Spring

Spring has truly and gloriously arrived! This morning the house is wrapped in morning mist. While we are breakfasting, the edge of a golden disk suddenly appears out of the mist halfway up the sky. We realize that it is the sun, rising over Canaan Mountain, which is directly east of us. I had never realized that it was so high.

Go for a long ambling walk with the baby and one of my two new mama friends and her baby. We climb an incredibly steep hill, and I feel absurd, looking at the angle my body makes in order to push the stroller up the hill. We reach the lake and small public beach and picnic area and are not alone. An athletic sunbathing woman, a barely-clothed man sporting tattoos, two bikini-clad teenage girls, one of whom boldly dives into the water. My baby has fallen asleep in his stroller, and I watch him sleeping, his legs in the sun, his bare arms caressed by the breeze and wonder if he can possibly remember warm air on his skin. He was so impossibly little when he was last outside and not bundled up.

We take off our babies' onesies and pants, leaving them impossibly adorable in just their diapers. Our own feet in the water of the icy lake, we squat down and put their tiny toes in, too. My baby screws up his face at the cold, but then leans forward in eagerness and I let his hands in, too. He manages to cover himself in wet sand, which I wipe off on my yoga pants, now more brown than blue.

We take gorgeous pictures of the babies in the sun. We try to keep them from eating too much dirt and from choking on sticks. We discover a lovely path through the woods which we manage to traverse with strollers. We get back to town and are in sudden, desperate need of ice cream. We head for the SoHo Creamery and stand astonished in front of its closed doors. A young couple and a middle-aged man in a car have also arrived in desperate need of ice cream. We are all disappointed. We backtrack across town to the other ice cream place and find the young couple there ahead of us. They recommend the dolce de leche, and they are right.

Home again. 25 degrees outside. 24 degrees inside. Our thermostat is German, and we are enjoying beginning to understand Celsius in our bones. I drink a lot of water because I feel a headache coming on.

My husband arrives home sooner than I expected. Partly because I chose to expect him at a time later than I believed he would show up, so that I could have the delight of him arriving home sooner than expected. It worked!

We played with our gorgeous almost-naked baby. A happy family in the springtime.

Mama's Gonna Buy You a Mockingbird

I read this terrifying, beautiful, heartbreaking essay about what it means to be a mother if you know your child will die. My seven-month-old was asleep in my arms, his little chest rising and falling, his breath sweet on my cheek, his skin unimaginably soft. Tears flew out of my eyes and coursed down my face.

Reading her article was a gift. How lucky, how blessed I am beyond all my imaginings, to have this precious son. I read her essay on Tuesday, and these last two days have been richer.

I did less. I didn't watch the next lecture in the computer programming class I am auditing online. I skipped yoga class on Wednesday. I was pleased when a student canceled his math tutoring session.

But my days felt dense, like an unbelievably decadent cake. I gazed at my sleeping baby. I felt his weight. I stroked his cheek as he nursed. I played with him on the floor. I listened to each little sound. I marveled at each lunge and grab. I tickled and sang to make his eyes sparkle, his laugh gurgle.

I read a parenting article the other day that spoke of "striving for unconditional love", and I thought that was ridiculous. My love for my son is unconditional. There's no striving. That's the whole point: the love simply is.

I never used to like the lullabye "Mama's Gonna Buy You a Mockingbird". The words seemed wasteful and materialistic. I disliked the image of the broken and discarded gifts piling up as the mother continues to buy yet another gift for her child. But the tune would often pop into my head. Soon after my son was born I created my own words, beginning with:

Hush little baby, as sweet as silk

Mama's gonna give you some good fresh milk.

But I have been thinking about the original words more over the last few months, and there is something there that resonates with me. I love my baby so deeply, and I would do ANYTHING for him. Buy him a mockingbird? A looking glass? A golden ring? If such gifts could bring him joy, health, or safety, YES!

One evening a few years ago, I came home from teaching tired and ready for a cozy evening. My husband called to tell me that his car wouldn't start, and I was pleased that I could show him how much I loved him. I joyfully jumped in my car immediately to drive the 40 minutes through traffic to him.

Maybe my baby son doesn't need a mockingbird, but when I sing to him, I think of all of the things I would do (or give up) for him happily and joyfully.

Hush little baby, don't say a word

Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.