birthdays

Three years ago, I gave birth to a live kicking baby. I was in awe, mesmerized at his mere survival in my womb of death. My sister and I always joke that as a baby, Thor looked like a snake that swallowed a baby pig with his gigantic newborn belly and goodnaturedness. (Are snakes goodnatured?) Still, a baby Buddha. All smiles and farts. Big belly and huge smile, arms stretched far overhead. His long limbs hang over me now,  more than half of my length, the impending man in him stretching his little bits farther than his age. He will be tall and broad and handsome like his Papi. I can see the man in him, and I want to bundle him up and eat his tummy because I can and this time is so fleeting, I feel it gone already.

It hardly seems possible that three years ago happened. I was filled with anxiety and anger and grief and rebellion and Thor. There seems none of that anymore. I'm still learning to live without a baby in my belly, or a child at my tit. And that my body is something is my own.

Thor is so funny. So animated. So emotive. So sweet, and demanding in a way only a three year old can be demanding. How can someone so annoying be so cute? He asks me now after every statement and request and instruction, "Why, Mama? Why?" And I want to bundle that curiosity into bouquets I can give to my most seasoned friends.

Remember when you wanted to know why?

Whenever we leave to head out to the Indian restaurant for dinner, which we do most Wednesdays, Beezus says to Thomas, "Aren't you excited? We are going to see your friends!" And he nods vigorously. The night before he was born, we went for Indian food at our favorite restaurant. I told them I would have the baby the next day, and they cheered and gave me a mango lassi. Now, when we walk in, the men all scream, "THOMAS!" And he runs in their arms. My introverted little baby, the one that will not speak aloud in crowds, runs out from behind my legs, and into the arms of these Indian waiters. By all rights, these men should be strangers, mustachioed strangers in particular seem to instill some sort of inherent fear in little ones, but not Thor. They hold him and rustle his hair and pretend to take his cars, and he laughs. He loves them, and them he, as though in some past life, they walked arm in arm down the street of Jaipur as equals. When he runs to them, I always think of that night before his birth when they held my husband and I in some ancient ritual. They fed us rich foods with cashew, coconut, curry, spicing it up to move things forward. They celebrated without knowledge of Lucia's death or my fear, just because pregnant mamas should be celebrated and babies welcomed. It is then they forever held my Thor in their food, a basket of naan with navartan korma, and watched him become three. During my labor dinner, I let go of the fear and anxiety. I had done all I could do--now I had to birth him. There is a joy in the birthing that I had forgotten in my pregnancy with Thor. Ruled as I was by the fear of stillbirth. The Indian food, the Indian men with crosses tattooed on their hands and red vests, brought in the joy.

Thomas' favorite color is truck, his favorite animal is a truck and he wants to be a truck when he grows up. He only wanted a baby truck for his birthday, and a truck cake, yes, Mama. I wrap him up and kiss each eyelid. He squirms out of my embrace.

"Too many kisses, Mama."
"There's never too many kisses," and I laugh. He screams.
"NOT FUNNY!" He stomps and juts out his bottom lip, crosses his arms. Growls at me. He is Sam's familiar, and I nurture that connection, because it seems ancient and soulful. I buzz around him, and try too hard for kisses. I can see that teenager, not wanting to acknowledge his little brown mama, and me waving like a fool at the curb of the movie theater. "BYE HONEY! I LOVE YOU!"

I have this sense of generations, watching my children, imagining myself as their children's grandmother, already that feeling of what will come simultaneously living full in the here and now. I suppose children do that to you, remind you of your mortality force you to be present. That existential pull and pondering, my death and my parenting and my grandparenting, stood on my chest as I baked the truck cake. Will I do this for his son one day? And if I am here, I will, and if not, then I will be the breath that helps him blow out the three candles on his cake.

My littles are born within a week of each other. My little Thor turned three on the first. Beezus turned six on the sixth. My neighbor says this is Bea's magic year--six on the sixth. Six seems magical to me. I remember reading that six is the age where one's true nature emerges. When I first read about mizuko jizo, there is this idea that being is poured into the body like water, slowly through years. Mizuko, meaning water, represents the idea that the child is all water, and no being yet. The Japanese idea is that this process continues until the child is six. Six is the year you become who you are meant to be.

Six, from my thirty-nine year old point of view, is this place of wonder and curiosity and kindness and generosity. I am in awe of this girl. She weaves flowers into her hair, and tells me stories of fairies and miracles and tries to convince me that she moved something with her mind.

Six. Three. These ages that seem distant and yet feel piled on top of one another, because all of it happened so fast. Beezus, then Lucy, then Thor in three years. Three babies, and a mess of a mother trying to figure out how to do all this parenting and grieving and arting and becoming who I am. When they speak, and think, and make art, and sit silently to clear their little minds, and tell me about the world, I cannot believe how creative, interesting, amazing they are. As I write this, my daughter writes in her dream journal and draws the dream she had last night. She wears fairy wings, and flowers in her hair. Thomas is pretending it is raining, and he is jumping in puddles behind me. My kids. My children. And of course, there is the ache between them that I have somehow made peace with. This acceptance feels natural now, when three years ago, I was absolutely certain I wasn't ever going to feel acceptance, hell I wasn't even aiming for acceptance, or peace, and most definitely not healing. That was not my goal, and yet here it is. Lucy died, and she is still part of our life. I could never imagine how to integrate her into our lives. It seemed so forced to have a dead child and make her live in our family, and yet she does. When I try to explain it to others, it sounds strange and morbid. I think others who have lost children know this life our babies have after they die. She changed each one of us, and I think we are better for her life, wiser for her death. It is the way it is, and we cannot change that. But we have accepted that the past is not open to change, but her life, how we perceive her place in our family, is.

On the night before Beezus' birthday, I told her that if she woke early, she should come into my room and wake me up. I didn't care what time it was. And at 5:50 am, she poked me under the covers. "It's my birthday and I'm awake," she whispered.

I kissed her and wished her birthday happiness, and I saw it was still dark. "So, my love, should we..." And she nodded, "Mama, can we watch the sunrise outside?" And we ran downstairs, she grabbed her juice, and I grabbed coffee, and we took blankets and curled up on the big wicker chairs on the deck, and watched the sunrise. We giggled and listened to the birds and talked about her birthday party. We meditated and I did reiki on her, then we made a garden tea party with paper flowers and butterflies and pinkplosion, and cupcakes in tea cups, and a parade with handmade crowns while the girls held sunflowers and instruments and marched around declaring it BEEZUS' BIRTHDAY!

I ache for things between us to remain trusting and open. When I play guitar, she sings with me. Joni Mitchell and the Beatles and the Stones and when I hear her voice, I want to cry for its beauty. When we lay in the moss, and let it tickle our cheeks and stare into each other's eyes, I always say, "Thank you for letting me be your mother." And she says, "You're welcome." And I remember the year after Lucy's death, when I just stared at her in wonder at her mere survival--breathing in and breathing out. And we talked constantly, and read folktales constantly, and painted constantly, and were just together constantly. It is so different now, but when see that time in each other. This is the seed we plant for all our life--unconditional love and open ears and perfect compassion for one another. It is my wish when I blow my mama candle out this year.

shy

He hides himself in the folds of my yoga pants and whimpers.

There are people, Mama. People. 

He doesn't say it, but I know what he is thinking. He is afraid of humans, my little Thor. I give him a hammer and a lightning bolt, but he still cowers. At the playground, he holds my hand and watches, and I push him gently toward a manageable slide. "Go play, my angel. Go play." And he shakes his head and reaches up.

No, Mama. No. No.

I take him in my arms, and stand on the sidelines watching the other children play. Watching Beezus slide down the fireman's pole, and talk to other children, and try the monkey bars. He still struggles with the talk. I hear him try sentences on for size, rolling around in his mouth. Aspirating after each word. I want to encourage him, but I don't understand what he is saying. He repeats the phrase again. Then out of the blue, he will perfectly pronounce 'garbage truck.' Most often, he won't speak at all. People ask him, "What's your name?" Or "Why aren't you talking?" Or "Don't tell me you're shy."

I smile and answer for him. I tell people that he is in speech therapy, so they know we are working on this, and I spell the word S-H-Y. They seem to want answers for the reason that he is the size of a four year old, but doesn't speak yet. They look at Beezus and say that his sister is probably speaking for him, and I nod and laugh, and all the while, I think that Thor knows exactly what we are saying and is living his fate.

The speech therapist wonders if he is lacking confidence, since he seems to whisper the right answer and then not repeat it aloud. She mentions selective mutism. She says he is probably the brightest child she works with. He follows complicated, even unexpected directions. He's smart and patient and lovely, she says. Almost much too patient and smart for a child his age. He's like the opposite of hyperactive.

Hypoactive? I think.

I wonder if shy is a bad trait or a good one. I felt emboldened recently at the spate of articles and books talking about shyness being a good trait. We are a family of shy. And shy is something everyone thinks you need to get over to be successful. It seems good to me to talk when you feel moved to talk, instead of filling empty space with noise. Thor sits in meditation. He giggles incessantly, and plays with his sister like he is four. Later, I look up selective mutism. Social Anxiety Disorder pops up. Shyness. Psychiatrist. Special classes. Therapy.

The nights have grown more pleasant. Almost cool, and I open the door to my studio. The wind chimes ring. The mosquitoes smell the warmth and buzz around me as I read about all the things I should be doing with Thor. He is two and I am reading about SSRIs. It feels so wrong. I caused this with my anxiety during his pregnancy, the thought immediately pops into my head. I've been waiting to find out how I messed up Thor, and here it is. I am convinced of it. It covers me like a wet, scratchy blanket. I can't escape it. It is heavy and uncomfortable and larger than our house. I will never escape accusation and blame. I am the causer of psychiatric disorders! He is too attached! BAD MOTHER! BAD! And as I start that line of thinking, I stop. I take in a long, cleansing breath, and let that abuse float out my studio door with the mosquitoes. It doesn't help me parent him better to believe it is my fault.

My baby Thor is sweet and lovely. He needs to sleep with his feet over someone, like he is the King of Siam. He wants to be fanned and fed grapes and he likes to dance to music about the moon and goddesses. He likes to grab my face in both his hands, and stare into my eyes and then kiss me on the mouth. He is quiet and shy and afraid sometimes and I realize I have been approaching him all wrong. There is nothing wrong with him. Instead of losing patience, I need to reassure him that shyness can be a successful way of being. I need to stop making excuses or explaining all this. I want him comfortable so others can see the loving, confident, creative, amazing child I am privileged to mother everyday. What I created is a child who trusts me, who practices discernment in social situations, and fears strangers asking what is wrong with him. I understand where he is coming from.

Let people wonder, ask, gawk. Let them call me controlling, or too attached. Let them think I am a bad mother. I can handle that. What Thor needs is to know nothing is expected of him but his security. All he needs to do is feel safe, and then nature will do the rest. So my job now is not to get him to talk, but to get him to relax.

Find it in my skirts, my son. Find it on my lap. Then grow strong. Grab your hammer. Change the world.

amazing grace

Having a two year old is exhausting and wonderful. It is sad to admit that I have almost no recollection of Beatrice's two. I was four months into grief when we celebrated two with sushi and pizzi. I remember delighting in her, asking her how she lived so easily. I remember cuddling with her for hours, watching movies. I remember painting with her. I remember having long conversations with her, and reading her long, intricate folktales of Inuit peoples and Mexican Indians.

I have no recollection if she was interested in using the potty. I don't remember how many words she had, or if her molars came in (they must have, they are here.) I don't know when she said "I love you" for the first time, or if she sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star as much as Thor does. I missed Lucia and appreciated Beezus with every ounce of me, but I couldn't commit either of them to memory. They were like sand. Every moment gone before it came.

Thor is severely speech delayed. I had no idea he was delayed, because I had no idea what to expect. I don't remember how many words Beezus had. I only realized because when I hung out with other two year olds, he didn't speak and they did.

He is slowly learning words, and talking. The speech therapist tells me that he is incredibly smart, above or at all his milestones, perhaps just a little lazy with his mouth movements. He'd rather say every word with a D. It is a very common speech delay for little bros. He gets so excited when his teacher is coming over, and he sits in front of her playing games with her. I hear him say Chicken perfectly. Pig. Cow. Boy. He raises his hand like he is in school, even though she is always calling on him and he is the only one answering. I like his teacher, she is kind and smiles at his little flirts and idiosyncrasies.

I feel like we are just starting summer. Guests and trips, then appointments and dentists and biopsies and food shopping and maybe we will never sit still again, wondering what to do. I think about making a schedule for us, but with what time? Every day is another appointment. Beezus keeps asking me, "Do you have my schedule yet?" She is a child run by routine. I am a mother run by routine, but I still can't construct anything schedule-y.

The yard is dry and our tomatoes seem to have some strange scorched disease. This summer has been brutal, and we spend more time inside than out right now. I hung my spider plant on the deck with my wind chimes that play the first notes of Amazing Grace. When the wind blows, it sometimes sounds like a song I once heard, and other times, divinely, I hear the beginning of Amazing Grace. Just a few notes, but like a prayer I whisper the words.

Amazing Grace. 
How sweet the sound,
 that saved a wretch like me. 
I once was lost, but now, I'm found.

I still feel lost some days. The psychic told me that someone cursed me, and I feel like that was the curse. Wandering the halls of my brain, slamming doors and blowing out candles, haunting myself, pushing my own hand up to drop the groceries I just bought. Someone tells me to lay my necklaces and crystals outside to soak up the sun and the moon energy, and they will shine brighter. Protect me more. I keep buying protection jewelry. Big golden shields to wear over my heart. Angel wings with turquoise. Black tourmaline and labradorite and clear crystals. I feel exposed and vulnerable. Drained by something.  I washed my home with protection oils while wearing all white. I walked around chanting with sage and cedar and incense and I don't feel the least bit self-conscious telling you that I am buying stones to grid my home. 


I don't even know what I believe anymore. All of those things seem ridiculous to some part of me. I have these dreams that I am battling against horned men. Their horns curl around their ears and my only defense is sending someone else in there against them. I don't even believe in the devil, and yet he appears to me. And I always win, but I don't know what the metaphor is anymore. I sit with it and seek answers from oracles and psychics and astrologers and they always tell me that my heart knows what the answer is. 


I have everything I ever dreamed. My daughter died, and I still say that. I appreciate that she was here at all, teaching me about the depths of my darkness and grief. I was a broken person, but I was not smashed. I was able to be found. I am back together. I easily remember all those days


I meditate on the blessings of these days--two year old Thor, five year old Beezus. They play together, and cling to each other, and tell me stories and bark like puppies and ask me questions about the moons and spells and sisters dying and butterflies. I love watching them draw people, and stories. I love learning about which books are their favorite, and not one moment in the day that I don't find something absolutely charming about them. I remember this time, like Beezus will too. That is the grace I walk into every morning. It is easy to imagine I am in control of something like curses and removals and my fate, but I control nothing. I never did. Clinging to that illusion is what is the curse, I think. My heart is telling me that. I must walk through each bloody hot wretched day and grid myself with their love. I am these people's mother. My job is to teach them what it is to be human. That is the sacred place of definitely-not-cursed. 

two

His name isn't Thor, but when I write about him, Thomas Harry just doesn't quite fit. It is too adult, too grounded. And yet in life, as he runs around the house, I can't quite call him Thor.

Thor means something in this space. Thor is my hope. Thor is the baby I imagined alive. Thor is my dream of a preternaturally strong and otherworldly son, one who can bear grief out of the womb. Thor wriggled in me while I read Madeline, and tickled in me when I drank orange juice. A totally sentient being in utero. Thor held a lightness that was the exact opposite of what I felt. If he were named how I truly felt when I was pregnant, he would have been named some old dead name with too many consonants, a name used only in manuscripts of historical accuracy that is so serious and uncomfortable that no one pronounces it. They just point to the paper. But Thor, Thor made me smile in spite of myself.

Thor grabs my face, hands cupping each cheek, kisses me square in the mouth. Then licks my cheek, giggles. He scrunches up his nose and shakes his head and laughs, like he is a big person, but he is just my big little Thor. My baby.

He is still Thor here.

I remind myself that if he doesn't die, he will be a man someday. A big man, like his father, but with olive skin and dark hair and deep greenish brown eyes, and wide shoulders and strong tree trunk legs that ground him. A man quick to laugh and blush. People will know women surrounded him and taught him something of nurturing and kindness. Perhaps someone will look at him, like I looked at Sam, and think with that back and that very good posture, he would be a wonderful man with which to dance to some old standard, like Cheek to Cheek. And I will embrace her, and whisper in her ear, "Love him to the moon and back. Just like I love him."

His feet give him away. They are still little baby brick feet, strong and thick, same width and length. He runs now, hard and fast. Sometimes he jumps every other step in a mock skip. He tries to keep up with Beezus. He tries to catch her, but her long legs carry her farther faster. He never surrenders. But she slows, eventually, lets him catch her. Chase. Tackle. Tickle. Bite. Kiss. Pinch. Smile.

I call her Little Mama, because she nurtures the boy. She picks him up, wipes off the grass on his knees, kisses his boo-boos, says, "It's okay, honey. Bibi is here."

The women at school smile at him, and he flirts. Subtly. They tell me he will be trouble with the girls. And they tell me about their middle school sons and the girls calling, riding by the house, sending home notes. So handsome, they say. So cute, they pinch his cheek. He gives me lots of hugs, and hides behinds my legs when there are people around. My children are shy. Did you know that about my children? They clam up, hide themselves behind me, kiss my neck and whisper about going home. Both of them still are shy, and use sign language so they don't have to speak in front of strangers.

Two is something.

Two is an Associate's degree. Two is half of high school. Two is a substantial entry on your resume. Two crammed in a lot of evolution--head lifting to rolling over to wiggling across the floor to sitting up to scooting across the floor to crawling to standing to cruising to walking to running to skipping.  Two is talking and eating with your mouth closed and carrying your dish to the sink. Two is stomping and knowing exactly what you want to wear. Two is liking broccoli but not potatoes. Two is sentences and thoughts and philosophies about what Santa is and where monsters live.

I have a degree in my boy now. I have studied his feet, in case...just in case. You know. I don't have to tell you why I study his feet. I inspect his little hands, which still have dimples for knuckles, and I kiss each fingertip, which have a mixture of marker and dirt and car goo under the nails. I analyze his two little boobies which I would draw with the smallest nib of a pen. Two wee little dots atop a Buddha belly. His back is muscled and strong, like his arms. People see him naked and screech, "He's cut." He is. He is strong.  He has a mass of thick dark hair that grows like a weed. I call him Shaggy and he smiles. "Should we cut your hair, Shaggy?"

"Nooooooooo," he howls, clutching onto his hair like a mini-Samson. But then we cut his hair tonight and it didn't hurt. Not one bit, and he noticed right away and stopped crying and said, "HEY!"

When he was born, someone sent him the book Oh the Places You'll Go! He pulled it off the shelf last night and asked me to read it for bedtime. I keep kicking it around in my head.  I just want to infuse him with the truths in that book, but I can only keep reading it and hope he gets that you just have to keep walking, trusting, suffering, learning, and knowing you are who you are with the kind of courageous honesty that isn't popular among high school boys.

Two years ago, I gave birth to a boy who I never quite believed would live. He came in spite of my doubts and fears. He lived though my brain believed him dead already. I hold him in the night now, his legs kicking off the covers as he radiates a kind of warmth that seems divinely given. My little polar bear. My little thunderbolt bearer. My little hammer-wielding pumpkin. For two years, I have watched him outside of me, amazed that he is here and happy, still not quite believing I have a son. I lie on my left side, like I did two years ago, waiting for him to kick, his reactions immediate and comforting. I still rest my hand on his chest in the middle of the night, make sure his chest is still rising and falling. It is a habit I cannot break.

I remember him in me.

I tried not to get too attached back then, and the disconnect with the attachment already there and the fear severed something important in me. I couldn't tell anyone what that was like, so I lost most of my friends during his pregnancy. It's not their fault. It's no one's fault. I am just wired for self-destruct when I am vulnerable. Most everyone who has gone through this knows what I mean. It feels like you are damaged, never going to recover from that space between believing there will be a death and hoping there won't be. Sometimes, in spite of myself, in the last few months of pregnancy, I would whisper to him "I love you, baby Thor. Don't die."

I love you, big boy Thor. Don't die.

happy buddha

He stretches like the Happy Buddha. All belly and smiles. Arms over his head. Hands turned in. God, I love him. I felt so lost when he was in my belly. I had no context. No clarity. No grounding.  I feared. I held fear in my womb. In my heart. In my smile. I lashed out. I turned in.

He might die. I would think. No, he will die. What if I love him too much? What if I love my children to death?

We all die.

But this death I had in for him contained suffering and knowledge and certain insanity for the rest of us. I would know he was dying, and not be able to stop him. He would know he was dying and ask me for a help I could not give. Replaying Lucy's death in my head was like watching a child fall off swing in slow motion. Every time I ran in vain, unable to reach her in time. And then I would think if he doesn't die, I am breaking him with my anxiety and worry and absolute unwavering fear. He will be broken.

He has a long stretchy life ahead of him. He runs and hugs and stretches like the Happy Buddha. I mention it again, because Buddha is his doppleganger. He nuzzles into my neck, and smooches me in a long dramatic MWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAmen. Kisses and nose rubs and arms twisted.

I am in love with you, Handsome.

He squeezes my face, and plants on solidly on my lips. I could get used to this. The girl climbs me too.

"She's my Mommy too, Thomas!"

He screams and nudges his sister. Points at her face. "SHE is driving me crazy!" He seems to articulate in one long whine. I took videos of them yesterday. One of them was him just bugging the shit out of his sister. This is what having a little brother is like. I want to show them when they are in college, when they have children. I should have intervened, but I was entranced. They are so lovely, even when they are annoying each other.

Later, when we are alone, I lift him on the table, and he kicks his legs out. I tell him that he was once in my belly. And he shakes his head.

Doooooh.

Yes, Little baby. My big boy. You were right here. (I point to my belly.) We always talked when you were in Mama's belly. You are made out of sparkling water and frozen berries, and every time I drank Orange Juice you moved for me. I called you Thor.

TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRR!

Yes, Tor. I called you Tor. Everyone called you Tor. Some still do. I wanted you so much. And when you came out, you were so happy. You fit perfectly into our family. I asked the doctor if you were okay because you didn't cry. And then the doctor flicked your heel, just like this, and you cried and cried. And the doctor said, "Yes, he is okay. He is just happy."

engorgement

I have finally reached the point where I had to wean Thor. He would not stop nursing on his own and he only liked to nurse in the middle of the night. I was the human binky, sticky and abused. I curl around his body, breast exposed to the night creatures. He paws and grabs and bites and sometimes screams at me for not being right where he wants me just when he wants me to be. In daylight hours, he looks so small to me, so very little. Something to protect. At night, when he stumbles into our room, the digits on the clock all vertical, 1:11, he imposes on our bed, stretches across the vast ocean of mattress that separates the continents of Sam and Angie. He is the ruler. Where his legs want to be, no one will lie in his way. King Thor, Tyrant of the Ta-Tas.

I haven't slept in five years.

It's not an excuse. I have had a random night here or there, but mostly I just haven't slept. Pregnancy. Grief. Writing. Art. Death. Insomnia. Nursing on-demand. I cobble seven hours together some nights, maybe in three hour increments, but mostly, I am just so tired. So last week, I just said, "No mas, mijo. Basta ya." I am ready to come into my body again. I am ready for my body back.

I am a woman who once had a form besides boob holder. I had cleavage without snaps, and shirts without inside secret holes. I wore dresses and heels and long yellow earrings made of gold. I had a stud through that nipple, and one through my tongue. And another that sat in the cleft on my nose. Last night, I fell into a half-sleep and dreamed that all the places of me that once touched jewelry puffed into a purple, angry welts. Soothing them with aloe, I looked like a shiny grotesque caricature of me. The beauty is wrong here, it screamed. I am built wrong. I reject the beauty.

There is the muscle memory of grief in me. It resides in my breast. Just one. I could only ever feed from one side, and she weeps. Last night, in the shower, the other breast wept too. The sympathetic boob. The week after Lucia died, the sheer pain and ache in my breasts would make me want to crawl out of my body, unzip my skin, walk out. My inner core is flat-chested and asexual. It wears no adornment. I would stare at the skin of me, lumped on the floor, breasts hard and stiff against the rug. I am not the shell of me, and neither is she.

I swirl in a kind of grief, hormone panic. She is dead. He is alive. He is growing. She is not. That is why my breasts weep. That is why I am not feeding, because he is 20 months now and he eats two sausages for dinner. I want my body back. I have to remind myself that I chose this path, because everything is exactly as it should be. But all this engorgement reminds me that there was once a baby who did not feed.

I cut a cabbage in half, place it in the freezer. I brew sage tea. These are the ritual of early grief for me. And yet it is almost three years later, she didn't just die, but the ache reminds me of her death, like a thousand things throughout my day. I try to unzip myself from my body and lounge in front of the fire, soothe the welts of beauty, drain the breast. But this body made those babies, it is inextricably part of the core, even if it is the shell of me.

sunday haircuts

"Are you ready for your haircut, baby?"

He tugs on his hair. His long nods move his entire body. He teeters into the bathroom.

We debate whether or not to undress him. We debate if I should hold him, or let him be. Meanwhile, he sits on the stepstool, waiting. This whole ordeal has something to do with his hair, he has figured that out. He bends his head down so I can see his mop of a hair. I kiss him, and muss it all up. I love when he gets his hair cut. It makes him look like a big boy. I ask Sam to keep the top a little long.

"The Ivy Leaguer, please." No one laughs.

Thomas sits for a moment before he realizes Sam is pulling out the clippers. And then he remembers that they are loud. He cries, exaggerates tears. He covers his face in his hands and buries them in Sam's leg. Sam is always so skilled at these things. He just starts, through the tears and stomps. He knows how to hold more reassuringly than me, more adeptly maneuvering the children into place to cut, tweeze, pull, brush, dress, or wrap. It is the nurse in him. Something he must have learned in a classroom, I think. Or perhaps it is just the confidence that he possesses. He exudes trust and ability. I used to watch him dress Beezus in the first days of her life, head tilted like the Victor dog trying to memorize each gesture. I'd try to imitate his movements the next day, but would inevitably, somehow, make the baby cry. It took me six months to figure out how to get a shirt on and off effectively. I would end up just pulling hard, upwards. It is the way of my people. If you pull hard enough towards the hole, it will come off.

I sit in front of Thomas, cross-legged. Trying to comfort him, my hand brushing his leg. "It is okay, mijo. It is going to be okay. It won't be long." I am making it worse, I think. So I grab the phone, set up the camera. It is an elegant dance between father and son. Sam adjusts to the boy, moves with him. He manages to cut his hair in the back and sides without holding him down. It isn't until the last clean up, that he gently holds his jaw in his big Daddy hands, steadying his head for the last details.

Beezus always collects the hair in a little bag. She saw me do this when I first cut his hair. A lock of hair for his box. Now it is all of it. She keeps it in some magical treasure chest. I still haven't found where, but I suspect it will be a creepy, horrifying affair when I do.

"Mama, do we want the birds to make a nest of our hair or not?"
"Not."
"Oh, okay. I'll keep it safe for Thomas."

The baby hears his name and screams louder. He is eighteen months now. There are words. There is running. There is rule and instruction following. There is a little ego in there, trying to scream its existence. There are complicated strategies involving the stealing of dolls and opening food bits just to get Beezus mad. She laughs at it, but he still tries.

It is all so tragic--this haircutting business. It is all so horrible. He is trying to tell us. He is angry and scared. And yet, I can't help but want to bottle this moment. I take more photos.

He cries, yes. It is painless. Hair cutting is just sitting still and getting gently tickled. We know this, us seasoned adults. But something changes in them from baby to toddler to kid. And suddenly, they stop crying when their hair is cut, their teeth are being brushed. It is only a short time until they understand that this scalping thing ends. Then we will all gawk and oooo and aaaah, and say "How handsome." And they stop crying. But at eighteen months, it is all so immediate. I just want to capture those times of his still being a baby. The moments I will forget. The moments of tears and clippers.

Sunday haircuts.

There is nothing special, or unusual about the event. No feasts to be cooked. No baseboards to be dusted. No special serving dishes to be washed. No gifts to be made or bought. But it is a holiday nonetheless.