I think she has figured out that there are things that go on while she is nursing, behind her back. The other day she flung her arm back while nursing and bumped it into my book, then madly started to grip and pull at all the pages, all the while sucking peacefully away. She was like one of those people with transected corpus collosums who button their shirt up with one hand while unbuttoning it with the other.
Usually when she flings her arm back she encounters Winnie, whose favorite pastime is wedging herself on my lap and against the baby’s back, and then the three of us rock back and forth. Winnie doesn’t seem to mind E’s hand occasionally poking at her. Those are one of my favorite times of the day, my petting the cat or holding a book in one hand while cradling her with the other, her falling asleep while I stare out at the dusk, the sound of D downstairs puttering around. If they say that God is in the small moments, this is certainly one of them.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Journal Excerpt
This is where I become REALLY glad that we started early on all the habits we wanted her to have, like falling asleep on her own in the crib, taking the pacifier, sleeping through the night. Because she is capable now of a whole new level of crying. I have no idea how she turned from a poor little mewling thing into this screaming, flailing banshee. She can cry bloody murder, and I’ll run in there expecting some horrible tragedy and just discover it’s because her pacifier got lost and she wants it back.
So my advice to new parents: start them early. Early is good. It may seem like your heart is being wrenched from your chest when they’re sobbing because they can’t sleep on your chest every night, but better that than the flailing-banshee scream, or worse yet, the little toddler banging on your door.
The funny thing is, you can tell this is something she is experimenting with. Yesterday she reached a pitch that completely stopped me in my tracks, and then we both stared at each other in silence. She was looking at me like, wow, can I really go that high? And I was looking at her like, uh oh. Don’t you even THINK about doing that in public, buddy.
She’s discovering she has a voice and it can do things. She’s like Eliza Dolittle doing vocal exercises with the gramophone. She sounds mostly like a wounded bird. She hasn’t figured out yet how her tongue and lips play into the mix, though she can now purse her lips and spray her spit out, which entertains her to no end. I do it back at her. Thhhppt. It’s fun times around here. Civil, fun times.
So my advice to new parents: start them early. Early is good. It may seem like your heart is being wrenched from your chest when they’re sobbing because they can’t sleep on your chest every night, but better that than the flailing-banshee scream, or worse yet, the little toddler banging on your door.
The funny thing is, you can tell this is something she is experimenting with. Yesterday she reached a pitch that completely stopped me in my tracks, and then we both stared at each other in silence. She was looking at me like, wow, can I really go that high? And I was looking at her like, uh oh. Don’t you even THINK about doing that in public, buddy.
She’s discovering she has a voice and it can do things. She’s like Eliza Dolittle doing vocal exercises with the gramophone. She sounds mostly like a wounded bird. She hasn’t figured out yet how her tongue and lips play into the mix, though she can now purse her lips and spray her spit out, which entertains her to no end. I do it back at her. Thhhppt. It’s fun times around here. Civil, fun times.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Cherry Blossoms
D has made it his personal ambition to go to the cherry blossom festival every year that we live in the area. I have to admit that it is worth braving the insufferable crowds. Probably. So this year we took the little one along. She looked very seriously at all the plumage and when she got close enough tried to eat it. Typical. We could probably have been in our backyard for all she knew, but somehow it was nice showing her all the monuments. I know D can't wait until she's old enough to get all the history. Whereas I make no secret of the fact that I have forgotten all my U.S. history. When she gets old enough to ask questions I look forward to making things up.
First Easter
Today I was sitting in the rocking chair quietly nursing E while looking out the windows. The windows are one of my favorite parts about her room. My mom made the curtains from fabric we picked out together, a cheerful yellow with animals like froggies and bunnies. There are large trees just beginning to bud outside. We might live in the middle of a city I’m not too fond of, but thank God for the trees around our windows.
Nursing now is about a three-minute affair. In the first few months she would nurse for what felt like hours, and in reality was at least thirty minutes. She (still) doesn’t tolerate much noise or movement while she’s feeding, and I would sit there feeling paralyzed. I read through stacks of books and watched an entire season of Friday Night Lights once I figured out how to maneuver my laptop and earphones.
But now I miss those times she lingered with me, so when she falls asleep nursing, like today, I hang on to her for awhile, and think and rock.
I felt very alone today. I’m proud of what D does, saving lives and all that, but sometimes I wish he were a librarian or cubicle worker. Episodic single parenting. That’s what being married to a resident is like.
I think about the separation and utter loneliness Christ felt on the cross, when the person he’d been in communion with for all eternity chose to reject him. It would be like losing an arm, a baby, being rejected by your fiancé or parents or spouse, but a million times worse. It must have been this that he dreaded, beyond all the physical suffering. I’ve never really felt lonely in that way, in a rejected way.
This is her first Easter. It’s a quiet one, just me and her, little fanfare. But I don’t really care about the white dresses and Easter baskets. I just wish I could tell her about this. I look at her asleep near my chest, hope she will never feel rejected and alone, and want to tell her that, because of what Jesus did, she never will have to.
Nursing now is about a three-minute affair. In the first few months she would nurse for what felt like hours, and in reality was at least thirty minutes. She (still) doesn’t tolerate much noise or movement while she’s feeding, and I would sit there feeling paralyzed. I read through stacks of books and watched an entire season of Friday Night Lights once I figured out how to maneuver my laptop and earphones.
But now I miss those times she lingered with me, so when she falls asleep nursing, like today, I hang on to her for awhile, and think and rock.
I felt very alone today. I’m proud of what D does, saving lives and all that, but sometimes I wish he were a librarian or cubicle worker. Episodic single parenting. That’s what being married to a resident is like.
I think about the separation and utter loneliness Christ felt on the cross, when the person he’d been in communion with for all eternity chose to reject him. It would be like losing an arm, a baby, being rejected by your fiancé or parents or spouse, but a million times worse. It must have been this that he dreaded, beyond all the physical suffering. I’ve never really felt lonely in that way, in a rejected way.
This is her first Easter. It’s a quiet one, just me and her, little fanfare. But I don’t really care about the white dresses and Easter baskets. I just wish I could tell her about this. I look at her asleep near my chest, hope she will never feel rejected and alone, and want to tell her that, because of what Jesus did, she never will have to.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Today was a day when our usually-harmless clinic policy of seeing same-day walk-ins backfired. There must have been at least nine add-ons, none of them straightforward. There was my post-operative patient who answered my usual introduction (“hi, thanks for your patience, sorry you had to wait, I’m going to wash my hands now, how are you doing?”) with “I can’t see anything” followed by “April fools!” NOT funny.
There was the lady in hospice with a ruptured globe who refused surgery. The patient with a bleed in her eye whom I neurotically examined and re-examined for an underlying retinal detachment; the patient who kept coming back with elevated eye pressures; the eyelid abscess that had to be redrained; the pink eye.
For some reason getting pink eye is a stigmatic thing for eye doctors, like getting “I don’t wash my hands enough and LOOK where it got me” branded on your forehead. Like a lawyer getting sued or a teacher failing an exam. It also puts you out of work for a minimum of two weeks, which means all the other residents hate you because they have to cover your call. But forget all that. I washed my hands about fifty times just thinking about giving E conjunctivitis.
I came home to her rolling on the floor and squawking like a bird and thought, maybe this work-mother thing isn’t so profound after all. It’s good to put in a solid day’s work, and it’s good to come home and be a mom. Work in moderation makes me a healthier person and thus a better mother. Clearly the operational word is “moderation,” particularly in this line of work, but I no longer feel like I’m playing a game I’ve already lost. There is hope.
There was the lady in hospice with a ruptured globe who refused surgery. The patient with a bleed in her eye whom I neurotically examined and re-examined for an underlying retinal detachment; the patient who kept coming back with elevated eye pressures; the eyelid abscess that had to be redrained; the pink eye.
For some reason getting pink eye is a stigmatic thing for eye doctors, like getting “I don’t wash my hands enough and LOOK where it got me” branded on your forehead. Like a lawyer getting sued or a teacher failing an exam. It also puts you out of work for a minimum of two weeks, which means all the other residents hate you because they have to cover your call. But forget all that. I washed my hands about fifty times just thinking about giving E conjunctivitis.
I came home to her rolling on the floor and squawking like a bird and thought, maybe this work-mother thing isn’t so profound after all. It’s good to put in a solid day’s work, and it’s good to come home and be a mom. Work in moderation makes me a healthier person and thus a better mother. Clearly the operational word is “moderation,” particularly in this line of work, but I no longer feel like I’m playing a game I’ve already lost. There is hope.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
