Born to Be Wild

I know Dooce just blogged about this, but as I'm experiencing the same thing I really felt compelled to share. Today, I decided I had to leave the house. Had to. Or I would literally die. That or stab Corey in the eyeball with a chopstick I was using to stir my tea.

I sat on the sofa nursing Miles for the twentieth time that day around 2 in the afternoon. I looked down at his snorty little face, covered in milk and chapped at the chin from such slobbery, frequent eating, and got angry at him. Yes. Angry at my baby. It happens. So I waited until he was done eating and handed him to his father.

"We're up to 7 copies of Goodnight Moon," I told Corey. I had receipts for a few of them and knew that Target would take back the others. I grabbed my purse and went to the strip mall. In the car without the baby seat!

That moment of leaving the house was so light, so freeing, so adult! I skipped to the car and I put down all the windows! Because there wasn't a little bean to be sensitive to the light or wind. And then I turned the radio to adult music (Bob...who plays everything). I know you think I had been listening to Wee Sing Silly Songs or similar. You would be wrong. My child doesn't like music or human sounds. He only responds to white noise, so we have all our radios tuned to 91.7 where we can blast static 24/7 to soothe his wailing.

So there I was, driving almost 5 miles above the speed limit, with the wind in my hair and adult music on the radio. And I went to Barnes and Noble to make a return! Then I browsed. And browsed some more. For nearly 26 minutes, I was away from my child before I felt compelled to call home. He was sleeping! With his eyes shut and no screaming coming out of his mouth!

I was so overjoyed I went to Giant Eagle and just bought random things. Like without a grocery list. I haven't shopped off the list in years. I mean, I'm super anal. I plan out the whole week's meals and only buy the ingredients for them, plus some snacks and soy milk for my lactarded husband. Today I just bought things. Fish sauce. Udon noodles. Two limes. Ground ginger. Who cared!

Then I went to the fruit stand and bought the big bushel of peaches. Not the dinky basket but the big bushel, the one that's technically too heavy for me to be lifting post-baby-delivery. Who cared! I was a woman on the loose.

By the time I got home, I had been gone 72 minutes. It felt marvelous. I walked in the door and slowly unloaded my purchases. I sat at the table and drank a glass of milk and, if not for the jiggly pooch of extra skin jutting out from my mid-section and the granny panties I have to wear these days, I could have ALMOST pretended I was my old self.

Only I'm not anymore and never will be again. Because as soon as I wiped away that last sip of skim goodness, I heard Miles start sobbing upstairs. And I didn't even have to think about it. I just stood up and cradled him in my arms and swayed side to side, ignoring the radio static, mothering him with renewed vigor. If, three weeks ago, you would have told me that a trip to a freaking strip mall on a Saturday would be the best thing to happen to me all week, I would have spit cherry pits in your face. Now, though, as I sit here in a shirt with baby barf stains, still in my granny panties and wearing a G-cup nursing bra, I can hardly believe the miracles that had to fall into place to allow those 72 minutes to happen. And I feel damn grateful.