Every other time I have written an essay about my values with my students, I have started the process by identifying one of my values and then finding an experience to illustrate that value. Last night, I had the experience described below and I knew I had to write about it. I never would have selected “motherhood” or “parenthood” as one of my core values — I think maybe “family” or “love” would be the most likely way I’d phrase it — but after I finished this, I knew that motherhood had indeed become one of my core values. I didn’t think I wanted kids when I was young. So much changes.
Keep Rocking
“Pick out some pjs for bed, Naomi,” I plead with my daughter. She tosses the stuffed fox toy at me, hitting me in the face and giggling. I lean forward in the rocking chair to be face to face with her. “Please find your pjs for bed,” I say again, in the terrifying whisper of motherhood.
“Ok,” she says nonchalantly, stepping around me to her chest of drawers. She’s talking to herself and rattling her stuff around. I don’t even have to turn around to know that she’s throwing clean clothes all over the floor as she looks for exactly what she wants. I’ve cleaned up those piles so many times I could do it in my sleep. In fact, I probably have done it in my sleep at this point.
Then I hear a gasp. That wasn’t a normal Naomi playing sound. I jump up and see her holding her finger in her hand. Her eyes are wide and watery. Her lips are trembling.
“Did you put your finger in the doorjamb?” I ask. She refuses to answer, still cradling her finger with the opposite hand. “Can I see it?” I ask. She shakes her head. Her face is pale. She doesn’t have on a shirt; just her pj bottoms.
I have told both kids not to put their fingers in doorjambs so many times it’s become like a nursery rhyme engrained on my children’s gray matter. “Never put your finger in the doorjamb. Never put your finger in the doorjamb.” We chanted that together in this very room so many times. Sam had his tambourine and he shook it in time to our chant. We laughed and I reminded them why doorjambs are dangerous. It turns out all that chanting was wasted energy because she did it anyway. Despite my vigilance, disaster struck anyway.
I fight the urge to say, “I told you so,” and instead scoop her up in my arms. “You want me to hold you, don’t you sweetie?” She nods, and we settle down into the rocking chair. I start rocking. She cuddles into me like a baby. Her skin is damp. Is she still hot from playing catch, or is the hurt finger so bad it’s made her sweat? I brush an errant hair from her cheek, and she closes her eyes, and slowly drifts away as I continue to rock.
I’m still rocking when I hear her breathing slow. She snores the tiny, gentle snore that only a child can produce: not grating, but deeply poignant, little more than an exhale. I look at her dark red lips and her bright pink cheeks, her dark hair. Tiny beads of sweat form on the dip above her lip, the little Cupid’s-Bow that is so kissable. When I try to get a look at her pinched finger, she grips it tighter, despite the depth of her sleep. I examine her bare stomach, soft as polished stone, but also spongy and balloon-like. I watch her so carefully I can see the pulse of her heartbeat near her temple. Her legs dangle off the side of the rocker, knocking against my shins as she continues to stretch up and up and up and up, growing so fast that I can almost see her growing before my very eyes. As so often happens, I’m once again struck that I made this child.
I remember another night, sitting in this chair, rocking back and forth. I was nine months pregnant and had come into Sam and Naomi’s room to practice self-hypnosis for birth while Chris and Sam played out in the living room. The kids’ room was not so different than it is today: there was a crib in the corner instead of the toddler’s bed; there were fewer books and more cloth diapers, stacked neatly in a pile awaiting Naomi’s arrival. I rocked, practicing the release of Hypnoanesthesia that I hoped would carry me through labor. But I kept losing concentration, thinking about future days in this room with my daughter and son and how, with her coming, I would have everything I ever wanted. Naomi twitched, and I patted what I imagined was her bottom at the top of my belly. As I rocked, I felt the cramping pain of the first wave of labor. She was coming.
Tonight, she twitches again, and I feel the aching pain of love, the tightness in my throat, the inevitable slipping of time, and I continue to rock with the steady beating of our hearts.
Taking My Own Freshman Composition Class 