As I move from stroller to rocking chair to cozy leather chair, I get my first tastes of motherhood. What's motherhood made of? Milk and music, blankets and books, tea, baths, and meandering walks.
The day is broken into fragments. Go for a walk (or run!)...go home. Go to the market...go home. Sit at the coffee shop...go home. It is much too risky to pair two outings together- however brief- if the faintest possibility of hunger (mine or Misha's) lingers.
The day is broken into fragments. Go for a walk (or run!)...go home. Go to the market...go home. Sit at the coffee shop...go home. It is much too risky to pair two outings together- however brief- if the faintest possibility of hunger (mine or Misha's) lingers.
With Mike working, I surround myself with music, blankets, and books. Blankets hang over armchairs and books pile on end tables. With Misha curled in my arms, I wrap a blanket around the two of us and pick up whichever book I left there. Prone to reading a few books at a time, I enjoy the scattered nature of this reading habit. If my eyes are too tired or my hands too full, I put on some music (Bob Marley, Bach, or Songza) and let it fill the space.
What else? Cups of earl grey or irish breakfast tea with generous pours of soy milk. Long baths in herbal connections. Walks through our Minneapolis neighborhood underneath the flowering trees, smiles at passerbys oogling at baby. Children playing in the park and visualizations of Misha growing into a little boy. Runs along river road- at last!- with Rachel the dog wagging her tail.
These are the sensory, tangible snapshots of my early days of motherhood.
In the children's book, All The Things I Love About You, the mother tells her son, "I love when you hold my hand. And even when you let go...I know I haven't." This line stands out in the book because it doesn't fit the pattern of the other lines. It is the first time that the mother mentions an intangible. How could she still hold her son's hand if he lets go?
Yet, this intangible is an essential part of momification. Whether Misha is cradled in my arms or in Mike's as I am out running, he is a constant presence swirling in my headspace. Appropriately, Mike gave me a locket for mother's day- making tangible the invisible. So, even when his little fingers aren't wrapped around mine, I haven't let him go.
What else? Cups of earl grey or irish breakfast tea with generous pours of soy milk. Long baths in herbal connections. Walks through our Minneapolis neighborhood underneath the flowering trees, smiles at passerbys oogling at baby. Children playing in the park and visualizations of Misha growing into a little boy. Runs along river road- at last!- with Rachel the dog wagging her tail.
These are the sensory, tangible snapshots of my early days of motherhood.
In the children's book, All The Things I Love About You, the mother tells her son, "I love when you hold my hand. And even when you let go...I know I haven't." This line stands out in the book because it doesn't fit the pattern of the other lines. It is the first time that the mother mentions an intangible. How could she still hold her son's hand if he lets go?
Yet, this intangible is an essential part of momification. Whether Misha is cradled in my arms or in Mike's as I am out running, he is a constant presence swirling in my headspace. Appropriately, Mike gave me a locket for mother's day- making tangible the invisible. So, even when his little fingers aren't wrapped around mine, I haven't let him go.
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