The pitter-patter of little feet can become deafening
Haddayr Copley-Woods
Our lakefront vacation: after a horribly delayed flight, my boys waited at baggage claim; stood with us and our endless array of car seats, suitcases, backpacks and other kid paraphernalia in the stifling heat for the rental shuttle; endured a long drive to my in-laws’ cottage, and then suffered the hugs of near strangers.
So, the fact that Arie completely fell apart when it was naptime and Éiden woke every two hours at night to fuss and nurse was inevitable.
Still, after the third night of this, I found myself staring up at the dark ceiling and saying to Jan: “You know what? I do not like being a mom right now.”
Over that week, I felt this way often. Don’t get me wrong—my love for my funny, independent, surprising kids never wavered. My love for parenting: that flagged. Languished. Drowned horribly in a sea of boogers, whining, tantrums, teething and defiance.
It’s terrible to admit this—not because someday my boys will read this and be scarred for life, but because so many people want to be parents and can’t, or worse: were parents and aren’t anymore.
Yet as I feel for them, and would never want to trade places, sometimes I want to trade places with my former self: the self who relaxed every evening in my quiet, calm home to the faraway sound of children playing. The self who was blissfully unaware of how many hours of time she had to herself—and how many she wasted—every single day.
I got my chance recently on what was supposed to be a working trip to Chicago to help my sister and her husband with their new baby while they attended a wedding.
I jumped a bus without nagging anyone to hurry up or we’d miss it, hopped a train in a few unencumbered steps, danced through security (without having to juggle a diaper bag and a baby as I removed my shoes and explained to the perplexed security guard what a breast pump was), bought a scalding hot tea I did not have to continually protect from disaster and worked on a bit of sewing while I waited at the gate.
A harassed-looking man chased after his overtired and over-stimulated three-year-old. I tried to look sympathetic, but I think I smirked.
As I sewed, I enjoyed a pleasant chat with my fellow passengers, and we all sympathized with that poor woman three aisles back whose baby would not stop crying.
After landing, I zoomed past baggage claim with my light-as-a-feather backpack, boarded the El, and strolled through the city streets, walking at my own pace. I stopped for a sandwich, which I ate slowly. I helped a woman wrestle her stroller and its stoic cargo down the steep steps into Union Station. I waved away her thanks, leaving her to worry about how to get back out, caught the Metro train and blissfully wrote in my journal for 45 uninterrupted minutes.
My aunt met me at the station at 1:20 p.m. I had traveled since seven that morning on three trains, a bus and a plane. We hugged. “You must be exhausted,” she said.
“I have never,” I told her, “been so relaxed in all my life.”
I felt even better later, meeting my adorable nephew Finn and his besotted yet desperately sleep-deprived parents. “You poor things,” I said. “Let me take him for a walk so you can sleep.” But that night, in my adjoining room, I slept. For eight solid hours. Without moving a muscle.
By the time I got home, I felt as if my weekend away diapering and walking the floor with someone else’s baby had been a week in the tropics: dozing on a featherbed, enjoying eight-hour massages.
I have never had any patience with people who resent the sacrifices they make for their children. Most of the time, I make them gladly—and as far as my dreams go, my boys have only spurred me on to write more.
But it sure felt good to free myself for a short time from the day-to-day sacrifices of sleep, time, energy and attention.
And if the woman desperately dragging her shrieking toddler out of the airport bathroom as he flailed furiously in her arms didn’t appreciate my giggling a little into my hand as she passed, she’ll get over it. I hope she’ll get her day, too. Because every parent deserves at least one or two of them.
Haddayr Copley Woods, a writer and graphic designer, works and lives in Minneapolis’ Powderhorn Park neighborhood. Not all of her trips away from her children are quite this gleeful—she’s been known to shed a tear or two.
