“It’s kind of a sad day,” Adam said looking over his shoulder. “The crib is coming down.”
He added, “No more babies in this house,” as he flipped Savannah’s pony tail.
However, we looked at each other and shrugged, both unsure if that is a forever statement or fact for now. It’s something we talk about from time to time and is a thought in my messy mind nearly everyday.
But, for now, no more babies.
Savannah turned three in November and was long overdue for a real bed. (Seriously. Don’t tell our pediatrician it took us this long…)
Adam passed me a now unattached side of the crib to take to the basement and I looked around the room. The white crib in pieces and the changing table propped against the wall. Signs of babyhood in piles ready to be stored, making way for all things Little Girl: Hot pink, unicorns and Barbies.
I sighed looking across the room and said, “It’s the chair for me.”
Adam turned around, hammer and new bed instructions in hand, and raised his eyebrow, “The… chair? That chair?”
He pointed to the boxy grey seat and ottoman. Covered in Aden and Anis blankets and a chevron pillow because a baby room is the only place it makes sense to hide that relic of 2012.
Yes.
The chair.
That chair.
That chair that we fought about on the way to lamaze. Hunting for a glider or rocker was hard for lots of reasons. I was too picky. Adam didn’t care. I was too opinionated. Adam didn’t have any opinions. Finally, after testing all of the chairs– for the second time– at Babies R Us and Buy Buy Baby, my hormones sent me spiraling.
Adam doesn’t care. He doesn’t care…! This is our child. How can he not care?
I have so much to do and have to do it all alone because he *doesn’t care.*
Hormones, man. I could write a whole book on what they did. Oh, wait. I have.
That chair and it’s ottoman that I stubbed my left toe on when I carefully tried to get out of the seat only a couple days after my C-Section. My body was sore and so swollen that my knees didn’t bend well. A sign of the distress it was in. When my foot slipped out from under me and banged into the metal bar under the foot rest, half my just pedicured big toe nail came off. Blood dripped from my toe and a loud, “Fuck!” escaped my mouth. A sign of the distress I was under.
I don’t curse.
Okay. I rarely curse.
And yet, it was me who first let that fantastic and ugly word loose in front of our new child’s precious ears.
Because of that damn chair.
It’s the chair where I sat, persistently working to get Theo to nurse and I would constantly lose the clear nipple shield, provided by my lactation consultant, in its cracks and crevices. I am sure you could still find a couple deep inside of it.
It was the chair I sat in and rocked Theo for hours. Exhausted, I would mentally beg him to sleep and nap or just be calm without me having to stand.
It’s the chair that I cried in over and over again wondering, “Where are these tears even coming from anymore?” Because surely, after crying every day, there couldn’t be any more left inside of me.
Things didn’t click for Theo and I in that chair. We eventually found each other about six weeks in; but, it wasn’t in that chair. It was on our living room floor, staring at one another, side by side, the avalanche of love and knowing hit me. An actual, “There you are!” seemed to be said by both of us.
But, we would find each other time and time again, night after night in that chair.
Nursing became second nature and great for both of us. Sleep got better– not perfect– but better. Both of us became very comfortable with each other in that chair. Singing, reading and rocking before bed and snuggling up again in it’s deep arms in the middle of the night.
And yet, every new change brought new challenges. During the months leading towards toddlerhood, his wants were clearly evident, but a mystery to me thanks to our barrier in communication. Days were full of the normal frustrations found between babies and caretakers then.
“Little person. Big emotions,” I would remind myself.
Especially as that stubborn toddler would relax into me in that chair. In that chair, we would find each other again. Forgiving one another for the days tantrums, mistakes and miscommunications.
Thanks to the gift to nursing and new mom’s everywhere– the iPhone– it was in that chair that I learned about the Cubs 2016 World Series victory which lead me to race down to our bedroom to wake and tell Adam the news.
One week later, again in the early hours of the morning in that chair, I learned of Donald Trump’s victory. I cried and went downstairs to wake and tell Adam the news; but, instead I found him in the living room, glued to the TV, also in disbelief that this was really happening.
Theo was upgraded to a big bed much earlier than we did for his sister because of her impending arrival. The room with the crib and that chair became his sister’s. But, the morning I learned about the shooting at a country concert in Las Vegas, we escaped from the world and back into that chair. The room was a bit of a mess with onesies and sleepers in piles on the floor and growing more pink by the day, but we exchanged our busy morning of work and daycare drop off for snuggles and many readings of “The Little Blue Truck.” It felt like that in that chair I could delay him from experiencing and feeling the pain of the world.
Savannah arrived without as much trauma at birth, a tangle of postnatal mental health afflictions and to a mom who knew a little more.
We rocked and read and nursed in that chair. Just like with Theo, I studied her fingers and the curves of her nose and ears. I slept in that chair and also saw every hour of the night awake in that chair. And, even just as recent as this fall, her brother would join us in that chair. Together, with two little booties on my lap and both of my arms reaching around their now long and lanky bodies, we read over and over about what might happen if you give a mouse a cookie.
And, it was in that chair that I wrote a book. That book about all the weird things that those hormones do. The chair was a comfy spot and away from all the other distractions of our home and the baby room (when not in transition) was typically clean.
It was in that chair where I clocked 8,000 word days and shared the story of how I became a mother. Like my relationship with that chair, it wasn’t easy in the beginning. I had to be wrong and broken and had to try really hard. But, eventually I would find it.
I found it in motherhood and in that chair.
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