Mama rumpus

It's thirty minutes fraught with mama guilt mines, especially when I'm tired.  Bath time, pajamas and bed with a 20 month old floppy fish of a spitfire and too much self-induced worry.  He's still in the baby tub because 1) he's happy with it and 2) I don't want to wash the big tub every other night.  Am I limiting his childhood experience, confining his urge to explore (four more inches on each side)?  That insidious black shower mold, creeping through the last resident's caulking cover-up... Does it make me a lousy housewife?  I'm drowsy from the wrangling, shopping, cooking, and play of the day, the heater's on my back while the boy pours and splashes and giggles.  More often than not the three of us are tucked in the little bathroom together.  While it makes sense to divide and conquer, the dishes and the boy, our time together is so short.  We lean our heads in to one another, laughing at scientific discoveries of gravity and properties of a liquid.  Bubbles pop and there are splutters of incredulity.

It's nearly impossible to play the pajama dressing game now, as tummy and toes thrash and he lunges for his elephant.  This boy knows diversion, so alternates between coy hilarity and dogmatic demands.  I want time to relax, to be still.  My mind drifts to future evening hurdles before much anticipated moments of sanity: dishes, laundry, a little work on the side before sewing or reading.  With our story time we are three tucked together once again, everything right with the world and an old, torn quilt hugging us tightly.  The quilt is a traditional log cabin pattern, quilted with hopes overcoming lack of skill in college when my husband and I were dating, in love, and already dreaming of one day being three hugged together. 

Guilt sneaks in the lull.  I have yet to quilt for this boy, just as I have yet to write his letter of welcome.  The suggestive page sits blank in his baby book and other people's handiwork envelopes him in the night.  How do I write my hopes?  How do I convey my dreams aside from simply saying, "Everything.  Everything you need."  How do I create the perfect blanket to warm his body and a bit of his soul? Where do I find all of the words, all of the pieces, and how do I tie them together in the right pattern to create the beauty he deserves? 

Max tells the beasts he's off to supper in our story and we head to the crib, but the wild rumpus is growing in me.  How do I become the mama I want to be for this boy?  How can I possibly be enough of the everything and the beauty he deserves?  He's tucked in and happy, quiet for a split second before popping up to wave us out the door.  As I sit, exhausted, it hits me that it's all here: a little self-induced mama guilt, letting things go, the drowsy splashing and giggles, discovery, hilarity, anticipating elusive sanity, learning what matters... Being tucked in together with a history and our future.  My hopes and dreams, my boy.  These are all pieces of his childhood, and all pieces of learning to be the mama I want to be.  The pattern this takes and the pages it fills are just beginning.  This is the beauty we are creating together.   

I wrote this awhile back for submission to something; they wanted something a bit different.  The boy graduated to the big tub this past month and I just cut strips for his quilt.  I decided it doesn't have to be his 'forever quilt' and could just be his 'this year' quilt.  I don't have to be the mama I want to be someday, just the mama I am right now.    

Comments

[Stefanie]

Thank you for posting that. I wish my mom would have warned me about mommy guilt before I had Leila. Though I doubt I would have understood an ounce of what she meant until I actually had Leila.

[Amy Green]

Beautiful.

[Eren]

Thank you for sharing this...even though you have moved on from these thoughts. But I think we all moving in and out of the guilt...the lack of confidence in our mothering skills. I had coffee with one of my "go-to moms", a woman I feel is the kind of mama I would want to be, and she told me one day that God matches matches us perfectly..absolutely perfectely...with the child that needs a parent that parents the way you do. So your child has been matched with you perfectly because you are all squeezed into one bathroom, because you read Max to him, because you ponder over the rumpus. I say this reminding myself of these things as well. Blessings friend.

[Bex]

Your writing often moves me to tears. Thank-you, you always know what to say.

Oh & Eren, thank-you too.

[meg]

Amen, Beth. I had to laugh a little, because I finally bought some fabric last month to make a quilt for my boy. The realization that it didn't have to be the only one I ever make him was the thing that finally pulled me out of my creative paralysis. (Well, somewhat: I still haven't decided on the design!)

[Natalie]

I followed Eren over here and very much enjoyed this post. I find being a Mama is full of these moments, with doubts and questions, and then acceptance too. Currently I am coping with disappointment for what I have not provided for my baby, who has recently turned 16... It always feels comforting to know I am not alone, that other Mamas struggle too. Sigh.

[Gwyn]

Hi - just found my way here from Eren also - sounds like we (all) are in the same boat. I find the guilt spurs me on though - to collapse in front of the computer and buy challenging books on parenting, to plan something special for the next day to make up for a poor performance this day, to start a diary of what triggers me to give the kids junk food so I can stop. Perhaps we can make the guilt work for us?

[Chara Michele]

This is beautiful sounding!