Black Hole

Ragged. Wiped. Weary. Exhausted. Spent. Loopy. Glassy-eyed and the walking barely functioning dead. I would not make a good movie zombie as I don't want brains or blood. Instead, I want sleep and coffee. Lots of coffee. But good zombie or not that's pretty much how I feel most days now. Like I am tied together with bubble gum, sheer will and good intention rather than the sound and sturdy structure that is my corporal body. I feel floaty and flighty. I bump into stuff. A lot. I forget what I'm doing and where I put things. I don't remember the last time I ate something hot. I am consumingly thirsty. My hair, my god. My hair may potentially require its own post which I don't have the energy to write right now. I am living in yoga pants and tank tops and willing my body daily, to miraculously shrink itself in leaps and bounds so I can fit in my normal human non-elasticized clothes again. Welcome to the other side. Welcome to new motherhood. The days roll by in a slow blown out psychedelic haze that just eats the hours so lazily I rarely notice if the sun has risen or set.

I remember some of this insanity after Joaquin was born. But it's truly amazing just how much I had forgotten. How much slipped through the cracks of my brain which is still in the throes of sleep deprivation from the arrival of my first baby. I am now wondering how I wasn't more prepared for this. How I didn't just nap more or beg to be frozen cryo-genetically until Wayah was born. How I didn't go into silent and still meditation in some hillside ashram. I wish I could roll over my sleep minutes but neither my life (or my cell phone plan) allow me to do that. So I worship at the alter of the French Press. Heed the clarion call of the dark roasted San Francisco Bay blend I am buying weekly by the armful, at the Spice Merchant. I don't dream of vacations to Thailand anymore. Don't fall into easy reverie over powdered sugar beaches and indigo and azure water and young coconuts cracked open and spilling into parched mouths. I dream about sleep. About how I can beg borrow or steal from Father Time, 3 hours in a row and how it would be the most decadent delicious thing that has been bequeathed to me in years. Yeah. I know.

Then there is the other side. And contrary to what I have written so far there is one and it is this; Wayah's sweet and cherubic little bird cooing side. The impossibly little feet in the palms of my hands side. The watching the sea shell pink and butter yellow dawn breaking with two tiny sleeping baby bodies curled like new ferns around my heart side. The warm quilt and sleepy nap side with my husband and now two children side. The my heart is fit to burst daily side. In these moments though I am slow to admit it, sleep is overrated and I see the wild and unrestrained beauty of a life lived in the changing and morphing half light.

I'll Tumble for You

He fell off the back steps a few days ago and managed to scrape a fantastically belligerent red welt right down the middle of his face. A bruise the size of a small quail's egg on his forehead angry with purple and gold leading the way to his nose rubbed raw from being scrapped against the sidewalk. His chin survived almost unscathed with the exception of a nice little scrape. This is what happens when you don't realize you have feet attached to your body. Joaquin does not realize that his legs attach to these unfathomable things called feet, that get him to where he needs to go. Rufus and I are constantly pleading with him to watch where he is stepping. Sometimes this pleading is plaintive and gentle but most of the time it's shouted and rushed out in panicked voices too late to do anyone any good. A test. This is all a test of a sanity I did not know I needed to possess to have a child. You need to have a steely constitution for this work. This raising of a human being is queasy business fraught with a constant and never ending worry so encompassing it has the capacity to age you in a heartbeat.

I am not a worrier by nature. I am not anxious or prone to easy panic. I would like to think it takes a fair bit for me to get seriously stressed out. But. But that was before. Now is another story all together. Since Joaquin was born, I have this insane existential worry that can sometimes be both debilitating and consumptive. It is encompassing in its scope and depth. I have these horrible thoughts about things I hate having horrible thoughts about. About him getting hurt. Or lost. Or in an accident. Drowning. Getting hit by lightening. Tornadoes. Bitten by dogs or rabid raccoons. The list is endless in its minutia and it makes me insane that I can be this insane. I know. Cliche. It's what everyone talks about once they have a child but it doesn't seem to stop it from being painfully and glaringly true.

My mother has four children. Along with myself there is one brother and two sisters. We have long since lived out from under our parent's roof but still, my mother, worries. And for years I didn't have a context for this. I thought she was just being dramatic and overly cautious. But now I know. My mother is a mother the same way that I am now a mother myself. I am destined for this life of toeing this delicate line. The line between taking care of this blooming becoming person and my own need to keep him sheltered and safe. My mother and I now understand each other in a whole new light. This is beautiful and validating but also sad to me somehow as well. That for all those years I couldn't see what that look in her eyes was telling me. It was saying be careful. You are mine and I love you....and yes, I will be sleeping on the couch until I hear you come home, no matter what time it is....because I am your mother, that's why.

I have written about this before and now I am reminding myself of those very words. It is not my job to keep my son static and small. It is my job to lead him into the world, brave and strong on his own two little sturdy legs with feet he doesn't know he has, and set him free to run into the unknown of this life. Even if he loses a tooth. Even if he gets hit by lightning. That is my job after all. And no one said it would be easy. But damn if it isn't the most exciting thing I've done so far.

Waiting Game

It's maddening really. This waiting. This rushing and stockpiling and then nothing but static. The house is ready. And by ready I mean it's overflowing with this mystery baby's stuff. All the trappings in place for this mythical invisible child that we are all pacing the floor waiting to meet. Bursting at the seams and tucked into corners are quilts made by her great grandmother, just waiting to wrap her up. Hand knit hats soft as the belly of a kitten made by the hands of those we love stacked in piles wishing to kiss her wispy little head. Cotton and wool in dusty colors jumbled like a New Mexico sunset bursting out of dresser drawers and enough diapers to keep her and us, housebound for at least a week should we wish the seclusion after her birth.

And we're ready too. But she is stubborn. She is comfortable and no amount of walking or spicy food, sex, tea, castor oil, cajoling, jumping jacks, pleading and begging, pelvic tilts or praying is obviously changing her mind. She seems perfectly happy where she is and I am within an inch of reaching in and pulling her out myself. Yeah. It's like that.

So I pace the floor. I drink tea and enough water to float a battleship because my midwife loves to tell me just how dehydrated I am. I try and read. I write. I spin the hamster wheel in my brain. I do not pass go. I do not get to collect my two hundred dollars. I snap at my husband though by god the man is beyond destined for sainthood at this point and this is (no matter what anyone says,) not his fault. Though he did have a hand in my present condition he has born this journey with patience and understanding...that and lots and lots of beer. Or maybe it wasn't his hand that got us into this mess now that I think about it. See! I can't help it~ mean! I am mean mean mean. I feel my feet on the edge of this precipice and all I want to do is jump and I cannot. Maddening.

The hours tick by slow slower slowest until I find myself prowling the empty and quiet rooms of this house in the long moonless hours when I should be asleep. The half light from the amber lamp casting warm shadows on the walls and books as I hear the contented sighs of my dream-bound boys asleep in the other room. And I twist and sigh. Heave my enormity around the furniture like some insanely uncoordinated amazon woman trying not to crush the villagers with my reckless clumsiness. So I sit here and try and make some peace with myself. Try and get comfortable in this massive and planetary body of mine and try and remember my level. My balance. My quiet and still. I am attempting something like grace here. So I wait for the arrival of this daughter of mine and try and remind myself that this time is almost over. That soon, I will get to meet this star traveler and gaze into her knowing little face and then time will take on a whole new speed.

Breath. Slowly. Almost.

And Then There Were Four

He tucks his head into the crook between my shoulder and I take a deep, long, slow breath of his perfect little boy smell. All milk and clean sweet sweat and strawberry fruit roll ups. His small delicately boned arms wrap themselves around my neck and he squeezes me with all of his tiny might. The giant is hugging me. This ritual plays itself out 5 or 6 times a day lately and each and every time, it both surprises and delights me to no end.

I am trying to find time to write down these small shared moments because in a few short weeks his sister will be arriving and it will no longer just be he and I, arms wrapped around each other giggling ourselves deliriously. This transition is such a double edged sword for us. On the one hand we are expanding our family with the addition of his sibling which we are over the moon about and waiting to meet her is proving slightly nerve wracking in a wonderful first date jitters kinda way. Providing Joaquin with both a playmate and a very necessary alli against his father and I, it seemed only fair to him that we try and have another child to balance out the family scales. But then there is the other side to all this glorious anticipation and growth. The guilty side. The worried side. The reality that it will no longer be just the three of us and more to the point, just him with us has made me sad in a way that I did not anticipate nor did I expect.

I have spent the last year and a half being a mother to one baby. We have gotten to know each other in this passing of days. How we both need to eat when we're hungry or we get really cranky. How he likes a certain pillow to nap on and how he knows not to crush me senseless when we curl up together. I know he likes his broccoli barely steamed and his rice doused in soy sauce, just like his dad and I do. We laugh easily and play hard. We have hashed out this delicate and unspoken set of rules and ways of being with each other that is so organic. It has been a genuine pleasure having the time to get to know my son. And now that is all about to change in the most drastic way possible.

Parenting has become easier as Joaquin has gotten older and at this point in the game, I often ask Rufus what the hell we were thinking having another baby. We underestimated the potency of a few glasses of Jameson and couple of hours alone and here we are. We have had it so good between routine and bed and family help that we have miraculously created something couples with children often complain about. Time. And this coveted and hard won time allows us to do things we didn't think we ever would again. All those sleepless and dizzy nights of pacing a teething fevered baby on an already empty tank had us convinced that people were lying to us about it getting easier simply so we didn't off ourselves. We can do things now like have dinner and watch movies. And being able to have conversations about real life things other than whether or not the boy pooped enough today has done wonders for our marriage. We can read and laze, spoon and the holy grail of time for couples, actually have sex. It's amazing. And we deliberately screwed it up by getting me knocked up.

So we ride the changes the best we can and placate ourselves with thoughts of how a year from now, insanity and sleepless nights aside, there will be two curly raven haired moon eyed children keeping each other company, arms wrapped around each other's necks instead of ours, conspiring our beautiful demise.

Is the Grass Greener?

Some days, I feel like I am failing fantastically at being a parent. Today was one of those days. My patience worn to a thin and fragile transparency that left me legless and spineless begging for some kind of mercy- and I am not usually the praying or, begging type. The incessant needing of another human being can be mind shatteringly exhausting. It's like running a marathon with your mind instead of your feet and you don't get to stop because there is no finish line. Ever. Yes, it's been one of those days and in the moment I wonder what it is exactly, that I have gotten myself into with this mommy business.

It goes without saying that a 10 month old has no concept of personal space. He will abusively use you as a jungle gym, ladder and all purpose utility vehicle to get himself wherever it is he thinks he needs to go. Now, this may be up or down, inside or outside, to the moon, to Japan (and this is why it's so maddening and frustrating) but really in the end, he doesn't know. He has no idea. And as his mother, as the navigator of this ship of crazy, it is my job to try and decipher his insane and lunatic baby rambling and babbling, head throwing and leg clinging into some coherent and useful sense that is going to save both my sanity and his little head from spinning around and popping off into his baby pool. Suffice to say I haven't had much luck. They never taught me how to crack code in college. I am now profoundly bitter about this.

I try and explain to my childless and carefree friends that having a baby is like living in a foreign country all the time where you don't speak the language and are perpetually lost with no map and no one to come and rescue you. More often than not Rufus and I are just winging it. That, and the Jameson helps too. There's lots of UN type consulting that goes on back and forth between us with nothing becoming any clearer but at least we both feel vindicated at the effort and not entirely useless. We look at each with that dazed and glassy eyed stare that you see in lots of couples with children. They look shell shocked and battle weary because they are. It is a daily negotiation that takes place- sometimes delicate and sometimes heavy handed but, it's constant. Even when they can't yet speak you are engaged in this bartering. Even when you haven't slept in 3 days and know the child has purposely waited you out simply to get the upper hand in whatever ridiculous drama is playing out, you still pander and pray. When you have a baby, you think the universe is playing tricks on you and laughing at your expense. I told my mother this and she said without a hint of irony, that it was true. The things no one tells you are many and from what I hear, there is a good reason for this. But no one is talking yet and I am too tapped out to care.

Then I see this. The Giant in the grass with his arms raised up above his head, a smile cracking his face open like a watermelon, his fingers trying to catch the wind. His hands working like bird's wings taking flight. And in these small minutes watching him, there is a grace that takes my breath away. And I don't have to ask for the answers anymore, because I realize that I already have them.

The Evolution

He eats dirt. And sticks. He slides across the floor on his belly and licks the hardwood like a catfish, hoping to get that dried piece of cracker or that bit of strawberry from 3 days ago. He tries to stick his fingers into electrical sockets and chews on wires. He climbs things he shouldn't, like bookcases and record players. He rips up grass and beheads flowers like it's his sole reason for being. He fights sleep like a pro-wrestler on too much ephedrine and then crashes so hard you'd think he'd been up partying for days on end, putting his father and I to shame with his stamina. He howls and cackles, head thrown back with no self consciousness, flashing his little glowing moon white milk teeth. He is opinionated and loud and lets you know rather dramatically, when he is VERY displeased with something you have or have not done. He loves fruit but needs to beat it to death first making sure to rub a fair bit of it into his hair and ears before he tastes it. He would rather be naked, all the time, than bear the indignity of clothes or heaven forbid, his diaper. He laughs easily and often and strings together silly little sing-songy gibberish that make it difficult for me not to just eat his face. This is the Angry Giant. This is the sweet little starfish, all arms and legs akimbo, kicking me in the ribs, that I carried for nine months and he is almost a year old.

As I was laying in bed with him last night, me bone tired and heavy eyed, him, slaphappy, delirious and giddy with exhaustion, I started remembering things. Watching him grow from this brand new helpless and tiny newborn into this little baby/almost boy has been one of the most surreal and intense experiences I have ever born witness to. He is becoming. Every day in leaps and bounds beyond measure, he is becoming, incrementally, himself. I have watched him in his quiet play trying to figure things out- how a latch works or how to open the top of the trash can so he can make our kitchen look like the floor of a frat house. How he is fascinated by water, especially running water, and will rush head long with no fear into the coldest puddle or pool hysterical with glee. He is me yet he is so other. And in that, lies the most fascinating evolution. His evolution, and mine too.

I am trying to hold on to these small miraculous moments that seem to just slip through the cracks of my life like rain. I want to remember his snuffly sleepy grumbles that make him sound like a discontented pirate. I want to wrap him up in me and keep him small and safe and always close. But, keeping him static and still and little is not my job. He is leading and I am merely here to follow. His small curious forays into the world, watching eyes saucer wide with wonder at the amazingness of all of it. And he reminds me everyday that there is just as much beauty in laying belly deep in the tall summer grass as there is on any museum wall. He has taught me patience and easy delight and how to be quiet and strong, so he can be loud and free.