ParAUNTing

My niece, Sadie, is three and a half, which is a thrilling time in terms of language and development. Unfortunately, since her birth overlapped with my becoming the sickest I’ve ever been, I’ve been interested to see how she processes my illness.

She’s always understood that I was sick, and when she was younger she would kiss my boo boos. At 2 years old, she started mimicking testing my blood sugar with her dolls, and she’s ask me to check her too. She’d even make beeping noises like the glucose meter does when it’s done processing the sample.

Now that she’s a big kid, she understands what it means when I’m in the hospital. When I was inpatient at rehab last summer, she decorated my room with luau girls and printed heart duct tape. It was over 8 months ago but Sadie still brings up “that time you were in the hospital for a long long time and we played Doctor!” She had her own doctor kit and scrubs in my hospital room.

Doctor has always been her favorite game to play. Her stories about how her dolls got hurt or why her imaginary friend, Baby, got hurt, are hilarious. “Baby’s in the hospital because he hurt her head when we were apple picking and a cherry fell on him head and there was blood!”

This is a gif of her pretending to give her baby sister insulin in the tummy because “that’s where Auntie gives her medicine!”

She is so funny and smart and while I wish she didn’t have to know so much about illness, I’m confident we are talking about it in appropriate ways and I’m glad she is expressing her feelings about it through play.

I spent the weekend in the city with my friends, wishing Meghan and Declan a proper goodbye to London. On Sunday, Genevieve, Rachel and I spent the day ambling around Central Park and having cocktails and Important Life Talks.

At brunch we were talking about almost being 29 and having to think about babies and I said, extremely confidently, that I did not want to have children anymore. That I have such a close bond with Sadie that I don’t feel the need to have my own child. I said that I am so easily sick and exhausted, I feel it would be unfair to be only sort of present for my kid. I can’t imagine having more than one and I do not want to have an only child.

And everyone kind of looked at me, shocked. Because I am the Baby Whisperer and children adore me. They are drawn to me. At story time, the babies crawl toward me like I’m a giant nipple or something. I have never really understood it but I have always loved it.

I am pretty great with them and oddly enough, it makes me feel like I have enough babies surrounding me that I don’t need to have my own. Is that weird?

I feel pretty strongly about this but today I was putting Sadie down for a nap. And we fell asleep together and she rubbed my back and laughed and sang me songs and I sort of wished she were mine, or that I could have one that is ALL mine, one who I wouldn’t have to drive home at 5:00.

But then she left and I was too exhausted to read or function. And I wondered if I am protecting myself from wanting children because I’m too afraid of what would happen if I let myself want them. Maybe I am too cowardly and selfish to picture my life with them, because of all the things I would have to do and give up.

I meant everything I said at brunch and I love children, especially those related to me, so much. It feels like enough. Maybe it is for now.

But maybe. Maybe I’m too afraid I won’t get better to become a mom, and if I can’t get better enough to be a mom, I never will.

Quvenzhané Wallis (then age 9) correcting an AP Reporter who said she was “just going to call her Annie” instead of learning how to pronounce her name. Never forget.  (via thechanelmuse)

Quvenzhané Wallis, accurately representing the daily struggle of everyone with a non-Caucasian name in the western world.

(via danaoffthedancefloor)

The kid is two. We had a small celebration with just immediate family and some randos from in the in-law side and she was showered with gifts. She took no interest in the clothes; it was hilarious how she barely blinked before looking for anything that could be a toy.

She’s two, two. And I know my friends think it’s weird, how much I love her. They say I’m obsessed with her. What can I say except she was born at a critical time in my life, right as I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. She was born and then I was supposed to go back to LA where I lived and I was told I could not. And now she’s been alive as long as I’ve been trapped here and she’s the only goddamn reason I got out of bed most days.

I am getting better now. Our bond is extremely strong. Intense, even. She is the closest thing I know to having a child. I watched her take her first breath. We go to mommy & me classes together. I would never want to replace my sister, and she works so hard to be a full time social worker and mom. But I needed this role, this responsibility, this unbearably beautiful weight on my shoulders.

Dawn, in Starring the Babysitter’s club, about how out of date and fucked up Peter Pan is as a play with Peter luring Wendy into coming to Neverland promising adventure, when he really just wants a mom to do his cooking and cleaning and sewing for him.

I forgot there was legit feminist arguments in my pre-teen reading until just now.

(via wonderlandleighleigh)