On Being a Mom For Three Years

The past few weeks have held a series of anniversaries for our family, as we left Greenville on March 24, first saw and held Tink on March 28 and legally became her parents March 29. We arrived home with our daughter on April 8. Huge days, all of them, but, as any parent knows, the really important stuff happens in the unexpected moments.

The night before we left, I had a bit of a breakdown. It had been a long and emotional trip. I was the only one of the three of us who got sick. The real problem, though, was that Tink bonded with C and not me. It was days before she would make eye contact with either of us but eventually she came to tolerate and then vastly prefer C. It was easy to postpone acknowledging it, because we were kept busy with stuff: replenishing the diaper bag, taking photos, navigating the stroller across traffic-choked streets, feeding, changing and clothing. You’d think it’s impossible not to establish attachment during things like feeding and changing, but it can also be an avoidance technique. Not that I was avoiding my baby – just choosing not to admit how little she liked me. There also wasn’t much I could do but continue to meet her needs and wait patiently. I tried not to take it personally.

As we packed to leave, I began to think about how shortly after we arrived home, C would go back to work, leaving this child in the care of someone she didn’t like. It ended up being a sort of tantrum about how my daughter loved someone best and that person wasn’t me, but what really set me off was panic that the person I loved best in the world would soon be “abandoned” by the only parent she trusted. And I, as her mother, WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO HELP HER. I was filled with dread because sometime in the coming week, she’d realize C wasn’t around and she’d be hurt and bitterly sad and I wouldn’t be able to comfort her.

The day we got home was a Saturday. We arrived at a not unreasonable sounding 7 p.m., but it was really the next day for us. Or more like later that week. We were crazy stupid “What’s this coming from my head? Hair? Huh. Tastes pretty good.” tired, but we somehow found an untapped reserve of energy upon landing. Most of that energy was spent installing a car seat there in the airport parking garage, with our luggage, stroller and child to also keep an eye on. (I asked my mother to do ONE THING for us, one thing.) We also gave her a bath and played with her on our bed before settling her down to sleep.

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ry480-11 The next few days were filled with assorted baby maintenance – first pediatrician appointment, buying and assembling gear we hadn’t bought earlier. It was nice to have C with me, and I’m sure Tink felt the same way. But by Thursday he had to go to work, and Tink and I were alone. I don’t remember what we did that Thursday and Friday, but we got by. On Saturday, the day before Easter, mother and daughter went to dinner at my mom’s house.

Some extended family members were in town for the holiday, and they hadn’t met Tink yet, so it was kind of exciting. I gave Tink a bath and I packed her jammies in the diaper bag. I could remember as kids being put into our jammies before we left a party and being carried to bed by my father when we got home. She was wearing her yummy-soft Hanna Andersson onesie, pants and sweater and I suddenly had an urge to stay home, so I could hold and snuggle her all night. I wanted to have everyone meet her, but I wanted her all to myself at the same time.

ry480 There were some other small kids at my mom’s house that night, and one of them was extremely leery of Tink’s non-whiteness in a very obvious way, but everyone else loved her instantly. She ate like a champ, as usual, and then modeled her pj’s and went home. She could have been carried off by any adult in the room, though – she wasn’t bonded any more to me than she was to anyone there that night.

We went upstairs, and I remember chattering about her first dinner party, about how well she ate and played with the other children and how proud of her I was. I was then struck with the feeling of not knowing what to do next, of being completely alone with this child I didn’t really know. All the busyness of the trip, coming home, playing with Daddy was gone, and it was just the two of us.

I got comfy on my bed thinking I’d get Tink to sleep by rocking her or rubbing her back. She looked up at me with a “Is this all you’ve got?” but I was encouraged by the eye contact. What to do, what to do. I scrambled. I grabbed my iPod from the docking thing on C’s side of the bed and ran through my options. Something lullaby-ish, something I could sing. That didn’t leave many choices. In those days the family iPod wasn’t filled with kid-friendly fare like it is now.

I landed on something I had sang thousands of times in the car, super loudly, but would work. “Jeremy.” I swayed her along with the music and sang. It was magical. She stared at me and didn’t turn away when I bent down to kiss her or hug her tight. She kept her gaze on me during the entire song and again when I hit play for a second time. Near the end of the second set of warbling “Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh’s” her eyes closed and she was asleep.

I held her for hours, feeling mighty clueless that I hadn’t sung to my daughter once in the three weeks she was in our custody but massively grateful. I played with her hair, rubbed her belly and cried. I couldn’t wait for C to come home so I could tell him about our breakthrough.

It’s easy now to spot the mistakes we made in those early days. I did take it personally when Tink didn’t show affection right away. I wouldn’t have been so quick to have her around other adults. And what took me so long with the singing?

The singing of course became a nightly routine. We’d sit in a chair in her room and read a few books and then I’d whisper, “Want to sing?” And Tink would turn around and face me and I’d sing songs from “The Sound of Music” and the national anthems of the United States and Canada with her head on my chest.

We don’t sing much at bedtime anymore. Our singing is done in the car these days, to her many CDs. That’s OK; it’s as it should be. I will always have the memory of the moment I became her mother, singing a very unlikely song to a baby who still wasn’t sure who I was. I’ll even be able to cling to that memory when she tells me to stop because I’m a terrible singer. I’m sure that’s coming any day now.

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