Around six years ago Abby was a couple months old and I was still trying to
acclimate myself to motherhood. I had heard the horror stories: you’ll never
sleep again, your sex life will die, you’ll lose your sense of self, you’ll
always keep that extra ten pounds, and your nipples will harden and crack like
dirt during a drought. I was also given
wonderful promises: you’ll finally feel complete, you’ll understand your true
purpose in life, and the love you’ll feel will surpass anything and everything
you’ve ever felt before or will feel again.
Every mother I met had a story to tell or an opinion to
share and I was shocked when I’d look in the mirror and still see my own
reflection staring back. Motherhood was not a total transformation, not for me.
I still liked reading about 20th century politics, I still cared
about showering and combing my hair, and when Monty sneezed I was usually
cognizant enough to say “Bless you.”
I was still me, more or less.
“Nobody ever talks about how hard motherhood is,” my
neighbor, Eileen told me. She always had her youngest son, Atticus, propped up
against her hip, and he’d tug on the strap of her tank top whenever he felt
like a sip of breast milk, as if he was the customer and she the self-service
buffet.
“Actually, pretty much all I hear is about how hard it is,”
I replied. “I mean, of course it’s challenging, but I guess I was expecting the
first few months to be worse.”
Eileen nodded her head while Atticus suckled. He was about
to turn three, so he was huge, five or six times the size of Abby, who I held
against my own chest. She was swaddled in a blanket and had just nursed, but I
could hear her whimpering. Whether she was still hungry or needed to be burped,
I was not sure.
“Well, that’s great. And the love you feel for your baby
makes it all worth it. But you’re not at the really hard stuff, not yet. Like,
have you decided whether or not you’re getting her vaccinated?”
We were in Eileen’s backyard, where they had a chicken coup
so they could harvest the eggs. There was also a hand-built playhouse and I’d
heard that Eileen’s husband had made it from oak. Eileen’s daughter sat in that
playhouse, coloring on construction paper with crayons made from recycled
candles. Crayola and coloring books, especially Disney coloring books, were not
allowed.
“Umm…” I stuttered as Abby began to fuss more loudly, so I
put her abdomen against my shoulder and began to pat, trying to get a burp out
of her. “Why wouldn’t I get her vaccinated?”
“Because there are other options,” Eileen said, her voice
rather soft. “And that’s the hard
part. You have to funnel out all the sound and the noise and figure out what’s
right for you and your family.
Atticus finished drinking his mother’s milk and pushed
himself away. Eileen put him down, wiped her dripping nipple with the hem of
her shirt, and covered herself. But when she looked up she saw that Atticus had
found a toy lying on the ground.
“Atti, give that to Mama.”
“No!” Atticus stamped his foot, looking like a defiant
little rocker, with his long, blond locks and black hemp t-shirt.
“Babe, that toy was supposed to be thrown away. Please give
it to me.”
“No! I want it!”
Eileen’s mouth set into a grimace and she leaped towards her
boy. He tried to squirm away but she wrapped herself around him and pried the
toy from his grubby fingers. Atticus howled, bereft, like someone who’s just
lost his soul. “But I want it,” he moaned.
She held out the toy to me. “Here, would you like it? I
thought I’d gotten rid of all our plastic toys, but I guess I missed this one.”
She waved it, trying to get me to take it. “If you don’t mind chemicals, you
should take it.”
It was a turtle with a blue head and legs and a green shell.
It had big, black eyes and a friendly smile, but the remarkable thing was the
tiny baby turtle that rose from its back, identical to its mama except it was
faceless, entirely green, and completely reliant on its mother for everything.
There was no separating the mother from the baby; I couldn’t even decipher
where one began and the other one ended.
Atticus pounded his fists on the ground, and then turned his
dirty, tear-streaked face towards me. “But I want it.”
