Of Baseball and Babies

My fourth child was born in the month of March, which is a wonderful time to have a baby especially when you live in a four-season part of the country like I do. He was my only baby with jaundice and the best treatment for jaundice is sunlight. I will always remember sitting outside with my new baby stripped naked to his waist, taking in the sun. If the neighbors hadn't wondered about us before they definitely started to wonder about us then. But we were so grateful to have our jaundiced newborn out of the hospital, away from the medical "light therapy," and into the sunlight of our own front porch.As I look out my window this morning at a snow-covered landscape I can't wait for a sunny warm day, and I can only hope that we will get one of those in March this year. But as much as I long for spring, there is a part of me that dreads spring. Sunshine, flowers, warm days, snow melting -- yes, I can't wait. But along with all of that comes BASEBALL.The profound significance of baseball in my life, both for good and for ill, has to be the subject of another post. But suffice it to say that a March baby born into a little league family is not afforded the luxury of a slow acclimation to the world. Or rather, I should say that the baby's mother is not granted a long period to revel in the beauty of her newborn before jumping into the most demanding season of the parenting year.And that, my friends, is how I found myself pumping in the car. Baby at home and me and the breast pump in the little league parking lot. And it strikes me that pumping in the car is a pretty accurate metaphor for the life I've found myself to be living. Running from place to place, trying to be multiple places at once, but also trying to express and contain that which is true, real and good. Milk that nourishes and sustains life.