The Book of Ruth Chapter 8: There is try

By Gabrielle Lazarovitz

Yeah, this one right here goes out to all the baby's mamas, mamas, mamas, mamas, baby mamas, mamas, I’m sorry, Miss Ruthie I am for real…

If you don’t get that musical reference, you weren’t about to be unwittingly named a geriatric millennial a few years after the song came out.

I do recommend listening to Ms. Jackson as you read this post, not because it thematically aligns with what I’m writing about but because it still fucks all these years later!

So. Mother’s day is on Sunday.

A friend invited me over for a tea along with some moms in her family. And me. (How sweet is that? Invite me to all the things. I probably can’t go but I friggen love being asked). “It’s going to be your first mother’s day!”, she texted. It hadn’t dawned on me that, oh yeah, this day is partially mine now, too. I guess I forgot or ignored it because I’m so focused on mothering I forget what day it is most days. There is no real time. Only Ruthie time. All the time. Every time. For the rest of time. As I zone in on this not-so-tiny-anymore beguiling bubb.

But yes, this will be my first mothers’ day. Weird. I don’t feel like I have it figured out yet. I’m not used to celebrating things I haven’t achieved yet. But, when it comes to being a mom, I’m trying.

I write this post hesitantly, because, as I’ve learned with mothering, the second you think you know anything, everything changes. I write something definitive, Ruth contradicts it the next morning. So...I’ll just keep bashing through this post like I do motherhood; haphazardly and with the full realization that Murphy’s law knows my address.

It’s been a minute since I’ve written a chapter for the Book of Ruth. It was a touch chaotic for a hot minute there. There will be more chaos to come. I was in that infant phase where I literally didn’t have time to pee by myself let alone think about remembering how to write or what to write about. And I say ‘infant phase’ without the slightest clarity about when it begins or ends, or if it’s already over? She isn’t toddling but she gettin’ chonky so…whatever. If I hadn’t had a preemie, I'd've still struggled to know when the infant stage began or ended. Don’t bother telling me…I don’t actually care. Not trying to be rude, it just doesn’t make a difference.

How’s Ruth? She’s amazing. She blows my mind daily. The development, the change, the progress is astounding. Babies are wild, man.

Ruth time moves differently. She has laser pointed my focus. No one and nothing else takes precedent. They can’t. They don’t depend on me to live. Motherhood’s not overwhelming like I thought it would be, but it’s consuming. It eats the parts of my mind that used to worry about whether I said the wrong thing, or do they like me? Should I open a taco stand? Is that a fucking LIVER SPOT GODDAMIT?! Run away to Bali? Those thoughts are still hiding in the recesses of my mind but up front is all the day to day shit that keeps her alive but is so mundane I won’t bore you with it here. My mind is a sieve and the only bits that catch right now, are Ru related.

The days are all different but the same. Ruth is the same but different every day. I blinked and she’s huge. She’s pounding solids like no one’s business. I think she’s around 16lbs, I’ll find out at her doctor’s appointment next week. Can’t wait. Almost imperceivable after holding her at 3lbs 14 oz.

The past eight/almost 9 (or six?) months have been spent doing my least favourite thing; math. Ruthie preemie math and sleep math. I know I’ve gone on about baby sleep but, dear lord, I fell down the rabbit hole with that one. Do not recommend. Stay away from the internet. It’s a bad place. There is SO much information out there. I’ve now read all of it and none of it makes sense and all of it makes sense. It all contradicts itself and basically you’re a monster no matter what you do according to the message boards. I think it’s a special kind of dickweed that trolls a mom discussion board. Like okay BoyMom69 we get you think letting your baby cry for ten seconds is the modern day strap but like…shut up about it, man. Shit’s hard enough without your ‘for the love of god-ing, OMIGODS, and actuallllllllys!’. Be cool BoyMom69. Just, like, be cool.

If you can imagine, Ruth did not fall into a natural sleeping pattern after the 4 month progression, regression, obliteration? One night I sat in her room in her rocking chair nursing her until the sun came up only to have her lose her shit on me because neither of us had gotten any rest. That’s when I knew something had to change. I had to listen to my kid. Not the internet and its opinions. I had to listen to my sleep-crutch-rejecting child and her exhausted pleas. I’m pretty sure if Ruth could talk she’d have said: “are you fucking kidding me with this shit, it’s obviously not working anymore you hee haw?!” I know, harsh right? Referring to me as the bray of a donkey while simultaneously bashing my parenting skills is a low blow and an advanced burn for an infant….baby?...newborn?…and that’s what you call a call back! So yeah, Ruth was quite clearly rejecting all sleep crutches, none of them were working anymore. She was demanding something new.

Like everything with Ruth, she will let you know in no uncertain terms when she is ready. When something isn’t working for her anymore, or when she’s ready to tackle a new skill, she’s not subtle about what she wants and needs. This was about more than sleep for us, this was about Ruth and trying to figure out how she communicates. How she learns things. Spoiler: it’s with great focus and intensity.

The sleep thing is only one of many blatant reminders that the only constant is change when dealing with a baby. They’re evolving, developing, growing out of their tiny fucking clothes (!!!!!!). Growing into their personalities. It’s so exciting but also I want to pump the brakes so hard. She’s left the bouncer for the Jolly Jumper, Jolly jumper for the swing, the swing for the ball pit, the ball pit for her activity table. So much has passed and I stand there looking sentimentally at these very overpriced hunks of plastic because they’ve experienced such life. They’ve held her tiny feet, heard her big screams, and supported her in getting to today. Every moment seems important and insignificant at the same time. I’m trying to capture everything. I tell my brain ‘remember this laugh, this bath, these socks’. Creating lock boxes of baby moments in my mind. I don’t want to forget them. Even the hard ones. It makes me jump from subject to subject, like from baby sleep to turning my mind into a lock box to hold memories all in one blog post.

I guess I want to remember everything to show her just how important she is to me. Like Beyonce cataloging her entire life and career so she can create her own museum some day, my mind is trying to hold onto everything too. Because part of my job is instilling in her the fact that she matters. That when the world tries, inevitably, to knock her down, there’s someone who clocked all these tiny moments, because she is their world. Which I hope will show her that she matters. She will have the capacity to affect change, to help others, and try to make the world a slightly better place. Because she and what she does matters. I want to capture every new reaction, hair, and milestone. It’s impossible but I’ll always try.

It’s funny, when I set out to write this, I wanted to talk about sleep. But the only thing I’ve learned is that talking about baby sleep is unhelpful. It’s triggering for moms and dads and no ‘one’ thing works for every baby so why am I trying to wedge myself into that conversation? If you want to talk about it hit me up though. We can discuss, judgment free.

As Mothers’ Day approaches, I suppose what I’m trying to say to myself, and to you (if it resonates), is that you matter. Whatever you’re working on, matters. That job you hate but supports five people matters. That pottery you’re throwing, that baby you’re struggling to understand, that photoshoot, that real estate deal, that meditation, that play, that fertility journey; matters. Because the more we keep doing what’s meaningful to us, the more positive energy we’re putting out there. Because we’re becoming more fulfilled, getting more intimate with our minds and how it can expand if we try. The world needs that right now.

I fail daily with Ruth. But I try. Trying is a good thing. I know this phrase is like super trendy because it’s in that Elizabeth Holmes Apple+ TV show, but I’ve been talking shit about this quote for well over a decade and a half. When I was in theatre school we had this movement teacher who hated me and in our one on one I said “hey Leslie, I know I’m not really understanding what movement is or what you want me to be doing but I’m trying” and this lady looked me in the eye and quoted fucking Yoda at me. Except she def tried to pass it off as her own original content…I shit you not, she stared me down and said “Gabriellllllle, do or do not there is no try.”

But y’know, I thought it back then and I think it even more now: there definitely is try. It’s the try that helps us move the needle. It’s the try that lets us fail. It’s the try that takes some of that intense pressure off of ourselves to attempt. So get the fuck out there and see. Try the same thing or something else but try, try again. It’s what I’m doing with Ruth. It’s what I whisper to myself on the hard days.

Moms. It’s mothers’ day and I see your try. And the more we try, maybe, just maybe we’re guiding people who will one day make this world a little bit better of a place.

Good job. Happy Mothers’ Day.