It's Not a Birthday Unless
there's labor. I have layer #2 of this year's pinata, which is a mosquito drying on the kitchen counter. I have ingredients for cheese straws on the other counter. There are 48 rubber duckies for party favors. And I know I won't feel right until I have some cute packaging idea. What is this sickness???
I still remember my friend Jamie's bowling party in fifth grade. Her mom was driving us there and I could see her hands on the wheel, they were stained bright red, up to her wrists. Later, I asked about her hands. She said, "For dinner, she wanted pickled beet eggs. She loves the pickled beet eggs." I loved that detail. My friend Jamie and her family around the table dining on those strange eggs. And now, a day later, proof on her mom's hands.
I do think birthdays are like this, requiring these stores of energy, attention to detail that no other time of year demands. Eight years ago today, I was admitted to Cambridge Hospital. I should say, I asked to be admitted there instead of laboring at home and then waiting things out for my turn at the birth center. I was so anxious and simply could not wait. Geoff's parents are staying here like they were staying with us around the time of Manny's birth. It was sticky-hot and I was a watched pot. I paced St. Rose Street, chatting with neighbors and begging my body to contract for this baby. Eight years later, I am putsing in our garden, fretting over ADD meds and if white flour is a friend or foe for Manny. Weeding around the nasturtiums, I am praying for wisdom, begging for patience.
We are throwing a little Bike Parade for Manny per his request. His grandparents gave him a book "Hats off for the Fourth" where this little Cape Cod town has an Independence Day parade where all the town kooks strut their festive stuff. Hoping for good weather, and myriad friends that we have invited. I am still trying to make sense of the incongruity of this loud and brash holiday being the birthday of my reserved and unknowable boy. All I can do is listen to his requests, show up for him, be affectionate, and let him have his anchors. His anchors these days: cat's cradle, origami, and discussions about Halloween costumes. I am working to ignore his direct line to my neuroses and fear about him being suited for the big, cold world and the big, cold world being suited for him. Ignoring these things is an art I cannot master. He will repeat first grade in the fall and I am tailspinning about it. A complicated conundrum.
His birth was like this: 10 days late, 50 hours of total labor, cocktail of meds, the flurry of interventions, layer after layer of our birth plan stripped by the hour. Our young and delicate marriage was stretched and tested with all of that decision-making, fear of mortality, trusting caregivers, trusting ourselves. I know now all these years later, that it's not THAT different. I am encountering the layers of my hopes for him and how I have to let them go and trade them in for more love for him, more unconditional acceptance for his abilities.
Just taking it day by day, staying faithful, staying present. I think my pinata might be dry. If you'll excuse me, 25 kids are going to need a mosquito to pulverize. . .
I still remember my friend Jamie's bowling party in fifth grade. Her mom was driving us there and I could see her hands on the wheel, they were stained bright red, up to her wrists. Later, I asked about her hands. She said, "For dinner, she wanted pickled beet eggs. She loves the pickled beet eggs." I loved that detail. My friend Jamie and her family around the table dining on those strange eggs. And now, a day later, proof on her mom's hands.
I do think birthdays are like this, requiring these stores of energy, attention to detail that no other time of year demands. Eight years ago today, I was admitted to Cambridge Hospital. I should say, I asked to be admitted there instead of laboring at home and then waiting things out for my turn at the birth center. I was so anxious and simply could not wait. Geoff's parents are staying here like they were staying with us around the time of Manny's birth. It was sticky-hot and I was a watched pot. I paced St. Rose Street, chatting with neighbors and begging my body to contract for this baby. Eight years later, I am putsing in our garden, fretting over ADD meds and if white flour is a friend or foe for Manny. Weeding around the nasturtiums, I am praying for wisdom, begging for patience.
We are throwing a little Bike Parade for Manny per his request. His grandparents gave him a book "Hats off for the Fourth" where this little Cape Cod town has an Independence Day parade where all the town kooks strut their festive stuff. Hoping for good weather, and myriad friends that we have invited. I am still trying to make sense of the incongruity of this loud and brash holiday being the birthday of my reserved and unknowable boy. All I can do is listen to his requests, show up for him, be affectionate, and let him have his anchors. His anchors these days: cat's cradle, origami, and discussions about Halloween costumes. I am working to ignore his direct line to my neuroses and fear about him being suited for the big, cold world and the big, cold world being suited for him. Ignoring these things is an art I cannot master. He will repeat first grade in the fall and I am tailspinning about it. A complicated conundrum.
His birth was like this: 10 days late, 50 hours of total labor, cocktail of meds, the flurry of interventions, layer after layer of our birth plan stripped by the hour. Our young and delicate marriage was stretched and tested with all of that decision-making, fear of mortality, trusting caregivers, trusting ourselves. I know now all these years later, that it's not THAT different. I am encountering the layers of my hopes for him and how I have to let them go and trade them in for more love for him, more unconditional acceptance for his abilities.
Just taking it day by day, staying faithful, staying present. I think my pinata might be dry. If you'll excuse me, 25 kids are going to need a mosquito to pulverize. . .
posted by Maria at
10:10 PM
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