It was one hundred degrees the evening I decided to stay at home with my first child. She was three days old, I was 8, 018 days old. In retrospect, the decision was astronomical. I was choosing a life of relative poverty and social pariahdom. But the moment came in absolute clarity, in the parking lot of a Video Update on a Phoenix night. Because the alternative was unfathomable, and maybe that is how many decisions are made, by choosing a path of lesser evils, by the process of elimination. We want the least terrible option.
After moving to Florida to be near Jake's closest friend when Rhiannon was three months old, I found myself not only jobless (which, it turns out, is a job hazard when you opt to be a stay at home parent), friendless, and carless. From the early muggy morning hours till the sun had begun to slither its way down, I sat alone in a third floor apartment with a newborn. Jake and I had one car, a black Honda Civic, with a payment of $183 per month that was $183 more than we could afford. Sometimes I would watch him drive off to work, his taillights vivid in the dawn, and the aloneness was enough to smother me. My days were filled with breastfeeding, reading the few books that had made the move with us, children's books about bears and turtles and rabbits who manage to escape bacterial illnesses. Rhiannon and I would nap together, on our mattress on the floor, with bits of dusty summer sun permeating the slats of the blinds in the bedroom, her warm, good smelling body draped across me like a protective little warrior. Sometimes we would walk to the library, a cool sanctuary just a quarter mile from our complex, and I would tell her about all of the things I could see around us. I would read her the synopses of the books I found, talk to her about the alligator who was rumored to live in the pond by our stairwell. She would look up from her front pack, cherubic cheeks bouncing with my steps, her white hair a puffy halo (which would later grow into a mullet we couldn't bring ourselves to trim). In a world of just two those long days, she was my best friend and my confidante.
Jake would come home, tired from delivering beer to small convenience stores in the Tampa ghetto, and after a seven dollar dinner (our weekly grocery allowance was fifty dollars), would go to bed, because the textbooks wouldn't study themselves in the predawn hours. And Rhiannon and I would be left to our own devices again, showering together with her slippery body clinging to me like a lemur, while I cradled her against my chest. We would sing and coo together while I dressed her in fresh onesies, and then we would watch reruns of Friends while she nursed herself to sleep. Once she and Jake were snoring in tandem, I would get up and spend my insomnia in front of my computer, searching eBay for the least expensive ways to have a wedding.
This was our life until we moved to Virginia, where we had family to ask us to dinner, to pick me and Rhiannon up for a jaunt to the mall, but often, she and I would find ourselves alone again. Jake was still teaching himself from computer books he had shipped to us one by one as we could afford them. And he found a grown up job, so his time with us was limited, and fatigued. Rhiannon and I walked and found worms in mud puddles, we walked and ogled starter homes that to us, seemed unachievable. We walked to a playground where she would be happy to swing for hours. And we watched an interminable amount of Elmo. Elmo in Grouchland, Elmo being Cinderella, Elmo counting and giggling his way into our collective hearts. When I found a part time job, because $50 wouldn't feed us once the breast milk was no longer on the menu, she hung from the doorknob crying for me so long that it broke from the door frame. I miscarried twins after 9/11, and Jake was offered a job with Homeland Security, his studying having paid off, and we moved to New York.
I got pregnant with Morgan not long after the miscarriage, and she grew inside me like a sunflower while we adjusted to a life of four seasons, one both Jake and I had walked away from in our teenage years. In August of that year, New York City had a blackout, and Jake was stuck in his office in Manhattan. Rhiannon and I, a very pregnant I, were in a second floor walkup with no air conditioning and no power, and we sat naked in a cool bathtub playing with rubber toys until it was cool enough to go to bed. It had been ninety degrees that day, and I found myself gazing out my window at the landlord and his family drinking beer in their pool, and the yearning to be not alone at this moment was so thick, I could fold it up and use it as a pillow.
Eventually, I would meet a friend, and my life would change in unexpected ways. Rediscovering adult female conversation, and camaraderie, seeing Rhiannon learn to parallel play and communicate with other children. In the mornings, I would walk her to preschool and we would make up songs to remember how to spell her name. It was a steep hill from our apartment to the school, and the weight of my burgeoning belly got to be too much, so we began driving Jake to the ferry in the morning, groggy mornings, Jake handsome in his dress shirts, and Rhiannon and I in our pajamas. On one of the days we were able to use the car, we dressed in our nicest clothes, made a plate of peanut chicken and met Jake after his evening commute so the three of us could have a date.
It wasn't until we moved upstate and had Lucas that I got my own car. By then, I had made new friends and found my old friends, and welcomed the gift of my parents back in my every day world. But even then, finances were thin, and most of my days were spent caring for a kindergartener, a toddler and a newborn, with nothing but General Hospital and The Wiggles for company. On the weekends, Jake and I would work from morning until evening gutting our house and rebuilding it, tile by tile, sheetrock panel by sheetrock panel.
Fifteen years later, the world has had its own blackout in a way. We are all in our houses and apartments, locked and loaded with wanderlust and yearning for normalcy. Some parents lament louder than others- one comment online comparing being home with a child to imprisonment enough to make me shut off the computer. I have found a piece of me in this disorder that was buried in a rubble of time. There is nostalgia and gratitude like a vine winding its way through my consternation. I have joked that all of those years ago, perhaps I was in training. While other 22 year olds were traveling, and experimenting with recreational drugs, and finishing school, I was learning to keep myself company. I was learning that my children can fill my days, and it is my choice whether I relish their company or grow resentful. My circumstances have changed. My house is bigger and my budget is bigger and my kids are bigger, but some things are the same. There are still neighbors drinking beer by their pool while I watch on, and there are still days where the loneliness is where I lay my head at night. Jake is done with school, and is there to cuddle with, though most nights it is he who is falling asleep to my voice and not my kids. But I am so appreciative for this thing we built. Tile by tile, moment by moment, we have come far. We do not need to leave this structure. We are safe at home. This home we built.
After moving to Florida to be near Jake's closest friend when Rhiannon was three months old, I found myself not only jobless (which, it turns out, is a job hazard when you opt to be a stay at home parent), friendless, and carless. From the early muggy morning hours till the sun had begun to slither its way down, I sat alone in a third floor apartment with a newborn. Jake and I had one car, a black Honda Civic, with a payment of $183 per month that was $183 more than we could afford. Sometimes I would watch him drive off to work, his taillights vivid in the dawn, and the aloneness was enough to smother me. My days were filled with breastfeeding, reading the few books that had made the move with us, children's books about bears and turtles and rabbits who manage to escape bacterial illnesses. Rhiannon and I would nap together, on our mattress on the floor, with bits of dusty summer sun permeating the slats of the blinds in the bedroom, her warm, good smelling body draped across me like a protective little warrior. Sometimes we would walk to the library, a cool sanctuary just a quarter mile from our complex, and I would tell her about all of the things I could see around us. I would read her the synopses of the books I found, talk to her about the alligator who was rumored to live in the pond by our stairwell. She would look up from her front pack, cherubic cheeks bouncing with my steps, her white hair a puffy halo (which would later grow into a mullet we couldn't bring ourselves to trim). In a world of just two those long days, she was my best friend and my confidante.
Jake would come home, tired from delivering beer to small convenience stores in the Tampa ghetto, and after a seven dollar dinner (our weekly grocery allowance was fifty dollars), would go to bed, because the textbooks wouldn't study themselves in the predawn hours. And Rhiannon and I would be left to our own devices again, showering together with her slippery body clinging to me like a lemur, while I cradled her against my chest. We would sing and coo together while I dressed her in fresh onesies, and then we would watch reruns of Friends while she nursed herself to sleep. Once she and Jake were snoring in tandem, I would get up and spend my insomnia in front of my computer, searching eBay for the least expensive ways to have a wedding.
This was our life until we moved to Virginia, where we had family to ask us to dinner, to pick me and Rhiannon up for a jaunt to the mall, but often, she and I would find ourselves alone again. Jake was still teaching himself from computer books he had shipped to us one by one as we could afford them. And he found a grown up job, so his time with us was limited, and fatigued. Rhiannon and I walked and found worms in mud puddles, we walked and ogled starter homes that to us, seemed unachievable. We walked to a playground where she would be happy to swing for hours. And we watched an interminable amount of Elmo. Elmo in Grouchland, Elmo being Cinderella, Elmo counting and giggling his way into our collective hearts. When I found a part time job, because $50 wouldn't feed us once the breast milk was no longer on the menu, she hung from the doorknob crying for me so long that it broke from the door frame. I miscarried twins after 9/11, and Jake was offered a job with Homeland Security, his studying having paid off, and we moved to New York.
I got pregnant with Morgan not long after the miscarriage, and she grew inside me like a sunflower while we adjusted to a life of four seasons, one both Jake and I had walked away from in our teenage years. In August of that year, New York City had a blackout, and Jake was stuck in his office in Manhattan. Rhiannon and I, a very pregnant I, were in a second floor walkup with no air conditioning and no power, and we sat naked in a cool bathtub playing with rubber toys until it was cool enough to go to bed. It had been ninety degrees that day, and I found myself gazing out my window at the landlord and his family drinking beer in their pool, and the yearning to be not alone at this moment was so thick, I could fold it up and use it as a pillow.
It wasn't until we moved upstate and had Lucas that I got my own car. By then, I had made new friends and found my old friends, and welcomed the gift of my parents back in my every day world. But even then, finances were thin, and most of my days were spent caring for a kindergartener, a toddler and a newborn, with nothing but General Hospital and The Wiggles for company. On the weekends, Jake and I would work from morning until evening gutting our house and rebuilding it, tile by tile, sheetrock panel by sheetrock panel.
Fifteen years later, the world has had its own blackout in a way. We are all in our houses and apartments, locked and loaded with wanderlust and yearning for normalcy. Some parents lament louder than others- one comment online comparing being home with a child to imprisonment enough to make me shut off the computer. I have found a piece of me in this disorder that was buried in a rubble of time. There is nostalgia and gratitude like a vine winding its way through my consternation. I have joked that all of those years ago, perhaps I was in training. While other 22 year olds were traveling, and experimenting with recreational drugs, and finishing school, I was learning to keep myself company. I was learning that my children can fill my days, and it is my choice whether I relish their company or grow resentful. My circumstances have changed. My house is bigger and my budget is bigger and my kids are bigger, but some things are the same. There are still neighbors drinking beer by their pool while I watch on, and there are still days where the loneliness is where I lay my head at night. Jake is done with school, and is there to cuddle with, though most nights it is he who is falling asleep to my voice and not my kids. But I am so appreciative for this thing we built. Tile by tile, moment by moment, we have come far. We do not need to leave this structure. We are safe at home. This home we built.
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