Mother day

It's so different being a mother to a pre-adolescent girl than to a baby--feeling her pull away, witnessing pain in her face, watching her make mistakes that although I know are gifts, I wish she never had to make.

Every so often I take out the two journals David and I started for Annie during my pregnancy and I re-read the entries. I reconnect to the mother I am, the one separate from battles and negotiations, from test scores and talks about boys, from my fear and her fearlessness. I connect to pure mother love, the place where she's pulling away and coming close, where she belongs to me, to herself and to the world, and where her mistakes are big enough to change her life, and nothing more than spilled milk.


November 28 1997
Annie, 5-weeks-old

I love you madly and passionately, and it feels like I must love you more than any mother in the history of mothers has ever loved any baby in the history of babies. I can’t wait for you to become a little walking, talking girl, but at the same time I want you to stay 5 weeks and 2-days old forever. With a bushy head of dark hair, a big chubby face, no teeth, huge baby eyes, the most beautiful soft round naked human body I've ever seen, toes that grip tightly to my fingers, tiny hands that hold on while nursing, little butt, big smiles, all eyes and gums that make me fill to the top with love and joy and feelings I never knew I had inside of me.

I am not a poet, but once I have settled into being your mom a bit, I will write you a poem... or try anyway.

Someday I want you to know how much your mom loves you and how happy you’ve made me.



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