Perfection is like death

A friend gave a me a book of meditations that I love. I really needed to hear the one I read today.

"Perfection is like death"

We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that's death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn't have any fresh air.There's no room for anything to come in and disrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling the experience. Doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, because sooner or later we're going to have an experience that we can't control.... The essence of life is that it's challenging...From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience...To be fully alive, fully human is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. - Pema Chodron

Sick Baby

Zooey was actually sick for the first time a few weeks ago. Pretty good for an 8 month old, right?

On that Monday when I picked him up from daycare, he had a fever, but they didn't call because it was 100.9. They call at 101. I still freaked out a bit, since he was a little fussy and tired and had never run a fever like that.

On Tuesday, he made it at daycare until about 1:30 before I got the call saying that I had to pick him up. It was close to 102. Straight to the doctor, who did a little blood test (he didn't cry one bit - I almost did.) that showed that Zooey was fighting something viral. Needless to say, the rest of the day involved lots of nursing and cuddling. He feel asleep on my shoulder, which he never does.

Josh and I both stayed home the next day to tag team Zooey, but he was happy and fever free all day. I think we both spent a lot of the day staring at him, wondering if the worst was over and waiting for something horrible to happen.

All this to say, that experiencing a sick baby for the first time is another unnerving chance for me to learn to feel and actually trust my maternal instincts. My thoughts kept reminding my that I am completely responsible for this tiny person and I had no clue what to do. I found it extremely hard to actually believe that Zooey was okay. Even when he was happy and playing, I was just waiting for him to spike some horrible fever. Everytime he coughed I thought of that scary commercial about whooping cough and was convinced that was what Zooey's cough sounded like. I was constantly coming us with escape routes and emergency plans.

That Wednesday night Zooey cried and coughed for most of the night. I cried a lot of the night as well, convinced that something must be wrong. The next morning Josh told me that he kept trying to take Z from me to let me sleep for a bit and I just cried and mumbled something about changing his diaper and nursing him - clearly letting him go was out of the question.

Needless to say he's made a full recovery and is proving to have a very strong immune system. You'll be happy to know that I've made a full recovery as well and feel I'll be more prepared/ calm next time. We'll see.