About My Daughter

I am undertaking the careful, delicate task of transforming my living room/dining room from Sydney's playroom to a place where I can write. To a "writing room", a concept so deliciously indulgent I almost don't dare to attempt it. Space is a premium here, we'd be comfortable no other way, so by now we are adept at the quick transformations that can change the layout of our house. Dining room/ recording studio, Living room/child's playroom, writing room/ dining room. Depending on who is here and why, our house can have many identities.

This morning it's a writing room. I've collected all the tiny, plastic Polly Pocket dresses from the dining room table, floor and couch, sweeping them up into a re-purposed colander. Cleared away the magic markers and bits of half chewed Cheerios. Gathered up the myriad bunnies and puppies and attempted to make this space feel like mine, at least until I pick up Syd at 3 o'clock. My sense of joy is almost delirious this week. I wasn't sure what it would be like to have her at home two days a week with nothing but my own imagination to guide me in instructing and entertaining her. I haven't spent as much consistent alone time with her since she was an infant, newly arrived and utterly dependant on me. She is still, of course, dependant on me, and I relish this. I experience the full force of her independence, her desire to "do it by myself", and feel grateful that there are still many things she needs me for.

I was not someone who considered working, or working full time after I had Sydney, as some sort of medieval punishment. I all but ran back to work when she 3 months old, and started singing in worship again when she was about 6 weeks. I remember those early mornings sprinting to a far ladies room to nurse her then racing back to the sanctuary for a prayer time before the service. I would often say to Matt "I've never been this tired" and he would remind me that I said that almost every day.

The truth was, I was more than worn out from middle of the night feedings and the physical demands of being a new mother, which is, for everyone, exhausting. Something was going terribly awry in my system, my brain, my nerves, and I was edging into a full fledged bout of post partum depression. Of course, I didn't know this at the time. I simply thought I was a wimp and couldn't handle motherhood. A regular routine that involved being around other adults (i.e., work) eased some of it's early grip on me. I embraced work and continued to seek additional hours and responsibilities, trusting the nursery staff at the church to take care of my baby during those hours I attempted tasks I knew I could handle. In fact, I was sure that the nursery staff workers, all mother's themselves, were far more qualified than I was to take care of her, and it gave me some peace.

I wasn't completely nuts, not yet, but I was getting there. My coping mechanism was also meaningful work, and so it was no scandal that I was back at work, by my own choice, after having Sydney. I was raised by a working mother and I discovered that I believed in the early socialization that comes from a good, faith based child care environment. Sydney thrived, and her caretakers became like family to us. It all went swimmingly for quite some time. In the dark recesses of my heart, my middle of the night panic sessions, I feared that I was an inadequate mother. Nothing came 'naturally' to me. Often, the thought of spending a stretch of hours alone with my infant scared the business out of me. I was exhausted from not sleeping (even after she began sleeping longer stretches I would lie awake at night waiting for her to need me) and I felt that attempting motherhood was really an aggregious act of hubris on my part. Why did I think I would be able to do this?

As I recollect those painful early days I am shocked by the mother I've become. I'm confident. I'm careful. I think I'm even fun! I am a good mother, (twice this week people have told me that so it must be true) and I learned the hard way that I was neither lucid nor rational in the beginning. I was literally coming under a tidal wave of hormones, brain waves and physical exhaustion- the molotov cocktail of post partum depression.

The thoughts I had then were not rational thoughts, they were amplified projection of my own deep seeded fears. Like electronic pings, they honed in on my deepest insecurities and exaggerated them 1000%. The most devastating lies are the ones with a tiny grain of truth to them. The evilest evil is a distortion of the most beautiful good.

I have never more enjoyed Sydney than I have this week. I pick her up from school at 3 (though she is in a new school I can tell that she is still shocked that she is not the last one to be picked up). Twice a week it's just she and I for the whole day. We run errands, we practice numbers and letters, we cook. I adore her, which is no surprise, but I've learned this week that I adore spending unstructured time with her. That I can spend unstructured time with her. That I can be trusted with her. Though it's been 3 and a half years since the Post Partum (which after months of stubborn denial on my part was finally 'cured' with a small dose of an anti-depressant) I am only now seeing the deep wound it left in me. And I am only now embracing the joy of the victory I've won over it. A victory over more than just the emotions, but over the fairly binding choices it inspired. I don't need to work until I drop. In fact, it's better for Sydney and for me, if I pick her up at 3 o'clock.

Don't get me wrong, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this a luxury. A tremendous luxury. I still get to participate in meaningful work, but I don't have long office hours. Sydney get's to go to a terrific Christian school, and I can still pick her up at 3. This new arrangement, which I credit solely to the grace of God, is allowing us to try out something we've never done before. And simply put, I am enjoying it.