yesterday

I was nursing the baby yesterday afternoon. She pulled off, looked up at me, and flashed one of her brand new, slightly awkward (yet absolutely stunning) smiles. Oh, I melted! Then Gabriel asked me for a snack, and I looked up at him to respond. Part of my brain registered something pleasantly warm run down my side and onto my lap. Hmm. Yes, apples and peanut butter. Let me get that for you.

When I stood up I finally figured out that the grinning baby had spit up what must have been all the milk she'd taken in, soaking my shirt, her shirt, and my pants. So we went upstairs to change. On the way back down, I felt - and heard - the most impressive, rumbling poop. Oh dear. Back upstairs, where it was clear that there'd been significant leakage. I determined there was still time to give the oozing, messy baby a quick, much-needed bath before the big kids had swimming lessons.

Holding the baby, a towel, a change of clothes and a clean diaper in the bathroom, I reached down to add the baby tub to my burdens and predictably dropped the diaper in the toilet. Ugh. Back to fetch a clean diaper. Back downstairs to bathe the babe on the kitchen counter. Back upstairs because I forgot the soap. Back down with the naked baby. My patience was sliding away from me, a thin rope that uncoiled and dragged along the floor behind me, tracing loops along the stairs. Thank God we live in a split level. (Did I just say that?)

Anyway. Once the tub was filled, I picked up the baby to put her in, and she immediately peed all over my front. I took off my shirt and used it to mop up the floor. The slender rope continued to slide away. Bur once the outrageously beautiful naked baby was finally laid in the little mesh sling in her bathtub, looking around peacefully with her clear blue eyes, I began to feel restored, and could not help covering her warm expansive belly in kisses.

Mike came in from mowing the lawn just as she pooped - again - a lot - in her tub. I think I screamed. My tenuous return to decent spirits was derailed.

He cleaned up the tub, I plunked the baby in our bathroom sink and rinsed her slippery body as best I could, found myself a shirt, dressed Beatrice, herded everyone into the minivan and made it to swimming only a little late. But I was a brittle, humorless shell of my usual self, and found Frances's contradictions and correcting (Mama, it was 6 minutes, not 5) and Gabriel's baby talk (You put on shoe shoes!) utterly intolerable.

We made it home. The dark cloud around me seemed immobile, impenetrable. But then something miraculous happened: Edith called. And we had time to talk! Edith is a kindred spirit, a friend of my heart, a bright light who lives in Colorado and has two sparkling children and a full time managerial nursing job and who I have not seen in nearly a year. I got to cry and complain and laugh and within minutes the rope - whose end I had bid adieu to hours ago - was neatly recoiled and put away where it belongs.

I really was all better. Edith, you saved me. The recovery was cemented later by Taco Sunday.

The survival of children, and most definitely the flourishing of children - at least mine - rests so solidly on the steady shoulders of good friends, those unsung heroes of family life! Oh my friends, near and far: thank you.