A few nights ago I awoke to the shrill sound of my baby yelling “Mama!” Screaming. For me. Her dad went up. She quieted. He came back down after a bit. She started again to scream. For me. I have been on bedtime duty more nights than not due to Sweetie’s work schedule, and he was trying to give me the night off. But E got out of her bed, and we heard the soft yet solid sound of her feet pitter patter across the floor above our heads. We heard the slight rattle of the gate at her bedroom doorway as she grabbed it or climbed onto its lower bar. And still she screamed. She never gets out of bed in the middle of the night. She rarely screams with such passion in the middle of the night. She was miserable.
Now that I have a horrible sore throat and aches and fatigue and generally have felt ill for several days, I’m guessing my daughter felt this way last week, and that’s why she was yelling for me so desperately. But at the time I didn’t know why she was so upset. I didn’t give it much thought. Just went through the automatic checklist of nighttime intervention. No vomit in bed. No fever. No need for a diaper change. No obvious teething. There was nothing to do. Except what I did.
I went upstairs. I scooped her into my arms. And I climbed into bed with her. She was gasping. And sobbing. And I tried to comfort her. I hugged her. Kissed her. Curled up beside her. After several minutes of no success, I finally pulled her hot, sweaty, muscley little body on top of mine. She nestled her head against the skin of my neck. And she immediately relaxed.
I lay there, still and pinned by the nearly 26 pounds of sweet, warm child on my chest, relieved that my daughter had quieted. I listened to her breathing, changing back to its usual quiet rhythm. I thought back to the days, not long ago at all, of sleeping with an infant on my bare chest. So many nights of feeling trapped in a bed other than my own. Feeling smothered by the needs of my baby. But this time, instead of missing my own bed downstairs and precious time curling up beside my Sweetie, I was grateful for another night with my not-so- baby.
*****
I have been extremely emotional for weeks. Longer. There are reasons. Understandable reasons. Not-so-unique reasons. But it’s been difficult to be surviving on such raw emotion. We’ve all of us in this family paid for my short fuse. And for my quick tears. We’ve all of us under our roof been victims to the stresses and anxieties that have been way too close to the surface of my daily survival. I’ve tried not to bare myself to my children. But I’ve lost.
More than once. More than a handful of times. I’ve lost patience. I’ve lost my cool. I’ve lost my temper. I’ve felt like letting go a long, loud scream. Like I was the one gated into a room. Like I couldn’t possibly get through another night without some impossible comfort. I’ve felt that same desperation that was seething through my daughter’s body.
*****
When they were infants and I was exhausted and all I could do was hold each of my babies on my bare chest, they would sleep. And I would have to give in. It’s harder now. The giving in. I can’t give myself fully to anyone; there are simply too many people who need a part of me all of the time. But, in another way, the giving in is easier. Because I know with such sad certainty that the days of babyhood already are drawing to a close. Because, it seems, every day I am reminded that E, my already 2-year- old E, is my last. My baby. And we haven’t had the same time together that I had with my first. Or even my second. My sweet third child came and immediately claimed her place in our family. She reminds us every day that we were not a complete family until she arrived on the scene, gesticulating and making faces and laughing all the way. But still, the life that I lead now—the mothering that I do now—is so very nearly incomparable to the life and the me that mothered my first child.
Two friends have given birth in the past month. And I know that won’t be me again. I don’t want it to be me. I don’t long for another baby. But to know that each day I am farther from the magic of bringing new life into this world leaves a gap in me that I didn’t anticipate.
And so, on the nights that I am called to go upstairs. On the nights that I tiptoe across the cluttered floor of my girls’ room to tuck in my 5-year- old girl before climbing into the bed of her baby sister, I take an extra deep breath and keep my eyes open a little longer. These nights of a child curled against my bare skin. These nights of solving the problem just by being close. These nights are limited. They won’t go on forever. And I know this because I have lived through so many of them. And I have wished too many of them away.
*****
I am trying to be emotionally accountable. Responsible. I am trying to be calm. Patient. To give my children my attention. My eye contact. I am trying not to say, “Hurry up.” Or to walk too fast. I am trying not to get too much done in a day. I am trying not to raise my voice. Not to say things I regret. I am trying to be satisfied with time spent with a toddler on my lap amidst the chaos of strewn toys and pretzel crumbs. I am trying to understand my son, whose emotional ranges seem as wild as my own. I am trying and trying and trying all of the time. And in the night, when it is dark and I am tired and the creaks of our old house mingle with the low sounds of the neighborhood through the open windows, I am trying to be present and to reflect. I am trying to find something in these hours of bare skin and bare emotion. I am trying.
*****
A quiet house at night is a gift of peace. There is no planning for it. There is no guaranteeing when it will happen. But when I realize that I am in the midst of one––a quiet night––I find myself grasping for hope and I find myself oozing humility. I find myself so very grateful that there are four beds in this house and I am wanted in every single one of them. That I can make the nighttime monsters go away, soothe the sore throats, rub a cramped leg and spoon with my love. I can nurture and take care. I can enjoy the nighttime mothering because there isn’t the same pulling at me from other directions when the lights are out and I am half asleep. A quiet house lets my mind run a little slower. Slow enough that the stresses and anxieties seem manageable.
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Originally published in October 2010