Weekend Reading

Just a few items this week…

Mama Congo writes about “Shaking the Invisible Air Baby”–how unbelievably hard it is when you have a difficult baby. She says this was her second. I’m kind of glad I got it out of the way with my first and didn’t have a lot of smug words to eat about how easy babies are and what’s your problem? Because if Petra had been numero uno, I would have been completely insufferable on that point.

Elora Nicole on being “A Mom with a Dream.” Favorite paragraph:

I may not know whether or not you should work, but I am sure your child needs their whole mother. All of her. If you are a painter, paint, if you are a writer write, if you are a culinary genius bake it out (and send me a care package, I’ll leave you my address.) Your babies need all of you, even the creative part, especially the creative parts, the parts that make you feel alive and whole and hopeful. Your babies need their momma to be all of those things. They need to see you being your whole entire self. It gives them permission to be their whole-selves too. 

I have been trying to articulate exactly that sentiment. Remind me to tell you some time about all of the people who told me I could pretty much give up on directing/writing/being interesting once I had a baby. Sure, the first year, it’s nearly impossible. Bedtime is boob time. But as they get bigger, I choose art because I want my babies to know that it is important. I want them to see me as a model for a life I would like them to consider possible. I don’t want them to wonder whether they are to blame for my shelving my dreams. I don’t want to demand that they live out the dreams that I had but put aside “for them.” I want them to have space for their own dreams.

Lastly, “Eating Babies,” by Chana Bloch is about the most delicious poem ever, and particularly makes me think of how, every time I post a picture of Petra, someone comments that they just want to nibble her arms.