Yes We Can

While I was pregnant, people loved to regale me with tales of all that they could NOT do with a newborn. The list included everything from reading novels and paying bills to showering and eating dinner. I listened, horrified, and imagined my life devolving into a dreary blur of diaper changes, dirty dishes, and oily hair.

Six weeks into parenthood, I'm happy to admit that our fridge holds the leftovers of last night's black-eyed pea feast, I showered for twelve blissful minutes after going to the Y last night, and I'm midway through a New Yorker article about the rad graphic artist Alison Bechdel. My life has certainly changed. But I'm realizing that having a baby is a lot like being a teacher. Yes, there's a never-ending cycle of work. Yes, it's largely thankless. And yet somehow it all gets done. Standards are meant to be challenged.

Life has been pared down to simple pleasures and tasks. A load of laundry, drying on our new rack in the hot sun. A hike along the coast. Oven-fresh brownies in the kitchen with Katrina, my new mom friend, while our babies squeak and grunt from the living room. A trip to Target to scout nursing bras and yoga pants. The new Bust magazine. Plants watered, dishes washed, letters stamped.

Instead of giving up all the things I love to do, I'm just forced to be more creative about how. There are no more afternoons of chapter-flipping on the couch with an iced tea and a bowl of popcorn. But that doesn't mean I can't read while Mallory nurses (as long as I pay attention to when she needs a good burping, paragraph breaks be damned). In fact, there's something sublimely gratifying about listening to her suckling sighs while I digest another slim volume of Jamaica Kincaid.

I no longer get to dash off to Pilates whenever I want, but I can strap on the Baby Bjorn and cruise the streets anytime, as long as she's been fed and changed in the last hour. M and I no longer have the freedom to spontaneously jet off on a day-long adventure with new tunes on the MP3 and a bag of trail mix, unless of course we remember binkies, burp cloths, and of course our baby :) But that's exactly what we do every Saturday. And as long as we keep moving, she's usually happy. As for restaurants? Our strategy is simple: strap her on, walk around until she conks out, then dine with a sleeping baby warm on your chest.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to sound like some sanctimonious new mom who decries how easy it really is. It isn't. An ill-timed meal at the Boathouse on Saturday had me standing and swaying with a fussy baby while M spoon-fed me clam chowder and we glanced nervously at our fellow patrons. I felt so exhausted on Tuesday that I stayed inside, robed, until evening. I still haven't managed to begin doing daily push-ups, despite my steely resolve, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to sink deep into a new piece of writing. Even as I write this, Mallory is starting to squirm in her vibrating chair (a gift from the gods!) which means I never know how many more minutes (even seconds) I have until she starts wailing. It's already taken me 3 days to get this post written.

In fact, little would be possible without my incredible husband, who takes supportive to a whole new level. Not only does he do all the laundry and most of the cooking, not only does he happily partake in the 3 am diaper changes, but he applies almond oil to Mallory's dry scalp and monitors the redness of her butt. He picks out cute onesies for her to wear and makes up singing rhymes to distract her when she cries. As long as we continue to support each other, to let the other take a nap or steal off to a Zumba class, it seems there's little we can't do with a newborn.

Motherhood: One Month In

Motherhood is hard. Last night, for reasons I could not discern, Mallory only slept in forty-five minute chunks. Fitfully. By the time I would fall asleep, my face inches from hers, she would be stirring again, her legs frog-kicking my boobs. Then would come the feeding, burping, spitting up, cuddling, changing, re-swaddling, and rocking routine, which only resulted in more restlessness.

Now, of course, she is sound asleep in a sling on my chest after a morning walk. I should be trying to catch some much-needed Z's myself, or cutting her frighteningly sharp fingernails, but instead I'm doing something I rarely get to do these days. Writing reminds me of the person I still am, before I became a mom who sometimes doesn't brush my teeth before sundown.

Motherhood is sweet. When she stares at me after feeding with that look of blissed-out milk-wonder, when she falls asleep curled into my chest, snuggled cozily in her outer womb, when she grins in her sleep and relishes the warm water we bathe her in, it's easy to forget that she just soaked her new outfit in curdled milk.

We sometimes lay in bed and marvel at this little person, our Mallory, who has already changed so much in a month. She's twelve ounces heavier than she was at birth (still so amazingly tiny though). The swelling on her head (from hanging out in the birth canal for HOURS) has gone down. Her skin glows pink and her forehead has erupted in little bumps of baby acne. She smells like sour cream. She is so much lovelier than I could have imagined her, especially now, as she sleeps the sleep of a month-old baby who needs nothing more than her mommy.

Of course, as soon as I lay down with her, her eyes will likely pop right open...

Mallory Mae

Over a week after my due date, I looked like this. I'd been walking, squatting, swimming, taking herbal tinctures... but nothing worked. So I drank 3 tablespoons of castor oil. 22 hours of grueling labor later, our daughter FINALLY came into the world...

Today she's a fortnight old and has completely taken over my life. I love it!

Due Date

I've spent nine months focusing on this one date, repeating it like a mantra to curious folks, reveling in its specialness and symmetry. To have a baby born on Leap Day! The last day of the month, just like me! Even better, the most unique last day of the month! Wow!

So here I am on this cloudy afternoon, fielding phone calls and eating angel food cake, swollen with fluid and a squirming baby, feeling downright emotionally fragile. Leap Day has never been so anti-climatic.

My midwife Roseanne was wearing her scrubs today, just in case. "I'm ready!" she called out to me when I arrived for my weekly appointment. And when I responded "Me too!" I realized that for the first time, I actually mean it.

I wasn't ready this past weekend, when we were scrubbing the floors and reorganizing the kitchen cabinets and hosting a little Oscar-watching pizza party. Nor was I ready on Monday, when we filed for new drivers' licenses as Taylors and went down to San Francisco to see a fantastic Leslie Hall concert :) And nope, I wasn't even ready yesterday, a wintry Tuesday filled with laundry and roasted Brussel sprouts, birthing videos and tears.

Today I'm ready.

And, apparently, so is everyone else. Never before have I felt so loved... just as I've been writing this, two packages and a book have appeared on the porch. Even our mailman sent a card that he stamped and delivered himself. But as the texts and calls and birthing beads keep rolling in, I feel more and more pressure to deliver the little bundle of proverbial joy that everyone is so lovingly celebrating. And I've never been good at letting people down.

So I guess there's nothing left to do but surrender. As Roseanne pointed out, could be tonight, could be March 13...

Embracing My Curl

I'd spent a lifetime trying to tame my curls, rushing from air-conditioned house to car to school in an attempt to escape the vicious Louisiana humidity. In high school I'd wash my bangs in the bathroom sink between classes, using the hand-dryer to scorch and tame my frizzy fly-aways. In college I let it grow long and unruly, a metaphorical undoing, a wild mass that, when wet, froze solid in the winter.

By the time I moved out to California for grad school, I'd all but given up on my hair, usually sweeping it back into some kind of functional ponytail or bun. And then I met Jay.

It was all thanks to my Indian friend Manish (who sometimes flew to NYC for a haircut, I kid you not) who offered to bring me along to Di Pietro Todd, a salon he'd found in SF. When I moaned about my thick, wavy hair, Jay looked incredulous.

"You just haven't learned how to embrace your curls!" he said as he sheared and layered. By the time he was finished, a luxurious hour later, I felt like I'd been given a new head of hair. In reality, I'd been given a hair artist.

That was 8 years ago, when we were both 25, both just beginning our west coast lives. For almost a decade now (unbelievable!) we've seen each other grow into our professions and our relationships. He's now so established that he doesn't accept any new clients. Last fall, we got married within a month of each other.

Though he works at a red velvet and champagne salon brimming with privileged people who can't talk enough about "product," Jay affects no pretension whatsoever. He respects the fact that I can only afford to see him twice a year, and gives me cuts designed to grow out well. He remembers details about my life (teaching, traveling, that one dread-headed boyfriend) and knows how much I love seeing the floor fill up with my excess locks. He never tries to sell me $25 conditioner.

I had an appointment this past Wednesday morning, exactly 2 weeks before my due date. I hadn't seen Jay since May, before I was pregnant. He took one look at me and said: "Wow, you could pop at any moment!" and "We must have cut it all off last time you were here!" Both true.

For the next hour we talked about babies, placentas, parenthood, and my thicker-than-ever pregnancy hair while he snipped it into something refreshingly new. He suggested we leave my bangs longer, the easier to pin them back, more mommy-friendly. "And next time you come in," he said, "bring the baby. You can even breastfeed while I cut your hair. I don't mind."

Adole-Scent

Yesterday one thing led to another and I found myself ankle-deep in the contents of our bathroom. From under the sink and inside drawers sprung the band-aids and bottles, scents and salves, that have comforted us for years. And I mean YEARS. M came across a little pot of hair sculpting gel he'd had since his days of wearing floodwater pants, way before I ever knew him.

In addition to some pink hair extensions (college), Bumble and Bumble curl creme (2005), and Manic Panic hair dye (who knows?), I found a bottle of Navy perfume that I wore in 8th grade. I think it came from Wal-Mart. I actually remember spraying myself before school, wearing white blouse and brown uniform shorts, hopes high that the musty scent would last at least through lunch.

The memory felt so vivid and immediate that I had to momentarily abandon categorizing my allergy meds. So much came back to me: the stickered girlhood bathroom that I begrudgingly shared with my older brother, whose own Drakkar Noir trumped any scent of mine; my wavy bangs, forever getting greasy; the nagging anxiety that the scent would fade too fast, that perhaps I should save it for a special occasion.

There's still about half a bottle left. And as I tucked it back under the newly-cleaned sink, I felt a bit guilty. Surely I'm never really going to wear Navy perfume (Egyptian Goddess has been my scent du decade) and I've lugged it around now for TWENTY YEARS! Plus, I've spent the past week researching and writing about the tiny house movement, applauding the notion of living simply and sloughing off all the burdensome stuff we don't really need.

If only I could go back in time and have a word with my 13 year-old self. I'd tell her not to worry so freaking much, to go ahead and spritz herself every day, even twice a day. I'd tell her that the special occasion is her life, right now, at this moment.

Resolution Row

12 days into 2012 and I've finally amassed a few goals for the coming year...

1. I know this might seem extreme, but I am not going to buy one single book this year. I've spent years supporting my local used bookstores so mightily that I could now open my own. Scores of unread novels beckon from the shelves: Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy, Danzy Senna's Caucasia, a couple of epic Isabel Allende's, not to mention the anthologies and story collections, and even a few candidates for a re-read (after all, isn't that why I've hoarded them for so long?) For books I long to read but don't have, like Joan Didion's Blue Nights, it's either the library or Paperbacks Unlimited, where I can trade the old for something new. It's time to appreciate what I already HAVE.

2. Perhaps this is all part of my nesting instinct, kicking into high gear as I hit gestational week 33, but I will continue to get rid of all extraneous things that sit wilting in closets and storage spaces. Next up? That plastic 3-drawer organizer I've had since freshman year of college (some of you must remember it!) that used to serve a noble purpose but which now serves as a holding tank for all things useless, sticky, expired, and dreadfully unorganized.

3. Dance more!

4. I want to publish at least ten new pieces in ten new places this year. This might be overly ambitious given that I'm going to be a new (exhausted?) mother, but I've got to aim high! Besides, I've already got one down, a piece coming out on mothering.com, the web-site of Mothering Magazine :)

5. It might seem hard to imagine how I'll do this, given all the reading, dancing, writing, and mothering ahead of me, but my final resolution is to RELAX. Allow myself more down time in which I have nothing planned. See where it might lead. Or even better: care not where it leads.