“Enjoy this sweet time as a family of three,” the midwife said to me at the end of our appointment on Friday.
Of course, I panicked.
Was she suggesting that life for Jake was about to be rendered far from sweet? Soured? Curdled? Bitter enough to take away his constant smiles and laughter and remarkable goofiness?
I’ve never really bought into the fear of how the first born will be affected by a new sibling because, let’s face it, an awful lot of first borns have gone through it and come out just fine. And holding Jake gives me such joy that I can’t imagine I won’t find a way to sneak in some hugs between infant feedings, even if they might not always be at Jake’s preferred hug times.
Still, I can’t continue for much longer in the same sort of fuzzy, nonreality haze in which Jake lives, where “having a baby” mainly means you get to yell with great pride, “I am!” whenever someone asks who’s the big brother.
And so I started collecting the sweet times: Curling up in front of the fire at the hotel Mike and I treated ourselves to last Monday night, getting lost in a good book, and later cuddling with my husband in a king-sized bed with lots of pillows and a view of the mountains. Jake’s joy at seeing me the next day and his nearly equal joy at recounting how much fun he had had at his sitter’s house. Arriving at school to pick him up a few days later to find him sitting on a stool, mini guitar in lap, shiny pink sunglasses completing the look, strumming away like a rock star and warbling, “Shabbat! Shalom! HEY!” He and Mike returning home from a Saturday trip to the Health Adventure so Mommy could finish one last work project and Jake catapulting into my arms babbling with remarkable clarity about his day. And Sunday afternoon snuggled with him on the couch napping together while a blizzard of fat wet snowflakes fell outside.
By Sunday night, armed with several layers of love, I was ready to introduce Jake to the joys of siblinghood. And, not incidentally, myself to a long-awaited Monday of nothing, nothing, nothing to do but put my feet up, rest, and contemplate whether I could dip into our maternity leave savings for a facial.
Until, that is, the Snow Day announcement.
Dealing with Dashed Expectations
When I heard the recording in the morning stating the obvious — that Jake’s school would be closed all day due to, um, several inches of snow and ice and temperatures not expected to creep above freezing — I forgot all about the sweet moments and put my energy instead into mourning the loss of my own sweet independence. Gone was the one day I could take care of my admittedly achy pregnant body. The one day I didn’t have to pretend that I don’t even notice being pregnant and am perfectly happy to wait another three weeks if that’s what the baby needs. One, sweet, cherished day to be pampered instead of having to be the one doing the pampering.
And now I had a two-year-old to entertain.
I recalled with near collapse our last snow day, and the sad, boring posting here that showed just how much I am not built for full-time child care.
I moaned standing up from the breakfast table. I moaned when Jake asked to be picked up. I moaned when Mike headed out into the bitter cold to go to work. I promised myself I would call some neighbors later and get out, be social, give Jake a change of scenery, and then I moaned with shyness at the audacity of inviting myself over to someone else’s house.
I was well and truly depressed and brought even lower by the realization that feeling shut in always depresses me and that I had many days of feeling shut in stretching ahead of me. Suddenly, the fuzzy, nonreality haze I had been sharing with Jake lifted and I remembered just how sad it can be to be left alone in a house with an infant, greasy hair, and a fear of calling anyone for company because all you will do is break down crying into the phone.
I put away the breakfast dishes and called to Jake to come upstairs and get dressed. This, I figured, was an important first step in feeling not quite so dirty and down — refusing to shuffle around in yesterday’s sweats coated in dog hair and my cozy slippers that make me look like my mother.
Jake cheerfully accompanied me up the stairs at his own pace. Good deal. Two or three minutes of the day taken care of.
Then, bless his heart, he started playing in his room. With great hope, I grabbed my book from the bedside table. “Want to play in here for a while?” I said a tad too brightly.
Jake declined the invitation, but did choose a charming outfit of baggy khaki pants, a too-big orange Grateful Dead tee, pink polka dot boots, and a Cardinals baseball cap that he pulled on backwards himself. He accessorized with one of his father’s black shoelaces that he drapes around his shoulders while declaring it a “neck-a-lace.” In a flash, I realized where teenage boys get their fashion sense from — plainly their inner toddlers.
He also did me the enormous favor of finding things to do in the living room that did not require me to heave gracelessly to the floor for five minutes before hauling myself up by grabbing onto any available furniture whilst trying not to give in to the distinct ache in my pelvis. Instead, he concentrated on putting his marbles into his wooden toy fire truck and then doing some impressive crayon art on the easel we bought him for Christmas that has seen only intermittent use. I, meanwhile, found a comfy spot on the arm of the green chair with a slice of sunlight cutting across me and — gasp — a book open in my lap.
By the time we decided to have some lunch, my feet couldn’t tell the difference between this day and the feet-up day I had imagined.
And then, after lunch, Jake and I snuggled under the wonderful snuggle-bag a friend from Mike’s work sewed for us: fleece-lined, Partridge Family-bus decorated (remember the bricks of bright color with the sharp, thick black lines between them?), and, best of all, a little sack for cold feet. With only a minimum of internal Bad Mommy fuss, I played Jake TiVo’ed episodes of Sesame Street and Mama Mirabelle’s Home Movies (lots of footage of wild animals, how cool is that?), and when we ran out of those, I found the live time PBS shows — Clifford the Big Red Dog and something about a kid who likes to read that seemed marginally more educational, this being PBS and all.
For at least two hours, I lived in an even better heaven than the one I had pictured. Not only was I snuggled up with a good book, but I had a darling, cuddly boy glued to my side commenting from time to time on the action on the screen. When he counted noses along with Elmo I decided without a doubt that he was learning something and that he could watch as much t.v. as we both could stand.
Then it got even better. He yawned, leaned against a pillow, and fell asleep next to me.
The sweetest times, I found, can come when you least expect them.
My Lesson Wrapped in a Gift
On rare occasions, we receive our lessons in the form of a true a gift from the Universe instead of discomfort and work.
In this case, I would be foolish, or at least ungrateful, if I didn’t recognize it.
I had set myself up with the lowest possible expectations, prepared myself to be grumpy and managed for a time to follow through. Probably, if the ruination of my Me Day hadn’t involved Jake I would have continued to be grumpy, refused to take the gift being offered — a day with an excuse to stay inside, more time to enjoy my soon-no-longer-to-be-only child, being forced to move around to entertain him after four days without a yoga class — and instead grown darker and grumpier and more despairing of what should be the joy of a new family addition.
But, lucky for me, Jake was involved. Which meant I got to smile when he started dancing to the groovy music that plays when you push the radio button on his plastic car dashboard. And when he agreed to put away his star blocks, noted them scattered across the living room floor, and said with some concern, “All over.” And when he declared between great, slashing crayon strokes on his easel that he was drawing a “mountain for Daddy,” And when he concentrated mightily on munching his way through one-and-a-half bananas, nodding gravely as I asked him whether they were good.
In other words, I didn’t have to work at changing my perspective. Jake did it for me. He reminded me that sometimes you have to let go of your expectations before you can see the beauty in the path before you. That I had a Monday Me Day as a goal rather than an intention — meaning I saw it as an end unto itself instead of something to work toward, open to finding perhaps a different way to rest and prepare for the baby than the one I had first imagined.
This, of course, is exactly when Jake helped me do. He wrested me from my tunnel vision of what I needed that day and showed me that there is more than one way to receive what you need. And that, sometimes, what you need isn’t what you thought.
Sometimes, unbeknownst to you, what you need might include napping on the couch under your Partidge Family snuggle bag with your beautiful, long-lashed, dreaming boy.
Working on the Intention Instead of the Goal — Pascimottanasana (Seated Forward Fold)
I offer pascimottanasana here because it’s a deceptively simple pose, one that lends itself to sneaky goal-getting. You sit on the floor. You reach for your toes. You discover that the hamstrings are some of the biggest and therefore hardest-to-release muscles in the body. And so you find ways to get those toes in hand.
In other words, too often we think the point of pascimottanasana — the goal — is to grab our feet or put our nose to knee or something else that is encouraged by the visuals of the pose. You sit there and you see those toes just out of reach. Or, if your hamstrings are open, you see just how close you are to grabbing hands on the other side of your feet. Or whatever if is that overwhelms the intentions of the pose and makes you …
oh, I don’t know, bend your knees a little bit so your toes aren’t quite as far away? let your shoulders creep up to rest next to your ears so as to increase the reach of your arms? bow your heart inward so much that you collapse inside, ready once again to shut out the possibilities that might arise if you were to focus on your intentions instead of your goal?
So practice this one with your mind firmly set on your intention: to open your hamstrings and, with them, your lower back, and, not incidentally, your heart. Think about the form and find where it takes you rather than thinking about your toes. They’re not all that interesting anyhow.