Author: Megan (memomuse)

Megan Oteri is a wife, mama, and writer. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and son. She enjoys wide open spaces and wide open hearts. She writes about her experience as a new mom and AP parent at www.memomuse.wordpress.com. You can follow her on Twitter @memomuse1 and find her on Facebook under memomuse.

Totin’

A story about standing in line at CVS, baby fingertip kisses, stranger germ phobia, infertility, and magic you can share with a stranger.

Totin’

I was just at CVS and an older man was behind me in line.  I stopped to get some chocolate, specifically, Bliss chocolate Easter eggs. 

“Do you want to go ahead of me?” I asked.                  

“No, I’m in no huree.  I ain’t been in no hurree since I retired,” he purred out in a deep Southern drawl.

“Oh, alright. It’s nice not to be to be in a hurry,” I said back to him with a soft smile, warmed by the thought, I, too, am not in a hurry and have not been since I decided to stay home with Ben.

“Sure is. I just feel real old, since I turned 80.”

“Well, turning 80 is quite a something to be proud of, Sir.”

“I turned 81 last year, in fact.”

“If it makes ya feel any better, I feel old ever since I had a baby.”

I studied his red wrists and purple lined palms.  His old age reminded me of my father, long gone, up on the roof of Heaven.

“Hello there little guy,” he chuckled, as he grinned and held out his finger.  I tried not to cringe thinking of other mom friends who wear plastic circle signs on their purses that say, “Are your hands clean?” and ‘Love, Not Germs.”  I could see the dirt under his yellowed finger nails, dewed with time and wrinkles, invisible like earthquakes holding decades of history.  Those fingers are alright, I thought. I’ll let Ben decide if he wants to touch him.  Ben smiled some more, showing all eight teeth and reached out with his ET pointer finger and fingertip kissed the old man’s yellowed, storied, wrinkled, finger.

It was kind of magical — in the moment’s lack of worry and judgment.  Old and new, youth and wisdom, fresh unwrinkled skin and leathered, layered skin.
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Love is Not Always Flood Lights and Fireworks, but Sometimes, It Is

My son is sleeping on my husband’s chest. Snuggled in an O against his broad shoulders in a snuggly nest. Resting easy, gently. I want my son to wake up because I haven’t seen him this morning. My husband let me sleep in this because I stayed up late last night writing and working on grad school work. I woke refreshed and awake, not my usual still-feel-like-I-need-two-more-hours-of-sleep-grogginess. Dare I say refreshed. Yes, I was refreshed.

As I walked by my two darlings, my husband was singing a song and waving me off – as in, Go away! So you don’t wake the boy. He is almost asleep. I went to the kitchen to get my breakfast and make coffee. I toasted two slices of cinnamon raison bread and slowly buttered it, taking my time. I put my son’s toys in the basket that I washed yesterday, placing them in, like an organizer would, quite a difference than their daily throw it in the basket routine. I did some laundry, changing over a load in the washer to the dryer and taking the dried clothes out of the laundry room. That load is in the kitchen. Still.

I want my little one to wake up. I miss his little face, his little body. His tiny little shoulders – how they’ve grown — yet he is still so tiny.
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