One MONTH

Jeff did his one-month photo shoot of Sadie yesterday on her official one-month birthday. Mommy had a tough day yesterday. I woke up feeling pretty good, but then I turned a dark corner and decided I was fed up with being fat and ugly and out of control every second of every day. And then my uterus starting hurting again and I just kind of lost my ability to comprehend that all of this is temporary and could change as early as sundown. I wanted to snap out of it and enjoy the beautiful day with Sadie and Jeff, but my perspective was hopelessly lost in a way that I could not regain it until I had either had a weekend at Canyon Ranch or at least 7 hours of sleep.

I rallied in the afternoon when a colleague from work and her husband brought us hamburgers with brie and truffle oil, along with homemade guacamole and salsa. We felt so cared for and so understood when they swooped in and had all the fixings for a feast. And, brilliantly, they brought six of everything so that we could all share the meal and there would be leftovers for me and Jeff. They had a very smooth routine, which they learned from having their own little boy about 4.5 months ago. I am so enternally grateful for their generosity and for the chance to compare joys, questions, and frustrations with another set of new parents. I look forward to paying that kindess forward someday.

And Sadie. Then, there's Sadie. My therapist asked me today how I feel when I am with Sadie and I was totally taken aback by the question. I feel everything when I am with Sadie. When she is nursing and we are staring at each other I feel happy and joyful and still. On the occasions when my nipple is sore the nursing sometimes feels like torture, but it never feels like Sadie is torturing me. If I nurse her right before a nap and she gets really tired on my breast sometimes she'll snuggle up and fall asleep right on my neck. That's my favorite. That's exactly the feeling of closeness and tenderness and quiet I used to chase in numerous cartons of ice cream or from any number of "bad boy" boyfriends. When I feel her sigh and relax into me with her face buried in my body, I feel something more sacred and less trite than joy. Joy is only three letters and is sort of simple sounding for something as complex as feeling my baby daughter start to trust me and relax into me for a long nap. I think of joy as a loud and boisterous emotion-- it reminds me of Christmas carols sung with full choirs and bells gonging for accent ("Joy to the world, the Lord has come.") This is more subtle, more enduring. This is more like a acapella duet sung by me and Sadie with our spirits. If I ever end up in prison in Texas and on death row, I don't give a hooey about any last meal. What I want is that feeling with Sadie at 4 weeks and 4 days old full of my milk and drowsy on my shoulder with nothing to fear in me, her little sigh saying "I know you love me and I know you'll take care of me and now, completely defenseless, I will sleep."

So, I love those moments.

This afternoon after her 4-hour nap (and my 45 minute nap in a chair) I tried to snuggle with her every which way. Finally, I laid her down on the ottoman beside my chair and she was so happy she lit up like a Christmas tree. Snuggling = mama's agenda and chilling in her own space = Sadie's agenda. I like that she's got a huge range of moods and preferences. I feel pride that she seems very clear and pretty damn direct about what she wants, especially for someone with no language skills yet. When I feel us learning something new about each other, I feel happy and relieved and joyful about our unfolding relationship. I told my friend Camille, a veteran mother of a 2 year old and an 4-month old, that when I am away from Sadie, I sometimes feel a longing for her that borders on urgency. She said, "you're falling in love; of course it feels urgent sometimes."

And, I am. I am falling in love.

When she's in distress and really worked up crying like her beloved pet has just been run over I feel a deep sadness about not being able to comfort her. I keep reading about letting babies have their feelings and the wisdom that makes sense to me on the subject is that babies feel as intensely as we do (God, help her if she's as intense as I am) so we should be with them when they have their feelings and not be so concerned with trying to STOP it or CONTROL it. I have been practicing that all day. I feel more centered and more capable of supporting her crying when I sit with her without the goal of trying to make it stop. Besides, I have already learned that doesn't work. I feel sad and anxious when she seems to be in pain and I also sometimes feel lonely when she sleeps for a long time.

And like any real relationship sometimes I feel angry. I feel angry when she gets really spazzy on my breast and starts head butting my nipple with a really angry look on her face as if I suddenly filled my breast with castor oil just to fuck with her. I feel frustrated when she won't go to sleep at 3:00 a.m. Frustrated is another word for angry. I sometimes feel despair at the relentlessness of this: Will we ever understand what the hell she needs before she has to pitch a fit for 10 minutes? Will she ever understand the difference between night and day? Will she ever sit up and watch Mad Men with us and scream at Pete Campbell with me? Will she ever join me in my dignified and righteous road rage?

Of course she will, but there is a lot to do between here and there. The real goal of all this is to be present for all of it and savor it like the lifesavers I suck on hoping they will last my whole train ride to work. They will never last if I bite them and chew them into tiny pieces. One second at a time, one stop at a time, I concentrate on NOT biting and enjoying the flavor-- on past Damen and Chicago and Grand... this chewer and devourer of all things practices sucking the candy so she can emerge from the darkness with a little bit of sweetness on her tongue.

My relationship with Sadie is very real and full of every emotion, not just the blissed out and starry-eyed goo-goo-ga-ga I thought it would be. I sometimes want to hold her and she wants her own space. Sometimes she wants to be held and I want to go to sleep. My breasts may be leaking like a geyser, but she may be sleeping for another 3 hours. I am no more in contol here than in any other relationship. I feel a lot of love for Sadie. When I come home and find her in her swing after a few hours apart I feel like I could stare at her forever and kiss her face a million times. In those moments I feel the joy of loving my baby and also actually liking her, which is not always easy.

I am glad I was asked the question and will keep thinking on it as our relationship deepens.