Yesterday, our cat turned nine years old. This is largely insignificant. In fact, he started his day locked in our bathroom after he tried to attack a sweet-looking neighbor cat through our window. At 4am. Right outside our bedroom. Twice.
If you’ve never experienced a cat fight up close and personal, it’s important to know a couple of things:
First, these fights always begin with low, guttural growls. These sounds are now so familiar to me, that when I hear them, I levitate out of bed, whisper-yelling, “Stop! Stop! Stop! If you wake that baby, so help me…”.
I then use a pillow or other soft-enough-to-hit-but-strong-enough-to-mean-it object to move him from the windows. (I learned the hard way that touching a cat while he’s in fight mode will end poorly. They don’t have the same “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” mentality of dogs.)
Second, if not interrupted, those low growls will build into what can only be described as horrific cries of pain. In fact, if you are not as accustomed to this wakeup call – say for example, you frequently travel like my husband does and you’ve had the good fortunate to be away from home when Neighbor Cat finds its way into your backyard, onto your windowsill, nose-to-glass-to-nose with your crazy cat, making unblinking and unapologetic eye contact – than you might wake to these terrible sounds thinking your small child is lying somewhere (like the bottom of the stairs) in agony.
When really, it’s just the cat.
It’s a horrible way to wake up, and it takes a moment to get ahold of the situation, but you only have a moment to get ahold the situation before your always-almost-awake toddler adds her own cries to the chaos.
Anyway…the cat’s birthday may have started with an unfortunate period of solitary confinement, but it ended with a lovely can of wet food. So, he’s fine.
And it turns out, his birthday wasn’t really about him. It was about me.
* * *
For the past five years, time has been frozen while simultaneously moving at light speed. And isn’t that the same thing?
There are seasons when life changes so rapidly that all you can do is hold on tight. When you finally have an occasion to loosen your grip and glance back at the life you thought you were living, you realize that although it seems like you were standing still, you were flying. And although it seems like nothing has changed, everything has changed. And although it feels like no time has passed at all and you still have time to learn a new skill during this weird lockdown thing we’ve got going, literal years have slipped through your fingers.
And at least for me, that aches. It’s a deep, hard-to-pin-down, beautiful, horrible ache that makes you want to grab your baby girl and never let go.
Because our cat’s ninth birthday is about my daughter, too.
* * *
Nearly two years ago, my husband and I welcomed a beautiful baby girl into our family and this wonderful, awful world. After months of expectation, worry, home remodeling, gestational diabetes with endless finger pricks and almost no carbs, and 22 hours of labor, we finally held our wide-eyed, kind-of-judgy-from-the-beginning baby.
In those first few hours, she looked around the hospital room with an expression that can only be described as, “is this it?”
I spent that first night in the hospital with my arm draped uncomfortably over the side of the bassinet so her perfect, brand-new fist could grip my thumb. There are few memories as precious as that night, my baby’s hand in mine and my husband just a few feet away, sleeping peacefully on “the most uncomfortable couch in the world.”
Together, we have leveled up as a family through 47 stages of development, 101 sleep regressions, probably a million diapers, and never quite enough giggles, hugs, and snuggles.
Over the past two years, I have carved time out of our chaotic life on maybe a dozen occasions to wrestle “motherhood” into words on a page. And each time, I get overwhelmed. If ever there was something I wanted to get right – it’s motherhood. Not just in writing, but in my daily life, for my husband and my daughter.
But here’s the thing: Being a parent is…a lot. Is that eloquent enough?
Being a mom is everything. It’s as hard as it is wonderful. It’s the very best and worst parts of myself showing up simultaneously. It’s looking at a living recreation of my baby picture that, somehow, is also the spitting image of my husband’s. (Although, to this day, he argues that she simply looks like a baby to him. A very cute baby, but you know…a baby.)
So, what to say about it? What’s there to say about motherhood or being a parent that hasn’t already been said?
* * *
I used to think that I became a mother the moment we confirmed that I was indeed pregnant. (Nausea cured with a Sprite and “the best Chinese food I’ve ever had” in the Denver airport can really only mean one thing.)
Or perhaps, it was the terrifying hospital visit a week before she arrived, when we rushed to the Emergency Department. I kept it together, hand glued to my impossibly big belly, until the intake nurse asked why we were there. With sudden sobs, I choked out, “I haven’t felt the baby move all morning.” I was steered to a hospital bed while my husband was told to have a seat in the waiting room alongside strangers.
Or maybe, it was the moment I first held her – still too full of adrenaline and worry to cry or smile or do anything but hold her tightly to my chest, my husband looking on with absolute awe beside me.
But now, I don’t think there is a moment. At least not for me. It’s not a fixed point. It’s been gradual. Cumulative. Always active. Endlessly humbling.
* * *
The first week, motherhood was learning that although we had three different swaddles our parent-friends had all sworn were “the absolute best on the market,” our girl would not be swaddled. She needed her hands and arms free.
But, doesn’t that mean her startle reflex would wake her up?
Yes. Yes, it does. But not forever. She needed her hands, and we need to learn to adjust our expectations.
As she grew, being a mom meant getting more efficient at diaper changes to avoid getting covered in pee.
Isn’t that more of a boy problem?
So I’ve heard. That doesn’t change the fact that our baby girl took unnecessary pride in peeing on us with the force of a firehose any time her diaper was off. (This is a fun problem we’re cycling through again now that she knows how to take a diaper off by herself.)
Being a mother is working with your husband to choose a pediatrician you both trust to guide you through questions about vaccines, breast feeding and formula, growth charts, fevers, and terrifying falls and head bonks.
Related: it’s also physically restraining your wailing child while she gets her vaccinations. It’s watching her happy face change to one of terror with the first deep pinch, knowing there are two more before you can cradle and comfort her.
It’s the awe and wonder that comes from watching a baby learn literally everything.
Months ago, I was convinced she would never figure out how to use utensils. The day she confidently stabbed peaches with her fork and successfully brought every bite to her mouth, I texted the video to our entire family.
I was so proud. She really did it! That’s months of work right there, and probably a few sleepless nights if what they say about sleep regressions being linked to new skills is true.
Motherhood is unending pride in every step taken, syllable uttered, and silly face made. Maybe to a fault.
It’s also getting so frustrated with her cries or tantrums that you must set her down in a safe place and walk away to take deep breaths, or scream, or cry, or call your own mother for advice.
Being a mom is enrolling her in daycare at 18 months when that was never part of your plan. You were supposed to be the best stay-at-home mom that ever stayed at home, after all.
It’s wrestling with guilt after realizing she needs more interaction with other kids and adults than you can give her. It’s wrestling with additional guilt for being excited to get some hours back to yourself.
Motherhood is watching your small child walk shyly into a room full of other curious toddlers and holding your breath as she tentatively approaches toys she’s never seen before. It’s seeing her grab one, run her tiny fingers along its colorful shapes, and waving bye to her confused face before she’s even processed what’s about to happen.
Being a parent is being so excited to see her face when you pick her up that first day that you walk down the daycare’s hall with your phone in video mode, only to get to her classroom and see her crying alone in the corner.
It’s continuing to drop her off every morning, for weeks, and hearing her sob, “Momma, Momma, Momma” as you remind her you love her, and you’ll be back at the end of the day. It’s walking away from her outstretched hands.
Motherhood is brutal.
It’s sacrifice. It’s putting your dreams on hold to help her learn how to navigate hers (which, based on her sleep babble and outstretched arms, seem to be exclusively about beach balls that are always just out of reach).
But it’s also the best hugs of your life – tiny (but surprisingly strong) arms wrapped tightly around your neck. It’s seeing her learn sign language and communicate with you for the first time. It’s the beginnings of verbal I love yous and knowing that she knows what it means. It’s seeing her full-on sprint into your husband’s arms when he gets home from a trip. It’s the way she loves him and he loves her as much as you love them both.
* * *
My daughter has been going through yet another sleep regression the last few months which has successfully masked my own insomnia. Now that she’s been sleeping through the night again (Praise, God), it’s easy to see that she’s not the only reason my sleep has been suffering.
They say when babies go through sleep regressions (a fancy name for “baby insomnia”), it’s because they’re learning a new skill.
I think it’s similar for adults. There’s something I’m working out in my head at night, and it’s not just my anxiety (or cravings for carbs as I try to get back to healthy eating).
* * *
Nine years ago, I was still living in Baltimore. I adopted Biff (the nine-year old cat) with my long-time friend and then-roommate, Charis. We convinced our no-pets-no-exceptions-landlord that this kitten had one shot in life, and we were it. This wasn’t a complete lie, but we certainly played up the drama to pull at their heart strings.
And it worked.
At that point in my life, writing was my biggest passion and focus. And the floor was always lava was about a year old, and I had started editing Notes From My Phone* which would be published the following year.
I spent Saturdays and most evenings after work at coffee shops or bars, writing, writing, writing. I wrote about love, heartbreak, dreams, faith, the city, and running. It was how I processed the world around me; it’s how I figured out who I was. It became as natural (and almost as necessary) as breathing.
I look back at that time fondly and with immense gratitude. But also, with the same deep ache I get watching videos of my toddler as an infant.
Time never stops, does it?
* * *
It’s nine years later and three cities later, and I’ve hardly written a thing for the past three years. And it’s not just because I’m piled under baby laundry, or dishes, or our poor dog’s chronic ear infections and paw allergies.
It’s because up until now, my writing has been intertwined in the expectations I had for life when I was a twenty-something. I’m not the same young woman I was then, wondering what my life might look like.
I’m living it – the life I dreamed of, the one I prayed for.
I’m a wife and a mother. These new roles have changed my entire perspective on life. And so, my writing must change as well. And I’ve felt fearful about that, especially in today’s unforgiving and unrelenting world.
I mean I’m a city girl living in the suburbs…and y’all, I love the suburbs.
For many readers, that’s likely boring to say the least. (Again, I’m not being ironic when I say I do, in fact, enjoying getting an iced coffee as a little treat and walking through Target in leggings that I am probably too old to wear at this point).
For better or worse, I am all of those things. But dare I say, there’s more to me yet?
I am a designer. An editor. A writer. Maybe even an artist if I would just sit down and focus.
For the first time since becoming a mom, I feel like I have luxury of time and space (thanks to daycare and my hardworking husband) to figure out the aspects of myself that I put aside for the last handful of years.
* * *
Our cat’s birthday was just another day. It was just another day that started with a cat fight, too little sleep, a physical battle to get my toddler dressed, and coffee that didn’t quite hit the spot. But it gave me that occasion – that reason – to stop and think about the last nine years of my life, especially the last five spent with my husband.
There’s a lot happening in our world. Some of it is magical. Some of it is alarming. And depending on who you are, what you believe, and where you’re from, what’s magic for one is alarming for another.
I am not qualified in any sense of the word to tell you what to believe, how to vote, who to trust, or what is right. I struggle with it all myself.
But here are a few things I know to be true:
Life is short. Even when it’s long, it is incredibly short. And like every stage of my baby’s development, nothing is forever.
The biggest opportunities most of us will have to impact the world are in our daily interactions: how we treat our spouses, our children, our parents, our siblings, our colleagues, the guy in the car that just cut us off. (Looking at you, McKinney, TX).
Each day we can make things better or infinitely more miserable.
Most days, my social circle is incredibly small. Sometimes it’s just my daughter and our pets. But the way I treat them – the way I respond to her fears, needs, irrational outbursts, infuriating tantrums – that is more powerful than any blog or social media posts I’ll ever author.
You don’t have to be an influencer to influence the world around you. (In fact, I dare say it’s much better if you’re not…) We all fail constantly. I know I do. But each day that we get to wake up again, we can try to fail a little less, love a little more, and have a little more grace for both ourselves and those around us.
So, after several years of not writing, and nine years of consistently disappointing my cat, I am trying again. I am trying to be a writer. I am trying to make a positive difference in this world, even if small. And I will always try to save Neighbor Cat and my husband and our stressed-out dog from a window-cat-attack before our baby stirs.
* * *
