Lullabye, Bennybye...

It's so strange to think about it, my loving motherhood so much.

I know that sounds weird, but hear me out. When you're pregnant for the first time, it's bloody terrifying. You have absolutely no idea how a baby will change your life. Sure, people tell you, but you can't know how you, personally, will change, react, grow, feel. All you can do is hope that you will survive the immense and drastic changes without the world as you know it collapsing around you in pieces.

For most of my life I have considered myself the complete career musician. I still do. I never pictured myself as the "mom" type you see plastered all over every ad for every household product, food, cleaning item, laundry detergent, etc. I still don't. It doesn't bother me, though; I never saw myself as the "wife" type either, and I adore being married. It's just blissful. It's been fun redefining these roles, rewriting them to fit whatever David and I want or need them to be at any given point.

It just never occurred to me that a baby would give me a new lease on life, more energy (despite, somehow, the 4am feedings), a renewed focus, a clarity of perspective on what really matters. But that's exactly what happened. Ben is such a little sweetheart. Every time I used to think about what it would be like to take care of a baby, I never thought it would feel like anything other than a chore. I'm grouchy when I hear him crying at 5am, but as soon as I get into the room and scoop him up in my arms, I smile through my groggy exhaustion at his sweet little teary face and kiss his cute chubby cheeks.

And how could I have possibly known how much fun it would be to sing him to sleep? We keep a music stand in the nursery by the glider for magazines for us to read during Ben's meals. I have recently put a Disney songbook and a book of jazz ballads there, for sending him off to dreamland after his immense belchfests. It's so much fun to sing to him. So far he loves Gershwin, Copland, Ellington, Jerome Kern, and Cole Porter tunes. In the past several days I've sung a capella versions of "Over The Rainbow", "Body & Soul", "When You Wish Upon A Star", "Someday My Prince Will Come", "Once Upon A Dream" (Sleeping Beauty Waltz), "Mood Indigo", "The Nearness Of You", "Moonlight In Vermont", and "Misty". The song "Embraceable You" is another one of his favorites, and the words of that song really hit home somehow now that I'm a mom. I want to print out lyrics to "My Attorney Bernie", which is one of my favorite contemporary jazz songs, and I need to get the sheet music for "Blame It On My Youth" which is another great chart.

For some reason, though, "Chim Chim Cheree" (from Mary Poppins) really freaked him out tonight. Maybe it was the cockney accent or the minor key combined with the waltz tempo, but it might have just been unfortunate timing with some uncomfortably unreleased gas.

But as I sit there, singing to his sweet little face and looking into those perfect, tiny deep blue eyes that are gazing at me, his budding little mind thinking a million thoughts, I think over and over again, this is absolutely fantastic, blissful, wonderful. It's relaxing, grounding, and so fulfilling to take care of him and to continually meet his needs and to know I can meet them. I'm sure a lot of it is programmed into us as humans, this love between parent and child, to ensure the survival of the species; it kicked in so strongly and suddenly as soon as I held Ben for the first time that it must be an instinctual response. Whatever it is, it's completely taken over my heart. I had to go into work a few days this week to be on an audition committee, and when I got home I was so happy just to hold him again, even to change his diaper and feed him.

Which isn't to say I'm not getting a bit of cabin fever. It felt fabulous to go back to work for a few days and see everyone and to have highly intelligent adult conversation and musical stimulation. I really miss my job. I volunteered to play the opera since our personnel manager hadn't yet found anyone to play for me that week, and I'm really looking forward to it. We're doing Salome by Strauss. I've never played a Strauss opera before, and I'm really excited about it!

By the way, it feels wonderful to play the horn again. I started playing a few weeks ago; I had really missed it. My lip feels light years better now than it had while I was pregnant. I think pregnancy really loused it up. I had thought my face was swollen from overuse, but in hindsight, I think 90% of it was pregnancy water retention. Anyway, I am very glad to have my face back and to be playing again.