Going

Tuesday morning we walked to school because I wanted to take the subway to work. Frances decided to run; inevitably, she tripped hard and skinned both her knees. I had no kleenex in my purse (bad mother) and only one bandaid, and that for blisters (extra bad mother), but we cleaned her up and kissed her owwies better and continued on our way, more carefully, the small soft fingers of her right hand wrapped around my left index finger. As warm and soft as a cat's belly. I hope I remember it always, the feeling of her tiny trusting hand, the sheer pleasure of it, even if constraining my steps to her gait does feel like tripping over my feet constantly. I walked her into her classroom, and while I hung up her lunch bag she walked fearless up to a table of larger kids and asked to be included in their game. I kissed her hair and walked out--she did not even notice my leaving--and as I walked back down the hallway again, I smiled at the tempera paintings already lining the hallway (still lifes of purple flowers in a vase, childrens' families, colour wheels), and peeked through the open door of her junior kindergarten classroom. This afternoon she will sit there in a circle with her friends and learn about letters and numbers from her teacher. One day soon she will know how to read.

What hits hardest about parenting, in my experience, is how joy and loss, pride and grief, are mingled in every moment of it. Every one of their accomplishments is another step on a road that leads them away from you. We want them to be successful, we want them to grow and to learn, but oh how much we also want them to need us, to come to us when they are frightened, to put their small warm hands in ours.

One day when Frances was an infant, I decided to plop her on her tummy on the big bed for some photos. Every time I put her on her tummy, she'd stick her butt in the air, and it was so cute and funny, I wanted to remember it. She lay there, squawking and hollering and crying (but as every good mother knows, they need tummy time, so I didn't feel too guilty), writhing in helplessness, until--shift--over she rolled. I was so taken by surprise, I didn't even get a picture of the significant moment, but sat there staring until I thought, "She just rolled over. I should take a picture." Then I put her back on her tummy, and she did it again, and I took some more pictures. I was thrilled, of course. (She rolled over! No baby has ever rolled over that way before!) I was proud. I wanted to show everyone. I can't remember if I knew then, if I saw, that the first roll would become the first creep would become the first crawl, the first steps, the first jump, the first run, all leading inevitably to the moment when she has all her things packed into boxes and a moving van is in the driveway to take her away from me altogether. I can't remember if I knew, then, that every instance of her developing mastery and independence would be an instance of my loss of her.

I see it now. She comes in the door from daycare, sits down to take off her shoes and puts them by the front door. She asks for television. She plays with her friend C until it is time for supper. She climbs into her chair and drinks out of a regular cup, uses regular utensils to feed herself supper. She talks to Daddy on the phone, telling him what she did in daycare, and who her friends are, and how much she misses him. She picks out books at bedtime. She can recognize her name, written down. She can type it on the computer. Tomorrow morning she will pick out her own shirt and ask to wear her brown shoes with the flowers and decide she wants to wear the pink jacket and off we'll go. For ten hours she will be away from me, learning things, becoming bigger and smarter and stronger. Then one day, she won't pick a book at bedtime; instead, I'll come into her room that night to find her reading under the covers with a flashlight. One day, she will pick up the remote, pop a dvd in, and plop down on the couch with a handful of cookies that I specifically did not say she could eat this close to dinner. One day, she will open a free email account with some godawful handle and use it to write letters to her friends about how horrible I am. One day she will sneak out of the house to see a boy (or a girl). One day she will come home with clothes she bought with money from her own job. One day she will ask me for help with homework and I won't be able to. One day her beautiful little hands will stop making houses for the baby mole.

Everything she learns to do is a step she takes towards her true self and away from me. I was warned, you were warned, we were all warned. "Treasure every moment, it all goes by so fast." What we thought they meant was to find joy in the sleeplessness and vomit and screaming and exhaustion and tedious repetition of it all. We thought they were crazy. But that's not it. What they meant was to treasure their needing us, their belonging to us wholly, for the incredibly short time that it lasts. Already it's over. Frances is as much the world's as mine, and even more her own. It's right, it's good, and it's happening too damned fast.

~~~~~

(This is my contribution to Julie's "Hmm" for this week, reinterpreted from "A good thing going" to "A good thing, going.")

Posted by Andrea at September 26, 2007 6:49 AM under Beanie Baby Brags , Mothers and Anti-Mothers

EMAIL this entry

(comments fields are below this section)