“Excuse me . . . miss.”
The way he addressed me, I almost thought he mistook me for a clerk. The blue and white check on the shoulder of my rain jacket flashed as I turned and reminded me it looked nothing like the blue polos of the store employees. He spread his fingers across the bridge of his nose.
“My glasses. I forgot them.” His index finger moved to the half gallon of milk he held in his hand and its mottled hieroglyph of a date stamp. We peered at it together.
“March 26th,” I said.
“Today’s . . . the . . . 11th,” we said together, the last part punctuated by the speed of certainty.
He tilted his head back and forth as if weighing the amount of milk against the weight of days.
“That gives you time,” I said.
I’d seen the same dance from my grandmother countless times. What was an easy decision for me – to throw two full gallons of milk in my cart for my burgeoning family – was agonizing to a single person afraid of pouring sour dairy down the drain.
We laughed, relieved to have solved this problem together.
“Eh, the basket, where do you get them?” he said. At least that’s what I thought he said. The beautiful lilt of an Italian accent rounded the edges of each word. I went through the convoluted description of obtaining a shopping cart from the coin-fed chain contraption all because of one misunderstood noun.
“Oh no, the pasta. Pasta fagioli?” He uttered a few other phrases to clarify what he was seeking, which included Germany in there somewhere, I think. I finally nodded in assent and scanned the signs above the aisles, pointing to the next one over.
“Pasta!” I said.
“Next aisle, ah yes. Thank you very much.”
After he shuffled off and I resumed the task of picking out paper towels, his voice carried over the rack of metal shelving separating us.
“Pastina,” he said. “Pasta. Pasta fagioli.”
“Pastina? You mean little pasta?”
“For pasta fagioli,” he insisted. “In Germany.”
“This is all the pasta we have, sir.”
He had found a clerk this time, but I could tell she was as thrown by his accent as I had been. And obviously hadn’t been raised on the tiny bits of pasta Italian families added to their soups and fed buttered to their babies in high chairs.
Armed with the knowledge my Italian husband and his family had fed me with, I figured I’d better hightail it over to the pasta aisle and intervene. I’d failed translating the first time, but maybe this time, I could help. Plus, I needed some campanelle of my own.
“Pasta fagioli,” he said again to the confounded clerk.
They both looked at me as I approached. “You mean in a can?”
My Italian relatives would cringe at my suggestion, but the way he kept repeating it, I thought maybe he wanted some ready-made.
“No, no, the pastina, to put in the pasta fagioli.” His thumb and forefinger made a small gap of light to show its size.
I had assumed that’s what he had wanted all along. Even though he was elderly and shopping alone, living perhaps presumably alone, a man who requested his type of pasta by the Italian name of the dish it was destined for, in a voice tinged with his mother tongue, would want to whip up a batch himself.
The clerk repeated that what was in the aisle was all they had. I agreed that I didn’t see it, nor the ditalini I instinctively knew would also work.
“Sorry,” she said as she moved back to the front of the store.
“Are you Italian?” he said.
“My husband is,” I said.
“Your husband,” he repeated as if processing the information.
“Yes.”
“What is your last name?”
I’d had this conversation many times before in supermarkets, nursing homes, and once a cab ride in Rome. It was not an interrogation. It was a sharing of roots; whether common ones or airing your own; a sense of pride; a tradition borne across the world.
“Basile.”
He was not the first one to stumble on my last name, but his was not due to pronunciation. Once his hearing clarified it, he pronounced it more precisely than I could.
“Calabria, Campagnia, Sicily?”
I knew, of course, where the maternal and paternal shoots of my husband’s tree hailed from, but struggled to find the short answer in the middle of the supermarket.
“Rome.” I decided on the branch that bore our surname.
“Ah, Roma.”
“Si,” I said.
He smiled.
“And you, you are American?”
I shouldn’t have been thrown by such a question, especially coming from someone who certainly did not sound like a native English speaker. Yes, I was American, but my family had been for three generations now – and that was the most recent immigrant branch.
“Yes, Jennifer. My family is Irish,” I said.
“The Irish,” he said.
My genetics must have been ingrained with the biases my ancestors dealt with, for I was almost afraid how he would react. I wanted to assure him with my grandmother’s assurance made just fifteen short years ago, that Irish and Italians marry well.
“My daughters,” he said. “I have two. One she lives upstairs from me. The other, she lives in New York. She married an Irish man. Kevin O’Rourke. He’s a good man,” he said. “Even though, you know.” He paused to make a guzzling motion with his thumb and pinky extended, then laughed. I couldn’t tell whether this was an indictment of his son-in-law or the Irish in general.
“Well, I don’t,” I said. “Especially now,” I quipped, indicating my pregnant belly.
He smiled. “A boy?” I couldn’t tell whether he was rooting for a boy as any Italian relative I’d encountered during any of my pregnancies did, or if he was just wondering whether I knew the sex of the baby.
“I don’t know, yet,” I said. “We already have three daughters.”
He indicated pleasure rather than the surprise that admission usually met.
“And what is your name?’ I asked.
He extended a strong hand spotted with age. “Pietro.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Pietro.”
“Yes, you have a good day now,” he said. “Good bye, ciao, auf wiedersehen.“
His litany of multilingual greetings threw my mind into a tailspin. It spun wildly for the words to wish him a good day in Italian.
Perhaps he mistook my pause for confusion, for he explained ‘auf wiedersehen’ was from the German. I realized I’d never asked exactly from where he’d hailed. He was obviously tied to Germany as well as Italy.
“Si,“ I agreed.
He laughed. “Ciao, bella.“
As he left, I turned back to the pasta. Not only did they not have pastina, there was no campanelle either.
– Jennifer Butler Basile, 2016
Author Archives: Jennifer Butler Basile
Growing
Baby #1: I was excited. I was in awe. I read all the baby updates in all the manuals on the assigned week. I brought my legal pad of questions to each appointment. I was petrified of labor. I cried the hollowest cries while my husband slept beside me on the couch cradling our baby. Who would now console me?
Baby #2: I was excited. I was exhausted. I worried about my first baby with a new baby. I began to look forward to those late night/early morning feedings for the quality one-on-one time they provided. I was so fiercely devoted to protecting baby’s soft little skull and sacred nap time from boisterous big sister, I screamed a lot.
Baby #3: I was blindsided. I was in shock. I was overwhelmed, agitated, obsessive, irritable. I still hadn’t come to terms with the idea of a new baby even as I lay on the delivery bed. I loved her so fiercely I was afraid someone would take her from me. I flipped out at hair elastics stretched over finials of dining chairs. I swore, I flew off the handle, I hid in the bathroom. I cried, begged for it all to be over.
Baby #4: I was surprised. I thought I was done having babies. I have moments almost daily where I think, ‘we’re doing this again?’ and yet, I’m strangely at peace. I still get irritable. I hurt from the physical toll of four pregnancies. I put myself to bed before my children sometimes. I see a therapist. I take meds. I go to acupuncture. I do yoga. I pray the rosary.
But I’m okay.
When I look back at the timeline of my pregnancies, I can see the mounting mental anguish I couldn’t at the time. What could’ve been the ‘baby blues’ with #1, escalated into moderate mood dysfunction with #2, and plunged me into the deepest despair of postpartum depression and anxiety with #3. It still irritates me that something that was probably underlying all the time was manageable for me until I kept adding layer upon layer. However, I am not superwoman.
I am a woman, a mother armed to the teeth with resources and self-knowledge. Fighting, clawing out of that hole after #3, I will never let all that hard work be in vain. I will see the signs early on; I will know which preemptive strikes to take; I will make self-care measures so that I hopefully won’t even need the interventions.
I do not feel strong as a victor shining brightly; but stronger in my resilience, in my survival, my steely will to not succumb.
There is life after postpartum depression. It is different. It’s not easier – but somehow it’s clearer. The unrealistic mist of life as we thought we knew it dissipates. The real, the ugly, the harsh – and the beautiful – are etched crystalline. We see it all – and appreciate the beauty that much more.
To the life, growing inside all of us
Ode to Maternity Clothes
Thank you, maternity clothes, for making me feel less attractive than I already am
I realize the orb-like appendage extending from my midsection leaves you with lofty goals to attain; still, you fall grievously short of your endgame
With fabrics somewhere between highly viscous jet fuel and canvas starched to within an inch of its life
With shoe-string thin ties that either knot in one’s back or threaten to dip in the toilet in an already awkward dance
With handkerchief hems that add volume to our thighs, yet leave our sausage-like backside showing
Thank you
Thank you for pricing anything that looks remotely like real clothing out of range of anyone in her right mind – for three months of wear
Thank you to your merchandising gurus who decided to place your displays next to the plus size wear
Thank you for providing an infinite amount of baby-doll tops to go with three proffered pairs of pants
And to your partner in crime: the fitting room mirror
Thank you for showing me the parts of myself that I hadn’t realized has gotten so hairy under that belly
Thank you for accentuating just how wide my side view now is
Thank you for sallow skin, double chin, and purple circles under the eyes
Maternity clothes, you suck – only slightly more than trying you on
‘Portrait of an Unknown Lady’ by Marcus Gheeraerts II
Embarazada: A Truly False Cognate?
No one likes to be contradicted – least of all by oneself. But that’s what I’ve unwittingly done within the confines of this very blog. Looking back at certain older posts from this blog – even ones written just before this pregnancy – I spoke of ways my life was altered by motherhood and ways it might expand as time went on. There were posts lamenting the fact that I’d never have the chance to do mommy and baby yoga; pondering grand dreams of what I’d do with my life now that my babies were more self-sufficient; worrying that I still hadn’t fully recovered from the postpartum mood and anxiety disorder that had started six years earlier.
Jennifer Butler Basile
Looking back, with all of the facts and the whole picture visible, it’s easy to cringe. But if nothing else, I’ve dedicated this blog to my true state of mind at a given point in time. And those feelings were true at that point in time. Did I foresee this new off-shoot of our family tree? Absolutely not. Was I closed to the idea of new life and growth in our lives? Absolutely not. So the before and after of this point on our timeline are equally authentic.
Still, it’s hard to reconcile drastically unexpected turns of one’s life on a public stage. Would people always wonder whether this child was the ‘surprise’? Would they ask whether his or her birth followed a remarriage, creating a second little family after a longer span? Would the silver strands that seemed more plentiful than my dark tresses make me look like even more of an old mother than I felt?
It was when I found a white eyebrow hair that I had a small fit in front of the bathroom mirror. How could I be making this journey I’d first started as a much younger woman once again? How could my body do this (and to me)? After a moment of reflection, however, I realized I wouldn’t be pregnant if I was too old to conceive and carry a child. My body was ready – even if I was not.
That’s not to say I can expect to let my body do all the work it did effortlessly the first time all those years ago. I need to exercise and modify and hurt more than I ever have before. I need to quantify and reconcile and deconstruct all my fears and thoughts. I also need to embrace the wisdom and experience my three previous journeys have given me. I have been on both sides, mostly all sides, of the multifaceted sphere that is motherhood. I’ve not always been on the right side, but I certainly have perspective.
Perspective can affect outcome and attitude on any given day in many different ways. As with any life change, it will not always result in a positive outlook. If I ever had rose-colored glasses, they were shattered some dark night of some postpartum period. There are and will be days I discuss those jagged images. However, there are some positives I never would have claimed had there never been this pregnancy.
For my previous three babies, I did not know how to knit. This time, I am able to create a blanket for my baby. With all three older children now in school, I will be able to rest and ruminate with this child like I did my first. I’ll get to try ‘wearing’ this child with one of those chic wraps you need to be a ninja to tie that caught on as my youngest aged. And maybe I’ll even make good on my long-held desire to practice yoga with my infant at some sun-soaked studio.
My most fervent hope is that this pregnancy will wipe clean a slate sullied by my mental and emotional anguish surrounding the process and act of childbearing. Even saying that worries me that I’ve set an unrealistic expectation – one of the paths to pmads – but I cannot deny the hope that struggles to blossom and grow.
Before or after; Expected or pleasant surprise; Prepared or brilliantly bewildered – Gracias a Dios for another chance at life.
What is a false cognate?
False cognates are pairs of words that seem to be cognates because of similar sounds and meaning, but actually have different etymologies; these word pairs can be within the same language or be from different ones. This is different from false friends, which may in fact be related but have different meanings. (wikipedia)
Looking for Signs of Life
A brown curled claw
skittering along the ground
Singular movement amidst
the frozen expanse of pavement
Only when you get close enough to see the fingers,
knuckles scraping the rocky surface,
can you distinguish the knobs of an oak leaf,
stem protruding like a tail
Propelled by the wind
a legion of birds wrapped in wing
a chipmunk
a squirrel,
a lizard scampering by
All alive according to the eye
But in this cold raw place between snow and spring
dry, brittle leaves are all that dance
born on the rhythm of weather patterns and wishful thinking
Murphy’s Child Outtakes
If you’d like to further tempt fate and play the odds for a surprise child, here are additional steps you can take.
- Purchase a big family vehicle with one seat more than number of children you currently have. When your father-in-law comments that ‘you have room for one more’ and asks if you’re going to fill that seat too, say “Nooooooo! Not planning on it!”
(llbean)
- When looking to hang the precious Christmas stockings your mother bought for each member of the family, you must have identical hooks. Be sure to buy the unique,weight-balanced ones, regionally made, sold from but one supplier – and only in sets of two. So when you outfit your last baby, you can tuck the extra hook into the storage tote, telling your husband, ‘you don’t think keeping this ensures another stocking (child) to fill it?’ You both laugh heartily at your superstition, but perhaps a little too much.
- While giving visitors the dime tour of your new, larger, family-friendly house, point out the proximity of the bathroom to your side of the bed. Be sure to quip, ‘Too bad I got it after I walked down the stairs in the middle of the night for the three other pregnancies!”
- Tell everyone about that woman you knew in your early twenties who surprised everyone, included herself, by getting pregnant at forty. She’d just joined a gym, replaced her wall-to-wall carpeting with refinished hardwoods, and sent her youngest off to middle school. Be sure to add significant shock and awe to your retell.
- Try not to micromanage and embrace life in all its iterations. And you and Murph will get along fine.
Not Mutually Exclusive
There is no need to shame a control-freak, God-fearing Catholic. There is no need to add to the torment she has already inflicted upon herself.
Yet, that is exactly what I found a quote from Marianne Williamson doing last night.
It has been six years since I started medication therapy for my postpartum depression and anxiety. Six years of low dose, slight increases, attempts at doing without – and it still serves me. And yet, a small part of me still questions my need for it.
Why isn’t this glorious life God has given me enough reason to rejoice? Why aren’t the three gorgeous gifts of heaven that are my children a daily cause for celebration? Am I not grateful enough for God’s blessings that I need an antidepressant to merely function, never mind embrace this life?
Catholic guilt is a strong force, but not one I blame for these thoughts. I confessed to my pastor that I feared my mental struggles were tied to a crisis of faith. I worried that turning to secular talk therapy turned me away from God’s gentle care. I fretted that medication was a crutch that kept me from leaning on God’s healing power.
My pastor told me that spirituality is an important piece of one’s healing, but not to the exclusion of other beneficial treatments. My trained counselor was helping me process my feelings without judgment and not keeping me from turning to God for quiet reflection. And if prescription medicine existed in God’s world, created by one of the people He put on this earth, why would I not avail myself of this beneficial tool? Most importantly, my pastor told me that God did not cause this suffering to befall me. It was not a punishment for some wrongdoing or turning away on my part. If I gleaned something good from the experience, perhaps God allowed the growth in me, but He certainly did not beset me with these troubles.
As always, the rational mind, while fully aware of such life-affirming and freeing arguments, still can fall prey to its irrational side. I thought I’d have no problem reading the social media post that started a furious online debate about postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. Yet, as I did, I felt some of the angst I’d been slowly putting to bed for the last six years come creeping back up.
This statement plays to all the fears of the postpartum mother. The guilt of needing medication to enjoy the miracle of life and her role in it. The fact that she can’t come to terms with ‘normal’ changes in her body chemistry. That she has somehow failed by not meditating enough; praying enough; eating healthily enough. And then to judge her own success by the love of others – something over which she has no control. Or does that speak to the love she fails to feel for her child?
I am only living a modicum of successful motherhood because of the very real diagnosis of postpartum depression and its treatment with medicinal drugs. And yet, this statement still elicits a shameful, guilty feeling in me. After SIX successful years of such treatment.
What of the mother just beginning to wonder if she is struggling postpartum? What thoughts and feelings assault her when she reads this? She is already doubting herself and ‘succumbing’ to the crutches of medicine. She already thinks she’s failed. And now to tell her it’s all a ploy by ‘Big Pharma’?
‘Big Pharma’ is not issuing me any big paycheck. I’ve written thirteen different posts about the decision, pros/cons of taking psychotropic drugs, most notably Happy Pills. When the news initially hit that new recommendations called for all pregnant women and mothers to be screened for depression this was my reaction:
I never dreamed news that was so obvious to me would be seen as a negative by others.
I’m going to imagine that Williamson’s comments were born of the assumption that those standing to make a financial gain would encourage a mindless mass to pop a pill and forget their troubles – and a meaningful life. I do not encourage anyone to medicate their troubles away without also doing the hard personal work of introspection and spiritual growth. Meds are not successful in a vacuum. They must be supported by close medical monitoring, therapies, and lifestyle changes.
Choosing medication is not a mutually exclusive option over meditation, prayer, and love.
I fear that the way Williamson’s stance has been presented, the ensuing social media storm will portray just that. God-fearing people do not fear medical marvels. God-fearing people do not judge others for decisions they make concerning their own care. God-fearing people would never want someone to suffer needlessly while thinking it was a fatal flaw of character.
Point of Contact
I entered the world of mental health advocacy kicking and screaming. Some days, quite literally.
Studying English? Easy, I loved literature and writing. Teaching? A way to purvey that love to another generation while parlaying it into a paycheck. Motherhood? An extension of the love my husband and I shared.
Postpartum depression and anxiety? A most unwelcome and unpleasant recalculation in my life’s journey.
For years, I looked for reasons. I hadn’t recalibrated my compass, had I? What had happened to lead to this catastrophic turn of events?
I am not the grand cosmic poomba of all things so I cannot answer those questions with any sort of certainty, but I do know that my struggles awakened a raw, yet steely inner strength I’d never had before. They fostered an empathy of a whole new level for others’ suffering; for the mantle of motherhood and all its ‘come-withs’.
I had to polish some ragged rock I’d gotten caught up on and dragged along on my journey into at least a burnished gem. Something positive had to come out of all that suffering. And perhaps even prevent another woman from travelling the same path.
I started this blog as a way to tell my story, which very few knew. I thought, with complete disclosure, I might open the dialogue for others. At least become an ally in an all too commonly silent struggle. Perhaps I didn’t tackle postpartum directly enough – for many of my discussions and observations were integrated with my life. However, I still haven’t decided if that was/is a failure, for mental health struggles quickly become an intimate part of one’s life, touching all parts of it. It also hinted at some version of depression/anxiety becoming part of my ‘new normal’.
And with my ‘new normal’ so different from my old one, I began to develop further plans for burnishing rocks into gems.
I knew what I wanted to do, but with no clinical experience, I had limitations. I could not mention the word ‘therapeutic’ in any official capacity. I was petrified that if the programs I had in mind reached the end of my personal experience and empathy, that I wouldn’t be able to help someone in crisis.
I embarked on a series of webinars offered by Postpartum Support International. The Social Support Training series, one session every other week, stretched from January to June of last year. While many of the participants were clinicians in the field of maternal mental health, the course was user-friendly and aimed at individuals interested in starting and supporting groups of mothers in various presentations of mental health.
The Social Support Training was the perfect first step toward a solution. It offered a wealth of information – statistical and anecdotal, researched and proven – paired with the assurance that social support people are not meant to be clinicians. They are meant to offer a safe place for mothers to gather and vent, ask questions and talk, discover resources and camaraderie, and just be.
I finished the series a few weeks before I headed to Boston for Postpartum Progress‘ first annual Warrior Mom Conference, the first ever maternal mental health conference for survivors of PMADs. With my new-found knowledge and training, I looked forward to building on that momentum and connecting with other moms doing the same. While I did that, I also found parts of me that hadn’t fully healed. I realized I still had my own work to do and how very complex maternal mental illnesses are.
That fall, my PMAD baby started full-day kindergarten and, though scared as hell, I began formulating plans to kick my ideas into high gear. I applied for a scholarship offered by Postpartum Progress and the National Council for Behavioral Health to be trained in Mental Health First Aid, which I was awarded a few weeks after discovering I was pregnant with my fourth child. I faltered, wondering how I would enact my plans with a newborn baby. But then, they were never my plans anyway. And now I would have the full-circle experience informing my advocacy. Up until now, I’d only ever experienced the postpartum piece of mental health; now I could speak to both pre- and postnatal.
I spent two days in New London, Connecticut with two fabulous humans from Child & Family Agency of Southeastern CT learning how to assess and support a person’s mental health status. Again, the trainers stressed that we were not expected to diagnosis the individuals we come into contact with, but to assess their situation and determine whether they need additional help. We then must help them feel comfortable and safe until such professional help is acquired. The trainers helped me gain even more practical ways to help those in need as a civilian, a concerned individual, an advocate.
As I sat in that auditorium, surrounded by empathetic professionals and persons, I flashed back to an article I’d read a week and a half earlier. “The Community Maternal Mental Health Professional” on The Burnout Cafe (click image for link) discusses the gap between women who need help and the services available to them. While the central point of contact in this graphic from the article lists a woman’s professional caregivers, and a woman certainly does see these people quite frequently both before and after the baby is born, I would argue another layer of contact needs to be added. If practitioners aren’t well-informed or comfortable dealing with maternal mental health issues, the assessments, diagnoses, and referrals needed will not occur. Having been down that dark hole myself, I am well-versed in those discussions. I can help normalize the feelings a woman may be experiencing, yet not want to admit for fear of retribution to her or her child. I can point her in the direction of practitioners specializing in the exact type of care she so desperately needs.
“The Community Maternal Mental Health Professional” as point of contact (via The Burnout Cafe)
With my personal experiences and new-found knowledge via recent trainings, I am a point of contact for mothers.
My plans may morph and grow as my own life and family does, but the end goal is the same:
Helping Mothers Get the Help They Need.
Recovery Contd.
In an online forum, a mother asked if she was the only one who thought about her experience with postpartum each and every day since she had given birth four years earlier.
I am six years out. While it’s not an everyday occurrence, it often comes to mind. In many ways, it has and continually shapes who I am – as an all-around human, not just certain aspects of motherhood.
Though I wouldn’t recommend it as a means of self-discovery, my postpartum experience taught me a lot about myself. I realized, that while I had been managing it, I’d been suffering from low-level depression and anxiety for years. What I thought was a failure to contain, control, was actually the event horizon of a long-simmering beast’s debut.
So I find it hard when people talk about postpartum recovery. I don’t feel as if I’ve recovered from postpartum depression. I feel like I’ve learned to manage it, but it’s the new normal. While I took an extended hiatus, I’ve returned to my therapist. I never stopped taking my meds. I still have low points that make me wonder if I’ll ever be healed; that make me seek out new treatments and pray for cures.
A cure lies somewhere within the intersection of self-acceptance, medical marvels, and divine intervention. I think it’s impossible that any one will work without the combination of the others.
I need to accept that this may (notice I’m not quite ready yet) be how my chemical makeup operates. That I didn’t fall short on some courage or stick-to-it-ness factor. That I didn’t fail to attract good things through my thoughts. I cannot will myself better with positive thoughts. Though my heart works that way, my mind simply is not wired for that.
Taking medicine to augment your mood is okay, even acceptable. It’s beneficial to your quality of life. It quiets the rage and keeps the nervous energy at bay.
And to fill the gap that always is – there is God. A spiritual dimension to the healing process is essential – and one I was missing for a long time. Unfortunately, this is not a one and done. I must continually seek this solace.
All three spokes of the wheel need continual attention. They all need periodic tweaking and developing. Much to my chagrin, my recovery and learning to live a full life is not a mountain to be scaled and topped with a banner of victory. I have to drag that flag with me wherever I go. As long as it still flies, I guess, there is still hope.
barkergroup.info
Dirty Diapers
Do you need any help finding anything?
Simple query. Standard clerk operation. Yet her question left me speechless. I stared blindly at the shelves in front of me for a moment before I answered.
A staccato collection of tongue-in-cheek conversation ran through my mind in that brief silence, but I finally said, no, I didn’t need help.
For I realized that anything more than that would be too much information for this clerk stocking some manner of geriatric product next to the baby care section.
She didn’t need to know that my prolonged, slack-jawed stare at the array of diapers on display (which admittedly wasn’t even that extensive) wasn’t due to a lack of knowledge on my part. It was the realization that all that inane diaper information I’d chucked to the back of my brain, thinking I’d never again need to know how many pounds a size 3 diaper fit, would now need to be retrieved; that Pampers smell like poo before the kid even fills them; that Huggies now come in swaddlers and movers and shakers and trapeze artists. I peered at the tiny kg/lbs ranges under the big numeral sizes like an old woman who’d forgotten her glasses.
I did remember that the mommy-to-be for whom I was buying the diapers wouldn’t need newborn size since the hospital would send her home with a boatload.
There are some parts of motherhood that are like the proverbial riding of the bike.
However, there are some things not even a conscientious, helpful clerk can help an expectant mother find in the baby care aisle. A cure for her feeling that she was done with this a long time ago. A settling of the ambivalence toward starting the whole process all over again. A certainty instead of the disbelief at the surrealism of it all.
All these certainly aren’t on the shelf. They’re not even in the back room. Only the mother herself is the purveyor of these goods – and they’re not one size fits all.
from healthytippingpoint.com
Chopping Potatoes 