Yesterday we woke up to snow, snow whipped by the wind into egg white peaks, into basins and plateaus, into crests and valleys, into slopes and plains and smooth white pastures.
Today we woke up to cold: squeaking below your boots cold, ice caking around your nose hairs cold. Cold from the right lung of the wind, cold without compassion, cold that crushes the felt magenta hat. No borders cold, no remorse cold, cold with no knowledge of braille, with no sympathy for the belly of the rabbit.
And though the temperature in the house is still the same, I feel instinctively that I should bundle you tighter, wrap a sweater around your yellow, terry-cloth sleeper. But you seem not to notice.
Yesterday, in addition to battling the snow, I also made my first huge mistake as a mother. Just a simple forgetting really, but a forgetting that could have had horrific consequences.
After Daddy's office hours, we bundled you up in your car seat (hat, blanket, zip-up car seat cover) and zoomed off to the Burnsville Barnes and Noble. Just to get out of the house. Just to sit somewhere else besides our living room. When we got there, Daddy settled down with his Classic Toy Train magazines at the cafe and I popped you into the Baby Bjorn and tried to pique your interest in People. For at least ten minutes you gurgled at the advertisements for Hot Pockets and the image of Tiger Woods' supposed lover, but then you got antsy, started to press your feet against my legs and arch your back in frustration. So we took a little tour of the store: picked out some novels for Christmas presents and admired the stuffed animals in the children's area (especially the ones with sparkly bellies or tentacles or claws or fins). Then I nursed you, then Daddy changed you (on the Koala Kare changing table in a stall in the men's bathroom), and then we decided it was time to walk across the parking lot to Chipotle for dinner. It seemed easiest (SEEMED easiest) to put you back in your car seat for the walk to the restaurant; you would be warmer and if you fell asleep while we ate (which you did) then we could simply transfer you directly into the car when it was time to go. But as I put you in your car seat, you started to fuss and fuss big and since we were just walking across the parking lot, I decided not to exacerbate your frustration by tightening all the safety belts--I just put the blanket over you and zipped up the cover.
At Chipotle you started to fuss again. I almost choked on my fajita burrito because I was eating so quickly. The music was piped in so loudly that Daddy and I couldn't here one another. There was no one else in the restaurant, just a roomful of trendy silver chairs and blond wood tables and your parents in their down coats and hats, your mother peeling back the silver foil on her burrito like a squirrel while your father stood beside her in the aisle, swinging your car seat like a metronome so that you would quiet. And you did. And you finally fell asleep, just as I was shoveling the last few kernels of chili-corn salsa into my mouth. I was tired. And I was full. I was self-conscious about your noise. I was thinking of how it was bath night and Glee night. I was thinking of warm water and Burt's Bees soap and a glass of white wine.
And this is how your mother forgot to strap you into your car seat on the iciest day of the year.
As I got into the car, I reminded your father about how, when securing the car seat into its base, it's important to make sure both the front and the back of the seat have latched securely. "it's easy to forget," I said pointedly, "even I have forgotten a few times." (My implication being, of course, that if I could forget once, then your father was probably forgetting every single time)
Meanwhile, I had not buckled your seat belt.
And thank God we did not hit a patch of ice. Thank God the car in front of us did not brake suddenly. Because, when we got home and I saw what I had done, I realized that if something, anything had happened to you, then rest of my life would have been gone, shut off and closed in a way that I had never considered could happen until that precise moment.
When we got home I lifted you out of the mess of unbuckled straps and put you in your swing. I got the lights and music going and then I went and stood in the doorway of the kitchen where your father was unlacing his winter boots. I put my hands over my face and peered at him through cracks between my fingers and I told him what I'd done.
"It's OK," he said, "she's fine."
And then he took off his coat.
And that is one of the many reasons why I love your father. Because in a moment where he could have made me feel very small and very incompetent, he chose to simply let the incident slide and then move forward to the next thing.
So I ran the water for your bath and then got into the tub with you. Daddy soaped your arms and hands and I held your slick skin between my knees. Then I gave you to your father, who wrapped you in a yellow towel.
Then I ran more hot water into the tub and lay there, listening to you scream as the cold air enveloped your body and listening to your father sing, his invented tune drowning out your howls.
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