Pajama Day

Before I went back to work I spent all my time emailing or taking baby activity classes as my way of staying linked to the “outside world”. I was the one putting on a puppet show for my newborn who was perfectly content to stare at his mobile all day. 


I also made a point to leave the house everyday unless the roads were snowy in which I would bundle him up and take him out in the sled for fresh air.

There is an excerpt from the book Perfect Madness Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, “Everyone was too busy with “activities.” It was hard to just spend time just sort of vegetating in the sun because our kids, overstimulated by daily story hours and Gymboree, couldn’t just play in the sandbox, or run around the flagpole, or climb without running to us every five minutes. Without our having constantly to explain interpret, facilitate the world for them.” 

That was me in a nutshell until I decided to take back control of my planner.  It’s now a Tuesday that I have off from work and the only thing written on my planner for today is Pajama Day as my reminder to not make any plans for the day.

Instead of leaving the house I make blueberry pancakes and cut them into fun shapes with cookie cutters, Matt and I dance to the Barenaked Ladies, and he jams his ball popper with blocks and markers. We take a walk around the block at snails pace so he can inspect every rock and fallen leaf he sees and we read the same Frog and Toad story three times in a row. When Bob comes home from work we are blowing bubbles on the lawn instead of unpacking the car after a day trip. It was a relaxing day!

The Hugging Bandit

Fourteen and a half month old Matthew has yet to kiss me.

“Why haven’t you kissed me yet?” I ask him one afternoon while we sit together on the couch watching a movie. It’s high school all over again, except instead of a character in Empire Records saying, “Damn the man! Save the Empire!” Elmo’s shrill voice sings about weather to the off tune of Jingle Bells. Matthew looks straight ahead at the television instead of answering me.

“Soon he will be giving you these lovely big sloppy kisses,” the pediatrician said at his nine month well-baby check up, “Just you wait.”

Hello Pot? It’s Kettle. Something that I have yet to mention is that I find kissing and hugs unbearable in most circumstances, unless it’s with the people who live in my own home. I’ll stroke and whisper sweet nothings to the neighbor’s frou frou giant poodles but with most people I am all awkward elbows and back thumps. I wonder where Matthew gets it from?

When Matthew helps me weed the flower garden by raking his blue plastic rake through the bark mulch I ask him if he is having fun.

“Yeah Mama,’ he walks over to where I am sitting, close enough so that I can smell the cologne of his bug spray and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Mama?”

He blows me a raspberry and then another. It’s close enough.