Getting It All Lined Up

For some reason, I feel an almost compulsive need to try to explain the experience of motherhood.  Perhaps that’s why I’m blogging and not cooking, cleaning, folding, or doing anything else even remotely useful.  I probably should do one or more of those things while the baby naps, but as long as I’m on the couch, with the computer in my lap, I might as well charge on.

I’ve been trying to come up with a metaphor to describe daily life with an infant.  Lots of mothers talk about rollercoasters, but that doesn’t quite do it for me, for a few reasons.  Fortunately, my highs aren’t that high, and my lows aren’t that low (most of the time).  Also, after a few minutes of stomach-turning twists and turns, the ride is over, you get up, and walk away.  It doesn’t work that way with a baby.

The best metaphor I’ve come up with is this – mothering is like trying to solve a Rubiks cube.  (Please keep in mind this metaphor doesn’t apply to folks who can solve one in less than 24 seconds.  I suspect they are Cylons, and I fear them.)  Anyway, once you pick it up, it’s really hard to put down (I’m speaking figuratively, here, mind you).  There are so many different parts to consider, and once you figure one out, all the other pieces get jumbled and out of place.  While the goal seems so simple (we just need to get out the door to go for a walk!), it is rarely easy.  Every once in awhile you get a row or even a whole side lined up (the baby went down for a nap without screaming for 20 minutes!!), but the rest of it is still a confused mess.  So you keep turning and turning, trying again and again to get it right.  Sometimes you get so frustrated you just want to throw it out the window, while other times it feels easy, and you could keep turning the sides for hours.  There are hours and days when you even enjoy your colorful little distraction, when you are happy to take it along with you every where you go.

And then, every once in awhile, you solve it.  The whole thing.  The baby sleeps in, hasn’t pooped herself up to her neck, you get a decent shower in, playgroup goes well, naps are easy and long, you somehow get the house moderately clean, you remember to bring a diaper on the walk, play time is fun, and the baby sleeps through the night again.  Those days are few and far between, and you would do well to hold on to them, just like you never wanted to put down that Rubiks cube with each side a solid color.

Because the next morning you will wake up to a baby swimming in her own poo, and you step in cat vomit, and there’s no milk in the fridge and it’s raining outside and playgroup – your one plan for the day that would get you outside of your own brain and give you at least a little adult contact – has been cancelled.  And you feel like you’re never going to get all those little squares to line up ever again.