I finish my morning yoga practice with Diana, a ceramic artist who hasn’t missed a day of practice in two years: she is my unparalleled Savasana companion and she also has a son named Santiago. My Santi nestled in with us for meditation and then went to nap during asanas–he prefers being on the mountain to the mat.
I nurse him while I meditate. He is a pulsating breathing, expanding, bundle of love and joy that helps me remember my natural state. I have been feeding him whenever and wherever I can–hiking to the waterfall, shopping at the corner store, and during a four-hour yoga workshop I taught at the ashram.
There are only two places I can’t take him–the movies and salsa dancing. He usually sleeps like a grizzly bear from 7PM to 11PM which gives me a window to fill him up, head out, and get home before he starts licking his lips, sticking out his tongue and making the baby chirping sound which translates as “More milk, mom.”
I chose salsa dancing as my first outing to go Santi-less. My dance partner and I agreed to go out early and come home early, dancing from 9-10:30 at a club five minutes from my apartment. I had my babysitter, Ette–52-year-old mother of four and grandmother of one who comes on the weekends–practice calling my cell phone before I left. I looked her dead in the eye and repeated: if he needs anything, CALL ME!
As Juan Pablo and I danced Colombian-style salsa, a circular sexy swinging version that hardly resembles the L.A.version where you dance, dip, and twirl in straight lines, I radiated a happiness that can only come with a great Latin beat–a contagious giddy smile spread across my face. But when I closed my eyes I saw Santi’s little angelic face as though his portrait had been painted on the insides of my eyelids. When I got home I was relieved to find out my little boy wonder hadn’t made a peep.
The next weekend I tried again, heading out to see the excellent film “Las Mujeres del Sexto Piso” with a few friends at CineColombia. Ette and I went through the same routine. We practiced the call. We reviewed the instructions on defrosting milk (no microwaving), how to give the bottle (not like a fire hose), and estimated how long it would take me to get home from the theater from the moment I answered her call. Cautiously I jumped in a cab, got to the movies, bought some popcorn and explained my quick-exit plan to my friends.
On the way there I felt the tightness in my mouth, the contracted tongue, a small clench in my jaw as I sped away from Santi for a three-hour outing. To calm myself I thought: “I have a fail-proof plan. He has gone to sleep, well fed, at 7PM. Evidence suggests he will sleep until 11PM. If not, Ette will call me, and while I race home she will have tried for at least 15 minutes to give him a bottle.”
Breastfeeding has been so important to us that I hadn’t really tried to give Santi a bottle, not wanting to substitute anything for our contemplative time of connection and peace. I knew he wouldn’t starve, but wondered if he would suffer while he waited for me to arrive. Worst-case scenario would be to walk in from the theater to find him hollering the scream that stretches his lungs and vocal chords to their little baby max. Like the howl he yelled when my mom gave him his first bath and I just held his head, at the time the size of a grapefruit, in my hand and repeated I love you, I love you in his ears, which didn’t seem to help.
That night at the movies, I held my phone in my hand, double-checking to confirm that the battery was charged. I had already changed the ring to a tone that is distinct and loud, the kind you can’t miss. By 10PM I was worried, could he really still be sleeping? I decided to call. “Ette, what is going on? How is Principe? Is he still asleep?”
“He woke up 30 minutes ago and I gave him the bottle. There wasn’t very much milk, he drank it all. Now he is just quietly alert in my arms.”
“HE TOOK THE BOTTLE?”
“Yes, but there was only an ounce of milk. He wanted more, yet, he is calm now.”
“HE WOKE UP AND TOOK THE BOTTLE?” I confirmed, wondering why she didn’t call me. But wait, everything is fine. “Do you think I should rush home or watch the end of the movie?”
“Watch the end of the movie: he is about to fall asleep again.”
I hung up the phone and went back into the theater. He did it. Principe took the bottle. I could just see his little mouth chomping on the nipple. I felt so proud, like he had ridden a bike for the first time without me. But also like I had missed his Golden Globe moment. “Oh my, it is all happening too fast,” I thought. “Will he remember me when I get home? Principe, Principe!”
Belonging Matters 