Overnighting

Well, I did one of the hardest things that any mom has to do.

I left my baby overnight for the first time.

My husband and I left Alexander with my parents so that we could enjoy a nice night out for our anniversary. No big deal, right? WRONG…it’s a huge deal. This is yet another thing that I didn’t understand before my son was born. I knew moms who didn’t leave their kid until he or she was 3 or even 4 and I, deep down, thought that was ridiculous. Turns out, not so much.

I tried to reason it out…my parents are crazy about him and would give him even more attention than we do…he goes to bed insanely early and wouldn’t even know if we came back to get him…we weren’t going far at all and should anything happen, we would be able to get to him in ten minutes, flat. It all made sense in my head. But, in my heart, I just felt selfish. It wasn’t as if I was leaving him to go in the hospital or to take care of an urgent family problem or attend a funeral. No, I was leaving him purely so I could enjoy a night out. Surely this was wrong and bad mommying defined.

Before we dropped him off, I cuddled Alexander extra close. I told him that I loved him and that we would be back for him. I told him that I would miss him. I told him not to cry. And as we climbed back into our car with an empty car seat, I felt sad.

Even though we had a great time, we were so ready to see him the next morning. Was he excited to see us? Not so much. He barely looked up from the new toy his grandparents had bought him. And, when he did deign to acknowledge us, it was casual, off-hand, almost as if he was saying, “Oh, hey…did you guys go somewhere?”

There is nothing like being appreciated.

The Target Lullaby

You see them every time you walk through the doors of Target, Publix, Wal-Mart, Chick-fil-a and the mall: Parents and cranky children.

You say to yourself, “Why don’t those people just keep their kids at home? If they are going to come out to a public place and cause such a disturbance, they shouldn’t be out in the first place.” You stare at them. You shake your head in disgust. You think that you would NEVER do that because, clearly, people who do that are just crazy.

Obviously, you don’t have children.

And, obviously, you don’t know the golden rule of parenting a cranky child: when all else fails, leave home.

I am not sitting on high saying that I knew this rule myself before Alexander came along. On the contrary, I was among those looking down my nose at the frazzled mommy pushing a whining baby in a shopping cart. I was an “I know better than you” witness to the toddler having a tantrum in the frozen food aisle. I was the disgusted fast-food diner wishing the yelling kids in the booth behind me would just leave.

Then, I got a kid.

And I found out the hard way that there are days that no amount of cajoling will make a 7-month old take a nap. There are times when the same silly song that has been sung a million times will not produce a smile. There is a point when that favorite toy or even a comforting bottle cannot stop the crying. These are desperate times. And you know what they say about desperate times. That’s right folks: it’s time to just get the heck out of the house, before your child spontaneously combusts and the people in white coats come to take you away. At this juncture, staying home, not going out, is the crazy choice.

And, as I found out myself earlier this week, there is something about driving into the Target parking lot and buckling your baby into the cart that causes the panic to dissipate. Walking through those welcoming automatic doors seems to bring a peace not only to you, but to your over-tired child as well. And when you catch the eye of another harried mom with a couple of kids in tow, there is a feeling of solidarity. You are not alone.

If you are very lucky, your child will take a long nap upon arriving home. Who cares that that nap cost you the $60 you spent at Target! That is money well-spent.

So, no longer do I wonder who these crazy women are who take their kids out when they are obviously not in a happy place. And that, my friends, is because I am now, proudly, one of them.

The Moment We're In

The summer is flying by and I don’t know where it’s gone. The days that passed in a numbing sameness during the winter are now a dizzying array of chaos and motion. Since Father’s Day we have had…

1 Vacation Bible School
1 mission trip
1 sinus infection
1 July 4th weekend at the lake
1 root canal
1 allergic reaction
2 out-of-town visitors
1 well-baby visit to the doctor

And in between all of that, Alexander has been growing and changing right along with the flowers planted on our back porch, and if I don’t make myself notice, that just fades into the noise around me. He’s now sitting up and crawling and noticing everything. It’s as if he is an explorer and nothing escapes his notice. And watching him watch the world makes me see everything with new eyes also.

It’s sometimes difficult with everything going on to just stop and see and be. But Alexander (and probably most little ones) is a pro at this. He is totally in the moment and, to him, nothing will ever be better than the moment he is in. Even as I enjoy him, I’m constantly going forward to the next moment, the next summer thinking, “Next summer, he’ll be walking. The next summer we’ll do swimming lessons. Maybe by the next we’ll do Disney World.”

It’s in those moments that my boy pats my face as if to say, “Hey, Mommy…I’m right here, right now. And nothing will ever be better than the moment we’re in…you and me, sitting in the porch swing, watching the flowers grow.”