Stretched out
Tonight I had to put Noah down in his crib and walk away for about 5 minutes. I stood on the porch and breathed while holding the monitor and listened to him play with his crib toy. Then I heard a thud and a happy squeal from Noah and ran in to find one of the cats jumped in with him! Because I’d forgotten to close to the door!
That is mother guilt. Of course they were fine: Noah was standing (because he can, you know, pull up in the crib) chatting to Keats and Keats was enjoying the soft fleece blanket (which is now in the laundry).
So why I had to walk away: last night we were trying very hard not to turn the air conditioning on yet and to see if we could acclimatize a bit, just using the ceiling fans. At least that was the grand justification: really it’s ’cause neither of us had had time to inspect the a/c or get a check up or whatever we ought to do before turning it on. We’ve never had central a/c before and last year these things were done before we took possession.
But it turns out that in hot weather a baby just wants to nurse. All night long: 6:30-7:45; 10:30-11:30; 12:30-2:45. When Noah woke up again at 4 am, after I’d just barely gotten to sleep (hot baby pressed up against me for over two hours doesn’t make for falling asleep fast either), I woke Carl up, but it was a no-go: Noah wanted the boob. I slammed the door of the nursery behind me at 4:30 am, I admit, (it won’t actually slam, but Carl can tell the difference even if Noah can’t), irrationally since I am an equal partner in the lack of a/c startup planning.
Ten minutes after that the a/c came on, without incident, because Carl apparently still had a brain! And can read wife! and Noah fell asleep at 4:20, me at 4:22, I would guess. Of course Noah was up at 6 with the sun. I slept to 7:30, thanks to Carl again.
All this made for a very long day. Noah was cranky and I was spent. (At least we had a/c. If not I would have moved to the basement. And I don’t know how people who live in highrises without a/c have babies.) But we soldiered on and had our rousing games of peekaboo and play with toes and read books and roll balls and play toy pianos and chase cats and have naps and so on. I did take him to the mall in the afternoon to buy a few summer things for me, but I chickened out. (Are capris ridiculous at the age of 35? And are gauchos really back? And fuck, whose body am I wearing these days?) And then we cuddled on the couch with books and then had a nice dinner.
But then Noah didn’t want to go to bed. About 12 or 13 nights out of 14, he goes down well with his routine. But the 14th night, and sometimes the 13th, he just - doesn’t, and then it’s anyone’s guess. And Carl (poor Carl) was stuck in a meeting at his office (still is as of this writing at 8:30 pm). And I got scared that he wouldn’t go down for hours and hours. And I was just cranky.
And he writhed on the change table, nearly falling off a few times despite mirror, groovy toys, music, dancing, and tickling; he smeared poo all over; he grabbed my glasses WITH HIS POOPY HAND (I was trying to distract him long enough to deal with poo, and leaned too close) and flung them onto the ground and then cried when I had to put him in his playpen to clean that up; he kicked my ribs when we were getting settled into nurse, and then he bit my tit with his three teeth, because number four is coming through (poor kidlet). But all that was okay.
It was that he then nursed, then decided he had to flip over on his tummy in my arms with my tit in his mouth 45 minutes after he’s usually at least mostly asleep. And then screamed in indignation when it didn’t work.
That is when I got up and plopped him in his crib unceremoniously, forgot to close to door, and went to sit on my porch. I am not glad it came down to that. But I am glad to know that when it does, I could set him down and walk away and breathe.
And then, the cat noise.
And then a soupcon of gratitude that he’s ok, that I’m ok, that we can just have a day together.
And then I carried him back to the rocking chair with a lot of praise for being so big as to pull up on the crib and so smart as to not grab the cat (although I’m sure he would have) and then he nursed for 5 minutes and fell asleep.
(Nursed on the -other- side that is).
I’m stretched in more ways than one. And now I’m off to bed for some SLEEP!
(this post UIL)
The crazy
So this is the crazy shit going down in my family.
Up until today I’d been getting all the info through my parents, so this was the info: my aunt is suffering from dementia (she broke her hip and then refused to eat and then went into weird biochemical imbalances, not helped by an ulcer) and on the verge of death and not likely to recover. She can’t swallow for unknown reasons. All her life she’s expressed that she would rather be shot than in a nursing home (true) and all her papers say DNR, no feeding tubes, etc. My dad is her next-of (and only really) kin.
The hospital did put a nasal feeding tube in and were wondering about a permanent tube, since she can’t swallow. My aunt tried to take the nasal feeding tube out and has been restrained since (5 days).
All these decisions are really hard. And it’s been back and forth, back and forth. I’ve been trying to support my dad and my mum ’cause I know how hard this stuff is.
Of course my mother told me I “couldn’t possibly understand” where they are at. She did call up and apologize three days later when it apparently occured to her that in fact, I have made similar (if clearer) decisions about oh, my daughter. Still, that was particularly hard to take. I know that my parents don’t always have the capacity to remember that other people have pain and life experience, particularly their kids. But it is particularly shitty to have your own mother forget that you had to take your daughter off a ventilator two and a bit years ago. (Ok, really it’s just a “my pain is the worst ever” response but… still.)
Today though I was nearly driven around the bend ’cause I sat in on a conference call with the hospital.
Hospital: she’s sometimes confused but often not
My parents’ interpretation: they say she’s incompetent but then they say she’s not! Is she competent or not!
Hospital: she’s not progressing in physical therapy
My parents: she wants to die! let her die!
Hospital: she’s on ativan
My parents: they’re drugging her into submission!
Now all these things are hard. I can’t say what my parents should do, whether the hospital is minimizing things, what my aunt said about the feeding tube (supposedly she said she “wasn’t sure” which, you know, medical ppl sort of have to take as a yes, keep feeding me).
But watching them bend reality about a life and death decision is really fucking creepy.
So, now you have the scoop, and I have a record of more family bs.
I’m eating key lime sherbet.
Pesto, anyone?
I’m being bad about responding to comments. I’m sort of anti-social right now because of all my phone/email energy being taken up with family stuff; I will write a longer angsty post later. Maybe. Lucky you all. :)
In the meantime two moments that make me laugh. Ruefully in one case:
1) I spent all that money on toys. Noah’s favourite? The little rubbery-spring doohickey behind the door that keeps it from bashing into the wall.
2) I had Noah on the couch with me and I was sitting in front of him so he couldn’t fall over, going through flyers for grocery specials. I was thinking to myself “wow, that variety of basil sure has a lovely strong scent.” Then I was brained by the root ball + dirt of an entire basil plant, which Noah had pulled up out of the pot, and I realized that it smelled so nice because Noah had been crushing and chewing it.
I also flipped out for about 10 seconds: should I call poison control? Eeek! It’s a good thing my brain kicked in before I called to ask whether /basil/ is poisonous. Hee.
And yes, he likes it. So much for worrying about seasonings. Pesto, anyone?
Parenting insanities
I wonder if I can blame this morning on the excesses of the last 72 hours.
At Mother Goose we were solemnly informed that we should sign up to bring snacks next week because it’s “graduation.” And that we’ll get certificates. And I just - cracked up. Thank god he’ll have that Mother Goose certificate! Otherwise he might not get into Wiggles and Giggles! The other mothers looked at me funny. I guess I will not be getting the Mother Goose Mother of the Century award.
So, the excesses: it started on Friday with the Mastermind warehouse toy sale. Mastermind sells quality toys at grandparent prices, which means that at 80 per cent off, you can get some good toys reasonably. But I went a little crazy and bought the massive butterfly toy you can see in the picture. It is really cool - it’s all soft and furry and fuzzy material with ties and velcro and mirror bits and see through coloured plastic bits, and you can (if you’re a baby) climb over the massive stuffed carapace of the butterfly and the antennae have bells in them and eventually a much larger child can wear the whole thing and be a butterfly.
But it is such a yuppy toy. I’d been planning to make a bag full of material scraps that would accomplish most of the above. But now I have the crazy yuppy toy instead. Noah loves it though, especially the Velcro. And I can see him riding it like a pony later. Who wouldn’t want to ride a huge butterfly?
Then Saturday was our neighbourhood garage sale so I scored: a potty, a bath ring, a huge pile of books including a bunch of french primers, a few toys, a set of Mega Blocks (which is baby Lego, like Quattro), a play rug (the kind with the roads printed on it) and a tricycle. All before our signing class. And all together it cost less than the butterfly. I figured out which moms are huge shoppers and have kids a bit older than Noah, so next year I know where to go first.
At signing class we had a huge language development moment. We were doing the signs for a song and I signed “more” and Noah saw it and came barreling over and then screamed. Because at our house “more” is mostly used at the high chair and I guess Noah thinks it means “food” and he wanted some! Right then! Fortunately I had Cheerios. But! I couldn’t believe it! He knows a word/sign/symbol!!
I guess I’d better actually start to use the other signs now. :-)
Sunday I had a mini meltdown. I’m not sure what was going on but my mood just crashed to zero (Saturday it was crashing). Carl was amazing and took over parenting and I eventually crawled into bed and read a trashy novel, cried, and slept. There are some possible stress reasons for this, but it felt like my body was leading the way down. I’d better get in for the tests my MD ordered last week.
But - while I was napping Carl cut Noah’s hair, as you can sort of see in the picture. I knew he was going to but I’m just as glad I wasn’t physically present. It was time - it was all getting into Noah’s eyes. But my baby! He looks like an older, boy, toddler to me now. Of course that’s also because he’s almost always upright now: he pulls himself up on the ottoman, the coffee table, the crib sides, knees, chairs, and basically anything that he can. Then he squeals happily.
But he’s still not old enough to be graduating!
Pablo Neruda’s love-child
Sonnet LXXXI
And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.
No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.
Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
and let their soft drifting signs drop away;
your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move
after, following the folding water you carry, that carries
me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.
(by Pablo Neruda; I’m not sure of the translator on this one. The hazards of scraps of paper lying around.)
Nourishment of many sorts
Yesterday I overcame two things:
1) my blogverse colliding with my mumgroup (that would be this one where we’re openly multiple vs. oh-so-not)
2) my general blahness this week
to go to Ann Douglas’s launch party for two of her latest parenting books: Mealtime Solutions and Sleep Solutions (actual titles are a bit longer but I am lazy). I didn’t go to the blog festivities, just the reading/signing at the Ella parenting centre. I’m not prepared yet to step off this page in person at some event, even if I am happy to have some mom bloggers as readers. But I did say hi, and I took mums from the mum group with me. So baby steps. That felt very naked to me.
And it was great. My big question about food was answered, which was: now that my dr says - which she did! - to move towards just feeding Noah what we’re eating, more or less (chopped up, less salt, etc.) what do you do if what you eat is largely spicy? The answer seems to be serve it slightly less spicy and then work your way up. But it was just nice to hear other people obsessing about it. It was super nice to get out and to a literary event. And Noah had a blast screeching at the other babies and trying to out-volume Ann Douglas.
I wasn’t dressed well enough for Leaside, but I didn’t care. Believe it or not.
~~
I have a theory that you can either worry about sleep or worry about food. I worry about Noah’s food way more than his sleep. Partly because he’s a relatively decent sleeper, but also because with sleep I figure eventually, he will sleep. But food is this minefield.
I thought I was allergic to milk and wheat and eggs growing up. In fact, it turns out my mother just took me off all three because I was allergic to something and it worked. I eat all three now. But what I remember of the experience, besides feeling - because my mother made it seem this way - that Milk and Wheat and Eggs were POISONOUS (hence the random capitalization) was odd.
Because you cannot attend a birthday party, particularly in the 70s, without there being wheat and milk present.
So avoiding allergies is a big thing for me and current wisdom says that if you don’t introduce wheat, milk, and eggs before age one (and indeed milk and eggs are in some circles especially not supposed to be introduced) you lower the risk that your child will develop an allergy.
So I’ve kept toast, pasta, teething biscuits, etc., away from Noah because of the wheat. Milk and soy are big question marks to me. And eggs, eh, well, eggs are pretty easy to leave out.
And I’m paranoid about choking, because I’m freaky about anything to do with oxygen, because I saw my daughter come out grey and limpless and saw the scans of her damaged body and also stared down life with a severely handicapped kid, and so breathing is a big deal around here. So I will be chopping Noah’s meat and carrots and everything ’til he’s 12. Oh well, we’ll help fund his therapy.
The other thing is bacteria/food safety. I grew up with my mother, who is nothing if not paranoid about food poisoning. Let me define paranoid. To serve chicken she puts on latex gloves, puts newspaper on the counter, puts the cutting board that is chicken-only out, prepares the chicken, gets it in the oven, throws out the newspaper and gloves, and bleaches the cutting board, sink, sink handles, oven handles, and counter top. That’s just one aspect of her fear in this area.
One of my (our) earlier memories is my mother screaming that we didn’t rinse a pot well enough and the soap will poison! yes poison! us all. So for years we saw food as just something that would kill you as soon as feed you.
Meanwhile, I live with Carl, whose family actually has some really sanitary habits, like scrubbing out the sink after every round of dishes. But who also don’t read due dates and leave things on the counter overnight and so on and so forth.
Over the years we’ve evolved a middle ground where the kitchen is clean and food is properly kept, but there is no psycho disinfecting and you can finish your meal in peace. I do intellectually believe that a few germs are okay for you (better than anti-bacterial stuff, which we generally don’t use anyway), and I also intellectually know that certain food-borne diseases are really bad and everyone should be careful, particularly since current farming/butchering processes are really bad for spreading things around. And okay, I just don’t buy sprouts any more ’cause there are just too many sprout-related things every year.
Plus growing up most of the food tasted bad. My mother really tries hard, she does, and she fed us night after night. But, in the words of my sister “I didn’t know until I moved out that meat could taste good.”
With Noah I want to do the utter opposite. Lyria has led us into a world of appreciating food and eating well and enjoying a range of tastes and cuisines and all kinds of neat stuff, and it’s so cool. And we’re keen to bring that to our parenting! But oh FEAR that we’ll screw up along the way.
And so when Noah’s/my doctor said on Tuesday that Noah’s pretty much ready to eat more-or-less what we eat (ground up a bit, and in a gradual way), it freaked me out! I thought we had a while longer to keep him in his pristine world of homemade organic baby food + organic jarred ground meat + boiled water and cereal or the occasional bit of oatmeal.
I mean wheat! germs! salt! not to mention that we have occasionally been falling to the dark side of takeout!
But today Lyria calmly dropped $35 at Essence of Life, and tomorrow we’re going to Fresh from the Farm for non-certified organic, Mennonite-raised meat. We’ll be okay. Really.
9 months
(P.S. I added a pic of me to the LOtR post. In case you weren’t going to read this long rambly post!)
My fun-loving boy,
This is you on your nine month birthday, hanging out on the porch with your dad as you do many mornings. This particular day there was a lot of wind, and the crab apple blossoms were coming down off the trees like a magenta and pink snow, rolling down the street.
Nine months old - a whole 2/3 of a year. It sounds old, somehow. When you were newborn 9 months seemed impossibly big, active, mobile, old. And here we are already. And there you go.
Because now you are mobile. You have given up on most of your toys. Oh, you’ll play with them for a few minutes here and there, especially if someone helps you make noise with them or hides the little things under the big things or stacks things up so you can knock them over. But now the entire world is your toy. You zoom, commando style, left arm right leg, right arm left leg, across the room to grab onto/bite/pat whatever is in the room that looks least like a toy. If it’s a shoe, a purse, a shopping bag - great. If it’s a phone cord, a power supply, or a piece of wrapping paper small-enough-to-choke so much the better!
You also like to pull up on things. They have to be particular things - flat, of a certain height, preferably with sharp edges and mugs of milk on top of them - but you have worked out that you can grab one, get one foot under you, then the other, and push! You bounce on your legs as much as you can. You’ll go on standing or bouncing for hours until you are pale and dark-circled under the eyes, and grateful for a book or some arms - anything that lets you stop working on those first steps. Unless, of course, you aren’t finished and then you cry. Being placed on your bum to sit is an insult. Being placed on your tummy to crawl is a disgrace. Nothing will do for you but to stand tall and proud.
Until you spy something really interesting in that corner over there. Then you’ll condescend to crawl over there. But let it be your decision! You’re still young enough that eventually you crawl back. I can tell how scary whatever you’ve chosen to explore was by the lap scale - if you come back and touch my leg and take off again, it wasn’t scary at all. If you crawl up for a kiss it was pretty scary. And if it was really scary or seemed particularly far away you burrow under my shirt for just a teensy nip of milk before leaning against me for a few breaths, or maybe even a short play or read a book.
It is amazing to be your security. You look to me to be calm and present and there. And most of the time it feels like exactly what I am meant to do. I have become calmer and present and more here, and I like it. I am beginning to see why the reverse process in your teens will be so painful.
Although your independence surprises me already. Oh you’re still a baby and at night or in the morning you cuddle and burble and croon. But in between, my boo, you are so determined to do what you want. That will of yours is astonishing. You’ve unplugged the phone about a million times already, and we’re thinking of moving the little box entirely. Either that or duct tape the cord on.
We’ve also officially entered the Cheerio years, and you pick them up - pass them from pincer grip to pincer grip - munch them, swallow them whole, throw them, and generally consider Cheerios to be your best toy after your dad and I and the cats. I have found them in the heating vents and mushed into my sock; under the piano and behind the couch. Since we only give them to you in the kitchen I’m not quite sure how that works, but I do know it’s you leaving your trail. Marking your turf. Right now I find it hard to believe I’ll ever find the Cheerios anything but cute.
I can’t imagine what mums did before Cheerios. Okay, we actually use Toasted Os ’cause they don’t have wheat in them, but we call them Cheerios - and I still don’t know what mums did before General Mills came up with the idea.
Speaking of turf, you know who you belong to. You have just started getting wary of strangers. You gave the doctor a particularly hard time today while she was holding you to weigh me. You cried when my aunt held you on Sunday. You still smile at strangers if they keep their distance, but it is a thinner, uncertain smile. If they start to lunge in close it disappears awfully fast and you whip around to look for me, or your dad.
But some creatures are exempt. Yesterday we went to the zoo, despite drizzly cool weather. The little kids’ zoo was open and you squawked at the stork, pressed up against the cage for the singing dogs, and couldn’t have cared less about the turkeys. We also got a really amazing spot for the polar bear feeding and you just cracked up! Huge white fluffy things lumbering around! I worry about your survival skills, my boy, laughing at all the predators, but I guess that’s why you’re so darn cute. I’d throw myself between you and a polar bear any day.
And that laugh. You have the most amazing sense of humour. You make jokes now, hiding your face and laughing. The latest one is that you beep my nose and when I say ‘beep’ you crack up. I guess your dad and I taught you that but it’s quite something that you will beep my nose rather than just waiting for your own to be beeped. I suppose we should have worked on waving instead, since that is actually our culture’s greeting. But hey, no one’s freaked out that you want to beep their nose yet.
You are learning some baby signs - not the official ones, all the time, since we’ve been less than consistent. But you bang your hand on a flat surface for “come here” and you lift your arms up to be picked up and you grab my shirt and pull it up while thrusting against me for “milk” - something that doesn’t always go over well at Greek restaurants, by the way. Nor, I tell you for reference in your teens and twenties, in bars and clubs. But I couldn’t care less because every single act of communication is just this incredible thing - a little window into what you’re thinking.
Just before I took this picture, you were wriggling and laughing, then looking back at me like in the shot, and then laughing again. You were telling me and your dad about the wind. And the truth is, Noah Benjamin, if you hadn’t woken us up that early and wriggled about until we took you outside we would never have noticed it.
It is a joy to listen to you.
LOTR: The Musical
(Edit: a rare picture of me, since usually I take the pictures. This is the only dressy suit I have left that almost fits me (the rest are more noticeably too big or else too small across the chest thanks to breastfeeding) and yes, I need a haircut as usual. And that is me being silly about my Volvo. :))
I did indeed leave Noah with Carl and go to my mother’s 7-hr long birthday party. Noah did just fine: drank breast milk from his sippy, went to bed on time (go bedtime routine!), got up at about the usual time if he’s going to get up twice, and probably would have gone right back down if I hadn’t arrived. At which point he nursed like he’d been starved for weeks (despite all the ounces taken by sippy).
And I saw Lord of the Rings the musical, in its world premiere. (err not THE NIGHT premiere, but the first production. Sorry :))
The staging was amazing. Whoever wrote the two-page precis of the plot deserves a literary award for squishing it all into the programme. Some of the music was pretty ok, the non-song part. And there was a lot of artistry of movement and athleticism in terms of dance and puppetry and portrayal of various races.
(Except. Flying Elves. What. the. fuck?)
But. Gandalf was simply awful - like, terrible. As in I was cheering for his death. And not a memorable song in the score, and most of the songs worse than not memorable. And the singing on the part of the men was terrible (Arwen and Galadriel were more than fine). Terrible. Magdalynn got a headache from the harmony or lack thereof and the way they couldn’t stay with the orchestra. As in the music stopping and then the singers.
They did a decent job telling the story - literally having to tell it like:
Gandalf: It is fortunate indeed that my friend the eagle was able to rescue me from Sauroman’s tower.
… to fit it in.
Ooookay. I mean, obviously they were going to have to. But the amount of dumbing down was annoying and as my brother in law said, maybe the whole concept was simply a bad idea.
So despite my slight fond spot for musicals and Canadian talent, I recommend waiting to spend your money on Wicked.
Family. Invasion.
This weekend is my mum’s big birthday and family is invading today from Michigan and - err Michigan, and Kingston and whee.
That is why we’re scarce.
AIE baby unplugging phone must go! :-)
Parenting tip #415
If your child is constipated and uncomfortable, simply go to Wal-Mart because of the cheap (in all senses of the word) fake leather ottoman they have on sale. (Zellers will not do, because they have clean family bathrooms, unlike Wal-Mart.)
Within 5 minutes of getting in the door, the little scamp (for whom you are getting the ottoman because he is bound and determined at 9 months of age to hold himself up on furniture but too weak not to continually knock his chin/forehead on it) will have had a blowout, onesie-staining, smelly, disgusting poo.
And then, after you have wiped him up as best you can, he will insist on being held in the sling, IN THE SLING NOW even if you want to lift the ottoman onto a cart.
And then, bowels moved and comfortable for the first time in the last 7 hours, fall asleep there. On you. And you will end up trying to push a freaking ottoman across a parking lot one-handed.
And he will look immensely peaceful and cute.
And the ottoman will indeed fit in the back of your Volvo.