This was originally posted at another blog of mine (www.motheringtc.com) that I have deleted. I have combined all my blogs into this one for the sake of simplicity in my already busy life. Jen – 6/13/09.
By the time this posts, it will have been several weeks since the incident that spurred the post, but I had to share it anyway.
I remember being pregnant. We had just read Husband-Coached Childbirth and decided to make the leap and take Bradley Birthing classes in Grand Rapids, 2-1/2 hours away. Between the book and our initial instincts about what should and shouldn’t be done to babies, we ended up borrowing the book Attachment Parenting by Dr. Sears. At the time, I thought it was a nice theory, but being the primary caretaker and knowing how I was at the time, I didn’t think I’d be able to handle it. I mean, never getting a break, being a pacifier 24/7? Get real!
Fast forward a year and a half. Lil’ Bit is nearly 10 months old and we left her alone, with my mom, at OUR house, for 1-1/2 hours while we went to dinner at North Peak, for the first time ever a few weekends ago. I’ve left her alone with dad while I went out without them less than 10 times in her life…usually to go shopping or the dentist (ugh).
Somewhere along the line I’ve changed, deeply and irreversibly. I have been given patience beyond recognition, living my life for one little child, playing and suddenly not caring about my world being perfectly ordered. I now live to ensure that my husband is happy, and she is safe and smiling…or laughing, even better.
We got our first unwelcome today. I have given speeches in front of 200 women at a professional luncheon with her sleeping in a sling. I attend MIC at our local church each week, and bible study as well. I take her grocery shopping and to hockey games and she is amazingly well-behaved. I’m sure that some of it is parental pride, but EVERY TIME, and this is no exaggeration, that we go out, someone tells me she has been sooo good and asks if she is always like that. I am happy to say that, yes, she is so sweet to me even when she’s tired and needs a nap. A good friend of mine said that she is so used to me meeting her needs that she doesn’t need to fuss and I’m sure that has a bit to do with it, although I’m sure her temperament has a bit of pull there as well.
I understand that some of the women there may not WANT to hear a baby’s babble during a “work” type function and I understand that. Usually, I take her out of the room when she gets loud…this was an unfamiliar location and I was unaware that the only place to take her would be outside–in the blizzard. I’m sure that threw off the speaker a little and I understand that as well. She was not as good as usual for various reasons, and I had actually hoped to go without her this time, but Bones was called out of town on business at the last minute. I also had to pick up items for the charity collection, since I was the chair. When I got the email, the business side of me said, of course, this is a professional organization and we’ve worn out our welcome. no biggie.
But my heart was wrenched. Not for me, or for the loss of my acquaintances. But the fact that my beautiful, funny little girl was rejected. The first in a string of rejections that will occur through her life. The bully at the playground who laughs at her, friends who will suddenly not like her, boyfriends who will dump her or even people who think she is being silly while following her dreams. I remember being in those places andI feel my heart breaking for her and she hasn’t even experienced it for herself yet. Is that what mothers mean when they say suddenly your heart is outside of yourself?
So now what? What do you do? There’s nothing you can do but offer it up. And that’s why God made US mothers.