years and years carrying this sense of control around like a talisman against all the uncertainty of the world, comforted by the steady weight of it, only to discover when called upon to use it that it's merely like Dumbo's magic feather.  We mistake control for influence because influence is not enough.  In reality, I've never had control of you, even when you were in the womb.  You've been thwarting my meager attempts at authority, the authority of my body and my mind, since you were two tiny cells.  I couldn't dictate when you wriggled, when you pressed outward against my ribs as though you were attempting to blow out a wall and enlarge your inadequate accommodations, when you hiccuped.

Although pregnancy is the large black underscore for loss of control, it's really when the illusion takes root.  All things become about shaping the production process, selling the idea of indirect control by molding fixations on the raw materials delivered.  Lunch meats with nitrates should be avoided, eat lots of fish to assist with brain development but only certain types and not too often lest the excessive levels of mercury you're bound to ingest lodge in a developing brain, avoid varnishes and stains and aerosols...the lists and concerns go on and on and on.  The physical weight of your body was nothing compared to the weighty sense of responsibility I felt at every moment, with every decision.  We sell ourselves on the idea of our control over you so that we can then sell you on it as well.  Converts, it is well known, make the best evangelists....