Love Song

edited to add: This post is in reply to a recent post at Her Bad Mother

There was a time, when Frances was between nine months and a year old, when I didn't take her outside of the house.

She wasn't sick, and neither was I. Or maybe I was. I didn't take her out because I was too afraid of other people.

It had been, by then, almost a year since the first scary ultrasounds--a year of being told by medicial professionals from the family doctor to a few fancy genetics practices that there was something wrong with the way my daughter looked. Her legs were too short. Her thumbs were too broad. Her ears were too low. Her eyes were too big. Her chin might be too recessed. Her hands and feet might be too large. Her collarbones might be too short. Every new doctor took their own measurements and made their own pronouncements, and they used them to make misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis.

At one appointment with my endo--for gods' sake, a diabetes specialist--he asked, "So what's the story with Frances?"

"Nothing. Well, she's a bit small and we've had to take her around a bit, but no one's been able to come up with anything, so..." I shrugged.

"What? But you can tell just by looking at her, she has that fairy-face syndrome."

And I'll ignore the strangers, the ones who asked me at the store, "What's wrong with her? Why is she so small? Don't worry, she'll be perfect someday."

My maternal confidence held up for about nine months, and then it was just one diagnosis too many. Maybe they're right. Maybe she is ugly. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks she's beautiful.

Maybe all those nice old ladies and teenaged girls who stopped us at the mall all the time to rapturize over her big blue eyes and tiny body were just being kind. Maybe that jerkface who stole her photo and put up a comment on his LJ about her looking like she has FAS was right, or had the right idea. Maybe I was the only one who thought she was beautiful.

So I kept us home. I couldn't face it. My skin was worn right away, I had no defences left. There are too many doctors who think my baby looks funny for them all to be wrong.

This is what I have to be ashamed of, and I am. Deeply. But ashamed for adoring my daughter's beauty, for finding pleasure in it? Never. I would settle us on the rocking chair and kiss the top of her head, smile ruefully over the way her two crowns made her short hair into the world's smallest mohawk, marvel at how my left hand covered her entire torso, at how her feet were shorter than my hand is wide; I'd trace the line of her cheeks with my eyes and try to memorize it, that beautiful swell, that trace of baby fat on my skinny little baby.

In her book Mother Nature, which I am going to cite yet again because it really is that good, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy writes that the sensual pleasures of sex almost certainly evolved after the sensual pleasures of motherhood. A species can reproduce without enjoying sex at all (look at cats), but especially for a species that takes as long to mature as we do, if you don't physically enjoy at least some aspects of motherhood, none of your offspring will survive. There has to be a payoff for staying so physically close for such a long time. She even suggests that the reason they feel so similar sometimes is that sex borrowed the chemistry and hormones of mothering. Think of that the next time you're feeling frisky and your partner is looking at you with a sparkle in their eyes.

For a long time, I helplessly added "to me" as a suffix to every statement of Frances's beauty. I could never see her as anything but beautiful. But to this day, the pronouncements of those doctors ring in my ears and when I look at her, I am aware that part of my mind is analyzing the angle between her eyes and her ears, the shape of her jaw, the width of her little fingers. I pay it much less mind than I used to, but those weeds have taken root and at times have crowded out everything else in the garden. It's taken a lot of ruthless pruning to turn them back.

I love the way her baby toes curl under the rest.

I love the slight rough edge of callus along the outside of her big toes.

I love the muscles under her calves and thighs. Sometimes I ask her if I can eat her leg; and she normally says no, but when she says yes, I take a big mock mouthful and growl and pretend to chew, and she howls with laughter until tears run down her face.

I love her belly, still soft as velvet, and her ridiculously trim belly button. I love the way she sometimes drags her shirt above her head and goes walking around, thinking herself hidden, belly on display.

I love her two tiny arms; when she is sitting quietly, I love how she folds them and clasps her hands on her lap. I love asking her, "Frances, can I see a beautiful little hand?" I love how she holds it up in front of my face, five fingers spread wide; I love that she inherited my hands, with the ring fingers longer than the index fingers, and the tiny tiny little pinkie fingers. I love her pinkie fingers; I love to bite them and make her laugh.

I love the dimples just beside her elbows.

I love lying behind her when she is sitting down, my chin just over her shoulder; I love to breathe in the smell of her hair. I love it when she presses one round, firm cheek against my face and says, "I love you Mummy."

It tickles her when I kiss her just under the ear.

I love her blond hair. I love studying its highlights, the very ends on the very top layer that are white white white against the medium blond underneath; I love running my fingers through it and then twisting it up so I can see the curve of her skull and the back of her neck.

I love her big blue eyes.

I love it when she says, "Can I hold you, Mummy?" Then she wraps her little arms around my arm and lifts her feet off the ground so I have to carry her; I pick her up, supporting her weight with my right arm, and settle us into a chair or the couch, and she buries herself into me. She asks, "Can you tickle my back, Mummy?" And I oblige, tracing the stumps I have for fingernails in circles on her impossibly tiny, beautiful, strong back; I touch each little bump on her spine, each rib, her shoulder blades, the curve beside her neck, the soft parts of her waist. She rarely laughs. I think she finds it calming. But if I stop: "Tickle my back again, Mummy!"

"All right."

She leans into me, a soft and warm bundle, small flyaway hairs tickling my nose, one hand patting the mole. I tickle her back, lean my head close to her, and close my eyes.

Posted by Andrea at August 17, 2006 2:42 PM under Mothers and Anti-Mothers

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