Who Needs a Toilet When Mommy's Here?

by Bethany Saltman, January 17, 2007

So. This morning everything was fine. I was feeling good, ready to tackle my syllabus for school, which starts on Tuesday, as well as manage the rest of my so-called life. Today is Thayer's school day (he is getting a post-masters degree and travels downstate once a week, taking a day off of work, sort-of; he has to make up his hours during the week; he's a social worker. ANYway...), so we had a nice liesurely morning together, then went to drop off Baby at J.'s. T and I came home, got ourselves settled, and he was getting ready to leave, when J. called. Baby had a fever and was cranky. I told her I'd be right there. But first I had to GRUMP at T. because I knew he wouldn't not go about his business and it was just assumed that I would drop mine. For the record, he's a great dad, totally involved, completely together—I love him madly, actually—but he's a dad, not a mom. He has lots of good reasons, and they are good reasons, for why he couldn't not go to school today. My reasons for wanting him to, of course, pale. They always do.

So when I got Baby home I took her temp and it was normal. Again: normal. All day long—normal. Her cheeks were extra-rosy, her nose a little snotty, probably teething. We played, I chatted on the phone, puttered around with some work, she didn't nap, but she ate well, etc., etc. She seemed FINE. Whatever.

Around 4:30, after her bath, we started to get into it about the stairs. We haven't yet put up the gate, and since today I wasn't in the mood to go up and down the stairs for an hour or more (and believe me, I do plenty of that), probably because I was still in some kind of work-mode fantasy, there was some "no" from my end, and some tears from hers. I should have just given in. She was tired—I knew that, which makes "no" hard for her to bear. Her whole little body wanted so desperately to climb the stairs!

So as a diversion, I put her on my lap at the computer and hugged her (when in doubt...). I showed her the music-toy thing she likes and she seemed ok. Until she started gagging. Her face got beet red, she was making wretching sounds like she couldn't breathe, so I flung her upside down and thumped her back, hard, and some goop came out of her mouth, at which time I figured she wasn't choking. So I brought her upright again and she started to vomit, like for real, not at all like the baby-spit up I have seen so much of. It suddenly dawned on me that I had no idea what to do with a puking baby. Putting her face in the toilet seemed just wrong. Letting her throw up on the floor: also totally off. So I hugged her closer and let her hurl her little tummy's worth of stuff on my lap. All over me. It was kind of wonderful. She made all those strange, burping noises people make when they throw up, which seemed so amazing to me—I guess she really is human! When she was all done, I stripped off her pjs, my clothes, wiped the floor with them where she missed, and put her down to play. All better! The whole thing was fabulously tidy.

People often think that the whole Zen thing of non-attachment is about having no feelings, sacrificing ourselves, or never feeling horrible, that a truly realized person is in some bliss-state. But actually Zen masters are always trying to point the way to, as my teacher says, "doing what we're doing while we're doing it." Being selfless doesn't mean not being ourselves. When cuddling, cuddle. When vomiting, vomit. When I'm angry, I'm really angry. Hey wait, that sounds like a lot of rationalization, and sometimes it is.

And then one day I realize I am not as angry as I used to be.

Bethany Saltman lives in Phoenicia with her husband Thayer and baby Azalea. She has been a student of John Daido Loori Roshi, Abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery, for ten years. Her work has been published in magazines like The Sun, Buddhadharma, Geez, and, of course, Chronogram. She is currently working on a book called Sweet Jesus: Americans Convert to Christianity.