Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

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Bedfellows

Posted May 13, 2008
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Ben and Birdy

Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.

I have nearly all of my best conversations in bed. Not with friends as a rule - unless we're lucky enough to have captured someone in the house for a sleepover. Usually friendship conversations happen now in deeply condensed bursts, and although I miss the languorous chitchat of pre-kid days, I treasure the way intimacy is as reduced as a glazy, delicious sauce. Even just yesterday, I was dropping the kids off with a close friend, and in our five minutes together, I confessed what an ogre I'd been on the drive over (I'd actually pulled the car to the side of the road to accuse sweet Ben of being a brat); I burst into tears and was comforted; I comforted her in turn; we connected some of the dots in our blurry pictures of frustration; we cherished each other; we traded hugs and kisses. Five minutes. There's time for life, love, and laughter but none for small talk or petty grievances, and it's just how I like it. Lots of people are, I know, but I'm not actually looking for tough love from my friendships, it turns out. I'm looking for kindness and maybe a little good food. I'm looking for as many opportunities as possible to say, "I hear you. You're okay. You're great!" And to ask, "Me too, right?"

But bed... bed is where time unwinds like a kite string, and I get to sail in the leisurely breezes of my family's company. There's Michael, of course, and our long habit of slipping in and out of conversation in the loving twilight of sleep (there's also, less romantically, a fairly established habit of slipping in and out of arguing in the irritable twilight of sleep, but more on that another time). And then there are the kids. Putting them to bed and waking up with them is an unspeakably happy part of my life. The luxury of it - of my daily access to these people that I love so wildly - is outrageous. It's the same way I feel when I'm drying them off after the bath: I get to touch their little arms and legs! When Michael ogles me while I'm dressing or gropes me all night long, I see the teenaged boy in him with the same expression of giddy, disbelieving joy: Boobs - and they're mine, all mine!

The children will, of course, grow out of being ours. They're already not exactly ours as it is. So I'm soaking up this time with them, these meandering conversations during which they reveal to us the mystery of their minds. Just this morning, even, Birdy seems to have woken with thoughts full of beasts. "Why are lions and snakes so mean?" she asks my waking ear and Ben, on my other side, says gently, "Birdy, they're not exactly mean." "Well, Ben, they do do mean things, like bite and scare people." I push some of the pillows behind me, sit up a little to explain about predators needing food, about parents protecting their young, and Birdy keeps saying, "Yeah, right. Okay. But they might bite you, which is mean." I try for the distinction between fierce and mean, and Ben who's lying with his head on my stomach, one leg crossed jauntily over the other, adds, "Yeah, Birdy - it's not like they want you to feel bad. They don't even care about you." And Birdy says, with predictable indignation, "Well, that's mean to not care about me!"

The kids have woken early with the springtime sun and birdsong, and so we are not needing to rush - although caffeine is going to need to join our conversation soon or I'm going to be sad. But I can't bring myself to disentangle just yet. "If a person says to you, 'Your picture is stupid,' that's mean because they want you to feel bad." But even as I'm saying this, I'm thinking about how animal we are - I'm wondering if there's a bigger lesson here about compassion, about how people are afraid too, or they need something they don't know how to get. But Ben takes it home in his inimitably comical way: "So Birdy, do you understand? A rattlesnake is mean if it tells you your picture is ugly. Got it?" And Birdy, who has already wandered into the bathroom, says seriously, with her mouth full of toothpaste, "Got it." And the day has begun.

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Bedfellows

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About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

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