one leg at a time

William in orange
Photo by Billy

As I struggle to put William’s pants on him, I consider the futility of my efforts. Will twists and squirms on the changing table, grabbing for the container of wipes that crackles reliably in his hands. Even though I will have to change his diaper within a few hours, I ease his plump thigh down one pant leg. When I try the other, he slips both feet out, looks at me sheepishly, farts.

After Will’s pants are on, maybe I will write for a few minutes. I want to write, but I don’t expect to get too many words on the page. As I type, I will have to hold, and feed, and tend to the baby. He will he paw at the keys and pull the plug from the wall.

Once I get his pants on, I need to clean the living room. Toys are strewn across the waxed, wooden floors. The dogs have been tracking mud in, through the dog door, all morning. They’d be calmer if I walked them, which I will do once Will is dressed.

But first, I must get the baby’s freaking pants on. I make nice, sing sweetly, old R&B tunes with the word “baby” in them. William is captivated, and I thread his crescent feet into the pants openings. I scoop him up, balance him atop the changing table, and hoist the waist of his pants around his diaper-clad bum. But then, he stomps with satisfaction. His feet free themselves. I have to start all over again.

In the end, I finally get Will’s pants on, one leg at a time, the way everybody does it. Even simple tasks can become so exasperating, but I figure, I might as well embrace them. I figure we have to wear pants, at least in the wintertime. We have to write, and clean, and walk the dogs; piecing our lives together, only to watch them fall apart again.

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family portrait

family portrait
Photo by Billy

Growing up, every autumn, my dad would lead us to some picturesque spot to snap a family photo for that year’s Christmas card. Early on, there was an image of me, six years old, with my ebony baby doll in tow, sent out to family and friends. The tag line read “Have a Very Black Christmas.” It was The Seventies. Still, the fact of that card’s existence becomes funnier as the years pass– as my parents seem less like Black Panthers and more like, well, grandparents.

Billy and I are continuing that fall family portrait tradition. But our boy, William, is both black and white, or neither, depending on how you look at it. Certainly there is no neat slogan, no quick box to check, to sum up his ethnicity.This complexity is the subject of my essay, Our Boy, Powhatan, published on Literary Mama, in the ‘Faces of Motherhood’ column. Literary Mama is a big site, with lots of good reading for the “maternally inclined.” For my small part, my essay begins:

We named our boy William Powhatan Hunt IV—”Will” for short—but sometimes I call him “Powhatan.” The name “Powhatan” speaks of the Americans indigenous to the wild, swampy part of Virginia where my husband grew up. At two months old Will looks like he could be Native American, or Asian, or Latino, with his luminescent tan skin and slick black hair…
For the column click here, or click here for printable version of this essay.

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9-1-1 !!!

Will under the X-ray
cellphone photo by Billy

It’s crazy how quickly your bargains with God can downgrade when the emergency passes. In the heat of the moment, you’re prostrate, promising the house, the car, everything you have. You squeeze your eyes shut, and beg please, please, please.

It’s only later, when the dust has settled, that you start to mitigate your promises. C’mon, Big Guy, you cajole, In your infinite indefiniteness, you know I was overreacted just a little. You won’t really hold me to all those promises, will you, for that one ensy-weensy favor you did for to me?

Let’s back up to the Wednesday night when Will was rushed to the hospital. Billy was out playing music and I was recovering from the flu. I thought Will might be getting sick. Ever the modern mom, I even googled ’7th month old fever’ and took Will’s temperature (which was normal) before putting him to bed.

When I checked on Will a few hours later he was hot and fussy. As he nursed, tremors shook his body intermittently, causing him to wince and cry out. I checked his temperature again–100.6–a fever, but just. It was 10 pm. Billy’s band would just be stepping onto the stage. I brought Will into my bed for closer surveillance.

It must have been 11pm when Will started crying inconsolably. I held him close, paced the house barefoot in my sleep shirt and undies, anxious for Billy to get home. The tremors had stopped, but then, out of nowhere, Will’s tiny body bucked oddly and then went to dead weight in my arms. His head flopped back and when I looked into his face, his eyes were blank and open. I thought: this is not so different from what a dead baby would look like.

You always wonder how you’ll react in an emergency. Will you be heroic? The bastion of calm? The fool that needs to be slapped? Well that night I learned that I can devolve into a mumbling idiot. I became a woman crying and bargaining with God for the restoration of her boy. I became someone who pushed bottons on the phone, but couldn’t manage to get 9-1-1 to send. I could not find my keys or install the car seat, which Billy had swapped out for band equipment. I became this helpless, panicked woman. But then, thank God, Billy appeared at the door.

Billy saw my tear streaked face, and I said, Something’s wrong with the baby. And he said, Lets go. I love that Billy didn’t second guess or interview me. I love that he didn’t ask Are you sure? Even in the car, my reigned in sobs sufficed for him.

Always take 30 seconds to grab your purse, your jacket, a diaper, before going to the emergency room in the middle of the night. I’d grabbed pants, slippers, and nothing else. When I carried Will into the hospital, as Billy parked, the foyer was quiet. Where was the gurney, the nurse in scrubs saying “stat”? Where were the people trained to save my dying baby boy?

There was only the security guard/intake employee looking me over skeptically. He barely registered the baby in my arms for my disheveled appearance, my inside out shirt. Crack whore? he seemed to say to himself as he pointed towards a sign in sheet.

Once Billy came in, we were ushered to a check in nurse. From her measured movements, I gathered early on that our emergency was a minor one. She checked Will’s vitals and said, unimpressed, that he had a 103 temperature. She addressed him with the most shrill baby talk as she swabbed and pricked him. Finally she gave him Tylenol and ibroprophen, two drugs we had in our own medicine cabinet.

Over the next few hours the doctor ordered tests for William. They checked for strep, x-rayed his chest, and eventually found that he had the flu. Apparently babies who have the flu and fever have seizures sometimes.

Offer him fluids, the doctor said, try to keep his fever down. He’ll be tired for a week or so.

Exhausted Billy and I took turns holding our miserable baby. With his fever falling, Will only wanted to sleep, but we had to wait for the staff to finish with us. Meanwhile my bargains with God, my earlier hysteria, seemed silly. I changed my shirt right-side out. I pulled my hair back, I washed my face. I held the baby till my arms ached. I thought about mother’s of truly sick babies; mothers alone with limp babies and no help anywhere.

–OK God, I said. In your ever present omniscience. God, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. I still want the house for us to live. I still want the car, too, so we can get where we need to go. But God, when I’m tired and tending to my baby, when I’m wiping his butt, and heating his food, and schlepping him around–

Let me remember this night.

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two-timing

billy’s band photo (billy in top left corner)
Photo by Billy

I know Billy loves me, but he cheats on my constantly. His first love is music, and he’s been traipsing around with bands for years; he’s a sucker for variety, but tends toward punk-rock 4 pieces.

This hasn’t slowed much with parenthood: Billy was still with the ironic ZZ TOP cover band, AA Bottom, when Will was conceived (not at that actual moment!). And When Will was born he was having a tumultuous love affair with The Karl Rove, a political rock band here in town. We even took 4 month old Will to a broke down rock festival in West Virginia, where they played , and Will stayed up to see an opening band. And now that William is sleeping through the night, Billy is staying out late playing music, smitten with his newest band: Straight Punch to the Crotch.

Straight Punch features guitar, keyboards, the keytar, electronic drums and ukulele, a band Billy describes as the Partridge family gone wrong. They sing in English, french, Spanish and Japanese, sweet melodies contrasted with twisted lyrics. I like Billy’s band-mates, but bands are like family, demanding time, attention and care. This other relationship seems so novel, so outrageous, so sexy, that I cannot help but be jealous sometimes.

Parenthood has been, in many ways, about letting go, but should we let go of everything? If we let go of everything that defines and sustains us as individuals, then what do we have left to bring to the table of our marriage and to parenthood. Billy’s cleaves to his music and maybe this is a good thing. His music is twisted and sweet and ultimately nurturing, too. So tonight, when Billy is out late, I’ll try to tolerate his two timing, and even leave the light on for him.

I’m gambling that the rock will keep him true; that he’ll still be loving William and me in the morning.

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resolutions

Photo by Billy

1. be resolute.
2. be patient.
3. pace yourself.
4. write more.
5. write about life’s complexities in clear, concise prose.
6. return to yoga.
7. find and keep friends.
8. enjoy little man’s littleness; he will not be this baby boy again.
9. take care of and appreciate billy.
10. smile.

computer drawing by me

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