Birthday Boy

Berto and Papa

My oldest son Berto didn't want to go to school today; it's his 14th birthday. I didn't blame him. Really, he hates school just as I did growing up. Still, I made him go.

His birthday will be full of school, sports and work obligations just as his dad's was. Honestly, I wish we could take a breather some days - just pause for a less hectic celebration without other concerns pressing us down.

This weekend as we worked to prepare for another rowdy birthday sleepover, I was recalling when our boy was a baby. I thought of the blissful and sad moments of his infancy. It puzzled me that the sad memories rose too; I didn't invite them.

One of my happiest memories of time spent with my first baby (who looked a bit like a ruddy-faced, middle-aged balding man when he first entered this world), is those first several days or few weeks when I held him nearly non-stop in my arms, supported by his blue bumble bee boppy. Even while he slept, I cradled him instead of putting him in the crib. When he awoke I nursed and changed him and let him drift off again in my steady, loving arms. I didn't even try to pretend that I had better things to do, because I was as content as I have ever been in my life sitting there with my tiny little boy and reading Agatha Christie novels.

Of course, I thought next of how ecstatic Berto was every day when his papa arrived home. New to Arizona, we were the only two special people in his life, and he liked to see Papa for a change at the end of the day. There's a great picture of Berto as a toddler hugging his Papa's knees and looking up at him with absolute love. Matthew is looking toward the camera with a big grin on his face; it's great to be adored. They have a little more trouble understanding each other now, but they still share a million-dollar smile.

Then my thoughts betrayed me, and I thought of sadder, lonelier moments. I remembered when another mother made me feel like a bad mama, because Berto had eczema on his cheeks, and I didn't know how to clear it up or guess that it was likely related to food allergies. I was trying to wipe his face regularly which probably was making it worse. She thought I wasn't taking care of my son, that perhaps I didn't care. Her judgement astonished me.

I also recalled when relatives came to visit and assist when we first moved to this house. It was a busy, crazy time, and they helped watch the baby. Berto was not always a happy-go-lucky baby, and when I heard him giggling as I was cleaning the apartment bathroom for the last time, I rushed out because I thought he was crying, and our relatives stared at me when I asked if everything was alright. How could you not recognize your baby's giggle? they seemed to be thinking. How could I not?

Later, at the house, I tried to make my little Berto giggle that exuberantly again, and my six-month-old son stared back at my antics with a tired, serious face. I wanted to cry. It broke my heart.

But there are more good memories. For instance, there were all those afternoons in this house when we played a game I made up called Oogula-Boogula. Berto would crawl under our new dining table, and I would walk around it with all his soft, plastic toy links hooked together, chanting slowly at first and then faster, "Oogula boogula, oogula boogula...oogula boogula - Booo!", and I would try to catch him under the table, tap his arms or legs with the end of the Oogula-boogula link monster. Berto giggled and shouted and scooted away. We thought it was great fun.

Berto and Mama

And how I cherish all the evenings I held my baby's hand through the crib at night, singing him bedtime songs!

And how many days did we drive around his big, squishy fire truck and dumpster truck that he got for his first birthday? They were great, because you could lean down on their pliable tops and push them around on your knees and hit the buttons to make engine/emergency noises.

There was the move to a big boy bed (one from his dad's childhood) in order to give the crib to the baby girl Mama was expecting. There was the awesome look on Berto's face when he met his first sibling, Analisa, a few months before his second birthday. They were good friends as little tykes. They used to take naps together, giggling and squirming as I tried to wind them down with books; they got into plenty of mischief together; and Ana used to crawl into the hall when her buddy Berto was in timeout to keep him company and offer comfort.

There are many other memories I've written about here: Berto's love of Star Wars: how he is a great big brother; and what a talented writer he has become. I am so proud of my son, and many an evening he has pulled me into long conversations past bedtime, because I am very interested in his views, ideas and inquiries.

Really, I shouldn't still be writing - I have to go make the frosting for his birthday cake! But I simply wanted to take some time to walk down memory lane and greet the myriad specters there, some friendly and some a bit morose, and in taking that walk I wanted to remember that all in all, despite my mistakes as a Mama, the one thing I have always given abundantly to these precious children throughout the years is love: wrapped up in innumerable hugs and kisses, sleepy nurses, silly games, baked treats and words, sung or spoken.

And today especially I want to thank God for all the love we have given to and received from our Berto, and for all the gifts our Father has given to our eldest son. May God bless him this year, for what joy he brings to our lives!

Stroller Pains

I left it, all dusty and alone, with bags of used clothes piled on its seat and tray. No one was there to receive it, and no one came out to the loading area despite the loud click when I unfolded it and the rattle of its wheels against the pavement as I set it down. Ah, well...someone will find it, I thought as I rolled it out of the sun and locked its wheels, careful not to let it touch the miscellaneous things around it. (I didn't know where they'd been.)

Then I got in my air-conditioned van, very slowly drove away, and abandoned it there with all that other stuff strangers no longer want or use at the back of a charity thrift store. I had been so impatient to get rid of it, but as I glanced back in my side mirror, I felt a sudden, painful constriction in my chest.

I turned the corner, and a panicky voice began to plead, Go back for it! What are you doing? What were you thinking? Don't leave it with all that junk. I breathed deeply and tried to let go, but the voice took on a tone of logic, No one's going to want it, anyway. It's too old and faded and it has that orange crayon melted in the pocket. Yes, true. I had taken great care to vacuum it out and wipe it down, but the orange crayon remained as well as some dust I hadn't noticed on its frame. There, then, said the voice of sentiment, go and get it before anyone finds it and tell the thrift store you changed your mind. All four of your babies rode in that stroller, every single one of them...save it for the memories.

I was already on the street and going through a light, but even as I made my way to pick up my two oldest from school, the lump in my throat was growing along with an urge to turn back. Those tall, skinny kids who were about to be dismissed from class had once been tiny little things, riding in that blue and yellow stroller. And then their two siblings had occupied it after them. All of them had snacked in it, slept in it, thrown tantrums in it and gone for long strolls on city streets, in nature or shopping centers in it. All of them had been nestled in the crook of my left arm many times as I pushed their empty stroller around one-handed.

I thought back on all the baby-rearing history and adventures as I inched through car line at my kids' school. I couldn't take the remorse anymore. I needed support and pragmatism, so I called my Man up.

"Honey, I dropped off the stroller today," I said. "Do you want me to go back and get it?"

"Why?"

I swallowed several times before saying carefully and tearfully, "Because all four of our babies rode in that stroller..."

There was a pause and then a long chuckle and a gentle reproof, "Silly woman....no, we don't need it anymore. Let somebody else get use out of it. It's fine."

Would somebody else get use out of it, though? Would they sense all the residual love clinging to its fabric and honor that despite its appearance? Or would they cruelly beat it with sticks for being so used and sorry-looking? Surely I had made a mistake in offering it up to the great unknown.

"We could get a lap dog and push it around in it."

"NO. I'm not doing that."

I didn't even mention how my sister had used hers to push around shopping bags on Black Friday. Maybe I could have used it for Christmas shopping, too, with an attached disclaimer that read, "No, I didn't forget my baby. This stroller is retired and hauls merchandise for a hobby."

"We should have had more kids," I said, jokingly.

He replied very seriously, "No, we shouldn't have."

As I hung up I felt better, still shaky but fortified. Then my older kids got in the car, and with one look at their sweet faces, the tears came back. Berto watched me sniffling for a while in silence and then asked, "Mama, why are you crying? Is it the paper again?"

My boy knows me too well and my propensity for crying at news stories. I tried several times to tell him what was wrong but faltered on the words. When I finally spilled it out, his response was much like his father's.

"Oh, Mama..."

Silly woman.

But I still wish I had saved our stroller.

Remarkable Experience...and I've Got the Cheesecloth to Prove It!

A couple days ago I walked into the pediatricians' office with my daughter and baby boy, and my eyes zereod in on the newborn baby with wide eyes being held by her Mama. I was so fascinated by the little creature that I gazed at her all the way to the reception desk and ignored the receptionist for several minutes while I stared in open admiration at the darling baby.

"How old?" I asked the mother.

"Six weeks," was the reply. Then mama was distracted because her newborn spit up all over her.

But I was already reliving my days with my own newborns. The heady, exhausting days in the hospital (getting to know you, getting to know all about you!) when I didn't sleep for two days because I was either staring at my baby or nursing her. I was even romanticizing my labor with each of my children - the uncontrollable shaking, the screaming (for which I always apologized afterwards - until the air was pierced by another primordial howl), slapping my husband in rhythm to the contractions and chewing on his baseball cap or hand. Oh, what fond, fond memories!

This is bad. Very bad. I can't have another one, and my youngest is only six months. Why would I want to have another one? My little guy's teething, and I'm getting no sleep. But I can't help myself; I know my days of welcoming a newborn baby into this world are quite over, and I'm already lamenting it.

When my son's appointment was done and my daughter was playing in the playground outside the doctor's office, I called my husband and told him how I felt.

"I just saw a newborn baby, and..."

"No," he said.

"Oh, honey, this baby was so alert. And tiny!"

"No."

"And there are all these lovely pregnant women walking out of the obstetrics office next door..."

"No!"

"But wasn't I lovely when I was pregnant?"

"Yes, but no, no and no. We're not having another baby. We're done!"

Of course we are. I know that...I guess.

But I just can't believe I'm already one of those women: the kind that turn into goo over a freshly minted human being. But I am. I think it's chronic, and it'll only get worse as my children get older.

Because, you see, I am also one of those women who actually enjoyed being pregnant. Well, after the nausea, vomiting, emotional upheaval and bizarre sensitivity to smell was done with, anyway. Just knowing a baby was growing within me made me joyful, but when I could actually feel them move? Forget about it! That was the best, and I looooved it.

In fact, I've always wondered why men are not insanely jealous of this experience. But, oddly they don't seem to be at all.

"Aren't you jealous?" I've asked my husband and even my brother-in-law Jon.

Both looked perplexed by the question, and answered with the same slow, "Uh, no-o-o..." accompanied by the all too familiar you're-a-crazy-lady look.

Well, they don't know what they're missing. I mean once you get through the pain of labor and the haze of many, many sleepless nights, you realize what an extraordinary gift you've been given by being able to carry a baby within you. You know your arms are the grace God intended for that child on their birthday. And you remember that every time you're compelled to ask forgiveness for losing your temper and each time you're on your knees pleading for more patience.

But don't I know that our family is complete? Yes.

And I'm going to be honest here; pregnancy does remarkably bizarre things to your body. I'm not walking around in a size 10 shoe for nothing, baby! Also, various parts of my body resemble human cheese cloth, now. Truly, though, I'm proud of those silvery shadows on my skin. My stretch marks are proof of my remarkable experience!

Still, perhaps that's why men don't envy us the experience. They're able to keep their boyish figures - the vain creatures! But that's alright, because we can walk past them with our stretched skin, our paddle feet (oh, is that just me?), and our hard-working breasts and think with a smile, "I know something you don't know!"

And if you're a mom, you know exactly what I mean.


Dedicated to my Grandmama Asher