A big snowstorm hit DC this past weekend and it’s still pure pristine white outside. Sami gained an ounce and all is right with the world. It’s amazing how often my mood correlates with his weight gain or lack thereof. I think about the second noble truth: all suffering comes from clinging… but how do you not cling with your children? I am so attached, of course I am. How do I find just the right balance, so that I do not smother my child with anxious love? I want him to be free. I do not want to ever weigh him down with my neuroses, to pass on the anxiety baton to him. I know this is ambitious and a big old cliche — to not want to fuck up your kid like you were fucked up. Perhaps that is a recipe for fucking up your kid. I know I should just do my best and start saving up for his Therapy Fund just in case. I know that if I don’t let go, I will always find something to be dreadfully obsessed and concerned about where my son is concerned. Like Joseph Goldstein says, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” Oy vey. I woke up today and realized: I’m a Jewish mother! Poor, poor Sami…

Today Ria and I went grocery shopping with Sami. He used to automatically sleep when I took him out in the car, but no more. He’s older now and has become more alert and awake. He was having none of his car seat and would not stop crying until I picked him up and held him, and then he was fine–looking around at all the brightly colored stuff in the store. I remember the all-encompassing feeling of shame and panic when he started wailing in the Whole Foods — like people would all simultaneously turn around and waggle their fingers: ” You’re a Bad Mother!” I am OK with Sami crying at home — I mean, I want to comfort him, and sometimes when he screams, it really scares me, but most of the time I accept the fact that Sami is a baby and babies do cry. It’s a primary mode of communication for them. But in my perfect world, Sami is never upset in public — if he is, that means that there is something wrong with me and my parenting skills. I imagine Child Protective Services agents lurking around the corner waiting to snatch him away from me and put him in a god-awful foster home. “Your baby is crying, ma’am. We’re going to have to take him away from you, for his own good…”

I made a mental note to self — when out shopping, always bring the sling. I don’t blame the kid for not wanting to be stuck in the stupid car seat. Who would want to be strapped into a five- point harness, when you can be snuggly and warm against your mother’s body? Attachment parenting is not just a nice-sounding set of theories–it’s actually easier for mother and baby.

After the Whole Foods, Sami was the paragon of chill for the rest of the day. He barely cried all night, and we played together and he smiled lots of big smiles, the kind that light up his face, and I was thrilled. Then, and you gotta love this part, I started to worry that he wasn’t crying! I know, how neurotic is that??! I started to worry that this was a sign that he was dehydrated and not getting enough milk and getting weak and my god I am starving my child and Many Other Anxious Thoughts. Which I am proud to say I promptly banished from my mind, and returned to the moments of me holding my smiling baby on my lap, and basking in the glow of his eyes locked with mine, beaming. I lived those moments.

Sami has taken every limited preconception I had about love and smashed it to bits, exposing me to a love without boundaries, without anything to hold it back. But the flip side of that love is the greatest terror I have ever known, the fear of losing the object of my love, the fear of hurting him, of damaging him in some way, of mishandling my responsibilities as a parent somehow. That is the dark side of attachment. I think that’s what the Buddha was talking about in the Second Noble Truth. I think I really get it now. Sami is my greatest teacher.