It seemed like my worst nightmare was coming true. About a month ago, I noticed some blood on my toothbrush while brushing and then later that day, when I bit into a bagel, I noticed that there was some movement in one of my teeth. A crown was loose. If any of you have crowns, you know that what’s underneath a crown is very scary and gross and if that crown were to actually come off in public you would probably look like a banjo-playing cast member of “Hee Haw.” My crown is right up in the front and center of my mouth. There was no ignoring it, it was loose. The problem was that I had waited an embarrassingly long time to have my teeth cleaned, and in doing so ruined the chances of my dentist finding the loose crown before it managed to get too loose. I mean I had waited, like, a really embarrassingly long time to put off going to the dentist. We’re talking full on neglect. I could place all the blame on my son who takes up all of my time, but I know it was me. I lost track of time. After my son was born, I kept putting it off and putting it off until the morning that I woke up, turned around and he’s three years old and my teeth are falling out. I am forced to deal with the reality of time, or as Ferris Bueller so eloquently puts it, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
I used to count down to the minutes until my husband would get home from work when I was a new stay at home mom. The days felt like they lasted forever. The weekends were gone in a blink but the week stretched out for miles. I felt like I was running in sand, always working hard but not getting very far. That’s how the first year of my son’s life felt. I kept waiting to get the “hang of this thing” but that felt like it would never happen. Once it did happen I was too busy to notice, until someone pointed out to me, “You know, I think you might have the hang of this thing.” Sometimes I still question it. In fact, I was so entrenched in the seeming endlessness of being a stay at home mom that I forgot that babies don’t stay babies forever and kids, you know, they grow up. Now that my head isn’t spinning I’ve adjusted my focus and at this moment, right now, my son is telling me all about his day at school. My son wakes up on his own and comes into our room in the morning, ready to play. My son feeds himself. My son can drink from an open cup and sit in a regular chair to eat. My son can pull down his pants and pull up a stool and tinkle into a toilet. When did this happen? Why didn’t I see this coming as I was working so hard to achieve it? I know I was present for and even facilitated most of it, but how did it happen so fast? And what’s next?
Don’t answer that. I know what’s next. Today he’s three, tomorrow he’ll be sixteen, and the day after that I’ll be weeping openly at his wedding. And then what will I do? For my son's first Easter my sister gave him a set of rubber duckies. One is a large mama duck and the rest are three little baby ducks that fit perfectly on her back. When you put all three baby ducks on her back, the mama duck stays perfectly afloat. If you take one of them off, or god forbid all of them, she tips over and floats on her side.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Oprah said that being a mom is the “hardest job in the world.” She wouldn’t know because she doesn’t have children. No, five dogs does not equal one child, but I’ll take a grateful nod of recognition from the queen of all things. She’s right, it is the hardest job in the world. It is hard to carry a child inside of your body for nine months, take care of that child and devote entire portions of your life to that child and then, all of a sudden, to switch gears yet again, to switch purposes and realize your child is grown and doesn’t need that constant care anymore. I’m looking into the future of course, my son is only three. But imagine when he leaves for college. Oh, the identity crises that are yet to come, and after I’ve just managed to squeeze through this one. Moms, we are the special ops soldiers of life.
At one of the most sentimental and emotional times in my life, I started writing a letter to my son that he could read later in his life. I imagined some profound mother/son moment as I hand him the letter, maybe at his wedding, or his graduation and we cry and hug and he says, “Aww, mom.” And yes, I do get my fantasies courtesy of Hallmark, Folgers and the Lifetime Television Network. Nonetheless, I had a sneaky suspicion that time was going to get away from me, as it did, and as it will, and that I wouldn’t have a lot of time to talk to him about everything that I wanted to. He was fourteen months old at the time. The letter starts like this:
I’ve just put you to bed. I am sitting in the office typing this letter, listening as you hum yourself to sleep. You do this so often now that it’s hardly a novelty but I swear, it’s still one of the sweetest sounds these ears have ever heard. It is merging with the sound of the crickets outside. It is a symphony of hums and rhythms and a new song, a song of life. A celebration of you, my little songbird. Earlier this evening we went for a wagon ride around the neighborhood. You have a fixation with the American flag right now, which we think is possibly a phase. You are far more patriotic than your mommy ever was. You must get it from daddy’s side. You held on tightly to that flag the whole wagon ride. When we returned home I gave you a bath and cradled your wet face in my hands. Your eyes sparkle and widen to twice their size when your little head is wet. I love how the water sticks to your eye lashes; you are the most beautiful thing. The world is perfect in our tub, with your boat and the mama duck and baby ducks that ride on her back. They are all smiling. I read stories to you. I gave you milk. I rocked you in my arms and you made sucking noises with your binky. I kissed you for the hundredth time and put you in bed. In my head I am wishing a thousand sweet dreams for you, praying a thousand prayers, saying a thousand thank yous.
Just so you know, I inherited my tendency towards the melodramatic from my parents. Let me share something with you that's even more personal but really cool. Not too long ago when we were cleaning out my mom’s house in Maplewood
Carrie
Butterball of love
What a privilege to hold her in my arms
She says I WUV YOU in a sing song musical voice
She sings “Yes Jesus Loves Me” and lifts
Her hands and praises the Lord because it’s
Fun and we clap
She sings in a soft high voice
What could be more beautiful
She reads books in little nonsensical words
She’s into everything
She hates being alone
She has a dimple and waddles when she walks
Like a baby duck
She’s my buddy
Has a mind of her own
Laughs when we laugh
I LOVE HER I love her I love her
-MOM
I cried when I read it, as any daughter would, and my mom and I had our much deserved Hallmark moment. I know my mom felt about me the same way I feel about my son when I hear his little voice singing songs that I know, and when he makes up new songs. What’s better than hearing the sweet voice of your reason for living?
As Mother’s Day approaches, I'd like to say something really profound about being a mother, but I realize that I’m incapable of saying anything new to you moms out there. You know how incredible you are. You know that it’s the moms who carry the weight of the world on their backs. I know you, like me, wouldn’t trade a second of it, even your most frustrated times, even when you had to neglect yourself to nurture someone else. I know you soak in little moments, even after time gets away from you and you have only a second to catch your breath until the next one comes along. I know you, like me, have breathed in the scent of the top of your baby’s head as you rocked him and wished it would always be like this. And hopefully, you somehow found time to stop and look around. Hopefully, you listened. Moms, you are the caretakers of the little voices, the ones who bring the most beautiful music into the world. As we fill our little ones up with love, they release the sound of it back to us. What a gift. Little songbirds who, like the song says, “know the score.”
And to my own little buddy all I can say is, “I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before.”
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