Personal Space

Amidst the joys of watching EC learn to do all sorts of new things  - sit up, roll over (sorry, that makes her sound a little like a dog, doesn't it?), play with toys- and watching my two home-schooled kids develop new interests and skills, I find that I am grieving the loss of personal space a bit.  And also the space that has grown-ups in it.  Let me set the scene for you:

I've been trying to wake up earlier and earlier in the morning, hoping for just a tiny window of time to call my own.  I creep quietly down the stairs only to turn a corner and find that one child (let's call her "Sally") is already there to greet me.  I feign a smile and a half-hearted "good morning".  I walk over to sit on the couch, hoping for a few minutes of quiet reading before the day REALLY gets going.  Sally follows me to the couch where she sits down and prepares to stare at me while I am reading.  This is disconcerting.  I ask if she has something to do.  She says no.  I suggest a few things that might take her out of my space.  She does not bite.  I query further - is she sure she's had enough sleep?  Wouldn't she like to go back to bed?  She would not.   Side note here:  I have never understood why children want to stay up as late as possible, get up as early as possible, and never want to nap.  It's as if they think that there is some secret world that exists during the time they are asleep.  Their only hope in accessing this world is to stay awake as much as possible.  Adults, on the other hand, know that this secret world is only inhabited by taxes, telemarketers, dishes, and laundry, and are happiest when they can sleep and avoid entering the secret world.

Back to Sally.  She continues to stare at me.  I can't concentrate on what I am reading.  I get up.  She follows me.  Everywhere.  Finally I pretend to go to the bathroom where I just sit.  At least here I am alone.  Eventually, I have to come out.  I would like someone to build a bathroom large enough for a small sofa -- then I would stay in there longer.  The one seat that bathrooms normally come equipped with is only so cozy.  Now the next child (we'll call him "Bob") is awake.  He's been standing outside of the bathroom door waiting for me.  He notes that he didn't hear a "flush".  I tell him he is mistaken.  He's been waiting for me so that he can tell me three things:

1.  10 minutes of lines from the movie he watched the previous evening.  He prefaces this by telling me it will just take a second.
2.  The dream he had about the movie that he watched last night.
3.  His idea for a planet where no one would ever sleep and no one would ever be alone.  (OK - that was actually MY dream from last night...)

I try to grab a bit of morning news and adult conversation (albeit one-sided) by watching the Today show while simultaneously trying to eat some breakfast and nurse the baby.  Sally and Bob join me.  Sally comments on Merideth Viera's new haircut and Matt Lauer's suit.  Bob wonders if the camera men enjoy their job.  I do not want Sally and Bob in this space.  I don't want them to become friends with Meredith and Matt.  They are MY friends.  Adult friends who don't want anything from me.  They just want to entertain me and share important news with me.  Desperately hoping to buy myself a few minutes, I ask them if they've made their beds.  They lie and say they have, but since I don't want to leave Meredith and Matt, and am nursing the baby while also drinking a glass of juice and washing down a multi-vitamin, I'm not that mobile anyway, so I don't realize this is a lie until it's too late.  Finally the baby is finished nursing and I put her down and loudly state, for all to hear, that I need to use the bathroom.  Again.

Warnings

Apparently my body is neither too old to MAKE or DELIVER a baby, but is too old to carry said baby around.  This past week I've been plagued with a "bad back."  Even just talking about it makes me feel like a very old person - the kind who talk about their ailments all the time because nothing else seems as interesting.  The bad back, I think, comes with the million times a day that I'm traveling up and down the stairs carrying a 15 pound bundle of joy, and from lifting that bundle up off the floor nearly as many times.  You see, for the baby's safety, you're not supposed to put her up high.  On anything.  At all.  She sits on the floor, lays on the floor, plays with toys on the floor, and every piece of little baby equipment must rest on the floor.  The baby-thing manufacturers warn you, in large labels on their product, with helpful cautions like:
1.  Do not place the Bumbo seat on an elevated surface.  We've totally designed it to look like a McDonald's booster seat, but don't even THINK about putting it up on a chair.
2.  Do not fill the Exersaucer with water.
3.  Do not use the Exersaucer as a sled.  (I would never have thought of this one on my own, but now that the Evenflo people have given me the idea, it sounds fantastic!)
4.  Do not attempt to carry the bouncy seat  while also juggling the phone, the TV remote, the salad spinner, and a school permission slip.
5.  Do not carry your baby up and down the stairs all day.  Do not pick her up off the floor an equal number of times.  Or, if you do, remember to bend at the knees.

Making Weight

On November 29, 2010, at approximately 10:13 in the morning, I officially returned to my pre-baby weight! Now if I can just figure out what to do with all this extra skin….


Confession: I am still wearing one pair of maternity pants. They are so nice and so comfortable and actually classic looking, that I can’t bear to give them up. Oh well.

Update from yesterday:  This morning, I was dressing EC when I noticed that her band-aid (from yesterday's incident - see previous post) was gone.  I looked through her pajamas - nothing.  Looked in her bed - nada.  Scrounged around on the floor - again, coming up with nothing.  Then the thought crossed my mind that she had SWALLOWED it.  Again, panic.  Would it some how become stuck in her small intestinal tract?  She'd never pooped anything solid - what would happen?  Was it restricting her breathing even now?  Should I Google it or call the pediatrician?  Why was I stupid enough to put a band-aid on a baby?  I walked downstairs, awash in the naivete that I thought I was years past, and there was the giant band-aid, on the couch.  Dodged another bullet.  She will live to tell the tale.

An infant's tribute to the King of Pop

I was so close. Just that one last little tiny paper thin fingernail…


There are a few cardinal rules in life that you’re not supposed to break:

1. Never say that your child is ugly.

2. Never joke about bombs at the airport.

3. Never say out loud, “That woman has more than 10 items and this is the EXPRESS lane!”

4. Never make your baby bleed.

(Caution – my mother paid no heed to that last one when it came to loose teeth, so keep your children away from her if they have a wobbly one.)

Today I broke the last rule and made my three-month old bleed her own blood. One of the child-rearing tasks that I delegate to Ryan (along with teaching people to pee standing up) is the trimming of fingernails. However, I kept forgetting to ask him to do this for Emma Clare and I’d already been clawed by her about three times today. So, I took a stab at it (no pun intended, but there it is anyway.) I was humming along so well – one hand done, on to the next. It was just that very last thumb that got me, or got her, as it turns out. The look on her face was of one who had been utterly betrayed and her cry was other-worldly. I panicked. Then I stuck her thumb in my mouth (thinking, somehow, that this might help.) Tried to remember any first aid training that I might have had – elevate the head, or is it supposed to be the feet? Pressure? Tourniquet? I rubbed some organic diaper ointment on it – I don’t think it helped at all, but it smells heavenly – like oatmeal and vanilla. Finally, I managed to find the world’s largest band-aid in our closet and wrapped it around her microscopically small finger. Then, to prevent her from sucking on the band-aid, I put a striped mitten over that hand. One of my children had the good judgment to point out that this made her look like Baby Sandy. Baby Sandy is my childhood Cabbage Patch doll and about 16 years ago our yellow lab chewed off one hand. I put one of those little scratch mittens on that hand to cover up the damage. So, in essence, my child now looks like a Cabbage Patch Kid with a gnawed-off stump for a hand. A lady in line in back of me at Target said something to the effect of, “Oh, it looks like she lost one of her little mittens.” I didn’t dare explain.

A Time to Be Serious

I want to take some time out from my usual very witty repartee, and share some serious thoughts about these children God has given me.  I hope that these words that I write on this blog - sometimes with much biting sarcasm, and just as often with tongue firmly planted in-cheek -- are not offensive.  I love my children and am thankful every day for them.  I have watched my mother mourn the loss of a child, watched dear friends do the same more than once, and have watched those closest to me struggle with the realization that a biological child will not be a reality for them.  I don't want to ever be seen as taking my children for granted.  Even on the worst of days, Emma Clare will look up at me with a sideways glance while breastfeeding, and give me the most impish grin.  It would melt your heart.  I can't imagine a day without her, or without Patrick, or Annie, or Aidan.  They are given to us as a solemn responsiblity and a pure joy.

As I write this, my heart is heavy.  People who I do not know, friends of friends, have just taken their two-year old home from the hospital, to die in her own bed, in their arms.  I'm overwhelmed with grief for this family who I will likely never meet.  But we share the bond of parenthood and for that reason, the grief that I feel right now is very real.  Despite all prayers to the contrary, it seems that for His purposes, God will not see fit to relieve them of this agony. Tomorrow I will probably complain about my teenager not wanting to wear new shoes, and they will never have the chance to complain about their child's teen years.  It's for this reason that I hope, in the midst of the amusing expositions of my miniature trials and tribulations, that I don't lose sight of the enormity of the four gifts I've been given, and that you don't mistake my feeble attempts at humor for ingratitude.

I can't think of a title for this blog because I'm so tired.

Between 10:30 last night and 6:30 this morning, I was up 3 times.  This is a catastrophic throwback to Emma Clare's earliest days with us.  Ryan says I must have forgotten to explain the rules to her.  I was so tired walking back and forth from her room to ours, that I felt like I was in a trance and am extremely lucky that I didn't fall down the stairs.  I have no idea what the issue was.  She has been congested on and off for weeks and an annoying little voice in my head is whispering something about potential allergies.  I hate that voice.  And I KNOW that if I go into the pediatrician's office that she is going to suggest going off dairy -- somehow I just know that's what she's going to say.  And mark my words, if someone tries to make me lay off dairy, I will do real harm to myself rather than live like that.  Go without cheese?  Surely you jest.  On the brighter side, it might not be allergies at all.  But then again, that isn't much brighter because I will still need to get to the bottom of why she's so congested and why she's making me feel like the walking dead.  Oh, and also it would be nice to know why I currently have to change clothes 3 times a day from being spit up on.  Here's hoping someone sends me a new shirt for my birthday next week because she's spit up on all the others.  That's why I'm still in my pajamas today.  Really, it is.

Parental Duty

Occasionally, Parental Duty requires me to go watch one of my kids exercising their "gifts."  Tonight was one such occasion: watching Aidan at swim team practice.  The pool area is a stifling 83 degrees and I always seem to be wearing a sweater when I go.  Sigh.  Anyway, tonight I decided to speed the hour along by committing to memory the various other parents gathered there, so I could share them with you.  They are (in no particular order):

1.  Mrs. Overestimation of my Child's Abilities.  She was one of the first people I met when we joined the swim team.  That evening, she was fretting about the local high school cancelling their modified swim program.  For those of you not from NY, every school runs a modified version of each of their sports, allowing talented middle school students to train with and compete for the high school coaches.  Of course, she was concerned because where was her little darling 7th grader going to get any kind of decent workout?  Not here at the Y.  Oh, it's fine for SOME children, but her little man has real talent.  Maybe the high school will let him work out with the varsity swim team?  Sure they will.  And I'll bet they love it when they get a load of his work ethic.  Her little man manages to find about 80 different reasons, every evening, to get out of the pool and wander over to the bleachers.  The varsity team will love that.

2.  Mr. and Mrs. Parents of the Most Frail Child I've Ever Seen.  Not much to say here, other than to express the hope that there is never a draft in the pool area.  Their child will be blown away.

3.  Mrs. I am Totally Oblivious to the Fact That My Child is Obnoxious. She is near and dear to my heart because her son swims with Aidan's group. He is always the one in the pool when the coach has asked everyone to exit, is swimming freestyle when they've been asked to swim butterfly, and manages to "accidentally" fall in the water during team meetings. Curiously, mom never seems to notice.

Mr. I Think it is Still 1967. He has a lot of friends here in Ithaca. They were flower children in the 60's and have held on tenaciously to the wardrobe and the hairstyles.


Then, there's me.  Mrs. I am going to read this magazine and watch my child out of the corner of my eye and when he gets out of the pool and walks by I will look straight at him and give him a thumbs up for whatever he may have just finished doing, not that I would know because I've been reading a magazine and scoping out the other parents.  It makes him very happy.