Rebecca Conroy, mom of Trixie Owl age 3.5 and newborn Liam Forest, gives us a front row seat for all of her adventures with her expanding family in Rebecca’s ongoing series. There will be wisdom and joy, and there will be puke. Lots of puke.
While breastfeeding a newborn and mothering a four year old, you notice the freedom that so many singletons and parents of older children enjoy. They can languidly stand with a drink in hand, bending down at the drop of a dime to pick it up, look through their purses for items like eye cream or tweezers while finishing every adult sentence they start. They can take cat naps when they want to, and text you about it, do their laundry and hair when they feel like it, and scoot around town at a moment’s notice with what seems like the greatest of ease. How can I explain to these people that it’s often difficult for me to even text them back, much less physically carry out the tentative plans that those texts contain? I want to, I really do. I have entire dinner dates in my mind, down to the napkin and conversation I would die to have. Even getting across the room to the phone can, at times, be another thing on my to-do list. The list increases every day. Wait, wasn’t writing an actual to-do list on the to-do list?
In these three months since my son’s birth, everything is happening- yet so little. I’ve never listened to so much Willie Nelson in my life. Googling the weirdest notions has become a norm at 4am feedings, to stay awake. I need to take this chipped nail polish off…when though? The polish remover is in another room, the baby never sleeps unless he’s in a carrier on my chest. The fumes wouldn’t be good for him if he’s on my chest, so close to my hands. I’ll keep this falling off purple on for another day. No one will see anyway. The Scientology documentary was great. Maybe, as a treat to myself, I’ll watch it again. HBO and Amazon series are the closest to adults I have gotten since his birth. Waiting for the first vaccinations to take him anyplace too public has been so intense. I’ve cleaned every nook and cranny of our apartment at least twice. I’ve folded every blanket, done every dish, and color coded every book here, when I am hands-free, which isn’t often. Sorry I haven’t gotten back to… who was that who called? Did I make plans? What was that mom’s name I met while getting coffee the other day? Sleep deprivation makes it so that it all blends into what feels like one huge wait in a doctor’s office or something. You were engaged in that magazine, but with no sleep it feels like your mind is half there. When you have a baby, you are reduced to a sort of babydome as well- it’s nature’s way of ensuring your bond, closeness, and commonality with the child. Your fast pace and adult headspace comes abruptly to a halt, while the body and mind are recovering, reprogramming, and regenerating; you aren’t comfortable with much else than staying home and taking baby steps. Like a tiny bud pushing its way out of the earth, you know that someday you will blossom into a flower- but for now you are fragile and unsure- just like your baby. Some nights, in the very beginning, he woke up to eat every hour, and in the next room my daughter would cry from many a winter cold’s sore throat. Between administering spoonfuls of Manuka honey to her with sea salt sprinkled on top, and changing his diapers after feeds, I would slightly close my eyes. It felt like being on a flimsy raft in the middle of the ocean- half awake, on alert, propped up with pillows- you know you won’t really be sleeping. There’s a necessity to stay on guard. Even just to check and make sure he’s breathing. I must be getting subconsciously smarter, because I’ve been reading websites throughout the wee hours that I only recollect days later. My mind is absorbing things that it isn’t even consciously aware of. Popular culture blogs have been my favorite. I imagine this is how girls in their early teens feel too- dreaming of the day that they can rock a sexy outfit and skip off into the night for adventure- out of the awkward sweatpants that life at the homestead calls for, and into a whole new you. Like dreaming of your quincinera. I have been wearng stretch clothes for more than eleven weeks now. And then there are the nursing pads, which take up the bathroom shelf space drying out from washes. Sexy. And breast pump parts which I know by heart now, as scalding hot water runs over them at least once or maybe twice a day. One of the articles I just read said that Eva Mendes recommends women never wear sweat pants if they want to keep their marriages intact. That’s just funny to a woman in my socks. Another thing I recommend, upon another mom friend’s advice, is to NEVER look in a full length mirror naked in daylight for at least a few months after you have a baby, unless you are incredibly self confident and best friends with Louise Hay or the Dalai Lama. I never really fathomed I would bear a resemblance to a Robert Crumb lady (although I am a fan of his work), or to a mother from the 1940s in cat-eye glasses, panty hoes, and in a house coat haggling at the butcher shop for the best price on sausage. We’ve all seen old photographs and film footage of women like that. But that’s exactly what I felt like when I checked myself out two weeks ago, so for now that’s not happening for at least another two months. We’ll keep the concentration to make-up, to a nice mascara and lip gloss. Oh my goodness, he just fell asleep! Maybe I can get the nail polish off now, or mop the kitchen floor. I’ll probably try to half-sleep, dreaming of doing those things. Yeah, that sounds right.
Rebecca Conroy is an artist and stylist from New York City. She has an MFA from Columbia University in screenwriting, and often finds herself on film and photography sets making things run or look better. She is the mom of Trixie, who is 3.5 years old.