My Page: Jennifer Savage

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Savagemama

I see the five other women I went to graduate school with about once a year now. Today we are not the angsty 20-something writers we were when we first met that day eight years ago. Now we’re angsty 30 something writers with houses, husbands and babies. We have careers, go to Costco and still try to make writing as close to the center of life's bullseye as possible. It's not always easy. So when I get an email like I did this week from one of them with a “teeny, tiny challenge” to write on “time” I take it seriously. Here’s what I came up with... [more]

Column: Savagemama

Last night Eliza went to sleep around 9:30 p.m., woke up once around 3 a.m., ate, and went back to sleep in her bed until 6:30 a.m. This is a schedule I would welcome every night.

On my good days, I look at her asleep for her brief 45-minute morning nap and think that she will probably grow into a centered young woman who loves yoga and quiet walks in the mountains behind our house. On my bad days, I move from coffee to Coke by noon and think this child is trying to kill me slowly, one two-hour stretch at a time like the twisting of a dull knife jabbed squarely into the center of my gut. [more]

Column: Savagemama

As part of a one-day-a-week trade, a girlfriend and I are watching each other’s children. And because of a daycare hurdle in her household I watched her child two days in a row this week. In return, she watched Eliza this past Sunday so Seth and I could finish a house project.

Honestly, I am thrilled that we hatched this plan a few months ago. It means I can have one day a week to work, to get organized, to go to the grocery store. I think she is happy too because it means her daughter only has to have two days a week at daycare. We do love each other’s children and are happy to help each other out, but the reasons we swap care one day week go deeper than that. We are both trying to balance working part-time with full-time baby care; trying to find a flexible, affordable daycare we feel good about is next to impossible; and no matter how many degrees we mamas collectively hold or how many years it’s been since our mothers’ generation fought for equal rights we are still the ones largely responsible for childcare. [more]

Column: Savagemama

So, they went.

Seth took Eliza to Portland and I survived a quiet weekend alone. As I helped Seth ready Eliza for the trip, I tried to remind myself this was a good idea.

After we put her to sleep that night. I stacked her clothes in Seth’s suitcase. I always over pack for Eliza and this night was no different. I packed several long-sleeved shirts, pants, a dress or two, some short-sleeved onesies and three pairs of shoes. Yes, three pairs of shoes for a child that isn’t even walking. Even while moving around the house matching outfits, finding diapers and bottles of teething tablets, I was still on the fence about this whole endeavor.

During the past 24 hours, I’d called everyone I could think of that might be able to reassure me that sending Eliza to Portland was OK. Everyone thought she’d be fine, that she wouldn’t wean if Seth took breast milk, that it could be an adventure. I was still unsure. [more]

Column: Savagemama

If you haven’t figured it out, Eliza and I are a matched set. Where I go, she goes. Work, the bathroom, restaurants, the garden. She plays peek-a-boo with the shower curtain when I’m in the shower, she cruises across the room and climbs up my legs when I make her breakfast. There are some days I do wish she were a little less interested in me but I know those days will come. So for now, she’s my girl. I’m her mama. How could Seth even think of taking her with him for the weekend? It’s absurd! [more]

Column: Savagemama

When Eliza was born, I had few friends with babies. I found myself seeking the counsel of other mamas out there, which meant I had to step out of my friend group, and comfort zone, to find women to talk to. When we new mamas would gather we had on our mom hats. We talked about slings, diapers, to use or not use a pacifier, sleep patterns and left with helpful tips we’d found on the Internet. I often left these gatherings with an empty feeling, like I’d made no connection at all with these women.

I want more than sticking to the mom agenda. [more]

Column: Savagemama

When it comes to pop culture, Seth and I grew up very differently. He barely had a television in his house, I had one in my room and was an every Thursday night Cosby-Show girl. Then I was an every Thursday night Friends girl, then ER. You get the point. I owned Thriller and Purple Rain, he owned a dubbed Bob Marley and the Wailers tape. I wore zippered pants, he wore cutoffs. I cruised at the beach listening to “Baby Got Back” over and over, he was, at the same age, off climbing some rocks somewhere. I grew up in the suburbs in South Carolina, he grew up on a desert highway in Central Oregon with the Three Sisters at his doorstep. He reads Noam Chomsky to unwind, I read “smut” magazines (People, In Touch, Us Weekly) that my mom throws into the box when she mails Eliza something. Somehow we’ve bridged this gap. [more]

Column: Savagemama

Lately I’ve been doing lots of math problems. When my stepmother was my age she had my brother, her first child. When my dad’s mom was my brother’s age, she had my dad, her last child. When I was my sister’s age, my stepmother had my brother. When I was my brother’s age, my stepmother had my sister. My sister couldn’t have cared less about all of my jabbering but I couldn’t stop thinking about how these pieces fit together once then didn’t and now do again. [more]

Column: Savagemama

These days, at 31 as the responsible mother of an almost one-year old, there’s a different kind of rain coming down in my life. The humidity is rising, the barometer’s getting low and everyone I know seems to be going into labor. My good friend Big Sis is right, all around us brand new babies are coming down like rain. [more]

Column: Savagemama

Last week when I looked at pictures of my friend's just-born baby, I remembered details about Eliza’s birth 11 months ago on a rainy night. I saw again tiny images I’d tucked away into the crevices of memory. I’d put them there to protect them, to preserve them because they were too fragile, too precious to leave lying around on the edges of everyday conversation. But last week I saw these details again. They were almost tangible.

I remembered Seth holding my hand and breathing with me through every contraction from five centimeters to ten. I remembered the red sheets on the bed where Eliza was born. I remembered being covered with them just a few minutes after our midwife put our daughter on my chest. I remembered the creamy white vernix that covered Eliza from her wrinkled toes to her curly dark hair. It was like glue and she stuck to me in the pre-dawn hours.

We had a good birth. [more]

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