Quiet

Finding myself I breathe again, I think again, the baby has stopped crying. This feeling of being consumed, like half of me is always waiting, breathlessly, for what is needed. Socializing, others offer, ask, to hold him and I happily hand him over, but I listen, always, for those little cues that I am needed again, even while trying to engage in small talk, which has never come easily. I hide behind him, and know that once I can leave him comfortably for a few hours I will have to force myself to practice the social thing again. I’ve been dipping in and out of this stage in my life for nearly eight years now. Of the last nine I have spent three pregnant and four breastfeeding, and everything gets so altered, from the texture of my hair to my...

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Posted by Mara Collins on Sep 18, 2004 | 0 comments

Post script to A(nother) Boy

Something cute Aod‡n said… I was walking with Aod‡n listening to him wish for a “rocket jet pack that kids could wear” and I told him that probably if they invented one they’d want adults to try it out first and he told me it would have to be an adult who enjoyed taking risks, unlike me. I protested and told him I took plenty of risks, saying “I had four sons, didn’t I?” And the darling child answered “Mom, that’s not a risk, that’s a privilege!”

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Posted by Mara Collins on Sep 15, 2004 | 0 comments

Parents and Friends

Maybe it’s not as clear a distinction as I thought. I finished writing about making peace with not having a daughter with the conclusion that my job is to parent these boys and not to be their friend. Or, more to the point, expect them to be my friend. Brush my hands together, matter closed. And then this month’s Brain, Child arrived. A quick digression: I love this magazine. It’s a parenting magazine, but, well, different. Within six months of looking at regular parenting magazines, maybe more if you’re a bit sleep-deprived and hormonally imbalanced, a bit less if you’ve previously overdosed on regular slick women’s or teen’s magazines, you figure out there’s a formula: a sleep or eating issue because...

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Posted by Mara Collins on Sep 15, 2004 | 0 comments

It’s a(nother) boy!

How I learned to stop worrying and love being the mother of four sons. I don’t know why, but being pregnant and out with three sons seemed to invite more people to make silly comments “Going for the girl?” or to relate “Oh my best friend had three boys and then a girl.” and even though we had intentionally steered clear of finding out the gender of our unborn child, I got a secret thrill out of every stranger’s pronouncing on the shape of my belly “Definitely a girl.” There were, it seems, countless signs promising Rainer would be girl, and I did everything in my power to shut them out, to avoid expectation, to avoid the possibility of disappointment. And I was so happy to have him in my arms when he was born,...

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Posted by Mara Collins on Sep 10, 2004 | 0 comments

My Favorite Son

You can keep score or you can have fun playing. We were rushing through the grocery store trying to get what we needed for dinner bought before it was time to go pick up Aod‡n and Xander, so I had a grumpy S¿ren with me, and Rainer peaking out of the sling. The cashier was trying to make S¿ren smile, and that just wasn’t happening, as three other strangers we’d encountered on various other errands today had also failed. So this woman asks my 22 month old son, “Did your baby brother replace you?” I am hoping that was over his head, though I am often startled by what he does understand. This woman then proceeds to tell me about her granddaughter who hits the baby because she is jealous and my tongue was swollen from how I was biting it...

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Posted by Mara Collins on Sep 1, 2004 | 0 comments