what's mine

I turned 37 yesterday. And while I seem to love my own birthday a bit less each year, I tried to hold on to my usual birthday spirit and made myself a perfect plan. I'd soak in the hot tub. Go to yoga. Take myself to lunch. Get a massage. Have a date with my hubby. Mind you, I'd have to do all of this while still doing what I normally do on a Wednesday. Schlep my kiddos and baby to school/day-care after getting them dressed, fed, diapered, etc. Classroom manage and discuss the finer points of spelling and punctuation with an enthusiastic, jiggly room of third graders. But whatevs. It was my day and I was going to make it perfect.

It all began so well. In fact, it began the night before when my girlfriends took me to dinner and even stayed up way past their bedtimes to soak. Waiting on my pillow before bed were three beautiful, hand-written birthday notes, one from Jeff, one from Eliana, one from Sol. After thanking the universe for all my blessings, I blissfully fell to sleep. And actually managed a solid five hours before Sol needed me. We were on a good trajectory.

It's the morning of. Jeff takes Eliana to school so I can have some special me time. Sol sleeps in, so I decide to take a morning hot tub. The sun is shining on the valley for the first time in what feels like months. There's this beautiful, early morning mist kissing, blessing the hills. The vineyard shines in the distance, my favorite yellow house so cozy and nestled in among the vines. All the cynicism I've been feeling lately lifts. I feel nothing but grace.

I go in and check on Sol. He's still out, so I take a shower. Check again. Still quiet, so I get myself pretty. Then I hear him. So excited to see his funny, toothless smile, I turn on the light.

And the day shifts.

Sol sits in his crib. Nestled among single earrings, pairs of socks and...two random prescription pills. See, he sleeps in a closet. In that closet is my mother in-laws dresser. He's never done more than play with the handles. But in the past few minutes he's managed to not only open the drawer but empty the contents into his crib. And maybe his mouth. I don't know which.

Shell shocked, panicked, frightened, I get him up. He doesn't appear to have anything in his mouth, though who the hell knows. My plan was to get him to daycare on time so I could make it to a 9am yoga class. I anxiously try to continue with my morning routine.

So I'll stop right here. Why in god's name I didn't call poison control right away, I'll never know. Why I didn't call my husband, I'll never know. I do know that my gut said it was okay. But it was my gut and my son's life.

I see that now. I don't like how I responded. It's a good lesson for my family about how I deal in potential emergencies.

So his nanny Meghan said she'd keep a close eye on him. I didn't go to yoga. I went to work early, pulled Jeff from his classroom and calmly told him what happened. He promptly left school, raced up the hill to find the pills, called poison control, picked Sol up and drove him to the emergency room.

This is when I really felt like an asshole. Awful, awful negligent mama.

At this point it had been almost three hours since the potential incident. He still was acting like his normal, goofy self. The nurse we talked to was awesome. She said to watch him. That they wouldn't do any tests because he was too little. That if we admitted him, they'd just watch.

So that's what I did. I got to spend the afternoon of my birthday just watching my son. And it was perfect. Because he was fine.

When I finally felt okay enough to let him take a nap, he drifted off to sleep in my arms. I held him close. Listened to his breath. Marveled at his perfection. We lay in the dark together while I let his little body heave gently against mine. It was a beautiful birthday moment.

When I told my friend Gita what happened later that afternoon she said something like, Ah, babe. Your birthdays stop being yours after you have kids.

How right she was. Who was I to think that I'd really be able to pull of my detailed, all-about-me plan. Not that I thought something as scary as what happened was possible, but I certainly didn't take my little ones into account when planning my day.

So there I was. My son was healthy. My girl was at dance class. My evening massage appointment was still waiting for me.

The last time I went to this masseuse, Sol was in my body. How quickly things shift. Now that little boy is ransacking drawers, taking steps, grabbing everything within sight. I lay with my face pressed into that funny pillow and took a deep breath. I felt kind of guilty to be there, guilty to have left him at all. But there was still a bit of daylight, still a few hours left in my precious day.

I was back at that place of balance. How do we balance it all? How do we take time for ourselves without lessening our appreciation of our families? How do we trust the universe when everything feels so tenuous? How do we forgive ourselves when we falter, again and again and again?

That's my big job this year. To forgive myself. To loosen Guilt's noose, the one's he's been hanging over my neck since I was a girl. To be less apologetic. To assert myself more. To stop always being, the "nice" one. As much as I love nice and love being nice, I'm also kinda over nice. I need to be stronger. More thick skinned. I've earned it. 37 big years.