RD Teaser

[Again, no edits, spell checks, or syntax corrections...]

The low electrical drone of the TV was louder than its volume. I could only deduce the dialogue of the old Robert Redford movie by reading lips; it was a plot involving baseball. The flickering colors of light from the screen softly lit the hotel room where I lay in bed with our two-year-old daughter E. After we’d settled her into bed, my husband had gone back to his grandfather’s house to spend some time with his cousins and uncles. E and I had been left unto ourselves to sleep.

We’d been expecting to have a room with two double beds when we arrived at the casino in Lula, MS, where we’d be staying over the weekend to celebrate my husband’s grandfather’s 90th birthday. After a six hour car ride from St. Louis, we’d arrived at the casino to discover much to our chagrin we had only a king-size bed in our room. There were no other available rooms, so we’d have to adjust our sleeping plans accordingly.

As the bright summer sun turned to soft dusk, we’d bathed my daughter that evening and discussed sleeping arrangements. At first, she wanted to sleep on the floor in her well-worn pink Barbie sleeping bag, her favorite hand-me-down from my 11 year old niece. We were relieved to hear this request, as E is a notoriously restless sleeper. However, after 15 minutes of rolling around on the floor, she appealed rather loudly to sleep in our bed. I was a bit apprehensive, knowing I could not sleep with toddler appendages banging into my back all night. However, the weariness of the long car ride forced me to succumb to her wishes in order to avoid a bedtime squabble. So there we lay, just my daughter and I, sharing a spot in the large bed.

She had been rolling about and poking me with every available limb – an arm first, then a leg, an elbow, then a foot. I was more irritated with each tumbling pass she executed across the mattress, but tolerated the arrangement to avoid a cranky two-year-old the following day. I could certainly get by on little sleep as parents are trained by infants to do, but an overtired toddler was a recipe for disaster at any festive function. I resolved to endure the mid-dream punching and somersaults for the joy of all at the birthday party the next day. The sparring continued for what seemed like hours.

Then, all of the sudden, she rolled towards me almost purposefully in her sleep. She placed her puffy, rounded toddler-sized hand on my left breast, pressed her cheek to me, and instantaneously calmed down. The poking stopped and her breathing slowed. For the first time in over and hour, she was utterly content.

I don’t remember noticing my seemingly unprovoked silent tears until I could taste salt at the corners of my mouth. As I looked down at her, my soul breathed a sigh of tranquility. I saw my toddler curled up to me the same way she had curled up during our nursing moments. For the first time in months, I was experiencing the pure unadulterated joy of motherhood, and it simply overwhelmed me. I had forgotten, until that moment, how awe-inspiring it was to hold my baby under my heart.

My nursing sessions with E had ended nearly eight months prior, on the heels of her second birthday. By the time she weaned herself from me, nursing had become the one knowable source of serene contact I had with her. She had literally gone from the quiet respite of bedtime nursing into the independent and rebellious world of a toddler. These last several months had been times of frequent frustration for me as E tested the limits of both her new world and her mother.

The days since she weaned had been filled with one challenge after another. My experience of parenting a toddler had been similar to Bill Murray’s experiences in the movie Groundhog Day. Every day felt the same as the one before – confusing, tiring, and uncomfortably predictable. In my experience, though, just as I would find the answer to one quandary, E would present me with a new, more challenging situation to unravel. I’d been so tied up in learning how to handle temper tantrums, hand-holding refusals, and outright defiance, I’d lost my joie de vivre for motherhood.

Yet there, in the gaucherie of a casino hotel amidst farmland, a miracle had been granted to me for my soul’s restoration. I was given a reassurance that despite the changes in her dependence on me, E would still find comfort in my arms. I’d grown so discouraged with my sense of motherhood, I’d begun to think of myself as distant from my daughter. I thought that perhaps she was pulling away for me, growing a little colder towards me every day. Now I knew from the tiny hand upon my breast and peaceful angelic face that she was still soothed by my presence.