My son was born in December 2019 in the middle of a snowstorm. The many hours leading up to his arrival were honestly mostly quiet and really beautiful.
Until I felt about 25 percent of one real labor pain. Then I was a big baby, he was perfect, and in such a long but short time all was well.
The storm kept extended family away for a full two days afterward. This both bothered and delighted me. I wanted to hold him up in front of people like Simba in The Lion King, but my wife and I wanted him all to ourselves, too. In reality, the first 48 hours were just the three of us and, as it turns out, this aspect of his birth was perhaps a bit of foreshadowing.
My son is now nearly 10 months old and the world is grappling with a pandemic. My country, the United States, is now the epicenter, by far outpacing every other country in terms of infections and deaths. The sheer rage this makes me feel — for many, many reasons — is immense. But one of the biggest reasons is that I do not want my son’s first year of life and a pandemic to have any relationship to each other. I don’t even like seeing the words together in the sentence I just typed.
And yet here we are.
I knew when I was pregnant that I wanted to write about my experience of motherhood. I also knew, once this pandemic became real in my part of the world, that I wanted to try to share something in the midst of the chaos. Something comforting, sometimes serious, sometimes entertaining, always hopeful. Just something that could help people in some small way. For months now I’ve been frozen between these two things, thinking they couldn’t go together. Or that I didn’t know how to put them together. Or perhaps most accurately, that I just refused to put them together.
But again, here we are.
One thing life is teaching me right now (not for the first time) is that there’s so very little we have control over in this world. And fighting against that is both fruitless and an excellent way to spin into exhaustion.
So. My son’s first year of life coincides with a pandemic. I’m going to write about it. And my experience of motherhood. And many, many other things about me being me and him being him. For starters —
Him: Hilarious, smart, curious, absurdly (unfairly-to-all-other-babies) adorable. Extremely interested in adventure, all manner of tags, single strands of human hair yanked fresh from the head, and danger. Lover of cats. Liker of dogs and their lolling tongues. Proud owner of a sometimes charming, sometimes alarming, flair for the dramatic.
Me: Brand new mama, hilarious (to myself), absurdly awkward in my own mind and occasionally in reality. Lover of all the wild things, wife of a wife, recovering people pleaser and conflict avoider. MF-in’ Biden/Harris voter. And proud owner of a sometimes charming, sometimes alarming, apparently genetic, flair for the dramatic.
Welcome!
This will not be perfect. It will undoubtedly be messy. And so what? Please join me if it’s helpful, fun, entertaining, comforting or makes you feel in any way like you are a little less alone in the world. That’s my hope for you and for myself.
Mama 1
The More You Mom 