Sick

       My first year of college, I was not wild in the traditional ways. I did not have one single drink. I stayed up late in the library, doing physics problem sets that would not be graded and went swing dancing on Saturday nights. The first time it really struck me that I was a thousand miles from home was the day of my first college track meet. I didn't make it to the meet. Instead, I spent the day puking into the toilet of my dorm's co-ed bathroom.

         I dragged my garbage can next to my bed and longed desperately for my mom. How could one be sick alone? I wanted mom to rub my back while I vomited, to take away the bile-filled bowl and bring me ginger ale and ice chips and saltines. I wanted her cool hand on my forehead, the comfort of her footsteps in the hall, the reassuring clangs of pots and pans that echoed up through the floorboards of my bedroom from the kitchen below. Not yet nineteen, I was hardly a grown-up, despite my pretensions. (At my liberal arts college, I had quickly learned to say "woman" instead of "girl.") But that day I thought that I understood what being an adult meant. Cleaning up my own vomit, I had never felt so alone, or longed so much for childhood.

        Last week, almost exactly twenty years later, I missed my mom again, with a desperation that made me catch my breath. She and my father were in the middle of a month long vacation in India when my whole family got sick. It began on Thursday morning. Sylvia, who usually wakes long before six, had slept in. When seven o'clock, then eight, came and went, I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe this would be the new norm, I couldn't help but hope. When I finally heard her cry and went to get her, she was standing in a cold orange puddle of puke. Perhaps something she ate had not agreed with her, I thought. She seemed okay. A little subdued perhaps, but then she had just woken up. I rushed her through a bath and loaded her into the car-- we were late for Clayton's school.

      Later that morning she fell asleep on my back in Amazing Savings, but still I didn't clue in that something wasn't right-- she has always loved her morning nap. But by afternoon she was puking again, with a vengeance. She wanted to nurse, but couldn't keep the milk down. Her vomit-soaked clothes and sheets piled up in the laundry faster than I could do the wash. The next morning she woke early as usual. I felt her bed in the dark-- dry! It had been 24 hours; probably the bug had run its course. I brought her to our bed to nurse as usual, and she drank greedily. Afterwards she lay quietly for a moment and then began to writhe and fuss. An instant later, we were both drenched in milk. More laundry-- our sheets and mattress cover-- went into the pile. The washer ran all day.

      By afternoon she seemed better. It was a beautiful, mild day, and we were all a little restless. We headed to the park. Sylvia fell asleep in the car on the way there, and when she woke up, puked all over us both. Driving home, still in my shirt that reeked of her vomit, I heard retching behind me. Again? I thought. I was sure she had fallen asleep. And then I saw Clayton's horror-stricken face in the rear view mirror, the vomit streaming down his chin.

    "Mama!" he wailed. "What happened?" Despite the fact that he had spent the first six months of his life spitting up profusely after every feeding, this was his first conscious experience really being sick. He was terrified, and covered in vomit, but there was nothing I could do. I concentrated on the road, telling him over and over, "We'll be home soon. We'll get you in the bath, clean you up..."

      Finally home, Sylvia was listless. She hadn't eaten for two days, had barely kept down milk. Clayton whined in the bathtub, " I don't want to be sick!" while she cried pitifully, rubbing at her eyes in exhaustion. It was after four, so I called Don at work. Please come home! Clayton's vomit-soaked clothes were still in the garage where I'd stripped him down, his soiled car seat still in the van. After his bath, I foolishly let Clayton watch videos on the laptop with a bucket beside his chair. He puked on the kitchen table instead.

      Don still wasn't home, but things started to look up. Sylvia went to sleep without complaint, and Clayton made it to the toilet for the next round. Dee Dee, bless her, charged happily around the living room, the last one standing. With Clayton resting in bed and Sylvia asleep, I made her scrambled egg and green beans for dinner. She scarfed it down with her usual zeal, and I clung to hope that she might be spared.

      At bedtime, I was reading to Clayton when I heard Dee Dee cough, then Don swear. All her dinner was on the living room floor, the pyjamas Don had wrestled her into moments before now covered with scrambled eggs and beans. In a few minutes Clayton was at it again: more soiled pjs, more dirty sheets. In the morning, the stench in his room was revolting, his comforter reeking of puke.

      Probably I should spare you any more of the gruesome details. Suffice to say that it was a very challenging week. Sylvia vomited sporadically for five days. Both girls had horrendous diarrhea that no diaper could hold, so pair after pair of pants had to be hosed down and added to the laundry. Don and I both succumbed, as well, despite relentless hand washing. (Don, after throwing up on Saturday evening, ran a 10K on Sunday in forty minutes, winning his age group!) Clayton recovered quickly from the stomach bug, but a couple of days later developed a hacking cough and fever. I blamed myself. On Sylvia's fifth day of puking, I had taken her to the doctor's, with Dee Dee and Clayton in tow. Without my mom to call for moral support, I had called the phone nurses at the doctor's office several times, wanting reassurance that five days of vomiting was in the range of normal. "Why don't you bring her in?" they said. Although I wondered if it was necessary-- it was so clearly viral, so what could a doctor do?-- it was a relief to follow orders. After the visit, Sylvia never puked again (supposedly even 12 days can be normal for a toddler) but all three kids quickly developed colds. Why hadn't I trusted my instincts, I wondered, and avoided bringing them to a waiting room surely teeming with sick kids' germs?

      For over a week, the scope of life narrowed. I did load after load of laundry. I changed diaper after diaper after diaper. I washed my hands so many times my already dry skin cracked and peeled. I hosed down carseats, scrubbed vomit-splattered walls, wiped down mattresses, changed sheets. Worried about the girls staying hydrated, I nursed round the clock. I served up Pedialyte popsicles, mixed Culturelle into apple sauce, coaxed down Tylenol mixed with ice-cream. I rocked and stroked and soothed and worried. And through it all, I longed for my mom. Not so she could help me, although if she had been here, she surely would have. I just wanted to talk to her, the sympathy in her voice as comforting as her cool hand on my brow so many years ago. I wanted her moral support, her advice, her concern. Maybe, too, in the midst of taking care of so much and so many, I wanted to talk to someone who would have wanted to take care of me. Thirty-seven years old, with three kids of my own, presumably I really am a grown-up now. But when the going gets tough, I still want my mom!

Mama's Milk

          I began the new year resolved to wean the girls before spring break. I was having fantasies of jetting off by myself somewhere, even if just to West Asheville, spending my first night ever away from my children in the three plus years since Clayton was born. I've been pregnant or nursing so long now that I've almost forgotten what my "normal" body looks like, although I do vaguely remember a time when I could run without doubling up on jog bras. But it wasn't eagerness to reverse my natural boob job that motivated me to wean, although, honestly, I do prefer my non-lactating bust. I just had the sense that it was time. Clayton had stopped nursing cold turkey at eleven months, when three teeth coming in at once made it just too painful to nurse. And although the suddenness of it made for a few painful, engorged days, I was glad in retrospect to have totally avoided the challenges of weaning that so many of the nursing moms I knew experienced. There are enough power struggles with toddlers, I told myself. I didn't want battles over nursing to be one of them.
       The girls, though, seem to have other ideas, their interest in mama's milk showing no signs of slackening. At the playground, the library, the Y, they beg to be picked up, then arch their backs and fling themselves to one side. But while the theatrics of their insistence irks me at times, I never cease to be amazed by the transformation a few minutes nursing can work. Sylvia, who has been loathe to give up her morning nap, by late morning is often near the end of her proverbial rope. She pulls on her hair and rubs her eyes, wailing if I put her down, thrashing even in my arms. I nurse her to buy time while the others go down the slide a few more times, or listen to one more story at the library. She is almost always invigorated afterwards, sliding off my lap to go and play herself, as if my leche were a double latte. Dee Dee, on the other hand, charges through the morning tirelessly, but often wakes from her nap flushed and grumpy. She refuses food and drink, shaking her head wildly and flinging anything I offer to the ground. A few minutes of nursing, though, and she breaks away talking-- "Dad-dee!" she says to anyone these days-- and slips to the floor to march around with her little bow-legged gait and jutted chin. It's as if mama's milk is some kind of magic elixir. It can make a tired baby lively, a grumpy one content. And how easy! I can let Dee squawk and fuss, raising my voice over hers to read Clayton a book, while she grabs at the pages and claws at my legs, or we can all sit quietly reading on the couch, Clayton playing tenderly with her feet while she nurses.
       Nursing feels like the "get out of jail free card" of mothering, a sure-fire way to comfort, soothe, quiet. And despite the elaborate plans I devise in my head for how I'm going to cut back-- three times a day by the end of February, two weeks of twice a day, just once by the end of March-- there's no time of day that I really want to cut out. I love the way nursing eases us into the morning, how, when Sylvia wakes before the alarm goes off at six, I can bring her to bed and cuddle with her quietly in a cocoon of warmth beneath the blankets. Bedtimes, too, I treasure, the way, after nursing, Sylvia collapses willingly into bed, how Dee Dee quiets in my arms, all her boisterous energy of moments before dissolving as we rock.
      So why, I wonder, if nursing is such a boon for me and a comfort to the girls, do I want to-- or, rather, feel like I should-- wean? When the girls practically tackle me in the childcare room at the Y, arching over backwards in my arms, why do I feel like I have to apologize, "I'm trying to cut back!" When the only comments I've heard from strangers have been positive-- "I can't believe you're nursing twins! Way to go!"-- why do I fear the judgement of others? At not even fifteen months, the girls are hardly pushing the envelope when it comes to nursing longevity. And anyway, who, other than myself, is counting? When it comes down to it, isn't it just between us? Maybe I'll tire of it before they do, maybe not. I guess we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it, and hopefully we'll manage to do it with a little bit of grace.

YWCA Yeah!

       Before last week, I could count on one hand, with fingers to spare, the number of times I've worked out in a gym. Once was in college, when, in the few short weeks before I'd quit indoor track, the coach encouraged me to add lifting weights to my training. Working out in the windowless weight room in the basement of the gym, I'd been bored... and indignant. I ran track because I wanted to run-- outside. With a defiance of authority that I would have never dared with my beloved high school coach, I insisted on doing my indoor track workout on the outdoor track, despite the Connecticut winter cold. (Needless to say, I was not long for the team, and I never entered the weight room again.)
        The next time, it was my idea. Or sort of. Over Christmas break, I'd worked out on my father's Boflex with my brother, then a track coach and athletic trainer himself. I've always had a natural tendency to look buff. In high school, the other kids called me "She-rah," not kindly, and I was so embarrassed by my upper arms I refused to wear tank tops and searched high and low for a prom dress that would cover my arms. I got over my embarrassment, but I've always felt a little sheepish that my biceps are so defined through no real effort of my own. So, during that Christmas workout, when my brother idly mentioned the obvious-- that if I actually worked out, I'd soon have results that most people would kill for-- I resolved to join a gym.
       I was living in Oakland at the time, and the gym was across the street from Lake Merritt, whose polluted waters nonetheless sparkled brilliantly in the California sun. A novice with the machines, I felt self-conscious and out-of-place inside, while just beyond the glass doors, the lake-- with its bird sanctuary and running trail-- beckoned irresistibly. That did it-- I just wasn't a gym person, I decided. I was a runner. I literally ran out the door and never went back.
       Many times on my runs, in weather fair and foul, I have run by gyms and pitied the poor people inside. What were they doing trudging along on a treadmill when there were miles and miles to cover outside? I just didn't get it.
      After the girls were born and I'd committed to mothering full time, I was told again and again, "You should join the Y!" A membership included free childcare, and I heard many a mom sing its praises: two hours to work out and shower to oneself-- a lifesaver, really. Worth a try, I thought. But after muscling the girls' carseats into the stroller and ushering a confused and cranky Clayton through the crowded parking lot, I was already exhausted. The frenzy of bodies inside, the stench of chlorine and sweat, the chaos of the childcare room, my total lack of anonymity, with my behemoth stroller and crew of kids, the prospect of trying to squeeze it all in between nursings and naps... I just couldn't do it. I'd get up before six and run outside in the cold winter dark; the gym was just not for me.
      Nearly a year later, I saw a groupon: a two-month family membership at the YWCA. A good friend had recently raved about her dance class there and admired the community programs the organization funds through its gym memberships. Even if I don't use it, I thought, I'll have supported a good cause.
      All through the mild and glorious fall, the groupon went unused. The holidays came and went, its expiration date fast approaching. As the January doldrums set in, I thought, "Why not give it a try?" The mornings were killing me anyway. By seven, Clayton has already dismantled the couch. He and Townes jump on the springs, pretending to be--go figure-- baby zebras in a nest. By seven thirty, they are tired of it and begin to follow me around, fighting over toys and begging for stories. Dee Dee climbs on the kitchen table and tosses the salt and pepper shakers on the floor while Sylvia splashes in the dog water she's emptied onto the kitchen tile. By eight, I'm more than ready to escape the house, but it's too early and cold for the park, and none of the toddler stuff starts for hours yet. Needless to say, the gym was starting to sound pretty good.
       So, one morning after taking Clayton to school, I signed up. The girls still had diarrhea from a lingering stomach bug, and runny noses to boot, so it wasn't until the next week that the third gym experience of my life began. It does not feel like an exaggeration to say that it changed my life.
      What freedom I felt, walking back down the hall from the drop-off childcare room, with no baby on my back, not one child in tow. What luxury to read last month's New Yorker while riding the stationary bike, to fly through my novel on the elliptical. I took my first Pilates class and was amazed to find I have no "core" strength. (It turns out that without someone sitting on my feet like in elementary school, I cannot execute one single sit-up.) One morning, having forgotten my book, I took a "Pump" class for the hell of it. "It wasn't a great workout," I reported to Don that night. "I didn't even sweat." But the next morning my body ached like it hadn't since I bucked hay working at a barn at summer camp.
      I had steeled myself for tears at the drop-off, but only Clayton protested, and halfheartedly.
       On Friday, I dropped Townes and the girls off and took Clayton to check out the pool. It felt like a date, so seldom is it just him and me these days. I felt such a surge of love for him I had to stop in the hallway and give him a hug. "It's just us!" he said and threw his arms around me. After we'd been chased out of the pool (I had read the schedule wrong) we played hide and seek in the locker room. Watching him crawl into a locker-- "Now find me, Momma!"-- I felt so grateful for those few minutes for just the two of us, when I could enjoy his company without admonishing him to be gentle with his sisters or to stop bullying Townes.
       "I'm going to be in the best shape of my life," I joke, although it may well be true. But even better is the fact that we now have a destination in the morning, somewhere fun for all of us. And better yet is having a few moments to myself, to stretch on the mats with my book, to shower without anyone climbing under the shower curtain, to do those pesky abdominal exercises... More than a year after the girls were born, I feel like I'm finally taking care of someone other than my kids. And as cliche as it sounds, I'm a better mother for it.