Sleeping through History

We put Michael Alexander to sleep at 9 last night. He fell asleep about a half hour later and slept until about 6 this morning, just after Mike left for the gym.

Mike and I went to bed about two hours after our son and slept through the news alerts and press conference.

Ingrained superstition (my mother and her parents were born in Russia) makes it tough to write this, but I think we've solved the sleep problem. (Gasp.) Most nights, Michael Alexander had been waking at 11 or midnight, then again around 3 and again around 5 and 6. It might have been our fault. He had been sleeping in our room and we comforted, even fed (a practice his doctor condemns) him each time he woke, bringing him in our bed to snuggle. Often we'd just stare at him, admiring the way he pushes each of us closer to each edge of our queen size bed. Other times, we'd wake him with the slightest movement. As much as Mike and I love to cuddle with our son in the middle of the night, I knew we needed to make a big, grown-up step. Last night we moved his bed into the "living area" of our one-bedroom apartment.

So far, it's been a perfect morning. I slept (or at least rested, uninterrupted aside from the few trips I made to the living area to check on my slumbering son) a solid 7 hours! Michael Alexander rejected the cereal I tried to feed him, but shared my eggs and salsa, eating a real breakfast without protest. Now he's been playing on his own, allowing me a few precious morning minutes to write.

If things go well, it could be a William Blake day: "Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night."

Most days I can't write because I am so tired and all my daytime energy is focused on getting Michael Alexander to eat something besides crackers and keeping him away from household hazards like the stove and toilet. Today I am finding it hard to write because my mind is so clear I can't focus on any single idea. A good problem to have, but one that makes me worry I am just babbling in a state of unexpected energy.

I am forced to focus, though, as Michael Alexander is eager for me to join in his solo play session.

It's fascinating to read today's Facebook posts, some so stupid or self-absorbed I'm inclined to de-friend those posters. Others are funny, pithy or thoughtful, and many reflect on the poster's 9/11 moment.

The decade that's passed since Sept. 11, 2001, has been one of tremendous personal change. It's included the worst of times (the death of my father) and the best of times (my marriage and the birth of my son.)

Only one thing unites these two moments in history -- I slept through both.

On 9/11, I was single and living on the top floor of a walkup on Thompson Street in the Village. My father was in my native Massachusetts, dying of cancer. I was an editor on national desk at AP, working the overnight shift and it was my scheduled night off. I heard the first plane, but ignored it since you hear a lot from the top floor of a walkup. My landline (remember those?) rang and my best friend, Erica, blurted out, "Oh my God, sweetheart! You're OK!" Seconds after I turned on my tiny console TV, the power went out and I quickly threw on the jeans and tank top I was wearing before I went to bed. I was headed east on Houston as the horror became apparent. Survivors covered in soot were running past me, some screaming, some stunned silent, and all looking like statues. I joined the queue for a payphone (remember those?) and waited anxiously for my chance to reach an operator. Most people ahead of me failed, but using a toll-free number I recalled from an ad, I was able to make a collect call to my mother.

I recall the anger, the fear, the rage, the myriad emotions of that moment. My father was dying and now somebody was threatening my right as a (first-generation, on my mother's side) American to live in a country where I was safe from the type of unspeakable violence that wiped out most of my mother's family.

It's strange to revisit those emotions on a day like this, while reveling in the wake of my son's 9-hour rest.

Michael Alexander is calling for "mom-mom." I'm going to try to keep my brain working as I entertain him. My work is play. I don't have to go sit in a cubicle and shut it off.

"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." Robert Frost

Grimm Reality

Over the last month I've discovered a whole new world of storytimes. There's yoga storytime and library storytime followed by playtime. There's something to do nearly every day without even boarding a bus. These free activities have had a tremendous impact on Michael Alexander, who is interacting with his peers and toddlers, mostly toddlers. I hate to miss one, as we are right now while Michael Alexander takes a rare nap that's allowing me to bang out by personal finance column and cobble something here. Most infants and toddlers that attend these mixed playgroups are accompanied by nannies. In the East Village there are more moms and dads than there are in the West Village, where nannies replace parents. But there are still more nannies in general, often nannies that accompany the moms. I had hoped these sessions would both boost Michael Alexander's social development and help me meet other moms (or dads) who've opted (or been forced by unemployment) to stay at home and raise their babies. It's certainly helped him grow, as he interacts well with the others, save for his not-so-uncommon fascination with hair-pulling. We even had a playdate with one his fellow baby yogis yesterday. I've met some moms, to mixed results in boosting my mommy confidence, profile and general understanding of mommyhood in the city.

The nice thing about Manhattan (and I'm sure some neighborhoods in Brooklyn) is that it's the anti-suburbia when it comes to mommyhood. Storytime reflects our unique lifestyle, as books and songs about transportation are edited to elevate the MetroCard and reduce the car's status to a vacation rental. Our offspring are cosmopolitan creatures born into a culturally rich landscape that will nurture their aesthetic tastes and a diverse streetscape that will spur a savvy that suburban sprawl can't cultivate. City kids talk about painting and sculpture and theater and opera and open mikes and know not to run into traffic or step too close to the platform. While I wish we lived within walking (or driving, if we had a car) distance to a great shoreline so my son and I could swim and sun, I believe raising a child here is superior to subjecting him to a closed community, even if he'd have a big lawn. Really, he's got his choice of the biggest lawns, from Central Park to Union Square to Tompkins Square to Madison Square. (The last three within quick walking distance.)

As I wonder how these early influences will shape my son's development and future, I'm also trying to figure where I fit in this new and evolving role as mommy. In her new book, Kids or No Kids, Zoe Slater considers interviews she conducted with women across the world. "In today's society, women often choose to have children later in life. New value systems mean that we are pickier about picking a partner, and embrace the lifestyles enabled by financial factors and modern living arrangements. The common denominator for all of us, is to one day confront the question of motherhood. Regardless of age or location, motherhood is like a sisterhood that bonds us," Slater writes. Manhattan is clearly representative of "today's society" in terms of waiting to have kids. A little over a week away from feting my 40th, I'm one of the "young" moms in these storytime groups. Sure some of my fellow moms, I learned just this week, are raising a baby with their *new* partner or spouse nearly two decades after raising their first with their ex. Still, we're all facing the same challenges of a digital parenting age where our babies are born masters at navigating our iPhone touch screens.

What Slater fails to address is how these demographic differences are truly divisive. Sure I can relate to suburban moms on many matters from sleepless nights to teething pains, but the challenges of being a mother in Manhattan are unique and can be more isolating than a house tucked away on a quiet cul-de-sac. In most suburban, country or low-income communities, moms are generally in the same socioeconomic situation, save for a few hundred grand in mounting debt for many of the suburbanites *living* well beyond their means. Manhattan is a mix of struggling artist moms and dads who tuck their toddlers into a nook in a one-room walkup -- to those who spa and shop and socialize while nannies tote their toddlers to the same free storytimes -- to everyone in between. It's tough being trapped in the middle (is that how we define class in this city?) where your sensibilities, academic and artistic achievements, professional prowess (even when it's on hold) and choice to mommy (in varying degrees) bridge the real estate and childcare gaps. Motherhood is no more a sisterhood than a shared career goal or haircolor. In fact, motherhood is the source of the same -- or more severe -- competitive strife that pits women against other women in the workplace or the salon. And in this city, it's a struggle on steroids as the haves are so preoccupied with the have-mores that we often forget the have-nots.

As I try to do best by my son, I strive to put my plight into perspective. I can't shake brownstone envy, especially when I take Michael Alexander to his pediatrician's office on a picturesque Village block where a nice family home (a renovated late 1800's townhouse) just sold for $12 million. Mike and I want more than anything (other than to have a healthy, happy son and a blissful marriage) to be famous novelists or magazine editors. Famous authors with a Village townhouse, of course. Meantime, I'll try to not complain about my life as one of the haves, even by a New York perspective. I hate when I compare myself with the have-mores, especially when I'm confident they're not nearly as content as I when it comes to my son, my husband, my family and my appreciation of this city's myriad perks, many cheap or free. I'm comforted by conversations with like-minded moms, who agree that the backdrop of storytime -- the tales of babies sleeping through the night and sleeping in until mommy-only yoga -- are clearly a Grimm reality.