They Say Motherhood Changes You
So, now I’m the person who cries reading “Guess How Much I Love You” to my child.
In the time that I’ve known him, R. has almost died on no less than three occasions on my watch. The other two times were while I was gone, ironically on two separate trips to the same city: Portland, Oregon. Regardless, I’ve called 911 to revive my diabetic husband a total of three times, once while I was still in Portland and he stopped making sense during a call we were having.
The other instances were a repeat of one another. R. starts shaking next to me in bed, and I think he’s dreaming. Frodo jumps off the bed, getting my attention. I’m awake. The shaking continues to the point where after attempting to rouse R., I realize he’s seizing. That’s when I try to roll him over onto his back, so I can open his mouth to pour sugar down his throat while I simultaneously call 911. Inevitably, I can’t lift my husband’s dead weight and he’s fighting against me, which means I also can’t get him into the right position, and I certainly can’t open his mouth.
I keep trying with R. until I get emergency services on the line. I explain what’s happening. I tell them my address, spelling out the weird name of my street. I repeat it again with perfect diction. I wait on the line. I answer questions until they tell me someone has arrived and I have to get three dogs out the back door and let the EMTs through the front.
Every time, the paramedics give R. a quick-acting dose of life-saving sugar. He comes back online, albeit slowly, and always says something off-the-wall unexpected and blatantly hysterical. The medics take his vitals. They ask him questions, which he answers weirdly and often incorrectly because he just came back from the tunnel leading him toward the light. They ask me to make him a peanut butter sandwich, even though we never have any bread. R. lives.
Every single time this happens, it scares the bejeebers out of me, and yet, to giggle away any inclination toward contemplating our own mortality, R. and I always make the same joke: Thank God he lived because if they replayed the 911 call in court, the jury would definitely think I was the one who killed him.
And it’s true. I’ve got ice in my veins during those calls. I watch enough Murder in Paradise spinoffs to know it’s always the spouse, but even if it isn’t, you absolutely don’t want to be the blubbering moron making an unintelligible 911 call that helps literally no one—a call that is also being recorded to haunt you in various true crime series in perpetuity. So, yea, I’m the gal you want in a crisis.
I am reminded of this constantly while parenting the Bean. I say this because you can go ahead and believe the hype: Babies spend nearly every second of their young lives trying to off themselves in new and creative ways. You’ve already read about my Mother of the Year moment, and I’ll admit that I was not at my best there. Beginner mistake. I was younger then.
These days, I’m the stone-cold voice of reason when E. turns blue choking on the handful of off-brand Cheerios she tried to swallow in one go and R. tries to pat her on the back in the upright seated position. “Flip her the other way and hit between the shoulder blades,” I bark without hesitation. Three little Os hit the floor with some undigested milk as I say, “I took a babysitting class when I was 13.”
Add that to the 17,000 times each day I use the finger-hook maneuver to fish the little rocks that make up a good portion of our backyard out from my baby’s mouth. Consider the time Bean nearly put her finger in the outlet she somehow pulled the phone charge from or when she dragged the full-length bedroom mirror down on top of herself or how she continually takes bones directly out of the mouth of the one bitch who has to wear a muzzle at the dog park for trying to bite her ball-fetching peers. Baby E. is here to fuck around and find out, and I am here to prevent her from finding out a little too hard and in a permanent sort of way.
So, with all this in mind, I need someone reading this newsletter to goddamn tell me how I have become the person who cannot keep it together while reading a slightly over-the-top story of two sappy brown bunnies expressing how much they love each other. Why is the ending of “Guess How Much I Love You” making my eyes well and my voice crack and my self-image crumble? What is it about the line, “I love you to the moon and back,” that pushes me right over the edge?
They say motherhood changes you, but my goodness, did it have to be into a big weepy chump? I love this unruly little flirt-baby so freaking much. It grows every single day, and it’s hard to imagine that there was ever a moment where I doubted I would be able to feel it. I was always a sensitive person in some ways, but I choose to deal with that by sobbing alone in my car or in the shower like a normal. I don’t cry at funerals or when other people cry or during times where we’re all encouraged, cult-style, to be “vulnerable.”
But maybe I do now! Who knows? This is next-level sentimentality. The first time I read, “Little Blue Truck,” to E.—and no, I can’t believe I am admitting this to you either—the same thing happened. And that story was about a dump truck that got stuck in the mud and had to learn a lesson about kindness and coming together to give a helping hand. NOT EXACTLY A TEAR-JERKER, FRIENDS. I can’t even watch commercials about happy families anymore. Or sad ones. Or ones that endure any sort of situation that I deem “just so nice.”
It’s horrible. I have no edge, and I can’t be certain, but I’m probably going to kill R. Most likely by turning into that washed-up novelist from The Staircase who couldn’t speak coherently when calling an ambulance to the scene of his wife’s “accident.” And EVERYONE thinks that guy did it.
The one bright spot of this whole uber-emotionalism debacle is that motherhood has also made me hyper focused on what matters. That includes love, of course, but it’s more than that, too. I’ve realized all the ways I keep myself small or hold myself back or stop myself from going full force after the things I truly want. This newfound perspective showed me that I will do anything to ensure my daughter doesn’t grow up knowing a mama who was too afraid to shine brightly—a mama who unconsciously taught her to do the same.
Motherhood has changed me. I am softer, yes, but despite the examples I listed and spent the majority of this newsletter poking fun at, motherhood has made me stronger as well. For one thing, I stopped putting my big dreams on hold. I’m hustling harder than ever to see them through. I’m learning to believe that I am worthy of amazing success, that I deserve nice things, that I’m inherently lovable.
All this inner work has had a powerful impact on my life and, as a result, my strength/happiness/sense of purpose will reverberate through daughter’s life, too. She may not be able to see or feel it just yet, but she will. Most importantly, when she does, I know she’ll know exactly how much I love her.
With pleasure,
Yes, Misstrix
P.S. Shoutout to my friend, A., who gave me an alternative to pouring sugar down R.’s throat in case of another diabetic emergency. It’s a nasal spray, which is going to be a lot easier to use. R. might live yet!