My mom sent me that Anna Quindlen article on being a mom. You've probably read it. I had before, but it means something different to me with each new time I see it.
Talking about her kids, It starts.. "If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed."
And that first sentence just struck a chord because I've been overwhelmed with sadness about how my babies are growing up so fast and I'm forgetting it all. I can't remember what Lila looked like at Andy's age unless I pull out the photos. I can't remember the things Lila did at 10 months that were sweet as pie or the things she did at three months that drove me crazy. I can't remember if she hugged me like Andy does or if she tried to swallow my entire face for a kiss. Or did she bite the way he does? I can't remember.
And I can't even remember Andy at two months - I can't remember how small his toes were, or what his favorite song was.
But that little article reminded me of this little corner of the Internet, the one I so often neglect as finding the time in the madness can be overwhelming in itself. But I'm reminded that this little corner is mine to remember these days of my life the ones I'm so afraid I'm already forgetting.
Like how Lila has two imaginary friends, Soy and Platta. And how I cracked myself up by asking a 2-year-old if she spelled Soy, S-O-Y, and Platta P-L-A-T-T-A and she said of course mommy. I mean how dumb could I be that I wasn't sure of the spelling.
Like how Lila had a death grip on my arm the other night during a ferocious thunderstorm. I knew it would wake her up and got up to go to her room and met her in the hallway, the purse she went to bed with on her arm and her monkey clenched in the other hand. She was terrified and not one to normally want to get in our bed or even cuddle in our bed in the mornings ("Let's go downstairs and play now") she immediately said yes when I offered a spot between us but held tight to my arm until she fell asleep.
Like how Andy can remind me of four people in one day and I have no idea who exactly who he looks like. But I see so many glimpses of my own father over and over and it cracks me up that I have a real life miniature Andy.
Like how Andy is the neediest child there ever was. And it's so enduring yet so not peaceful all at the same time. If Lila's not in her car seat next to him, entertaining him with stories, he screams and cranes his neck to see where I am and cries over and over, "Mama Mama Mama." He can handle two minutes of eating in his high chair before he's raising his arms crying my name over and over and wanting up. I'm pretty sure he only takes TWO 30 MINUTE naps a day because he dreams of being alone and wakes up screaming for company.
See, there's so much not to forget. And I needed the reminder of this little place. Even if I'm the only one who ever finds joy in it, it's a comfort to know it'll be here when I forget it all.
Quindlen's article:
On Being Momby Anna Quindlen
If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed. The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the blackbutton eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lower lip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin. ALL MY BABIES are gone now.
I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.
Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.
Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete.
Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.
What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations — what they taught me was that they couldn’t really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2.
When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing.
Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.
I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton’s wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk,too.
Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald’s drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons.
What was I thinking?
But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.
Even today I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I’d done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be.
The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That’s what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts.
It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.
so true! LT and Sophie are so similar it's scary.
Posted by: Amanda | May 18, 2010 at 06:51 PM
Thanks for reposting that AQ article - I needed that reminder.
Hope you all are well!
Posted by: High Heeled Mama | May 19, 2010 at 09:15 AM