when my mom called me this morning, she said she was worried about a man who lived a few doors down. there were multiple emergency vehicles in front of the house, and they didn't show signs of leaving. when i asked her how she knew it was the man who was unwell and not his wife, mom said she had seen the woman go out to pick up the newspaper from the front porch.
it was not two hours later that mom called back to say that the man had passed away.
it's what we do when unbearable, unspeakable things happen: we pick up the paper from the front porch. we worry about overdue library books. we get new cell phones (yup, we did that the very next day, too). we wash dishes, mow the lawn, answer emails, or make dinner when the world has suddenly been upended. and the next day, we do the next thing.
i'm not sure if it's a function of habit--we just always pick up the paper from the front porch without even thinking--or a semiconscious seeking after normalcy--at least i know how to do this thing. or are we actually unable to stop? i don't know my parents' neighbor well enough to know what drove her to pick up the paper from the front porch when the unthinkable was happening or maybe had already happened.
but i know that, on some level, it's what we all do. we do the next thing. we go to work, we get an oil change, we do the grocery shopping. even though it's still unbearable, unspeakable, we do the next thing. and the next thing we know, we're doing another next thing: we get a new job, move to a new house, get a pet. but the world is still upside down. it's not fixed, we're not saved by doing the next thing. still, on some level, we can't not. or perhaps i should speak for myself here: at least i can't not. i do the next thing. i get new curtains, get a haircut, have a baby. i try a new restaurant, clean out my closet, rearrange the furniture, find a new hobby. things aren't put right by doing the next thing, never. but it is still unthinkable, unbearable even if i don't do the next thing. so i do.
i want to tell my parents' neighbor not to listen to the people who will tell her to stop doing the next thing, to let the newspapers pile up on the front porch, forcryingoutloud, or to let someone else pick them up for her. to let the bathroom go unpainted, the flower beds go unweeded, the refrigerator go uncleaned, the laundry be forgotten. and maybe, just maybe, here's another place i need to speak for myself alone. because doing the next thing, even from my upside down place, is the only way i know to be. but maybe that's just me. is it, in fact, possible to stop doing the next thing?
the more i think about it, the more i realize how much i'm projecting. i don't know why the neighbor picked up the paper from her front porch on the morning her husband died. maybe her husband was still well when she picked up the paper, and he wanted to read it. or maybe it wasn't the paper she picked up at all, but instead a piece of medical equipment an emt dropped on the way in the door. maybe she wasn't doing the next thing, after all. i don't know.
what i do know--at least i'm pretty sure i know--is that nothing in her world is right side up tonight. and if she wants to read the paper, i hope she won't let anyone stop her.
Friday, May 27, 2011
speaking of family photos
okay, these pictures are admittedly old news by now. anastasia is way bigger, and i am (thankfully) at least a little bit smaller! but they're still so sweet--not too late to share them, i think. (and if you're looking for a photographer in or near southern california, check out our old-friend-turned-photographer, who took these pictures: krista lucas photography.)
where i am and have been, in no particular order
the first part of this post is nearly six weeks old. yup, six weeks ago, i started a post and never did get to finish it. i had more thinking to do, and i got interrupted (by a baby, no doubt) and i never did get back to writing it. to be honest, i can't really remember the rest of the thinking i was going to do. chalk it up to sleep deprivation, as a friend told me today when i confessed that i sometimes find myself rocking and bouncing even while i'm in the shower. (come on, mamas. you know what i mean. you rock and bounce so much that you forget you don't need to do it while you're washing your hair...*chirp chirp*...no, come on now; i know i'm not the only one.)
****************
"i have to get used to the idea that she's going to change."
this was sam's comment a week or so ago when we noticed anastasia's already-improving head control and almost-certainly real attempts at smiling. she's going to change.
the fact that this idea is something that takes getting used to made me realize how thoroughly screwed up (honestly, i have a stronger word i'd rather use for it, because it makes me angry) our ideas of baby care are as a result of eliza's screwed up life. one month into anastasia's life, i'm realizing i'm still undoing and unlearning all the things that became normal for the nearly-three years eliza was our never-growing-up baby.
it took me twelve days to realize that anastasia should be sleeping on her back, like all babies should, instead of on her side, like eliza had to. she was twelve days old before it occurred to me that she was not going to have a seizure and vomit and asphyxiate, so she really could sleep on her back. twelve days. screwed up.
i still cringe when anastasia is sleeping and i hear her smack her lips or sigh, because lip-smacking and sighing were always the start of a sleep-ending seizure for eliza. of course, anastasia smacks and sighs and keeps right on sleeping, just like all babies do, unlike her sister did. but four and a half weeks in, i still can't overcome what is now a reflexive cringe. screwed up.
****************
see? there was more coming. you can tell, can't you? oh well. you get the point.
****************
i think maybe there are still a few people who check in on this blog. and maybe a few of those people aren't on facebook (gasp! can it be?). so for those few among the few, i thought i'd drop by for a quick update. there's nothing profound here, really, because i spend so much time snuggling and cooing at and "torturing" (luke's word) my baby with kisses that i don't think much. or if i do, i forget what i was thinking about because she smiles at me or giggles--hot off the presses! new tonight! giggling! love love love--or gurgles or coos or...you get the point. but here's a quick update.
anastasia is ten weeks old today. she acts so much like luke and looks so much like eliza, which, if i do say so myself, is a stellar combination. she doesn't believe in naps but sleeps like champ (most of the time) at night and wakes up smiling in the morning, with a smile that is so big it takes up her whole face and she can't really keep her eyes open anymore. this is a trick of which i will not tire, not ever. we are all three more and more smitten with her daily and have had a running contest to see which of us would solicit her first giggle (i won, just today, as i think i deserve to have, thankyouverymuch). luke cannot get enough of his sister. cannot. it is amazing and wonderful and so very dear.
there's the sappy superficial stuff. are you wondering when i'll get to the rest?
*********************
who do you think she looks like? people will ask me. i can see from their faces that it's a relief when i say she looks like eliza. i don't think anyone wants to suggest it--as if i haven't noticed--because it might be hurtful or make me sad or something. for the most part, i'm really glad she looks like her beautiful big sister. it's the eyes, they'll go on to say. it's true; she has eliza's eyes. which makes it all the more amazing to me when she makes eye contact with me, her eyes full of curiosity and eagerness and searching searching for something to smile at or to recognize, so full compared to her big sister's eyes which never could quite look at you but past, somewhere else entirely, searching searching, i think, for something quite other. i do miss that gaze.
and i do miss eliza, somehow even more now than i have in a long time. anastasia was only a week old when i watched her sleep and wondered, who are you? you are a darling, sweet, beautiful imposter. i have a baby already. so who are you? it was a momentary, strange, but very real thing, this confusion of how anastasia fits into the arms of a mama, a family, that are already--were already--so very full. and in that same moment, i couldn't have been more in love with her, anastasia, someone so new and fresh and eager and darling and oh-so-mine. it's a strange thing this time around.
contrary to (popular?) opinion, i still like to talk about eliza. i still think of her all the time, miss her all the time, want to remember her all the time--which is not at all to the detriment of the joy i have in talking about and cooing at and obsessing over anastasia, nor to the pleasure i take in bragging on and loving on my increasingly brilliant and grown-up baby boy. as every mom who wonders if she'll love her second child as much as her first knows, the heart expands exponentially to make more room, doesn't it?
the thing about the family pictures still gets me. i've written about my thing about pictures at least once before, here. it really gets me that i'll never have a picture of my whole family together. i haven't changed any of the pictures hanging in my house yet. how do i do that? take down the pictures with eliza in them and replace them with pictures with anastasia? just add more and more pictures? i'm not sure i have the wall space for it. i want to cut and paste anastasia into the pictures i have hanging of our prior family of four...or cut and paste eliza into the new pictures i have of our current family of four. this is in an impossible dilemma. i expect it will get me forever. there's always going to be someone missing.
and i think, too, about what it will mean to anastasia to grow up in a family that has known and loved and been shaped by a big sister that she will never have known. what will that be like? she'll know her from stories and pictures. but she will never have known her. will she feel a distance from luke because he knew and loved the sister she never had the chance to love? will she feel left out of the memories, somehow? i think about that sometimes, and i wonder. i do think about it.
i've all but stopped accidentally calling anastasia by eliza's name. that is a strange and somehow sad feeling. in fact, i have more than once been talking about eliza and used anastasia's name instead. that i did not like.
and yes, anastasia wears some of eliza's clothes, the ones that haven't been incorporated into the quilt sam's mom made for us. that i like, seeing anastasia in things i remember so fondly from eliza's life. and why wouldn't i? she's wearing her big sister's clothes. that i like.
****************
sleep when the baby sleeps, they say, whoever they are. and as i hear the squirming through the baby monitor (i no longer cringe and expect a seizure, not most of the time anyhow), i wonder why i haven't been sleeping as the baby has been. g'night.
****************
"i have to get used to the idea that she's going to change."
this was sam's comment a week or so ago when we noticed anastasia's already-improving head control and almost-certainly real attempts at smiling. she's going to change.
the fact that this idea is something that takes getting used to made me realize how thoroughly screwed up (honestly, i have a stronger word i'd rather use for it, because it makes me angry) our ideas of baby care are as a result of eliza's screwed up life. one month into anastasia's life, i'm realizing i'm still undoing and unlearning all the things that became normal for the nearly-three years eliza was our never-growing-up baby.
it took me twelve days to realize that anastasia should be sleeping on her back, like all babies should, instead of on her side, like eliza had to. she was twelve days old before it occurred to me that she was not going to have a seizure and vomit and asphyxiate, so she really could sleep on her back. twelve days. screwed up.
i still cringe when anastasia is sleeping and i hear her smack her lips or sigh, because lip-smacking and sighing were always the start of a sleep-ending seizure for eliza. of course, anastasia smacks and sighs and keeps right on sleeping, just like all babies do, unlike her sister did. but four and a half weeks in, i still can't overcome what is now a reflexive cringe. screwed up.
****************
see? there was more coming. you can tell, can't you? oh well. you get the point.
****************
i think maybe there are still a few people who check in on this blog. and maybe a few of those people aren't on facebook (gasp! can it be?). so for those few among the few, i thought i'd drop by for a quick update. there's nothing profound here, really, because i spend so much time snuggling and cooing at and "torturing" (luke's word) my baby with kisses that i don't think much. or if i do, i forget what i was thinking about because she smiles at me or giggles--hot off the presses! new tonight! giggling! love love love--or gurgles or coos or...you get the point. but here's a quick update.
anastasia is ten weeks old today. she acts so much like luke and looks so much like eliza, which, if i do say so myself, is a stellar combination. she doesn't believe in naps but sleeps like champ (most of the time) at night and wakes up smiling in the morning, with a smile that is so big it takes up her whole face and she can't really keep her eyes open anymore. this is a trick of which i will not tire, not ever. we are all three more and more smitten with her daily and have had a running contest to see which of us would solicit her first giggle (i won, just today, as i think i deserve to have, thankyouverymuch). luke cannot get enough of his sister. cannot. it is amazing and wonderful and so very dear.
there's the sappy superficial stuff. are you wondering when i'll get to the rest?
*********************
who do you think she looks like? people will ask me. i can see from their faces that it's a relief when i say she looks like eliza. i don't think anyone wants to suggest it--as if i haven't noticed--because it might be hurtful or make me sad or something. for the most part, i'm really glad she looks like her beautiful big sister. it's the eyes, they'll go on to say. it's true; she has eliza's eyes. which makes it all the more amazing to me when she makes eye contact with me, her eyes full of curiosity and eagerness and searching searching for something to smile at or to recognize, so full compared to her big sister's eyes which never could quite look at you but past, somewhere else entirely, searching searching, i think, for something quite other. i do miss that gaze.
and i do miss eliza, somehow even more now than i have in a long time. anastasia was only a week old when i watched her sleep and wondered, who are you? you are a darling, sweet, beautiful imposter. i have a baby already. so who are you? it was a momentary, strange, but very real thing, this confusion of how anastasia fits into the arms of a mama, a family, that are already--were already--so very full. and in that same moment, i couldn't have been more in love with her, anastasia, someone so new and fresh and eager and darling and oh-so-mine. it's a strange thing this time around.
contrary to (popular?) opinion, i still like to talk about eliza. i still think of her all the time, miss her all the time, want to remember her all the time--which is not at all to the detriment of the joy i have in talking about and cooing at and obsessing over anastasia, nor to the pleasure i take in bragging on and loving on my increasingly brilliant and grown-up baby boy. as every mom who wonders if she'll love her second child as much as her first knows, the heart expands exponentially to make more room, doesn't it?
the thing about the family pictures still gets me. i've written about my thing about pictures at least once before, here. it really gets me that i'll never have a picture of my whole family together. i haven't changed any of the pictures hanging in my house yet. how do i do that? take down the pictures with eliza in them and replace them with pictures with anastasia? just add more and more pictures? i'm not sure i have the wall space for it. i want to cut and paste anastasia into the pictures i have hanging of our prior family of four...or cut and paste eliza into the new pictures i have of our current family of four. this is in an impossible dilemma. i expect it will get me forever. there's always going to be someone missing.
and i think, too, about what it will mean to anastasia to grow up in a family that has known and loved and been shaped by a big sister that she will never have known. what will that be like? she'll know her from stories and pictures. but she will never have known her. will she feel a distance from luke because he knew and loved the sister she never had the chance to love? will she feel left out of the memories, somehow? i think about that sometimes, and i wonder. i do think about it.
i've all but stopped accidentally calling anastasia by eliza's name. that is a strange and somehow sad feeling. in fact, i have more than once been talking about eliza and used anastasia's name instead. that i did not like.
and yes, anastasia wears some of eliza's clothes, the ones that haven't been incorporated into the quilt sam's mom made for us. that i like, seeing anastasia in things i remember so fondly from eliza's life. and why wouldn't i? she's wearing her big sister's clothes. that i like.
****************
sleep when the baby sleeps, they say, whoever they are. and as i hear the squirming through the baby monitor (i no longer cringe and expect a seizure, not most of the time anyhow), i wonder why i haven't been sleeping as the baby has been. g'night.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
repost: come home
(since i can't manage to complete all the half-finished posts i have piling up these days, here's a repost of something i wrote on holy saturday two years ago. if you've been reading this blog for a while, you can ignore it; but if you've only recently started reading, you can pretend it's brand new!)
mama, i just found something that used to belong to eliza, and it makes me think about her a lot. and it makes me feel sad. it makes me think, "come home."
it's Easter Saturday, that weird, i-don't-know-what-to-do-with-it day in between Eli, Eli and He is risen. yesterday, we erected our wooden cross in the backyard; buried luke's Lambie, wrapped in a towel, in a cardboard box tomb; rolled a backyard stone in front of the box's opening. luke was sad to leave Lambie out there all by herself all night. it rained and stormed; i, too, wanted to bring her in. or at least check that she wasn't getting wet. sam went out and wrapped her in a plastic bag, just to be safe.
there's someone else i'd like to bring in from the wet dirt, too.
what did the disciples do on Easter Saturday? we can dye eggs, hunt treats, and prepare for tomorrow--He is risen, Hallelujah!--because we know tomorrow comes. all the disciples knew that saturday was that their friend, the one they thought was The One, was alone in the tomb. dead. gone. on Good Friday, we reenact the Passion, reenact the horror and absolute evil of the crucifixion; on Easter Sunday, we reenact the rejoicing and celebration and blissful surprise of the resurrection. what do we do with In-Between Saturday?
i'm usually in too much of a rush to get to sunday to worry too much about my theology of saturday. prepare the treats, cook and bake for a big dinner, dye eggs...friday's over, after all (whew), and sunday's coming. i can safely use saturday to get all the preparation for sunday done (because there's no church today, whew again), so sunday i can rest and rejoice.
but i'm hung up on saturday this year. i'm living in the already and not-yet. every day is In-Between Saturday. eliza is in the tomb, dead, gone, and i can't wrap her up to protect her from the storm. she doesn't need protection from the storm, after all, because we're not going to bring her back inside tomorrow, back to snuggling in bed with us, like luke will with Lambie. here's the thing: it's not friday anymore for eliza, but it's not sunday yet for me. her suffering is over; she's already in the already. and i'm stuck in the not-quite-yet.
but what if i use this In-Between Saturday to prepare for Easter Sunday? that is, how do i prepare for the feast, the rejoicing and celebration and blissful surprise to which eliza has gone ahead of me? the disciples mourned; they didn't know that sunday was coming. i know. i know.
i'd like to think eliza and luke might be sharing the very same thought today: Come Home. so i'm going to get ready. i'm going to clean house and tidy up and prepare for the feast. The Feast. Matthew 8:11 says that "many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." praise God.
i'm using my saturday to get ready.
mama, i just found something that used to belong to eliza, and it makes me think about her a lot. and it makes me feel sad. it makes me think, "come home."
it's Easter Saturday, that weird, i-don't-know-what-to-do-with-it day in between Eli, Eli and He is risen. yesterday, we erected our wooden cross in the backyard; buried luke's Lambie, wrapped in a towel, in a cardboard box tomb; rolled a backyard stone in front of the box's opening. luke was sad to leave Lambie out there all by herself all night. it rained and stormed; i, too, wanted to bring her in. or at least check that she wasn't getting wet. sam went out and wrapped her in a plastic bag, just to be safe.
there's someone else i'd like to bring in from the wet dirt, too.
what did the disciples do on Easter Saturday? we can dye eggs, hunt treats, and prepare for tomorrow--He is risen, Hallelujah!--because we know tomorrow comes. all the disciples knew that saturday was that their friend, the one they thought was The One, was alone in the tomb. dead. gone. on Good Friday, we reenact the Passion, reenact the horror and absolute evil of the crucifixion; on Easter Sunday, we reenact the rejoicing and celebration and blissful surprise of the resurrection. what do we do with In-Between Saturday?
i'm usually in too much of a rush to get to sunday to worry too much about my theology of saturday. prepare the treats, cook and bake for a big dinner, dye eggs...friday's over, after all (whew), and sunday's coming. i can safely use saturday to get all the preparation for sunday done (because there's no church today, whew again), so sunday i can rest and rejoice.
but i'm hung up on saturday this year. i'm living in the already and not-yet. every day is In-Between Saturday. eliza is in the tomb, dead, gone, and i can't wrap her up to protect her from the storm. she doesn't need protection from the storm, after all, because we're not going to bring her back inside tomorrow, back to snuggling in bed with us, like luke will with Lambie. here's the thing: it's not friday anymore for eliza, but it's not sunday yet for me. her suffering is over; she's already in the already. and i'm stuck in the not-quite-yet.
but what if i use this In-Between Saturday to prepare for Easter Sunday? that is, how do i prepare for the feast, the rejoicing and celebration and blissful surprise to which eliza has gone ahead of me? the disciples mourned; they didn't know that sunday was coming. i know. i know.
i'd like to think eliza and luke might be sharing the very same thought today: Come Home. so i'm going to get ready. i'm going to clean house and tidy up and prepare for the feast. The Feast. Matthew 8:11 says that "many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." praise God.
i'm using my saturday to get ready.
Monday, April 4, 2011
of children's books and nightlife
our nursery is on the back of our house, with windows overlooking the backyard and woods behind it. one of my sweetest memories of the many, many hours i spent nursing luke during the night in that room is the pair of owls that lived in our woods. every night, without fail, i would hear them calling back and forth to each other, their calls absolutely distinctive and always, always the same: one a higher-pitched "who-who-who...whoo whoo" and the response a deeper "whoo...whoo-whoo." i don't know much about owls, but what i think i know is that many species mate for life. and whether each owl's call is unique or not i can't easily find out by googling (i just tried, of course), but i do not doubt that i was hearing the same two owls every night.
i imagined many things about those owls, soothed as i was by their familiar, predictable, mournful nightly conversations. i did not doubt that they were an old couple, probably living there in those woods long before luke's nocturnal feedings began coinciding with their mundane nightlife. i remember wondering whether their calls continued--i'm sure they did--long after luke and i no longer spent those quiet hours together in the rocking chair.
it was appropriate, then, that one of luke's favorite books was owl babies, by martin waddell. do you know the one?
lover of children's books that i am, i'll confess that i have many favorites, but this one is near the top of the list, perhaps as much for the happy memories i have of luke's recitation of the youngest owl's repeated line, 'I want my mommy!' said Bill, repeated enthusiastically in a silly little developing southern drawl, as i do for the sweet storyline. it's a story of three owl babies--sarah and percy and bill--who discover that their mommy owl is missing. while sarah and percy attempt to reason out where she might be or how soon she'll come back, bill can only repeat again and again that he wants his mommy. spoiler alert: of course, the mommy owl does come back (and they flapped and they danced and they bounced up and down on their branch), with food to eat--what good mommy wouldn't?--and the baby owls are delighted, perhaps most of all little bill, whose line finally changes: 'I love my mommy!' said Bill.
anastasia and i sit in that same room now, and i spend those hours gazing on the bookshelf across the room, bursting with all those books i read (and read and read and read) to luke, reciting the favorite lines in my head, chomping at the bit to begin reading them to anastasia. i can't wait to hear luke read owl babies to his sister, and i wonder if his said Bill will still have the little drawl it had when he was a toddler. just the other night, as anastasia and i rocked quietly in that chair, i heard--even through the still-closed windows--an owl call in the woods. it was the same call i listened to seven and a half years ago in that same spot, the higher-pitched, longer call. and i waited for the deeper, shorter response, but it never came. the one owl repeated its call, again and again, the night empty of its partner's answer.
and in that moment, the story changed in my head: maybe, just maybe, those two owls were not a mated pair at all, but a brother and sister. and each night since, as i've listened to that single owl's call, i've missed the answer more and more.
i imagined many things about those owls, soothed as i was by their familiar, predictable, mournful nightly conversations. i did not doubt that they were an old couple, probably living there in those woods long before luke's nocturnal feedings began coinciding with their mundane nightlife. i remember wondering whether their calls continued--i'm sure they did--long after luke and i no longer spent those quiet hours together in the rocking chair.
it was appropriate, then, that one of luke's favorite books was owl babies, by martin waddell. do you know the one?
lover of children's books that i am, i'll confess that i have many favorites, but this one is near the top of the list, perhaps as much for the happy memories i have of luke's recitation of the youngest owl's repeated line, 'I want my mommy!' said Bill, repeated enthusiastically in a silly little developing southern drawl, as i do for the sweet storyline. it's a story of three owl babies--sarah and percy and bill--who discover that their mommy owl is missing. while sarah and percy attempt to reason out where she might be or how soon she'll come back, bill can only repeat again and again that he wants his mommy. spoiler alert: of course, the mommy owl does come back (and they flapped and they danced and they bounced up and down on their branch), with food to eat--what good mommy wouldn't?--and the baby owls are delighted, perhaps most of all little bill, whose line finally changes: 'I love my mommy!' said Bill.
anastasia and i sit in that same room now, and i spend those hours gazing on the bookshelf across the room, bursting with all those books i read (and read and read and read) to luke, reciting the favorite lines in my head, chomping at the bit to begin reading them to anastasia. i can't wait to hear luke read owl babies to his sister, and i wonder if his said Bill will still have the little drawl it had when he was a toddler. just the other night, as anastasia and i rocked quietly in that chair, i heard--even through the still-closed windows--an owl call in the woods. it was the same call i listened to seven and a half years ago in that same spot, the higher-pitched, longer call. and i waited for the deeper, shorter response, but it never came. the one owl repeated its call, again and again, the night empty of its partner's answer.
and in that moment, the story changed in my head: maybe, just maybe, those two owls were not a mated pair at all, but a brother and sister. and each night since, as i've listened to that single owl's call, i've missed the answer more and more.
photographic evidence
i'm still here--really! here are a few recent pictures, with the promise that i've got blogposts galore percolating, if only i can find enough waking hours with two hands free...
Saturday, March 26, 2011
stream of (semi)consciousness
i need to figure out a way to blog during middle-of-the-night feedings. that seems to be my best thinking time these days. for now, here's my next-day attempt to remember what i was thinking last night...er, that is, earlier this morning. much earlier.
our nursery--luke's room turned guest room turned anastasia's room--is decorated with pastel animals. in my nesting phase in the final days before luke was born, i painted a mural on the wall over his crib. it's a pastel jungle scene of sorts. and the crib bedding is a similar pastel noah's ark theme, as are the throw rug on the floor and other bits of decoration here and there in the room. as i studied that mural and bedding once again last night (this morning, whatever), seven and a half years after i first did the same with luke, it got me thinking. (you're ready for something profound, i know it. stop reading now, lest i disappoint you.) why, in such animal-themed kid stuff, is the elephant always pink? yellow giraffe, of course. blue hippo, makes sense. purple rhinoceros, a bit of a stretch, but still. but a pink elephant? whose idea was that?
and furthermore--and this question i know is not original to me--whose idea was it that noah's ark was an appropriate theme for kid stuff in the first place? and pastel? i mean, imagine what noah's ark was really like for a minute: it was a crammed-full floating zoo, for crying out loud. dirty and smelly and crowded. were there scuffles between the animals? who fed all those creatures? cleaned up after them? surely the nocturnal animals woke up the ones who tried to sleep at night and vice versa.
hmmmm...on second thought, maybe that's a pretty good description of life with kids after all. minus the pink elephant part.
***************************
meanwhile, sam and i have laughed more during the first nine days of anastasia's life than i think we ever did during luke's newborn days (and certainly more than during eliza's, for obvious reasons). how a few years and a whole lot of life under our belts have changed our perspective! what was stressful the first time around and absent the second is pure joy this third time. when luke cried, we were panicked until we could figure out what he wanted. and then eliza didn't cry. so when anastasia cries, especially when she cried that first day or so, we were content to just listen and laugh, even, with delight. she can cry! and better even than that, she cries for good reason--she's hungry, she's tired--and we can do something about it. simple things that we took for granted, fretted over, that first time around. this time, we know full well what a gift those things are, what a miracle a healthy baby is, and we are so full of joy to experience them.
i've never been one of those people who delights in nursing. as far as i'm concerned (and read here my opinion only, and not at all an attempt to engage the bottle-vs.-breast debate), there's no question that it's the way to go: it's natural and simple and free and healthy and convenient and such a perfect design. but let's face it: it's also a pain (literally and figuratively), especially those first weeks. it's time consuming and UNcomfortable (understatement of the year) and slooooow (at least for my babies) and exclusive and restrictive and on and on and on. but this time around, i can't take any of it for granted, the positive OR the negative. where getting up during the night with luke was a responsibility that i embraced and (yes) sometimes enjoyed, at least marginally, getting up during the night (or being up all night) with eliza was a constant reminder of what was wrong. because, of course, i wasn't up nursing eliza. those first ten weeks, i was up feeding a pump; once she was home, i was up dealing with a beeping machine or medication syringes or seizures or unexplained and innumerable other miserable reminders of eliza's many challenges.
so this time, though it's still all those less-than-pleasant things i listed, nursing is yet another of those things that is a simple delight i never knew how much i should treasure before. anastasia is hungry a lot, a good and normal thing for a newborn. i can feed her and satisfy that need in a healthy and good and normal way. and then she sleeps contentedly and grows appropriately. who knew what a gift that could be?
************************
luke is absolutely smitten with his sister. sam can't get enough time snuggling with her. my dad spends his time videotaping her while she sleeps on his lap, and my mom seems to occupy anastasia's "quiet alert" time best of all, even while working her usual magic on her digestive system (it's uncanny--we nicknamed her "nana laxative" back when luke was a baby, and she never fails to keep my babies' digestive systems happy and clean). i'm guaranteed quality time with anastasia, about once every three hours for an hour at a time, mama-moo-cow such as i am, so i don't have to fight the crowds for my snuggles. and i couldn't be more delighted at how just the sound of my voice calms her immediately.
sam has declared anastasia a very "reasonable" baby. she cries--though not furiously--when she needs something, and she settles easily when the need is met. she tolerates a feeding interrupted for a diaper change for quite a reasonable amount of time before she puts up a fuss, and that rarely a dramatic one. she sleeps (dare i write it for fear of jinxing it?) like a champ, and wakes up quietly squirming and fussing, hardly ever crying. reasonable. we'd love her just as much if she were a drama queen, of course (and we're fully aware that she may yet be), but who wouldn't delight in such a reasonable baby?
************************
i have so much more to say about the intersection of memories from eliza's life and experiences of anastasia's, the likes of which have flooded my mind and heart these past nine days. but i'm oh-so-tired, and since everyone else around here is sleeping, that bit will have to wait for next time.
our nursery--luke's room turned guest room turned anastasia's room--is decorated with pastel animals. in my nesting phase in the final days before luke was born, i painted a mural on the wall over his crib. it's a pastel jungle scene of sorts. and the crib bedding is a similar pastel noah's ark theme, as are the throw rug on the floor and other bits of decoration here and there in the room. as i studied that mural and bedding once again last night (this morning, whatever), seven and a half years after i first did the same with luke, it got me thinking. (you're ready for something profound, i know it. stop reading now, lest i disappoint you.) why, in such animal-themed kid stuff, is the elephant always pink? yellow giraffe, of course. blue hippo, makes sense. purple rhinoceros, a bit of a stretch, but still. but a pink elephant? whose idea was that?
and furthermore--and this question i know is not original to me--whose idea was it that noah's ark was an appropriate theme for kid stuff in the first place? and pastel? i mean, imagine what noah's ark was really like for a minute: it was a crammed-full floating zoo, for crying out loud. dirty and smelly and crowded. were there scuffles between the animals? who fed all those creatures? cleaned up after them? surely the nocturnal animals woke up the ones who tried to sleep at night and vice versa.
hmmmm...on second thought, maybe that's a pretty good description of life with kids after all. minus the pink elephant part.
***************************
meanwhile, sam and i have laughed more during the first nine days of anastasia's life than i think we ever did during luke's newborn days (and certainly more than during eliza's, for obvious reasons). how a few years and a whole lot of life under our belts have changed our perspective! what was stressful the first time around and absent the second is pure joy this third time. when luke cried, we were panicked until we could figure out what he wanted. and then eliza didn't cry. so when anastasia cries, especially when she cried that first day or so, we were content to just listen and laugh, even, with delight. she can cry! and better even than that, she cries for good reason--she's hungry, she's tired--and we can do something about it. simple things that we took for granted, fretted over, that first time around. this time, we know full well what a gift those things are, what a miracle a healthy baby is, and we are so full of joy to experience them.
i've never been one of those people who delights in nursing. as far as i'm concerned (and read here my opinion only, and not at all an attempt to engage the bottle-vs.-breast debate), there's no question that it's the way to go: it's natural and simple and free and healthy and convenient and such a perfect design. but let's face it: it's also a pain (literally and figuratively), especially those first weeks. it's time consuming and UNcomfortable (understatement of the year) and slooooow (at least for my babies) and exclusive and restrictive and on and on and on. but this time around, i can't take any of it for granted, the positive OR the negative. where getting up during the night with luke was a responsibility that i embraced and (yes) sometimes enjoyed, at least marginally, getting up during the night (or being up all night) with eliza was a constant reminder of what was wrong. because, of course, i wasn't up nursing eliza. those first ten weeks, i was up feeding a pump; once she was home, i was up dealing with a beeping machine or medication syringes or seizures or unexplained and innumerable other miserable reminders of eliza's many challenges.
so this time, though it's still all those less-than-pleasant things i listed, nursing is yet another of those things that is a simple delight i never knew how much i should treasure before. anastasia is hungry a lot, a good and normal thing for a newborn. i can feed her and satisfy that need in a healthy and good and normal way. and then she sleeps contentedly and grows appropriately. who knew what a gift that could be?
************************
luke is absolutely smitten with his sister. sam can't get enough time snuggling with her. my dad spends his time videotaping her while she sleeps on his lap, and my mom seems to occupy anastasia's "quiet alert" time best of all, even while working her usual magic on her digestive system (it's uncanny--we nicknamed her "nana laxative" back when luke was a baby, and she never fails to keep my babies' digestive systems happy and clean). i'm guaranteed quality time with anastasia, about once every three hours for an hour at a time, mama-moo-cow such as i am, so i don't have to fight the crowds for my snuggles. and i couldn't be more delighted at how just the sound of my voice calms her immediately.
sam has declared anastasia a very "reasonable" baby. she cries--though not furiously--when she needs something, and she settles easily when the need is met. she tolerates a feeding interrupted for a diaper change for quite a reasonable amount of time before she puts up a fuss, and that rarely a dramatic one. she sleeps (dare i write it for fear of jinxing it?) like a champ, and wakes up quietly squirming and fussing, hardly ever crying. reasonable. we'd love her just as much if she were a drama queen, of course (and we're fully aware that she may yet be), but who wouldn't delight in such a reasonable baby?
************************
i have so much more to say about the intersection of memories from eliza's life and experiences of anastasia's, the likes of which have flooded my mind and heart these past nine days. but i'm oh-so-tired, and since everyone else around here is sleeping, that bit will have to wait for next time.
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