When You Come

If brains burned calories, all new moms would be kicking around in size 0 minidresses, even in the middle of winter. For me at least, the biggest impact motherhood has had on my daily life is that I never feel even almost caught up to the long list of to-dos (comprised of must-dos and should-dos and would-really-love-to-dos) that I torture myself with. A "productive day" usually means I accomplished one thing other than basic childcare, but unfortunately that never feels like enough; last I checked no one was handing out gold stars for managing to put on pants before 5 p.m., and as we know, good parenting is all about the gold stars.

Granted, these are mostly demands I put on myself--lord knows Simon and Wombat don't care if the house is clean or my pregnancy scrapbook is incomplete or I still haven't sent out a handful of birth announcements--but isn't that always how it is? The hardest person to please is yourself, blah blah blah, and although I believe that this M.O. could definitely turn into a bad thing depending on how far one took it, in my case I practically cling to that standard because it's the only thing that keeps me looking and feeling at least half-decent at least half of the time. (I blame Simon, who looks at me all bedraggled and malnourished and sunken-eyed and frenzied and declares, "Yum. Can I get a piece of that?" There's just no accounting for some people's tastes.)

One of the projects that's been plaguing me has been putting together a movie commemorating my pregnancy and all the preparations we undertook for Wombat's arrival. There were pee sticks and belly shots and parties and protective facemasks and sewing projects and construction projects and original songs and cookie baking (and cookie eating) and lots and lots and lots of waiting. In a time of such unsurity about what was to come, I did my best to plan and prepare and have as many things under control as possible, and part of that was dreaming up the special projects I'd undertake after the baby was born, starting with this pregnancy movie. You'd think with so much forewarning I'd have managed to finish it before my son turned five months old, but hey, parenthood is never what you expect it to be.

So here we are at last! At the end of this entry is the movie that took me a couple of hours plus forty weeks and five more months to complete (and then another few hours to upload because the audio wasn't synching with the video, ARGH) while I meantime gestated and birthed and nursed and wiped and cooed and watched in awe as my tiny baby-belly turned into a rolling fetus turned into a mewling newborn turned into a glee-shrieking infant who shatters into giggles when I so much as raise an eyebrow at him, the goon. It's true what they say--it does happen so fast, too fast--and that's part of why it always remained so important for me to finish this movie. I barely remember what it was like to be pregnant now (was I really that big? was he really that tiny? did any of that really happen at all?), and so in addition to being a keepsake for the future (a future in which I hope they'll have machines that can interpret mpg4 format), this movie and its creation has also been an exercise in looking back and remembering what it was like and realizing that, yes, I really did that.

The easy part was selecting the music. Even before Wombat was conceived, I latched onto this piece--an unreleased recording of "Stable Boy Song" by the Mountain Goats (with whom I have quite a history)--and I clung to it in the face of a more obvious choice, like Colin Meloy's baby song, because it seemed to best represent what I was feeling as a new mother-to-be: perched on the precipice (like a big, fat, pregnant Humpty Dumpty on a wall?) of a bright and shining new future. Like an egg (yes), I was waiting to break open. Metaphorically, of course. Here, then, are the lyrics and, finally, my movie.

Here come the times of changing tide,
Here come the days of light and grace,
Here come the hours of wordless wondrousness,
Light, light will fill this humble place.

When you come the stars will shine brighter than spun gold.
When you come the world will be shiny and new.
My mom told me that someday someone like you would come to set things right.
Till you come I'll keep this place ready for you.

[If you listen to the second verse, it will become obvious that this song was written about one very specific baby, but hey, it's a competition Wombat will face every birthday, so why not also share a song, eh?]

Waiting for Wombat from LeahK on Vimeo.

wrote Leah at 6:36 AM | Comments (24)