"Oh no, only one, we aren't grown up enough to handle more"

It is 9:30am and I've just finished all the dishes. We're talking a full kitchen of dirty dishes from the last 4 days. Pots of crusted-on oatmeal, wooden spatulas that have to be scrapped, dishwasher emptied and restocked and running. And the last thing I knew, it was 8:30am.

Anger may be undesirable for most things but it sure does make for a clean kitchen. Good thing I had such big load, otherwise I'd be currently matching socks in the middle of the bedroom floor. And that doesn't really take enough physical activity to process anger.

And boy was I angry. Mixed with being sad, once the anger subsided.

We were trying to get dressed for school. And said little person needed to poo. And that took a while. And that was fine. But as soon as that was over, little A wanted to play at the sink, instead of wash her hands, and I said "no." And all hell broke loose.

One attempt by me to put underpants on a kicking, flailing screaming child. Two time outs from me. (And for me, let's be honest those things are for parents almost more than for kids). And then M had to step in, because A just wasn't going to calm for me at that point. Insert my first pang of "shit how do single parents do this because I'm scared of who I'd be if I didn't have back-up." And then the second pang, the one that turns all this in on me - that I can't handle even one kid. I can't get one kid dressed and out the door in the morning. She's screaming for her pacifier, and I'm so ready to take a blowtorch to the thing that keep getting lost in her bed and waking us up, and commented on by people across the world. Americans included...Hertz rental car van driver, you so did not help by commenting - after a 10 hour flight and jet lag and an extra bag scan for the apples that we ate on the plan, and exhaustion and worry about getting a bum luggage trolley to move as car seat kept falling off the pile - that your grandson gave up his pacifier at 2 years old. It may be a month and a half late, but, bite me.

And so I retreat to the kitchen. I'm in tears, sobbing, trying to keep the boogers at bay so I can just see a pan or pot. I feel deep down inside so unfit to handle this, wanting to just become an authoritarian and get rid of this kid's spirit, turn her into someone who listens when I say no. And there is no way I can see myself to justifying another child at this moment, I who have lost it. I who can't even think about tomorrow morning and how that is going to be, much less the next 18 years. I'm so disheartened by these moments, and the fact that I have all of this time, like with the first time we tried to get pregnant, to keep thinking about whether or not it is a good idea. I have time to reconsider constantly.


In the end, M and A were finally ready to go to school, 20 minutes late, with a pacifier in her mouth (that I said yes to, while dreaming of dropping it into liquid nitrogen and smashing it with a hammer), and I was still upset. And sad. And somewhat angry. About a lot of things. I managed to get it together enough to go give a little, quiet goodbye kiss on her cheek, and to M. I managed to not do it with a passive aggressive bent. I didn't manage - I let myself not manage - a bright cheery "bye, have fun, see you later!" I went back to the kitchen quickly because the tears were coming again, and for the moment, I'd decided she might get more upset about me crying.

From the hallway, just as the door was closing, she said "I'm sorry, Mama." I came out of the kitchen because I hadn't heard what the words were, and she said it again. "I'm sorry." I hadn't asked for that apology. I don't try to force her (after the first month we started time-outs) anymore to apologize. I let that one go a while ago in some moment of trust that it would eventually work out okay. And this morning, it did. She apologized because, I think, she felt there was something unresolved. And it allowed me to wish her a good day. And that kind of feels authentic, that I didn't force myself to be cheery when I really wasn't, and that it happened out of the blue, and that I wasn't trying to engineer it. And it really did make things better.

And yet, I was left sad. Still furiously scrubbing the pots, going to get another tissue, and feeling the weight of parenting on my shoulders this morning. Feeling so unfit for this job, so undone by this morning, and not sure how I will make it. Followed by the reminder that I've even been considering a second child and feeling so silly for that. I guess it is going to be a bit of a sad morning. And I'd like to be okay with that, and not let it take over the whole day.

Oh, hey, I should go email in my US presidential election ballot now.

At glacial speed

If I stay quiet, calm just long enough, I feel the motion. But it has to be a just-woke-up quiet, the kind where I am still pretty tired but not going to fall asleep again. The 6:53am kind, where 7am is so close that the best option is to roll around a bit, and just try to start waking up.

Usually, I will go for my iPhone to help my brain get started by a barrage of useless activities like Facebook and checking the weather. This morning, it is cold and rainy, what feel like the first day of fall just sneaking in, and even 6:53am seems a lot darker than it did yesterday. And I let myself be calm and feel it.

It is a slow motion, of something big, something heavy. It is the passing of time, the approach of my 40th year, the changing of the guard, the end of the summer I thought we might just get pregnant and without having to do all that soul searching just get thrown into the mess, and chaos and energy and fray of a new life. And I would put off thinking about my career a bit longer, or my age. We would have a few more years of not even having the time to notice that time is passing.

Mind you, this isn't really a sad feeling. It is slow, it is calm. There are probably still a few years in which, if I really want (or just accidentally end up there), I can hop on over to that glacier top. It isn't going anywhere fast. I could probably even just step a bit more vigorously and catch it, with its new baby and upheaval, and blinding in-the-momentness that a new child brings to a family. It wouldn't even require a jump. But where once that 40 years old mark was slowly approaching, it is now almost lined up with where I'm standing, and soon will be receding. It is the next stage of life. I will still enter it, sooner or later, and I realized yesterday afternoon that having another child will not make me 36 again. And many of those women around me that I've felt the second-child-having influence of so strongly, they are still in that 35-38 range.

So yes, of course I can still try for a child. I'm healthy, I've gotten pregnant at least twice now, it is likely possible. But it means something different to me approaching 40 than it did approaching 36. I'm not "too old" to have another child in the literal, can your ovaries and uterus do this sense. My husband is not 65, and on and on. But I did not realize that the cycle of having one child would last 6 years for us, starting with starting to try getting pregnant, through infertility and interventions, through a difficult beginning, a first ray of light and then through a miscarriage and then the recovery. When I started this baby having activity, I was 33 years old. I've woken up this morning and I'm 39.

And I have no certainty about another child or not. I know that this morning I was calm, I had time to lay in bed another 10 minutes and hear that slow movement of life. I had energy to make a nice breakfast and to not pull A to run to the bus. We had smiles and time to talk about how sometimes none of us wants to go to work or school. I had time to sit in the foyer, while she screamed about having her pacifier taken away, until she calmed down - I didn't have to wrap her in a jacket and carry her flailing with boots to the bus.

It is the first day of fall, and I've decided to have a month of calmer, thoughtfulness. I will not be giving up on losing it sometimes, but I will be trying to find one thing per day to do or actively choose that connects me with others. That makes the world a bit better place and funnels some of my energy of not being pregnant with a second child back into the world that could definitely use it. I will slow down this month, for the next 3 weeks at least. I will notice this month passing.

I may not be able to move the glacier back (in my mind it is majestic, grand, solid and slow, its coldness is not really a feature, it is not a sad glacier, it is just ancient and bigger than me), but I can make this time before 40 fuller and honor it. 

How old was your dad when you were born?

It is date night here at our house, which means the babysitter is coming and we're heading out to celebrate the end of M's exam week and almost-end of the work week with dinner in the Old City and a movie. Probably "What to Expect When You're Expecting."

Because it has that American-ness to it that we're both craving a bit right now. It doesn't have to be awesome to be comforting.

I keep calling it "What Did You Expect?" or "What Were We Thinking?".  I didn't much like the book of the same title when I was expecting because, as many before me have pointed out, it has that "sad you, who can't live off of no caffeine and fruitjuicesweetened-practically-everything when you are pregnant - you must not really love your unborn child" quality to some of its suggestions. It could be a playbook for out-earthmothering your fellow pregnant ladies. But I do expect some easy laughs from the movie.

And at just the right time. Because the hottest thing on the NYTimes right now is this article about increased risk of a child with autism or schizophrenia with advanced age of the father. This just days after I finished reading this book on a family whose autistic daughter has beaten a lot of odds to communicate with a computer with grace and eloquence, wit and insight, about autism itself, and the rest of the things a teenager thinks about. That is the life-afirming part of the book. The description of the exhaustion, sadness and burnout that the family lives with, and still uses respite care to help combat, is the part that prompted me to start talking with M about why we want another child.

Just to be a companion to A? We have enough crap of our own we're still working through that maybe we are better off teaching her to make close friends, spending some extra money on serious charity contributions that also leave a legacy (instead of looking for an embodied legacy in another child), and just keep working on our own issues.We could donate to places helping families who are already struggling. We could try to make a difference in this world in a different way.

And what if we were to have an autistic child? The book was already in the process of being read when this question came up and almost drowned me. What if all the things that have gone wrong with getting pregnant and giving birth and having a miscarriage, what if they all actually point to some reason we shouldn't try for another child? What if my body, which is almost 40 years old, is trying to tell me about my chances with the next child, and to just stop here?

Then the article came out. Well, gee, that sure helps the picture. Although, I have to say it is nice to hear anything that for once tells the menfolk they too are not untouched by reproductive aging. That it isn't just my biological clock ticking away, it is his, too. I mean to be gloating in a general, I-represent-all-womanhood sort of way, not to imply that I'm thrilled for M to have to think about all of this now. I mean, we're both old - double whammy.

And as a nightcap to all that, A had her first exorcist-level meltdown, which I only navigated with so much grace (heck, yeah, I'm proud) because of how much I've worked on myself, and the fact that a close friend's kid had a similar one a few weeks ago. I could chalk up 25 minutes of screaming, thrashing, running in random-including-the-street directions if I put her down, kicking and wailing to a developmental phase. I was one cool customer, even on the bus part of the program. I was exhausted afterwards (and A is now sleeping it off), and amazed at how randomly it passed. And feeling a profound sadness for lives where that continues to be a daily occurrence even for older children and adults. I could get through it because I knew it would pass (today, and in some months).

For tonight, though, we're going to go see What You Didn't Expect You'd Be Expecting, or something like that. And, hopefully, it will be good for a few laughs.