Professor Mother Blog

This Labor Day, I spent an hour up on a ladder, finding four large boxes stored in the garage closet with Elizabeth, who was helping me in a project planned for a decade.

When Elizabeth was a baby and started outgrowing her baby clothes, there were some that I just couldn’t give away.  I couldn’t pack them up in the plastic garbage sacks and haul them off to Goodwill for some stranger to look at with a critical eye.  Those other people might not be able to see:

• How precious that faded little blue jean dress was- the one Elizabeth wore when she was six months old,  and sitting next to her teddy bear who was the same size she was- and she was still wearing when she welcomed her new baby brother home.  

• They wouldn’t understand how sweet the smell of fuzzy white footie pajamas with just a hint of sweet potato stain on the collar is- the perfect combination of Tide and Johnson’s baby shampooed little girl.  
• And strangers definitely wouldn’t appreciate the newborn onesie with the little pink hearts on it that was the bane of my existence to snap up correctly and James never did manage to fasten correctly.  

I just couldn’t give them to Goodwill.  And since I was pregnant again when Elizabeth was six months old, maybe I would keep them for our next little girl.

Only the next baby was Ray- and onesies with hearts on them were not really considered acceptable.  And so, they stayed in their bag.  To be joined along the way by:

• That sweet green dress in which Elizabeth hopped around the lawns of the lighthouse at St. Augustine when she was 18 months, laughing so hard that her tow-headed curls shook with her.  
• And I just had to add the pink-and-white  Oshkosh overall dress when she was 2 -that was a larger version of the dress we brought her home in- and she wore everywhere for a year.  The original dress went in the bag, too.  
• And the coat that she got when we visited Mamamum for a fall weekend that had little Pooh ears on the hood and she kept petting over and over.  She wore it three more times that winter in Florida- and every time the sweetness of my baby took my breath away.

The bag became a box the summer Ray was two, because we were moving, and I had to go through his baby clothes as well.  I scoured the clothes that were too small to leave behind, to give to Goodwill, to hand down to friends.  But I found myself smiling at the tiny Hawaiian shirt that reflected the blue snap in my son’s laughing eyes, and I couldn’t let those moments go.  The box metamorphed into a bin.

And so, I decided on a Project.  A Project that I would get to- someday.  Someday when we stopped moving.  Someday when I wasn’t starting a new job.  Someday when I wasn’t researching about autism, writing about autism, or presenting about autism.  Someday…I would turn all of those wonderful baby moments captured in these clothes into a quilt- one for each child- so that they could take a part of those moments with them.

I love quilting.  I haven’t quilted in 12 years because I hand-sew- each square, each whorl, each section I stitch by hand.  It takes me a year to make a quilt and I’ve only made three.  I don’t sew for the final product.  I sew for the joy of the doing.  But sewing a quilt takes time.  And time for a quilt would be something that I would have… someday.

I realized last week, that, amazingly, Someday was here.  This fall, for the first time in 10 years, I am not up to my eyebrows in some project.  My book is turned in, I know what I’m teaching and I’m merely tinkering with the classes, and the children are in the same school they’ve been in for three years.  No one is dying.  We’re not moving.  We have time to deal with small things, big things.  We have time to be.  I’ll be doing some traveling and some consulting and I can sew on the plane.  And I have time for the first time in a decade to get out the boxes- grown now to 4 large bins.

Four large plastic Rubbermaid tubs that have been dragged with us through 8 houses, 5 states, a summer in limbo in a storage unit, a tornado, and even a fire.  They take up a good chunk of a closet in our garage.  And they were brought down this past Monday with the help of my 10-year old baby who was strong enough to lift them and carry them inside the house.

I found out, that despite my good intentions, and the new sewing basket from Michaels, that I still couldn’t do it.  Elizabeth and I unpacked those dresses and those onesies and those smocked Christmas dresses and I just couldn’t lay scissors to them.  It rained hard as we got the edges of Tropical Storm Lee, and I told stories. I told stories of “Oh, you wore this when…” and “At this age, you were…”, and “Remember that picture when you were wearing this?”  Elizabeth carefully examined and folded each smock, each dress and each footie pajama and repeated like a mantra, “What was I doing in this one?”, as if each one connected her with her past- a past in which she was loved and adored and there was always laughter.  A past with no ghosts, no sorrow, no autism and no issues- a past that was only full of joy.  We reveled in the memories of her babyhood- the best parts that are all I want to remember.

I have some things for the quilt.  I have some of the baby blankets and some dresses with vivid colors and patterns.  I have a couple of swim suits.  But the yellow swim suit in size 6 months that had lemon patterns on the shoulders and the matching hat?  How on earth could a little yellow square capture the memory of her sitting in her play pool on our back deck in her bouncy chair as she kicked the water with laughing squeals?  Elizabeth pointed out that her baby doll, the original Lily (they’re all named Lily.  We just have Lily 1, Lily 2, etc.) would be able to wear most of the clothes.  So the little yellow swim suit with lemons on the shoulder went into “Lily’s Bin”.  

• So did the red velvet dress with the white lace collar that she wore her first Christmas.  
• And the darling pink and white gingham dress with the big strawberries on the pockets into which she would stop and put things on our walks.  
• And the jean jacket with the red and white checked ruffles that she wore on her first airplane trip to Seattle.  

I looked at each article of clothing and fell in love with my daughter all over again.  She looked at each article of clothing and began to construct her sense of today with herself from yesterday.

I finally decided that a quilt just can’t capture those moments- small bits of fabric with the edges sheared off.  With Elizabeth’s assistance, we packed almost everything back into three of the tubs- rechristened “Lily’s Tubs”.  They went back into the closet, with the assurances that they would be used to dress up her doll, or to be worn with her own daughter.  Someday.  I can’t help but wonder where we’ll be dragging those tubs to next.  I know that my husband and my mother will roll their eyes at Elizabeth and me as we find space in our crowded house for 3 tubs of outgrown clothing.

I will still make a quilt of the fabrics that evoke memory through its pattern or its texture.  I will still work on this project that is 10 years in the making.  But I have a clearer understanding that sometimes, memory is formed by the details.

My husband is 50 today.  50!  A few short weeks after my daughter turned 10. 10!

Elizabeth was two weeks old when James turned 40.  I was so fried from the demands of a newborn and the intensity of feeding, fussing, jaundice and no sleep, I stuck a pink bow on her head and called it “Happy birthday”.  I claimed that I gave him his first child for his 40th birthday- and really, there’s no better present than that!

We celebrate “0″ birthdays- big.  When I turned 30, I was in Williamsburg, and had a huge party with all of my friends there from graduate school.  I danced in a dress from Mexico- all flounces and color.  Pictures show me with stars in my eyes, glowing with happiness.  James and I had met three months before, I was in love, and surrounded by new romance, friends, and sense of direction.  It was an amazing birthday.

When James turned 40, we were in Fort Myers, FL.  I gave him a daughter.  Pictures show us with circles of exhaustion under our eyes, I’m still in pajamas- the same ones I wore for a week straight, I think.  My mother was there and she was holding us together in those first days of new parenthood.  But we were alight with the joy- and the anxiety- of the future.  It was an amazing birthday.

When I turned 40, I celebrated by having most of my very close girlfriends meet me on the Outer Banks of North Carolina-including my mother and my daughter!- where we walked the beach, had massages and pedicures, watched mama foxes scout ahead for her kits, and talked until late into the night.  We talked of how our directions were changing, how the future was different than we expected, but how important friendship and love really were.  It was an amazing birthday.

And now… now Elizabeth and James have “0″ birthdays in the same year.  And this year- full of anxiety and challenges-… these birthdays are promises.  Promises that I hope we can keep sooner, rather than later.  Promises of traveling- going to England and watching Manchester United play a game- a real one- at Old Trafford Stadium, rather than merely watching on TV.  Promises of “stopping by ” Paris- since we’re over there, anyways, so that Elizabeth can see the Eiffel Tower- the real one.  Promises that were so close to reality… but aren’t.. yet.

Instead, Elizabeth got a card with a picture of the Eiffel Tower, and James got a card with a picture of the very hotel we’re going to stay in Manchester.  Elizabeth invited 5 of her friends over for a manicure/pedicure/ sleepover night- which, while it wasn’t quite as challenging as last year, still had its challenges.  Challenge that are not new ones- ones that some down time, some quiet time can solve.  Really- not even worth talking about.  It’s been 10 years of learned lessons.  But there were pancakes and presents and lots of giggling and a shared joke of “single digit midget… OH, double digit midget!”  And Red Velvet Cake.

And James will enjoy dinner at home in Georgia with my Chinese Chicken after a long week of traveling- with his family and we will have balloons and singing and posters and pictures of Old Trafford Stadium- and Lemon Cake.  And promises of not now- but soon.  Perhaps in time for Ray’s “0″ birthday next year.

No matter where we are, there are friends, and family and love surrounding us all.  And even though autism and Tourette’s are uninvited guests, this year, they are well-mannered, mostly staying in the backgrounds where we accommodate around them.

Amazing birthdays. (And look out Eiffel Tower- we’ll get there! And please forgive me a little bit of pouting)

… Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold- W.B Yeats- 1919

I just finished reading “I Don’t Know How She Does It” by Allison Pearson and wow… just wow.  It takes place in London and is the story of a working mother with a high-powered job as a financial money manager.  Other than some minor differences (you know, like the issues of flying across the Atlantic on a moment’s notice and discussing how to pick a good nanny), the story was written to aggravate every bone of guilt I have.

Kate is balancing the needs of two children.  She feels guilt at how much she resents her children from taking her away from doing a job she loves- and she resents her job from taking her away from her children.  She goes on vacation and tries to bury herself in the role of perfect mother and wife.  She goes to a board meeting and tries to bury herself in the world of work.  She notes that women are not allowed to be late because of children’s issues- but men are applauded for parenting.  In an excerpt… How do you say you have to leave early because the baby is sick without saying a) baby and b) leave?” “When a man excuses himself from a meeting to attend his son’s game, he is patted on the back and when a woman needs to leave early she is not ‘committed enough’?”

Gender inequities aside, the tension between work and her children is not what you would expect.  She writes in an email,”What kind of mother is afraid of her own children?” She ends up not sending the email because, ”There’s only so much you can confess, even to your dearest friend. Even to yourself.”

And lest you think that I read the book while lolling about, waiting for the children to come home, I read the book in an airport- traveling to San Antonio for a conference, and to visit my dying grandmother for probably the last time- multi-tasking, even in grief.  I read because I was not going to pay for Internet in an airport.  I read it when I knew that my children, while being taken care of by James, would be challenged.  That Ray would not be doing his homework; that Elizabeth’s 4th grade girl dramas would be misunderstood by a busy Daddy; that James would be too busy being one parent that the other role would be missing even more because of its absence.

These past weeks have challenged me: too many observations, things to grade, chapters to write, conference paper to write, homework to help with, laundry to do, pounds to work off- my life is so far off balance, out of normal, that I can’t even see the pivot point.  I vaguely remember writing- I vaguely remember laughing- I vaguely remember… me.

For the reality is that my mothering role is the linchpin that holds my family together- and, as I’ve learned this past month- me.  Without the schedule, the routine, the comfort of tucking them in, listening to their day, and fussing at them for homework- including James in those routines, I lose touch with myself.

It isn’t as though I’ve lost my sense of humor, or my desire to dance, or even my love of all things chocolate, but I’ve lost my sense of timing- the sense of reflection- the sense of planning.  I’ve lost my writing.

Anxiety has been the driver this past month.  The sense of moving from moment to moment and being surprised when I got there.  As I overheard someone say the other day “I don’t know where I am.  I’m whereever my calendar tells me I am.”  While I am not planless, as in the days of diagnosis and treatment, I do find that I am moving from moment to moment just as I moved from therapist’s appointment to therapist’s appointment.

I finished the book while waiting in an another airport to go on a consulting gig- a gig that I needed to do to pay for the new car, the birthday party, the life that we have that is so finely balanced that more than two events in a row throws the whole thing off kilter.

At the end of the book, Kate quits her job and moves to the country.  She points how, when people say “I don’t know how she does it,” there is an implied perception that judgement that something is missing, something is slipping.  Moving to the country is, unfortunately, is not an option we have, and so I wait for the end of March- the end of this slipping, the end of this calendar-driven chaos.  I wait for the center to form again.