Photojournal

Dear Ellie and Eric,

Daddy took the two of you out today to give Mommy some quiet at home with Elijah, but as I was walking around the house, there were so many things that reminded me of you that I thought I would take some photos for our journal:

Grandma gave you guys these orchids (the white one is Eric's, the purple one Ellie's), and you guys carry them everywhere around the house and deposit them in odd places. I woke up the other day with these orchids at my bedside table. Yesterday we watered them with an ice cube and this morning Eric kept asking me, where did the ice cube go? Why did it melt? Why? Why? (you are just starting to ask that about everything)

Laura took Eric to the bookstore, and when you had to leave, you kissed the animal you were holding, put it back on the shelf, and said goodbye. She was so touched she bought you this Peter Rabbit. You are really into Mr. Mac-Gwe-Guh and shouting "stop, thief!"

Ellie, you love to color, and most days we print out a few coloring pages. You knew I liked this one so you gave it to me when you were done. Look how good you are at coloring!

Your favorite toy right now are Legos. Legos and reading books-- that's pretty much what we do all the time now. Here is a creation Ellie made this morning that she left on the ground. It's a restaurant that has a plank, for "walking the plank" like in Peter Pan.

We have an "egg" devotional every night that you guys really like. Eric, you like holding the bible carefully with both hands while we read a few verses; then there is a lesson that I write on an egg and a picture representing the lesson you both color. Eric likes getting the tape for us to take the eggs on the tree; then you both pick out two egg stickers for repeating the lesson.

This is Nana, your favorite companion. Named after the dog in Peter Pan, of course. She is bigger than Eric and sleeps most nights with her face lifted up onto the edge of Eric's bed.

Eric, you are really into swords, mock battles, and Peter Pan. You like to be Captain Hook.

Ellie, you are really into princesses (today I had to call you Princess Eowyn). You love dressing in skirts (I don't think you've worn pants in the past nine months) and even more dressing in tulle. This is your play costume; it always cheers you up to wear it.

This is your headboard, Ellie. You have set it up very carefully with pictures of our family. This sock monkey is your favorite animal to hug at night.

Love,

Mommy

Journal Excerpt

Speaking of stories, Ellie has a... slight... obsession with them. Her longest-standing obsession has been with the nativity story, which lasted about two years: enacting the story by stuffing balls down her shirt, calling Eric "Joseph" to the point where he would turn around if we said it. Maybe the story was so popular because it involved being very "tired" while pregnant and having to lie down for long periods of time. There was also usually the birth of a stuffed animal that required a lot of attentive care. I haven't had the heart yet to break it to Eric that he probably shouldn't be stuffing balls down his onesies and exclaiming, "going to have a baby!"

She's currently in a Peter Pan phase, instigated by her delight in getting to wear necklaces on her head in imitation of Tiger Lily's headband. Now she is Wendy. She made us call her Wendy all night, and call Eric John, and call Elijah Michael. Dave gets confused a lot ("no, Daddy, he's not Eric, he's JOHN!"). When we tucked them in, Eric said, goodnight Daddy-Captain-Hook.

For a while there I was making up bedtime stories, each night an installation in a saga that involved, by demand, sparkly princesses and rainbow horses, with the occasional injection of a moral story (persistence in reaching a goal, discovering inner beauty, befriending an outcast, learning to share). Unfortunately, her favorite plot development was pregnancy and birth, which led to an extremely convoluted family tree that she nevertheless kept eerily straight ("no mommy, Princess Violet's mother was Sparkly Rainbow and she gave birth to Little Violet!").

It really is marvelous, though, how expansive their imagination is. I could enact a story with rocks and they'd think it was amazing. I could tell them anything, paint any kind of picture with my words, and somewhere in their minds it is real. When we take a bath, they are mermaids, or fish at the aquarium at which I throw grapes which are really fish food. When we huddle under a blanket, we are a family of rabbits hiding out from a predator. When I drag them around the house on a blanket, they are the only survivors on a lifeboat in the ocean. It's probably one of my favorite things about this stage and one I'll surely miss when they grow up. 

Journal Excerpt

The baby does this really cute thing now where he suddenly focuses on his fist as it floats past his face. His arm stays extended, his eyes get really big and crossed, and his mouth shrinks with seriousness. He punches his chin back in real surprise, and the three chins and crossed eyes just looks hilarious in combination.

Journal Excerpt

The baby finally went for a nocturnal eight-hour stretch between feeds two nights ago. I am feeling like a new person while desperately hoping it wasn’t a fluke. Unfortunately, it feels like waking up in a post-apocalyptic world, like living in a trailer where obviously aliens have attacked the planet and all you see are flashes of decrepitude: grimy bathrooms and toilets. Small, conveniently choke-able toy parts scattered in every possible random space. Kitchen counters so cluttered there is no space to cut an apple. Food particles sealed into the vacuumed carpet. Any minute now a haggard-looking Brad Pitt or Will Smith will appear. I have to give credit to D that things are not worse, but there’s only so much housework the poor guy can do on top of running two health districts, three kids, and a surly, sleep-deprived wife for the past six weeks.

On the up-side, I made butternut squash soup today, which reminds me of my Boston days when my apartment-mate, who believed in eating colorful foods, first taught me the recipe. It made me think of medical school and community and retreats in New Hampshire in the fall. Sometimes it is staggering to me how much of ourselves we can lose as parents; how much what is still part of who I am I simply don’t access or experience. I really am still someone who likes to read, and paint, and play guitar at retreats, and shop, and bake fancy things, and go to exercise classes. But instead I am mostly someone who spent today wiping snot every five minutes and explaining for the fiftieth time why we have to SHARE. And who will apparently be doing the same thing tomorrow.

On One Hand, They Self-Entertain. On The Other Hand, We Get Headaches.

She is four; he is two. With his rapidly improving verbal skills, we are now privy to long debates in the car like this one:

Eric: “Look! See geese-kuh!”

Ellie: “Dee-dee, it’s not geese-kuh. It’s geese.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Dee-dee, can you say, geese?”

“Geese-kuh.”

“Geese?”

“Geese-kuh.”

“Can you say geeee-suuuh?”

Pause.

“GEEEE-SUH-KUUUUH.”

Journal Excerpt

Probably top on the list of things I enjoy about him—right there next to neck folds, toes, and the way he curls up like a roly-poly bug on my chest—are his involuntary expressions. I enjoy making up monologues, since let’s face it, we spend a whole lot of time alone together these days. Sometimes he looks up at me like I’m God—eyes big in awe, lips pursed in shock—can you believe it? there she is again! Sometimes on the changing table he gets this look of bewilderment—what are you doing down there? And I actually feel like apologizing for intruding upon his privates.

Arrival, by Water

He arrived in the early morning the day after my due date, just as the other two had. I was in a tub in the birthing center at the hospital, leaning back against D’s arm, and the midwife put him on my chest after he came out underwater. He was still attached to the cord inside me, and the two of us floated, wet and naked, him wailing, me in a state of extreme relief that the last twenty minutes of pushing was over. The three hours of contractions beforehand had been less painful than I remembered, but the pushing was worse by far, partly because the midwife talked me through doing it slowly to avoid tearing—which was more than worth it afterwards, though I wasn’t thinking that at the time.

He pretty much looks like how our other two looked when just born. In fact, I did a line-up of their newborn photos and D scored less than fifty percent correct.

Life since his arrival has been a long, meditative walk through a hazy landscape marked by three-hour feeds, chronic sleep deprivation, and physical soreness. There is an element of refreshing simplicity, where I just exist and enjoy remembering the things I had forgotten about newborns: their involuntary facial grimaces. The way their lips open and twist diagonally when rooting. The way their hands float around, disconnected from their bodies; the lint that gathers between their fingers. The fine coating of hair over their bodies; the boniness of their butts.

But then it’s easy to feel lonely and down. The constant head-achy lack of sleep can make anything look dismal and irritating, and it’s easy to complain about the constant throbbing discomfort of engorgement, the soreness that makes me wonder if my pelvic floor will ever return to normal, the strange waterbed-like quality of my deflated stomach. And it’s a bit scary to wrap my mind around taking care of all three by myself eventually.

The baby has been surprisingly easy to take care of: he falls asleep on his own without a fuss, already gives me four hours between feeds at night, rarely cries during the day. The other two have been much harder. They have both gotten sick with fevers during the past week. It’s been harder to meet E’s particular demands and answer her million questions when I’m tired. E.e. is clearly going through adjustment issues, crying when I can’t hold him due to my chest hurting or having to nurse, acting up with whomever else is taking care of him.

It’s a day-by-day thing at this point. I try to be thankful—that I have milk, that the soreness has been better than in the past, that the older two have been nothing but affectionate and loving to the baby despite their lives being upturned. That I have plenty of support from parents and D. I take showers, which as my surgical resident once said, really does equate to an hour of sleep. And I remember, for better or worse, that this stage will pass soon enough.

Birthday Letter

Dear E,

You turn four years old in a few hours. It is the night before your birthday, and I am sitting at the desk in the piano room typing. I just finished hanging blue crepe paper up around the house and cutting shapes out of blue jello. This is the first time you told me what you wanted for your birthday: at first you said you just wanted chocolate ice cream, with chocolate cake. Then you said you wanted a party with a few friends. We went to Party City together on our last date, and you picked out Cinderella napkins, plates and cups, because they were blue. When they said the Cinderella balloon was sold out you suggested we buy blue star balloons instead. We have blue drinks, blue straws, and we will dust the cake with blue sprinkles. While we were at the store, you asked me a million times, “what is this?” “can we buy this?” I almost always said at the end, “no, we don’t need that” and you would quietly put it back on the shelf.

You know how to count to one hundred now, so you’ve been counting down to your birthday for a while. But tonight you said to me, “mommy, I feel sad. I won’t be three anymore. I want to be three again some day.” Dee-dee was lying next to you; you were both getting your night diapers after our routine of a bunny story (you laughed at all the right parts), singing (you know the words to all the verses of the songs), and brushing our teeth. I told you, don’t worry, you’ll always be three to me, no matter how big you get.

You are still yourself the way you were a year ago—sensitive, articulate, imaginative, tidy—but you sense, say, imagine, and do even more. You translate what dee-dee is saying and give me advice on how to take care of him. You can talk to yourself for an entire car ride without stopping. You want to be read to all the time, nonstop. You can draw a person with eyeballs, eyelashes, and eyebrows. You can write your name. You know the sounds of all the letters. You want me to tell you everything I’m saying when I talk to other adults. You ask “why?” all the time, about everything. You still take care of all your animals and have started naming them. You can dress yourself, clip your own hair, put on your own shoes.

Here is a list of things you like: riding your bike. Finding friends to follow. Ballet. Your green stripey blanket. Fruit shakes. Books and the library. Going to the playground or splash park. Creeping out of bed at night to tell me you've tidied your whole room. Skipping and running. Collecting roly-poly bugs. The idea of school. Wearing dresses. Your pink shoes. The color blue and anything chocolate. Watching Planet Earth. Any kind of craft. The small white goat at the petting farm.

One time I will remember from the past year is when you were sitting in my lap, on my left thigh next to Eric on my right as usual, gliding before bedtime. You suddenly told me, “I want to ask God to be in my heart.” You didn’t have much more to say than that, but it was a special moment.

One thing I love about you is how easy it is to make you happy. You take so much joy in so many small things. You love being with Mommy and Daddy and you tell us all the time how much you love us. You tell us how dee-dee is your best friend. You want to go on dates with me, you kiss the baby in my belly, you make my bed for me in the mornings. We are so thankful you were born four years ago. I think we will be a little sad when you get older.

Love,

Ma-ma