mundane angel

opening presents with Mom

Yesterday we celebrated Beckam's first birthday.
Cars...Cars...and more cars.
He is in the laundry room right now grumbling an engine sound to himself.
He is driving in and out of the funnel shaped concrete where the laundry water drains.
"I taught him that," Andrew says every time Beckam vrooms his car.




Most baby boys acquire this skill.
All of my brothers did.
Next comes the machine gun sound.
It is more sophisticated.  He probably won't get it until kindergarten.
Beckam doesn't do anything original, not yet.


family birthday party at Christmas

Maybe none of us ever do.

When I studied art in school, I thought this was the goal.
To paint the most original, one-of-a-kind.
Now I realize even the biggest names never did that.
Van Gogh painted the view from his asylum window.
He painted the sunflowers on his kitchen table.
Monet painted his own backyard.
We can only recreate what we know.

The point is not to be different.
It is to be mindful...to know more.
It is to record all of it.  The mundane.  The simple.  The colors.



me reading.  Beckam escaping

I just took a break to hold Beckam up to the light switch and let him turn it off and on.
I see his two bottom teeth because his mouth hangs open.  He breathes slow.  His baby breath floats up into my nose.  He kicks his feet every time the light changes.  We could do this for an hour.

I put him down and go to my computer.
I am reading about the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.
26 people were killed.  20 children...20 children...I can't understand this reality.
I read about one of the fathers.  He is speaking out already, about his daughter, Emilie. 
I read about Emilie Parker. 
He describes her as an angel.  A bright spirit who was sensitive to the feelings of others.
I am crying.  She is real.  I can't believe it, and I realize it at the same time.
Beckam's little fingers grasp my pants.  He is looking up at me with all 4 teeth, and wild orange hair.
I scoop him into my lap and hold his cheek to mine.  I hum to him, "I love you buddy..I love you.."


walking

He lets me do this for a long time.  His quiet matches mine.
He pulls away and looks into my eyes.  He is comforting me.  This happens often with my kids, but it is always a surprise.  I am in awe at his intuition.  This may sound silly, but to a mother, it is not.
They are the same.
Emilie and Beckam. "...sensitive to the feelings of others...bright angel...."
They do not need to be different to be precious.
Beckam is mine to experience, for now, and hopefully for a long time.

The only way I know how to honor the families who lost their angels is to care for mine.
To be mindful of them.

This sounds like a simple ideal, and it is.
But had I not sat down to write today,  I would forget.
This is why writing is vital.  Because I cannot always realize my life as I am living it.

Sardines

I've been missing writing - and also not missing it.
I mean, it's more than that.
I miss the self who writes.
She is in a coma, waiting until energy may be spared for her.
I ache for the sleep which is absorbed by every person in this family.

Beckam turns 1 tomorrow.
He squawks every time I walk away from him.
Squawk is an understatement.
He sounds more like a hyena or a shrill monkey from some desert market place.
My ears are raw and nervous from this noise, from the anticipation of it.

I told Andrew last night,
"I wanna drop kick that kid."
I can kick pretty far. He'd go at least across the street.
He's the perfect size for punting.

Of course, instead I pray.
I reach deep into the well and hope for a bit more water so I don't go stale.
I mash fingers into my cheeks and push all air in my lungs, out.
At 11:30 last night it was Sophie, Pepper, Andrew and myself all sardined into my bed.
"Come here, Mom," Sophie urges. With her 10 year-old gymnast arms she holds me.
Age melts.
"We've all gotta go through it," She says.

Beckam wails against the door of the other room.
I can hear from his cry that he is chewing on the wood of his crib.
We huddle there while Beckam works himself into a crescendo of gasping and coughing.
Shit. I think he's going to puke.
I go in to prevent the vomit and find him hanging onto the bars for dear life.

My boy is roaring out, and he is demanding we make room.
I heave him up and out of his cage.
I shush, I rock, I kiss. He still cries, thrashes, and gnaws on his blanket.
His body is too big for me to hold.
I feel inadequate.
But I cradle him anyway until he is asleep.
I lay him back down...tip-toe... he pops up for round 2 of crying.
I exhale, leave the sardines to their can, and do the only thing I know to do.
I get in the shower.
I pray again.
I let the water rain a curtain down, like the thick, velvet drapes of a theatrical stage.
There is no role for me to play in here.
I stay for a long time.
If the hot water would never run out, I would sleep in here.
When I turn off my curtain, the cold rushes against my wet skin, and also the quiet.
Finally.

I remember my original sardine can.
We huddled close through so many storms.
Now one of my family has lost their soul mate...their penguin.
And we are immediately sucked in tight around the pain.
We cannot make it untrue...but at least no one suffers alone.

Happy poop

post-baby powder fight - Pepper won

I remember Grandma telling me about weight loss after her 4 boys.
"I never had to exercise. I burned enough calories just chasing them around."
I wonder, 'Is this what is happening to me?"

My dinner last night equaled five bites of mac n cheeze and a fish stick.
The toddler diet, just add todders, and it's quite affective.
Beckam started walking on Thanksgiving.
I now have 2 toddlers.
He woke up at 5 a.m.
It is now 5:44 a.m.
He is quarantined in the bath tub, banging his toys against the porcelain, and nibbling a graham cracker.
Everyone else is asleep. In about an hour, Beckam will go back to sleep, and the rest of them will rise. I am the only person awake for all of it. I average 5-6 hours of sleep per night. On a good night, those hours are all in a row.

Mom is the hottest commodity in this place.
She is me. 
Funny thing is, she represents only one facet of me.
Yet I am her about 78% of the time, even with my eyes closed.
This time, here at my computer, is one of the only spaces where I am not "Mom."

a bath fixes everything

Other times are:

in the shower (sometimes)

driving in the car alone to pick up Sophie from gymnastics when I get to listen to my own music.

in bed with Andrew right before we both pass out mid-conversation, my head in the crook of his shoulder and his tattoos.

Running

For about 10% of weekdays, I am Art teacher.
However, this also involves children...other people's children.
50 of them...in one day.

I suppose this is why I can go for days without writing.
Because it is easier not to hope for time.
I don't want to start and get interrupted.
It is like a tiny heart-break when I hear their voices at the top of the stairs.
"MOOooooOOOm"
But just like heart-break, there is love in it.
So I get up from the computer, spread my smile on, and greet them.
Pepper's tossled hair pokes out from around the door jamb.
She looks lost and still dreaming.
I scoop up her onsie-feet from the linoleum and hold her like a baby.
"My girl...I am so happy to see you.  Did you have a good sleep?"
To which she rubs her eyes, grins and nods.
______________________________________________________

I can hear Beckam in the bathroom grunting...

Explosion.
Poop out the top of his jeans.
I get it on my hands as I try to take his clothes off.
I'll be good if I can get his shirt over his head without smearing crap in his hair.
At least it's not diarrhea anymore.
I am happy to see this poop.

Now it is 6:23.
My time is up.

 both asleep in Beckam's crib

Thanksgiving

No one ever takes pictures of me.
Sometimes I feel left out and wish I could see myself reflected in these memories.
Over time, they will be the only evidence to remind me, any of this ever happened.
But my actual face is not the only depiction of Sarah.
In a way, these people tell more about me than a million portraits of my face.
I care for these people.
I do their laundry.
I bake them cookies.
I hold them until they fall asleep...Andrew included.

When I look back, I will not see my own face, I'll see theirs.

I will see Beckam looking up at me from a midnight rocking chair with his blanky in his fingertips.

This is our family on Thanksgiving.
Beckam waddled around the gym.
He took his most ambitious steps on this day.
He stood watching the older boys playing
basketball, hypnotized.
Sophie and I had a hand-stand contest.
We collided into each other as we walked on palms to keep our balance.
I wondered if his family thought me ridiculous.
A grown woman trying to do a walkover, which I could barely pull off.
I had to bicycle my legs franticly to make it over.
Sophie laughed so hard that no sound came out.
Her mouth gaping and tears in her eyes.
We ended up collapsed on the gym floor, shirts up over our bellies, hair splayed wide.

 



Pepper of course, nibbled on mints from a tiny box.  I think she really is a fairy. 

On our way home, Andrew and I talked logistics.  How are we going to proceed with this family?  We need to buy a house.  Which means we need to save $7,000 for a down payment.  This is the scary part.  We sacrifice everything for these tiny moments with our children.  So much happens behind the scenes.  Things they never see.  I am glad it is this way.  I am content to work backstage so they can shine.

Note to Beckam

  

Dear Beckam

Please stay asleep all night.
I can't be mad at you for causing me to loose sleep.  I know it is not intentional.
But this has been going on for 2 weeks, this cold.
And we both need to rest.

I can't help but to cuddle your thick chunk of body in the rocking chair, no matter how much mucus shoots from your nose.

I will remember you as the baby I rocked through snow storms.
Quiet living rooms in delicate winter hours.
Our time set apart from the rest of life.  Just you and I and the snowfall.
Your grumbly little cry turning to a story of things I feel but can't put into words.
I understand, and I tell you so,
"I know little buddy...I know."

I smooth your red hair, my red hair, along your wide forehead.
You are my only red-head.
The only one with my orange zest.
It makes me love both of us more.
Your forehead has a dark flower of bruise on one side.  This bruise is always with you.  It migrates, but I can always find it.  Evidence of your efforts to walk.  Already you are a rugby player.

Today you blew bubbles in the bath with Sophie.
She is sick, but she smiled at you.

Pepper was in hysterics watching you stick your monkey butt into the air and push your truck across the kitchen.

I will miss you this way,  perhaps more than any other baby.  I don't know why.
But I will encourage you to grow up, just as I have the others.
Even though I ache to think of the Beckam I held today, turning into someone else.
Someone bigger. 
Someone less innocent.
Someone who thinks he's not supposed to cry.
Someone I can't rock in the living room snow.

3 am

It is 3 am
Beckam is awake.
He has glow-in-the-dark mucus coming out of his eyes and nose.
He can't stay asleep.
I laid awake listening to him grumble and yell to himself for an hour.
He almost talked his body into going back to sleep.
But the mucus won.
So now he is lying on the couch watching Baby Einstein's.
At least the soundtrack is Mozart.
He was threatening to wake the whole house, so I had to do something.

Just before I got out of bed, I floated in euphoria.
Like being drunk or in love for the first time.
I could have stayed there forever.  I was that tired and that comfortable.
Every piece of my body slotted into the mattress as if I was packed for shipping.
I laid perfectly still, soaked it in for 3 more seconds, took a deep breath through my nose and threw the covers off.

The only way I've made it through motherhood is by telling myself, 'This is temporary.'
I don't want to miss it because I am angry at the incovenience.
There is something much more important going on here.
I lay my cheek next to Beckam's cheek.
I rock in him in the snowy living room.
"I'm sorry you are suffering.  I'm sorry you are sick little Buddy."
His mass always surprises me when I hold him.
He is a pint sized football player, which seems a ridiculous thing to cuddle.
But he will become a man.  Now is my chance. 
Now is my chance to fill him up before he realizes that I am a woman and he is a man.
When my babies are newborn, it feels like I am pouring something out of myself and into them.  I am bringing them to life, like watering a plant.
It is the thing that makes the light.  The light which makes it impossible to ignore love, impossible not to care even when it's hard.  They will need it more than anything else.  And I don't want to miss a chance to give it to them.

Now it is 3:39 am
I think he may be ready to go back to sleep, and hopefully I can too.

Birth story

Beckam the moment after birth 2011

I just got home from watching Birth Story at the library.
It is a documentary about Ina May Gaskin.
She is a pioneer of midwifery.
She has been a witness to natural birth for 40 years.

Now the whole world is quiet.  It is distilled into one fact. 

I have done that. 

Three times, I have done that.  I know it is real.


I know what it feels like to hold a new life up under my chin the second it hits the air.  I know the full body shudder and release from pain which follows the second a baby is born.  I know Andrew's forehead pressed into mine as I get ready to push.  He centers me one more time, and then I go into my center and groan out a sound I never make at any other time.   I surrender my whole body.  It's the only way to finish. 
It's hard to write about because I go to a place with no words.  But I want to write about it because I am afraid I'll forget.

I invited a newly-pregnant woman to the screening.  Last week I asked her if she'd like to learn about natural birth.
She gave me a blank look. 
In the last 3 days I've shown her 2 documentaries:  Birth Story and The Business of Being Born.
She is not blank anymore.

As I drove my mini-van through downtown city lights, the phone up to my ear, I was smiling, and crying.  Not really crying,  just the small tears that come when I hear truth echoed back to me.  I was listening to that same girl bursting with words.  She wants it.  Not everyone wants it, but she does, and I did.  I wanted it, bad.


Look at me.  Hooked up to nothing.  3 minutes post birth

My mom told me,
"If you have your baby naturally, without drugs, you experience all of it.  It's harder than anything you'll ever do.  And once you do it, it becomes a source of strength that no one can ever take away from you."
My Mom has birthed 7 babies this way.
My aunt Lucy has birthed 10.
This is the legacy of birth in my family.
It is rare.

So now I am the one to tell pregnant women, what was said to me.
If no one had ever told me, I would have missed the depth of my own capacity...of what birth had to teach me.
I didn't have eyes to see it.

I have stumbled into the role of doula.
I don't have to sell anything.
I just tell women about what birth can be.
And they say:  I want to do that.  Will you come with me?  Will you help me?
What can I do but say:  Of course.  Of course I'll be there.
It's the only way I don't forget what it is.
Because a spiritual experience will never stay fresh in my pocket.



The moment of staring and staring and staring...

Pepper and that crazy tongue right after birth 2009

 

 

Andrew Beckam and I at the birth center 2011