Burned to Memory

The morning began just as every other morning this week - and the week before... with me being awakened from my light slumber in the middle of the night by the bells on her bedroom door. She was wet again. So was her bed. I'm exhausted and irritated that I have to get up yet again.

We potty. I change her. I change the bed. I escort her back to bed, tuck her in and kiss her again. I stagger back to my bed where the baby is now awake and hungry. I look at the clock; it's after 4 am. I am so tired but I have to feed the baby and so I might as well stand guard and read a bit in case there is a repeat the previous night's jack-in-the-box antics. At five, I close the book, turn off the light, and drift back to sleep with baby suckling at my breast.

Seven-thirty sure comes early when one is sleep deprived. I lay sprawled in the middle of the bed, in defiance of the day upon me. The radio churns its gentle alarm of classical music (I never have been able to overcome the skittish anxiety that traditional alarm noises provoke in me). Baby boy is alert, active, and happy kicking me in the side, cooing, and blowing bubbles. I feel as though I am nailed to the mattress.

Sigh.

I'm irritated over a lot of things, truth be known and I'm not sure what to do about anything - as I explained yesterday to Dr. Claus in a telephone session because I was too damn busy and too damn crazy to leave the office to drive across town. I feel as though I am failing at everything I do and find myself apologizing to my wonderful husband way more than he deserves lately (not that he doesn't deserve an apology when I've been an ass, but rather I shouldn't be yelling at him like a maniac when he moves the clean unfolded load of laundry from the couch to a clothes basket in the first place). I'm in a rage most of the time. I'm pissed off that I cannot finish anything I start - housework, dinner, sentences... without having to stop and chase down an overgrown non-verbal terrible-two year old every 2 minutes... and that I spend 99% of my time at home wiping butts; initiating "time outs" for hitting, kicking, screaming, and biting; locking and unlocking the refrigerator, pantry, and drawers; and picking up and putting away whatever random object I have confiscated from her little hands or that she has brought me - a bag of uncooked pasta, my wallet, dad's cell phone, a half of a twenty dollar bill, a piece of frozen fish... whatever. (The remaining 1% of my time is reserved for sleeping; everything else, I do simultaneously, hence the inability to know my butt from a hole in the ground.)

So you're thinking, "every parent deals with that"... yeah, well, that's on a good day. As perfect and beautiful and wonderful as Bella is, she has this 'gift' which enables her to sense, almost as if she can smell the pheromones, what it is that will drive one absolutely and completely insane. For instance, in my case it's licking and biting my clothing (ESPECIALLY with food in her mouth) and the ever contemptuous 'last word swat' (among others) -- this is what she does after she's gotten in trouble already as if to say, "So. I'll hit you again. Whatcha gonna do about it? Want some more of this? I'm not afraid of you." On occasion, I've actually been stalked throughout the kitchen, swatter in tow. A scenario which, for example, may have begun something like this:

"Bella, be careful, don't touch the stove. It's hot."
She signs "hot."
"Yes, that's right 'hot'." I sign "hot" back.
"NO. What did I say? I said don't touch."
Swat.
"Bella, we do not hit. Here, if you wanna help, take the spoon; let's stir..."
Clink. clunk.
Laughter.
Sigh. "That was not nice. Please pick up the spoon for me. Bella pick it up. Pick it...
"What did I just tell you?"
She smiles.
"Don't touch. It will hurt... what are you... Don't blow on the fire... Wha... Here, let's move over he..."
Swat.
"DO NOT hit me. Stop..."
She signs "stop."
"We do not hit people. It's not nice. What did I just tell..."
Swat.
"Okay. You're going to time out. I told you to stop hitting..."
Swat. Swat. Swat...

[Insert baby crying. Insert burning food. Insert ringing phone, meowing cat, full bladder, headache, backache, tendonitis...]

Yesterday evening, Kevo and I stood in the middle of the house of unhappy chaos while Liam wailed to the top of his powerful little baby lungs proclaiming for all the world (or at least the world within a 5 mile radius) that he was hungry and Bella thrashed about on the stair landing, popping her double–jointed legs back and forth, screaming and shrieking like a wild banshee about God only knows what because she was ill and tired from all that getting up every half hour she did the night before beginning at 3:30 am. (Never mind that mommie and daddy had both had the day from utter hell already and it was all either of us could do not to throw our 'South Bitch Diet' to the wind and gorge ourselves on chocolate and hard liquor until we slipped into diabetic comas.) With all the racquet, we're yelling back and forth with the baby–sitter who was about to happily walk out our front door, when I uncontrollably requested, "K., please ring the doorbell hysterically on the way out; I feel like I'm trapped in a Calgon commercial…" She laughed of course, and left anyway. I didn't look, but I'm pretty certain she ran to her car.

So yeah, we're all frustrated and stretched to our limits. It's true that "no one ever said that life was easy" and whoever said that no one said was obviously a parent… Some days worse than others; some days the child is a holy terror and then there are moments, tiny little magical euphoric moments, in which one is so completely overwhelmed with love for the gorgeous, precious creature entrusted to your care that it flows out from the eyes… Those are the moments that are forever burned into our hearts, our souls, and memory of our being.

Like this morning…

All the way to school (in between yawns), we talked, or rather I talked, about being nice to our teachers and friends, not hitting or biting our teachers and friends, doing our work and being a good helper, and how frustrating it is not to be able to speak and convey our feelings, but one day we will and on and on…

Bella sat behind me peering at me with her big black eyes in rear view mirror and giggling maniacally as if to say, "Any minute now, I'm gonna take my shoe off and whack you in the back of the head…"

So we arrive at school and creep through the car pool lane until at last it is my turn to dump my kid and head off to work. I unhook her seatbelt and help her down from the car, where one of her saintly teachers takes her hand. She is still giggling over her private joke. As I relay to Mr. Teacher that lunch money is in the bag, I notice Bella is deeply engaged in flirting with Mr. Other Teacher. Being that her sporadic attention span generally does not allow for multi–tasking, I half–heartedly accept that there's no goodbye for mom today and begin to quietly turn back to the car…

Just then, my beautiful Bella spontaneously turns around, looking over her shoulder – warm sun lighting her radiant smiling roman princess face and tickling through her tufts of silky dark brown hair – and calmly, deliberately blows me, her mother, the sweetest, most sublime kiss ever to be cast into the air… It was as if I were watching love unfold in slow motion… and as love welled in my eyes, I knew in that instant, that this was a moment that would forever be burned into my heart, into my soul, and in the memory of my being.

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Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world, a mother's love is not.
--James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ch. 5, 1916