White Space Black Art career moms Archives

…and while I write he draws sunflowers: Post-pardonne moi #3

March 7, 2018

Tonight I held my son wrapped in a towel after the bath. I held him there tightly so he couldn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes. We have just come back from seeing Papa, Papa who is away for 6 weeks working out of town and we at the 3-week mark, going to visit. But not all goes according as planned and we found ourselves watching TV and convalescing on the beds in a hotel room – with a boy too sick and fevery to wander the streets after breakfast. And the departure, ever bittersweet, left me heavy with the burden of a working mom, celebrating two days of not planning dinners and making a lunch and yet the break, the lounging in bed while my son twirled my hair, cold facecloth compress on his head was hardly a break at all.

The morning mother

June 9, 2015

When the sun dances in shadows on the wall through the blinds in horizontal stripes of brightness, you know the day is going to shine. Today the sky is dove grey and white and the light in the bedroom is dim. Dim enough to want to stay lingering in the warmth of the covers.

Today the boy is freshly two And though we’ve had days like this before, the laughter and fun that turns to tears from a bumped head or the suggestion to put a diaper on, the exchange on this day is heightened. It’s been two years of disrupted sleep. Of learning to be present,
or organic I say, about every moment of the day.

Branches This Way and Up

March 24, 2015

The day starts with close to two hours of my son saying “Mama” and “Dada” and “Uppa” Uppa” after my husband left me to delve into single parenthood for two weeks straight. The drop-off at daycare brings about crying so loud that an older brother to a girl in our class tells my son, “Don’t cry, school is fun!” Then me at work (the contract almost done), departing early to grab the boy to drop him at my girlfriend’s to be watched with her two boys by a shared caregiver, because I think the walk/bus/subway/streetcar rides that our caregiver offered to do with my son were just too much.

Post Pardonne-Moi

January 25, 2015

I should be out at one of two events tonight – one an art event, the other dinner with two girlfriends I’ve know since high school. I had already committed to the opening so I couldn’t do dinner, but here I am, at home, alone(ish) because the toddler is sleeping (oh god, thank you) upstairs.
I bailed on my planned outing (my partner is working late, I was always heading out alone) because I have a case of Post Pardonne-Moi’s. The feelings of this post-baby state of mind can be great, but tonight it’s the downside of mamahood that’s here.

Tag: career moms