First cut

I put it off for two and a half years. I told James we were never cutting it. 

It was time and he did it. He crawled right up in the chair. Got his lollipop. Called his hairdresser "his girl" and said he liked getting his haircut. 

We went to lunch after and I kept staring at his big boy face. His eyes and full cheeks. He looks so handsome. 

On the way home I told him he looked handsome. I watched him fall asleep in the rear view mirror. "Mama" he said right before his eyes closed, "you look handsome, too." 

the past

like those monsters you were scared of when you were five, now there is something even scarier under your bed. journals from your past. you can't throw them away. you can't put them in the attic of your parents house, they'll get lost or damaged from water, or even worse read by someone, so you keep them with you. throughout your moves from dorm rooms, and little apartments in big cities, and back to your childhood room and then to your first house with your husband and baby son. they're with you. underneath your bed that your aunt gave you as a housewarming gift that makes noise when your toddler son jumps on.

your husband is working late and your son is sleeping. there's nothing on television and you're tired of your book. you peak under the mattress. they're staring at you from their bin. you open one and slowly descend into a world that you left on your own years ago. a world from the start that was filled with such hope. such attraction. such excitement and fire. and then that slowly crumbled with stints of fury and bitterness. such happy words at the start of the little brown journal, happy thoughts and memories...

driving him home after a night we spent together. him getting out of my car and the white sky behind him. his eyes blue and clear. christmas eve with his family. meeting his grandmother and seeing the tiny christmas lights reflecting off her glasses. a blizzard in nyc, drinking whiskey and tea in that little bar downtown and kissing all the way up john street. showers together before work, watching the soap falling over his freckles and birthmarks, laughing loud. the competitions and bets and silly games.

then towards the end of the book. after what seemed like twenty years together. the falling and the failing. the drinking. the hateful words filled with suspicion and doubt. the mistrust. the indecisiveness of where to go and what to do next. that one morning in brooklyn. that one sunday afternoon in the village when we screamed and yelled on the sidewalk and i jumped in a cab alone wishing the driver could drive seven hours west back home to my parents house. the late fights, our breath on fire with alcohol and him grinding his teeth with anger. the slamming doors and the crying.

i snap myself back into reality. a sleeping toddler on the monitor, twisting out of his blankets with his little hand up to his mouth. a text on my phone from my husband done with work and on his way home.  he calls me his love and he means it.

i breathe a sigh of sweet relief. thank god we didn't end up together.

monday inspiration and a cough

"I think it's worth trying to be a mother who delights in who her children are, in their knock-knock jokes and earnest questions. A mother who spends less time obsessing about what will happen, or what has happened and more time reveling in what is." - Ayelet Waldman

finn caught a nasty cold last week. a cold and his first cough. a real cough. the kind that starts in the chest and makes it hard to catch your breath. the first time it happened it gave us both a scare. "that sounded like a real cough" finn said to himself. the past five days i have been coughed on. sneezed on. cried on. slept on. we've spent the days in our little house with tissues and boogie wipes and smoothies and water. my mom always told me that february was the month when all of her kids got sick. i guess finn is just following suit. it's challenging when your kid is sick. the emotional and physical aspect of wanting to be able to fix him right away and feeling helpless that you can't. 

the second day he woke up with a fever and only wanted to lay on me. his body hot and sweaty on my chest, holding his little hands that were radiating heat. he looked up at me with watery eyes, "i'm sorry i can't kiss you right now mama. i caught da real cough" he said sweetly. 

his fever only lasted a day and he's making a turn with the cough and snot. 

i'm dreaming of spring even harder now. be kind to us,  february.