Motherhood is not easy, and most days are far from perfect. This piece of writing is not meant to say that raising babies is all unicorns and rainbows. There are, however, many little moments that, on their own, are absolutely perfect. I want to remember those. Here are a few from this little slice of life that I'm in right now.
My day starts at about 5:45 a.m. when my three-month-old daughter, Lucy, wakes up for a feeding. I watch her as she sucks, amazed that my body can give this baby all the nourishment she needs to live, just like when she was in the womb. It’s quiet; no one else is awake. I lean my head back on the rocking chair and listen to the soft clicking sound Lucy makes as she swallows. After about fifteen minutes, I lay her back down in bed. She will likely sleep for another two hours, bless her soul.
I could go back to sleep, but my three-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, will probably get up in the next 30 minutes and I don’t want to have that delicious feeling of falling asleep, just to be awakened by the pitter patter of little feet down the hall. Easier to just stay awake, I think, so I stay in bed and treat myself to some uninterrupted reading.
Since I decide to stay awake, of course Brooklyn sleeps in until 7:30. After getting up, she comes into my room and wordlessly gets into bed next to me. She sucks her left thumb and holds her beloved “blankie,” which is falling apart despite the desperate, band-aid stitches I have sewn to keep the top attached to the bottom. She puts a pointer finger in one of the loops on the corner of the blanket. She is staring, not fully awake. Without changing her expression, she casually puts her pointer finger in her nose while her thumb on the same hand is still in her mouth.
For a while I look at her while she looks at me. I finally say good morning and ask how she is doing, but she isn’t ready to be pulled from her drowsy morning reverie, so I return to my book. By the time I finish the chapter, she announces that she is hungry and we go into the kitchen to have leftover waffles—best reheated in the toaster, crispy and warm and the perfect vehicle for whipped cream and syrup.
Lucy is awake again, this time for good. I go into her room, and Brooklyn comes too because she follows me nearly everywhere I go, in or out of the house.
Lucy smiles when she sees me, a sign of familiarity and connection and joy. This little being is incapable of nearly everything, including basic skills of survival, and yet she can feel and express delight. It is wonderful to love a baby—you can love her obsessively without being oppressive or intrusive because she still belongs to you more than to herself. In her mind, you are one being. In one moment, this love energizes and empowers me, and in the next, the realization that another human is 100% dependent on me is inconceivable and terrifying.
Brooklyn asks if she can hold Lu. She sits on the rocking chair and I place Lucy between her legs. Lucy’s heavy head tilts to one side and brings her body along with it, tipping her over. Brooklyn thinks this is funny, and watches it happen again and again each time I put Lucy upright.
I lay Lucy down on the floor to change her diaper. She is helpless and clueless and all the more adorable for it. Brooklyn holds her face right above Lucy’s, her wispy blonde hairs covering Lucy’s face and causing her to gasp because she thinks she might be suffocating. Lucy receives Brooklyn’s affection with great tolerance—it’s all a fair trade for that amusing high-pitched voice.
I load the girls in the double stroller and harness the dog for a morning jog. As we cruise around the neighborhood, Brooklyn’s dimple-knuckled hand reaches out to hold Lucy’s doll-sized hand. They are both content, entertained by nothing more than the world passing by. I wonder what they think about what they see, and how they are processing it all.
We take a bath together, all three of us. Brooklyn washes my hair and rubs soap on my legs so I can shave. I help her wash her hair. She insists on using a washcloth to wet and rinse her hair, which drips water in her eyes. I tell her that if she would lean her head back into the water, this would be less likely to happen, but she is convinced the opposite is true. Lucy loves the water and kicks her frog legs with such force that she splashes water on the wall above the tub. Brian says someday we will have a big bathtub and I can be in it all by myself, but according to every single old lady at the grocery store, I am going to miss these days.
We get dressed and finally begin the important work of the day—playing. While coloring, Brooklyn says she can’t use that crayon “very well” and later she calls her stuffed animal a “good fellow.” Sometimes that girl brings me a kind of amusement and wonder I can feel in my gut, so strong that I feel the need to do something about it, like bottle it up and save it, or turn it into a vile of ingestible something.
I get a text from my mom that my little sister is in the hospital with pre-term labor. It is her first baby. Brooklyn asks what is wrong. I guess she heard my gasp when I read the text. I explain in the best way I can for a three-year-old to understand, and then suggest that we say a prayer for Abby and her baby. It is one of my most sincere prayers, in part because Brooklyn is listening. I use no flowery language. I plead. After the prayer, I ask Brooklyn if she thinks Heavenly Father will help us. She says yes, and I agree.
In the afternoon when there is a lull, Brooklyn says, “I know what we can do, Mom! Let’s read stories! And don’t forget to snuggle.” We sit on the couch, close enough that I guess she passed it off as a snuggle, and read stories about animal mommies kissing their babies goodnight and little girls learning yoga poses and how P is for pterodactyl and that makes no sense.
Brooklyn is at the age when she asks that Russian nesting doll question, Why?, repeating it again and again until we peel back each layer to get to the bottom of why Lucy’s poop is bright yellow. And although her questions sometimes exhaust and stump me (Why is white not a color?), it’s amazing to be the first one to tell her about a world of things—things that are only new once—and see her eyes widen and brighten with discovery and delight.
Lucy wakes up from her afternoon nap, and I lay back on the couch and hold her upright on my tummy. She is Old Unfaithful, erupting with spit-up at the most unexpected moments. Sometimes I am blessed with a warning gurgle, but other times she goes from smiling and cooing to launching partially digested breastmilk across the couch in a second.
Lucy is so cute; I can’t take her in all at once. I can take in her beautiful, almond shaped eyes that turn up just before her smile appears. Then I can take in her mouth that drops open and lets out a dribble of drool. Then her bobbly head, her dimpled hands that crease along her wrist, and her open-mouth smile. Maybe the ability to appreciate a baby in her entirety lies within one of those unused portions of our brain that will be unlocked someday.
As I sunbathe in her cuteness, Lucy erupts, and a pool of spit up puddles inside my shirt between my boobs. A couple minutes after I clean that mess, she fills the reservoir again.
Time for laundry. I once heard on a podcast that in order to stay on top of laundry, you should start each day by throwing in a load. I wondered what poor soul has enough laundry to do a load each day. After baby number two, I understand—I am that poor soul. On that same podcast I got the confirmation that, yes, it’s okay to throw all the wash together if you run it on cold. Hallelujah. No more sorting for me.
When the laundry is finished, I dump the mountain of clean clothes on my bed. Some days Brooklyn likes to help me sort the clothes, handing me each item and declaring who it belongs to. The dog, Luna, loves nothing more than to lay on a pile of freshly laundered clothes, and because she is freaking adorable—and doesn’t shed much—I allow this momentarily until I get to folding that pile.
I start preparing dinner and Brooklyn says, “Oh, can I help?” as she pulls up a chair to the counter. She is browning the meat for sloppy joes. I add the tomato soup, Worcestershire, vinegar, brown sugar, and mustard. She stirs vigorously and flings saucy curds of meat flying across the kitchen. I let out an angry sigh and almost scold her, but manage to bite my tongue when I remember she’s three and is helping me cook dinner.
Dad’s home and he is the best playmate. Sometimes when they play together I think Brooklyn laughs more and has more fun in those 30 minutes with her dad than she has with me all day. I don’t feel guilty about it, I’m just happy to see them play and grateful for a break from toddler entertainment duty.
It’s finally bedtime and I am rocking my baby to sleep. With my finger I caress her nose from bridge to tip, then draw lines across her eyebrows, and she can’t help but close her eyes. I remember my mom doing this to me when I was a small child. I would ask her to “paint my face,” and she would run her fingertip, soft as a feather, over the contours of my eyebrows, cheeks, and chin. I felt so relaxed when she did this, and believed it was one of those special, magical things only my mother did.
I hear Brian singing to Brooklyn in her bedroom, and I know he’ll be in there snuggling her for at least a few minutes after she falls asleep.
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