Tag Archives: baby

It all began on Hope Street

Posted on by under Hope and Place

Hope Street, 1998

I’m leaning over my daughter’s crib, daring to get my nose as close to her head as possible, in order to imbibe her baby fragrance.

Today, like any day with a two-month old, included its share of unhappy baby wails, new-mama exasperation, and waylaid plans. But since finding her thumb a week ago, my daughter has been a champion sleeper, granting some margin for gratitude, hope.

img_6032Heady with baby aura, I lower an ear, holding my breath so I can hear hers. It’s deep and slow, with a slight rattle in her throat. While listening, I’ve almost forgotten to breathe for myself, as if she could for both of us.

Straightening up, I take a long pull of oxygen that fills my body with a momentary energy. I marvel at the duplicity of motherhood. My daughter and I are always linked, but also separate. It’s a concept I’m just beginning to grasp—to grieve and also to welcome with a tinge of relief. The inner struggle of motherhood has already begun.

I gently place my hand on my baby’s silky head, fingers following the curve of her skull as if to cradle it, wondering what seeds lie sleeping in that head, waiting to unfurl and carry her from crib to bed and into the world.

My heart forms a wordless prayer—one that’s open-ended enough to remind me that my love and her autonomy are not mutually exclusive, not even now, while she depends on me for everything, my milk her only food.

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Race Street, 2004

I’ve finished unpacking yet another box of kitchen miscellany, trying to find space in a half-sized kitchen for things I rarely use—a large funnel, a hard-boiled-egg slicer, a pastry cutter.

Trying to find room for the unessential seems to be a theme in my life as of late. Over the weekend, I moved into a duplex—half of a house, for half of a parenting team in possession of half of the books, furniture, and art.

Since the divorce, I feel less sad, but more overwhelmed. My two girls, just six and four, are so busy, full of thoughts and ideas, calls for help, emotions that require extra patience, consistency, and love, and I’m wasting time staring at the contents of my former kitchen, wondering if I’ll use a funnel in the next year.

Today, bedtime couldn’t have come soon enough. But now, two hours after singing one last song and flourishing one last “tickle-scratch” on each back, I miss them.

In their dim bedroom, I carefully step around boxes they were told to “unpack” after dinner. My earlier annoyance with the mess melts into understanding: Unpacking inspired play—happy reunions with toys they hadn’t seen for a week, opportunities to pretend being teachers and mamas who take on challenges, fix problems, and comfort hurts.

Standing by their bunk bed, taking in one sweet face then the other, I still feel the ache of missing them. Am I missing the babies and toddlers they were? Or is the missing in anticipation of the day these daughters, fully grown, will sleep under roofs other than mine?

I decide I’m missing the busy, silly, awake versions of my sleeping girls. And I’m tempted to wake them up, but I know better, so I kiss each girl’s temple and take myself to bed.

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Oregon Street, 2011

Jason and I can’t keep our eyes open. So this is what it feels like to be old, we joke, setting down our books to move from the sofa up the stairs to bed.

For years we’ve been the last ones up each night at our house, but these days it’s a toss-up. Our oldest two girls are legitimate teenagers, at 15 and 13, with busy after-school schedules and stacks of homework crowding their evenings. Our youngest, at 11, is developing into a night owl—the one who’s forever begging to read “just one more chapter!”

On the landing at the top of the stairs, we begin our nighttime rounds, noting the knotted brow of our oldest, my stepdaughter, as she tackles advanced math, then calming the chatter of our middle-schooler, who somehow has several hours of life to update us on, even though we last talked less than an hour ago.

We gently scold the youngest for not turning off her light when we told her to, but night owls will be night owls. This is not our battle. I smooth her hair and hum the song I rocked her to each night as a baby.

In our own bed, Jason and I share a weary high five and a kiss before turning out our lights. We’ve completed another day of “doing our best” as parents, even though what’s “best” has become increasingly fuzzy.

All we know for sure is things are getting real. Before our eyes, all of the knowledge fragments we’ve dispensed along the way have become a collection of tools our children are ad-libbing with out in the world. Each bit of freedom and autonomy, while terrifying for us, is an opportunity for them to practice and learn. We can’t stop any of it—they’re already on their way.

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Orchard Street, 2016

I set down my mug of rooibos, tucking a bookmark between pages so I can reach my phone, which just buzzed at me from the coffee table. It’s a text from my oldest daughter whose mind is fixed on the many plans she has for Thanksgiving break, her first week home since moving to college. Smiling, I thumb a response. She’s always had so many ideas and plans—they just keep getting bigger as she becomes more capable of making them happen on her own.

The oldest of our three is also off at college, pursuing a science degree and being a wise, steady support system for the students on her floor, where she serves as RA.

Only our youngest still occupies one of the bedrooms upstairs. She’s now in possession of a driver’s license, along with the new level of autonomy it brings. After years of playing taxi, I’m still surprised when she arrives home on her own from her favorite cafe, as she does now. Plopping next to me on the sofa, she pulls the edge of my afghan across her lap, offering her back for a tickle-scratch before bed.

Kissing my daughter’s head as she says goodnight, I realize it’s time for me to think about bed, too. Just one more chapter.

As I turn another page, my phone interrupts with another text, this time from the bedroom above me.

Are you super busy or could you come play with my hair for a couple of minutes? I can’t sleep. And I miss you.

I miss her, too, I think, setting down my book, mid-chapter. I miss them all—even if they’re not mine to hold back, just to encourage forward. Switching off the lamps, I climb the stairs to my baby girl’s room.

Stuck, Unstuck

Posted on by under Travel & Place

It was January—that moment when, in Michigan, you are still descending into the depths of winter. (Never mind that the days are getting longer, lighter.)

I was continuing to descend, too. My descent was more deceptive than winter’s—a postpartum swirl of hormones and emotions that could just as easily trick me into believing I was rising as falling. There were moments of brilliant sunshine on fresh blankets of snow, joyful baby squeals, and the sense that I had never quite been whole without this little one in my arms. In those moments I felt buoyed. Was the falling sensation I felt actually a rising—a trick of the mind?

No, that wasn’t the case. At least not in any comprehensive, lasting way.

It’s hard to say what exactly triggered me to finally shut down that January day—to batten the hatches, boarding up windows and barricading with sandbags as if to protect myself against a storm I had been watching move toward me. Now I know this about depression: the “what” or “why” hardly matters. It’s not as if identifying “what” means it could all be easily “fixed.” It just was what it was—a mix of chemicals and hormones, disappointments and anxieties, fear and regret, converging and swirling. And suddenly that day, that moment, I couldn’t keep up the charade that had kept me inching forward on previous days.

I could only sit, blankly. Sometimes with quiet tears forging new paths down my cheeks.

Finally, while my baby napped, I called my mom. I couldn’t speak, of course—couldn’t begin to explain a thing about what was happening inside me. But she still heard me, like mothers do. She heard the tears from 70 miles away, where she sat in my childhood home, and she knew I was stuck; she knew I needed to move.

“I’m coming to get you,” she said matter-of-factly, not asking or suggesting, only stating the fact in a way that allowed me to breathe a bit deeper.

So I sat as she drove to me through the frozen world. I don’t remember her arriving at my house, or helping me pack a few bags, transferring the baby’s carseat from my car to hers. I only remember the drive home—to the place I still considered home. I was, after all, only a decade removed from the time I had last lived there, the summer I was 19.

291654079_bc3cf3ce06_bMy mom had dark chocolate in her car, and as we traveled she told me to eat as much as I wanted—that it was good for me. She didn’t ask me to explain anything, didn’t ply me with questions or ask what I wanted or needed. She simply directed and gave, taking the wheel both literally and figuratively as she moved me from point A to point B.

As we traveled I felt the panic and confusion within me dislodge and begin to move downstream. I cracked open the shutters on my mind and began to take in where I was: The warmth of the car and bitter-sweetness of the chocolate. The beauty of the snow stretching out from either side of the two-lane highway—the way it was whimsical decorating the evergreens, and then sophisticated blanketing the ground, seeming to change color as it rose on hills and dipped into valleys, the late afternoon sun slanting onto its smooth surfaces.

I took in the one-stoplight towns in a way I never had before, even though I’d passed through them dozens of times behind the wheel of my own car. There were people on the sidewalks, bundled against the cold: a mother walking slowly as her snowsuited toddler kicked his boots through the snow; a group of three teenage girls who seemed to meander and stall, in spite of the cold.

The towns were then behind us, the speed limit rose, and I saw the sad, sinking homes down along the river, a man getting out of his rusted truck, pulled up alongside a satellite dish. Closer to home, the terrain flattened, presenting farm houses and sleeping winter fields. There was nothing remarkable along that stretch of road—no one, I imagine, living remarkable lives. There were just lives, and I noticed them as my mother carried me along.

Toward the end of our journey she told me a story about when she was a young mom—not to say “I know exactly how you feel,” but just, I suppose, to broaden my perspective and help me see beyond the walls of my confining mind, just as putting me in the car helped me to see beyond the walls of my house, my life, which had become too small.

What my mother knew, what she taught me, is that becoming “unstuck” involves some form of moving, traveling, even if you don’t know exactly where you need to go.

 

Baby Season

Posted on by under Season & Place

I dreamed last night that I had a brand-new baby girl.

The dream wasn’t all snuggles and coos—it definitely included some bizarre elements, as dreams do. I was, for instance, somehow surprised by the arrival of this baby, even though it seemed clear in the dream that I had given birth to her, not adopted or found her wrapped in blankets in a cardboard box on my doorstep. My level of surprise about the baby was palpable in the dream, but I knew enough to hide my astonishment from others. I calmly went along caring for her and showing her off to friends as if I, too, had been expecting her all along.

Because I wasn’t actually expecting this baby, Dream Me had to improvise a bit to get her properly clothed and geared up. A significant scene in the dream involved me pulling big plastic bins off a top shelf in an enormous closet to look through the clothes my two real-life daughters wore as newborns.

One such bin exists in a (much smaller) closet in my waking life. It’s filled with the tiny shoes, Easter dresses, and footed pajamas deemed Most Special, along with handmade gifts like the pale blue cardigan my grandmother knitted for my firstborn, with its kitty-cat buttons and row of silhouetted white cats along the border. But in real life, I haven’t looked through that bin for probably a decade—not since that moment when I somehow knew my baby days were over, prompting me to sort all the little clothes into two piles: items to pass along to friends having babies, and favorite treasures to carefully pack away and keep.

When I woke from the dream, I was filled with longing, love, and loss. This might not seem at all surprising to most people, but it completely surprised me. I have never been a woman who longs for babies.

Of course, an entire season of my life was devoted to babies. It’s a season I treasure and wouldn’t trade for the world, but mostly because it is a necessary season for all who want to have children who will some day not be babies. The Baby Season was simply the first stage of parenting—the inevitable season leading to all of the seasons that follow.

*   *   *   *   *

Every parent, if they’re being honest, will admit to having favorite (and least favorite) seasons of parenting. Yet somehow I’ve always felt guilty for not being baby-crazy. It’s almost as if not getting the “uterus aches” that other women talk about when they see newborns knocks your womanhood status down several notches and calls your maternal instincts into question.

Don’t get me wrong—I loved my own babies fiercely. (For those of us who are not “baby people,” our own babies defy that category). But I don’t remember thinking “I never want them to grow up!” I loved the experience of nursing my babies (and I did nurse them each for about 13 months—does that earn me extra credit?), but I don’t recall a heart-rending pull as my babies began to rely less on my milk, eventually weaning without a fuss.

Instead, I was happy to see them grow into unique little personalities, with opinions and relationships and senses of humor. I loved watching them develop friendships and put feelings into words as toddlers, then problem-solve, create, and become more independent as they ventured through their preschool years.

During my daughters’ elementary school years, I was forever fascinated by the glimpses of myself and other family members I saw in my girls, and was equally fascinated by the many facets of them that seemed to crystalize out of nowhere. And the ways my two children are different from each other—two girls created from the very same gene pool!—has never ceased throughout the years to be amazing, refreshing, and challenging all at once.

*   *   *   *   *

Today my daughters are 17 and 14, both in high school. There’s no doubt I’m in a different season of parenting. Along the way I’ve loved many of the stages—six and 18 months were ages I savored, along with their preschool and mid-elementary years—but I have to say the particular season we’re in is one of my favorites. It’s also possibly the hardest (teenage girls!). And it has occurred to me several times that those two opposing feelings—the love and joy as well as the stress and challenges—are in fact intimately bound together. Everything is intense, on both ends of the spectrum. Preparing girls to go into the world as women, sure of who they are and what they are capable of, is no small task. It’s both exciting and difficult, like all of the best adventures.

And as I consider last night’s dream, I’m also realizing how very bittersweet this season is—much more so than I want (or have the time and emotional space) to admit in the day to day. It’s more bittersweet than weaning my babies, or packing their tiny shoes away into plastic bins.

Yes, as parents we’ve been preparing our daughters for independence all along, but these are the years when it gets real—not only in how their experiences and our conversations will prepare them for what’s next, but also in the ways “what’s next” will impact me. I can begin to envision a time when our household won’t strain at the seams to contain the whirlwind of kinetic energy that exists between 6:45 and 7:45 each morning; when the pile of shoes by the front door will diminish in number as well as colorful variety; and when the dishwasher won’t be packed full after a single family dinner with everyone at the table.

photoIt’s true, I’ve never wished my daughters could remain captured in a state of babyhood. But they are still my babies. No matter how grownup they become, they’ll still embody all of the love and longing of the seasons we’ve been through. And as we rush through these final years of childhood, the baby in my dreams reminds me that it’s OK to pause—to long to bundle them into footed jammies and enfold in my arms.

 

Diapers & Degrees

Posted on by under Guest, Role & Place

It was around noon, and I was in the men’s room at Target with my five-month-old daughter. The wall-mounted Koala changing table had seen better days, but I was just glad there was one in the men’s room at all. It was clear, though, that installing the changing table was an afterthought because it completely blocked access to the hand dryers. As my daughter squirmed and screamed while I changed her diaper, other men had to decide whether to reach over my shoulder to dry their hands, or to just use their pants. I struggled to maintain composure, wishing I could say that was the only time I had cried in Target that week. As I finished up I asked myself through eyes filled with tears, “How had my life come to this?”

The past year has been one of shifting roles. I quit a tour-guiding career of eight years (which is long for a 30 year old), became a father, and finished grad school. With my new roles came a shift not only in what I do, but also in who I am.

The biggest transition has been from working 40-60 hours a week to being the primary caretaker of my daughter. I have never been good at errands—even simple errands done on my own would exhaust me. So, the prospect of running most or all of the errands for our family with a baby was daunting, if not petrifying. It did not go well at first, which made me question whether I could even be a stay-at-home dad. I wanted so badly to take care of our daughter so my wife wouldn’t have to run errands and care for the home as well as work. The chalkboard-painted wall I used for my to-do list was a constant source of anxiety motivating me more to escape and watch Netflix than to be productive.

Thankfully I started to get better. I hadn’t realized how much practice errands and housekeeping would take in order to do it well. Over the past four months, since defending my thesis, I have grown tremendously in my competency as a stay-at-home dad. I can even enjoy multitasking—managing a list of things to do all while keeping a 10 month old alive and happy. That’s not to say everything is perfect. My daughter’s newest favorite pastime—pulling her bib off while I’m feeding her—is a lot for me to handle, and I get jealous seeing my wife come home and have so much energy to play with her and make her laugh while I often can only muster the energy to prevent her from melting down. I’m sure this too shall pass and I am getting better at finding joy in the present with her and cherishing every little step in her development.

When I’m not chasing after my increasingly fast and destructive daughter, I am attempting to start a career. After years of work and late night study sessions I finally finished grad school in December, and I am applying for teaching jobs. There is a sense of being in the wilderness during this transition, not knowing the path or even the destination. Early on I was feeling lost and hopeless about job prospects. This brought about financial worries and brought up deep insecurities around my fear of being rejected or passed over by prospective employers. You might even call it a mini existential crisis. After some great encouragement from a friend and my wife, and a lot of prayer, these feelings have lessened. I have come to see being in the wilderness as an important experience that allows me to develop patience and reflect on other shortcomings and insecurities. I’ve even been able to see very clearly the providence of God through a few extra jobs and medical expense reimbursements and aide.

IMG_0109Practicing patience and silence is difficult in a time where all I want to do is stress and vacillate between escapism and attempting to solve everything on my own because God is taking too long. Thankfully I have an adorable little companion to practice with and learn from. This morning I spent time in the amazing San Francisco Botanical Gardens with her. As I pushed my daughter in her stroller, along the small dirt paths through the Native California garden, I talked to her about each of the different plants that we passed and we sat and admired them together. Sometimes she would reach out to grab the plants. Taking time to feel, smell, and taste them, to experience them for the first time. At one point she grabbed a California Poppy, my favorite flower which I learned to love during my years driving a bus. This particular poppy was the only one in bloom in the entire garden. I watched her discover for the first time something I have loved and cherished for years. It was so beautiful. I’m not sure what it means, if it means anything, but I will never forget the overwhelming feelings of love for my daughter and God’s love for me in that moment in the garden.

Being a stay-at-home-dad and struggling to find work was never in my five- or ten-year plan. I may have never asked for this experience, and I did not know what it would require of me, but I am grateful for it. There will certainly be other unexpected roles that will challenge me in the future, and I will greet them with fear and trembling knowing that whatever they are, they will bring me closer to God.

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Gluch Bio Pic“Diapers and Degrees” was written by Danny Gluch. Danny grew up in the suburbs of LA with his parents and older brother. He moved to the Bay Area in 2002 and has enjoyed calling San Francisco home ever since. Currently, he, his wife, their daughter, and their dog Madison call the Mission District of SF home. After struggling to find an enjoyable area of graduate study, he found the Philosophy program at San Francisco State University, where he recently earned his MA writing his thesis in Feminist Ethics and Moral Psychology. Any extra time is spent with his church community, or playing golf (or practicing golf, or thinking about golf). Find Danny on Twitter @danandstephinsf.