Sitting Still

3:42 a.m.

The air in our room, finally tinged with cool and damp, cuts the funk of a long, hot evening. The baby won't settle. Restless and wide-eyed, he pumps little bicycle legs and boxes imaginary opponents. I only want to sleep. Awake, I think. My heart pumps too hard and an ache forms around it, an unnatural ball of pressure lodged in my chest. I think about emails and malfunctioning laptops. I think about preschool. I think about bills and thank you notes and the list of things that we need for the summer picnic party we're throwing next Sunday.

I think about the calendar that I kept during Garrett's first year. How I carefully marked each day with some tidbit about his babyness. How I filled each white square with a little notation; first smile; first bottle; first lunch out with friends; he likes lights; he falls asleep around eight.

Now, I drown in milestones. They flit passed me, iridescent dragonflies, and my net is full of holes. Here and gone. There is too much to mark. Too many to note. There's no way to capture Quinn's twoness and still have eyes for Saige's leap into four. How to wallow in the last days of Garrett's third year and still catch Nate's first crooked smiles. He is six, seven, eight, nine! Nine weeks old. He has had (blush) two baths. Two baths. Neither of them noted in my calendar.

Don't panic, that's the first rule of swimming in rough water, if you panic, you drown. Stay calm. Stay still.

I pull the fussy baby onto my chest. That's what he wants, to sleep on his tummy, he knows nothing of risks or a mother's nighttime terrors. His weight eases the ache. I want so much to savor it, his solid twelve pounds finally asleep on top of me, but I am so tired. My eyes open around grit. Sore spots behind my ears throb at the touch of the pillow. It's precious, this chest-sleeping time, I know it and I still want him away from me. I want to sleep sprawled out and comfortable and uninterrupted. I wouldn't let anyone take him off my chest for the world.

6:45 a.m.

The shower washes away sweat from the sticky night, grit from my eyes, the hot tears on my face. It's always a safe place to cry. I'm not sad, not depressed, I enjoy each new day, but the early mornings are hard. Unrefreshed, my jaw aches and my shoulders protest. I am older than I was when I began this baby thing.

Standing in the steam, I know the answers to the mid-night questions. They are water. Give in. Relax. The goal is to experience the sensation of flowing hot water, not to freeze the water on my skin. When I let them wash over me, revel in the experience of mothering, I learn to hold it in my mind. If I grasp, try to stop the flow, it slips away.

3:30 p.m.

Sunlight idles through the maples, sifting to the ground in stripes and patches. Quinn slides his hand into my hand, his cropped 'little-boy cut' hair shines, he holds a plastic brontosaurus by the neck. He is tired from trying to keep up with his big brother and sister and he settles for mom, still singing quietly, "following leader, leader, leader, following leader, leader, leader."

It's a song from Peter Pan. They've been singing it all day, as if they know the themes in my head.

Saige and Garrett run ahead, playing the leader game, fighting over who leads.

Saige holds my hand and twirls around and around. A sweaty ballerina in bright pink shorts. Her mouth is open and she laughs a loud, enthusiastic giggling laugh.

Nate meets my eyes when I lean over the stroller. "Oooeeewww," he tones and then he waits, watching me, sharp-eyed and eager. "Ooooeeewww," I answer him. The smile starts in his eyes, his legs pump, he gets the right muscles to work and his face lights up, his cheeks stretch, he tongue clucks to the top of his mouth in gurgling glee.

Garrett stands beside me, his hand light on my leg. "He's smiling at you, momma." He is. I'll probably forget to write it down. I won't have any pictures of today. But, I'll have lived it, dunked myself in it, all the way under. That's got to be worth more than a file folder full of pictures that I never open. Doesn't it? Will I remember? I feel my breath quicken.

Don't panic. Don't grasp. Sit still. Let go. It's like sitting on the beach at the water line. Warm sand, sun, salt, birds, rocks, as each wave hits the land, it washes towards you, foams over your legs, dissolves the sand held in your fingers. Everything shifts. The whole scene is different. The sand beneath you moves, new particles of sunlight hit your face. If you try to chase a single wave, you'll just foolishly drown. If you close your eyes and sit still, the ocean and the beach and the sun are still there, the waves keep coming to you and you can just sit and take in every detail. Mark them all, as best you can.