Shifts and Changes: part four, the growing of children

I said yesterday that Motherhood is discovering every day the capacity to do more work, like a long protracted endless boot camp. But that's only one half of motherhood. The other half of motherhood, assuming that you can divide motherhood into two halves and why wouldn't you, is that as soon as you've figured something out and gotten good at it, the child undergoes some kind of radical change and you are faced with new unknown territory. The rule is, as soon as you've gotten into a comfortable routine, that's when there will be a revolutionary change.

Examples, you say? The precise moment you get really comfortable nursing, there will be a massive growth spurt that throws you completely off. Once you figure out how to get the child to sleep more than 30 seconds at a time, the child will begin to grow teeth and everything will be ruined. You'll have sorted out a nice routine–meals, laundry, snacks, play time–and then the child will decide to learn to walk and everyone's sleep will be disrupted yet again. Note that almost every developmental change requires that the child to stop sleeping.

In other words, you get comfortable and then you are knocked off your base, and then you fight to regain your balance and then you're knocked off again, and the process, over and over and over builds toughness and flexibility. Tragically, you will really feel comfortable and happy and like you know what you're doing with your last child.

Why this particular discussion this morning? Because it was revealed to me very early this morning, as if from heaven itself, that children eventually grow up. Perhaps this not a great shock to some. But I think it must be because in many ways, in some sort of tragic ways, children in this culture are sometimes not expected or even allowed to grow up. I don't really want to get into why or how this is. I think one reason might be that you get so used to managing the next stage that the competence of the child creeps up on you when you're not expecting or looking for it and in some cases, then, you miss out on what they're really capable of. There are other stronger forces at work too, but the desire to keep the baby close has got to be one of them.

In some ways it's not too dire. Children muscle their way out of your grasp at some point and force you to let go, and in some cases begin trying to manage you the way you have managed them. Thus my divine revelation this morning. Elphine is sick of all my excuses for not going ice skating. Sick to death. And so, knowing my habits and inclinations, she got up at six in the morning and has been herself diligently and truely gathering everything required for skating, and laying it all out on the dining room table. And now she's feeding the little girls breakfast. Every excuse I proffer, she meets with “I just did that”.

She is rabidly losing the air of childhood. She is tall (well, relative to me, which isn't saying very much at all), her shoulders are broad and her hands and feet enormous. She lopes around, trying to get used to her new size in an old familiar space. Every time she hugs me she knocks the wind out of me. Her vigor and drive make me feel fragil and crumbly. She comes in and say, “I'm making tea” and then pauses. And what, am I going to say, “ask nicely.” She's making tea because she knows we both want some and that I'm not up for some kind of argument. So I just stare at her, and then she goes and makes it. And, realizing that she is her own person, as indeed she always has been, I feel cautious, like she is walking forward into her own way and I can only stand back here and watch her. And it's what we all want, isn't it? I mean, it's the desired end. So why do I feel like throwing my apron over my head, not that I have one, and weeping? But also some relief, because, how should I know? I haven't known at each stage what to do. Well, I've known in some cases, and just made it up in others. And suddenly there it is. She has her own agenda, and I'm really basically fine with her having it.

And now Aloucious has come to tell me that I must call the dentist, because he broke his tooth off again.

Have a lovely weekend!