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I have never giggled so much at having my face smeared with drool.
Today was Zeke’s and my last baby yoga class and it was comical. I realized we’ve been doing mommy-baby yoga for six months now, and it’s kind of amazing to think we’ve been doing anything together for six months. Zeke is like the wise elder of the class, filled with babies who are still counting their age in weeks. I’ve loved this class, and so has Zeke. Most of the time during class he is delighted, except when he is hungry and we have to pause our poses for a snack. Zeke especially loves the teacher, Kathy, who is very attentive to the babies. His face lights up when she approaches and he is mesmerized. Unfortunately Kathy wasn’t there today and there was a substitute, who didn’t really care much about the babies. She also taught the class completely differently, making it basically moms attempt to do yoga in the presence of their babies, or holding their babies, without any baby yoga involved or any poses specifically chosen for baby interaction purposes. So Zeke and I will have to do our toes to nose and kissy feet and I love yous on our own. Anyway, mostly what happened today was that I did a few poses, Zeke drank a lot of milk, and then Zeke scooted on and over and under me while I did a few poses. And, because Zeke is a fountain of drool at all times, Zeke drooled on my neck and chest and, for a few shining moments of intimacy, nuzzled his drooly face up against mine, completely soaking my cheek while I tried to do a bridge pose. It was hard not to laugh.
I am sad that we’re done with yoga, but Zeke just won’t be still enough for it to work. Next we will go in search of a toddler yoga class, as soon as he’s toddling, which won’t be long now.
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We need a new vocabulary to talk about babies.
It makes me crazy that people talk about babies being good or bad, and it’s not as if people are making character judgments, but that’s just what we say, and it makes no sense. It’s just luck.
When I brought Zeke to Zoe’s school recently for a reading celebration, a teacher said, “he’s so well-behaved!” as if I had trained him or he had chosen to be especially quiet and cute during the activity. Totally luck.
I think one of the reasons the limited language irritates me is that I am paranoid about the implied appraisal I fear in everyone’s probably innocuous conversation. One of the first questions people ask when they see Zeke is “is he sleeping well?”
The answer is no. He does not sleep well. He sleeps very lightly and, although he slept through the night for a glorious three weeks this summer, he has not done so since. I cannot get him to nap, although others can, unless I drive him to the airport. He wakes himself up a lot. And therefore wakes us up a lot. But this is just a fact. It has nothing to do with Zeke’s intellect or spirit or soul or character in any way. From what I understand, many babies do not sleep well. It’s a well-known characteristic of babies. They are often awake.
Of course it is paradoxical that I want to take pride in things that are going well with Zeke’s development, all of which are equally unrelated to merit. For example, he loves to eat and he has eaten all kinds of food (all pureed of course, except for those little puffs which he grabs and desperately tries to put in his mouth but they just adhere to his palm with slobber and I have to pry them off and place them on his lips). Since I’ve discovered these awesome little pouches of baby food, he’s eaten spinach and pumpkin and lentils and blueberries and quinoa and eggplant in addition to the usual babyfood suspects. He devours ALL OF IT with relish. (No, we don’t serve him relish). And I am thankful for his appetite and that so far he hasn’t been allergic to anything.
He exercises his abs with vigor. He really wants to sit up. He can sit up supported pretty well and unsupported for about a second. He’s really working on it. He can also scoot and rotate pretty well. I remember Zoe doing this too. It’s kind of amazing to not be able to crawl but somehow move yourself from one location to another in the crib or on the floor.
Zeke is talkative. He babbles in a way that sometimes sounds startlingly like words. He loves it when you imitate what he says, and he enjoys his sister repeating words such as splash and spleen over and over in different tones of voice. We are determined to sign with him, and so far we’ve mostly done milk. But I think he recognizes it. When I sign milk he divebombs my shirt. We’re working on the signs for more and all done. If nothing else, he smiles at the sign for all done. We’re also working on high fiving. Why this is an important first trick for babies, I’m not sure, but it’s fun to tackle.
Zeke is big. At his six-month checkup yesterday the nurse exclaimed, “he’s as big as some two-year-olds!” Whoa. I’m not sure about that, but he’s a substantive fellow. And a wiggly one. It is increasingly difficult to change his diaper because he wants to revolve while you’re doing it. He likes to tap, pat, whack, and smack things. Especially wood and hard surfaces. Also people. He also likes to chew on everything. I bought a teething bling necklace to keep his mouth entertained and protect my jewelry, and Zeke loves it.
Zeke adores his sister, and she him. His face lights up when hers comes into view. Thank goodness she is kind to him and entertains him sometimes and wants to hold him. She’s still not quite coordinated enough to hold him without us holding our breaths, but we’re all working on that.
At one of his post-op appointments, he smiled at the nurse who was taking his vitals and took hold of her finger in an unusually gentle and inquisitive way. She was charmed and told me how special he was. Of course, we think so, but it’s always flattering to hear someone else say so too. That’s a word I appreciate.
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When Zoe was a baby I emailed updates about her miraculous development to a large list of people I thought of as fans. Daily or weekly or monthly I sent out these missives because, as a new parent, I was in awe of almost everything Zoe did whenever she did it.
Six years later, Zoe’s brother Zeke is equally wondrous, but decidedly less stunning in his fabulousness, if only because we’ve been through it before and we’re considerably more tired now. Although Zoe’s demands are considerably more articulate than Zeke’s, they seem just as numerous. So I write about Zeke less. But I am still delighted and impressed by him moment by moment.
Tomorrow is Zeke’s four-month birthday. Huzzah! The rhythm of his life and the school year are tied together. I found out I was pregnant last year on Zoe’s first day of school. Tomorrow as we mark four months, Zoe will meet her first-grade teacher and new classmates. And Zeke is so much more of a person than he was not that long ago.
Zoe called him Rolly McRollerson today. He rolls over like crazy. Last night Zoe called me in to their room in the middle of the night and during the few minutes I was tending to her, Zeke rolled over onto his tummy (and had to be rolled back over onto his back) six times. When I walked into the room, he had positioned himself in the northeast corner of his crib, after being placed basically in the center, but nearer to the southern end. I wish I had a video camera trained on him during the night, and someone to edit the footage into a cool two-minute time-lapse little movie.
He thrills at his fingers and toes. For a while he would try to cram his whole hand into his mouth when he wanted to suck on it, but recently he has learned to separate his fingers and he can now more easily satisfy himself by chewing on one or two at a time. And he can pretty easily put his toes in his mouth. Socks on or off–it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t mind a little cloth. He will also happily suck on a burp cloth, the corner of a blanket, the ear of a stuffed animal, and of course, a pacifier. Thank goodness my aunt convinced him of the virtues of a pacifier when she visited and helped take care of him in July. Previously he wouldn’t have it, and now he and the pacifiers that litter every room of our house are old friends.
This boy can snuggle. Of course he loves to snuggle with his family. That’s been true since his first messy moments out of the womb. But in the past couple weeks he has demonstrated an affinity for stuffed animals, in particular a little white bear that Zoe has aptly named Snuggles. When he’s trying to settle down and he’s flailing his arms around, all you have to do is tuck a little animal against his chest and he immediately puts his arm around it and calms down. When Zoe was a baby we tried for months to interest her in the multitude of stuffed animals that had marched into our home. She was largely indifferent until about nine months when she mysteriously claimed one of my old stuffed animals–a gray dog named Ralph–as her special friend, and he remains her main stuffed squeeze. Zeke only has a few animals, and some of them are bigger than him, but he clearly loves his furry friends.
Zeke has a voracious appetite. Whether it’s coming straight from the source or via a bottle, he loves his breastmilk. He seems to be an increasingly efficient consumer, as his feedings seem to have reduced from a dozen a day to about half that. Thank goodness. He stocks up during the day and, as a result, often sleeps through the night. Probably for the past month he’s slept from 8 or 9pm to 6 or 7am for three or four nights in a row. Then he’ll wake up at 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 for three or four nights. Then he’ll sleep through. I have not yet been able to undertake a scientific study to determine why he sleeps longer some nights than others, but I am satisfied that he can sleep through and confident that those nights will eventually outnumber the wakeful ones. Zoe has complained recently that he wakes her up a lot at night, so tonight I let her sleep on the bed in my office, as a temporary measure. I reminded her that she still wakes us up sometimes. She didn’t care.
By far the best thing he can do, however, is smile. He smiles and smiles and sticks his tongue out and makes all kinds of jungle animal or wild bird noises. He is so engaged with people and with the world and obviously quite happy with his place in it right now. Do not think I am saying he never cries or is unhappy. When he is tired he cries a lot and he will resolutely refuse food or anything else until you help him get to sleep. He has mostly overcome his riding in the car misery, thankfully. But when he’s tired, the car is also a bad place to be. But mostly, he smiles. Sometimes he looks serious. He doesn’t want you to have the impression he doesn’t think deep thoughts. Those smiles though, let you know that you’re pretty swell and remind you to be as excited as Zeke is just to be alive.
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I’m sure everyone in my family has now seen more of my breasts, and more often, than they ever expected or cared to. My boy Zeke loves to nurse. And why wouldn’t he? Thankfully, he’s a good sleeper, usually going through the night without needing to eat these days. As a result, however, he packs it in during the day, breastfeeding six or eight or a dozen times a day. I lose count. Every day I intend to keep track, but my brain is so cloudy that I forget. He enjoys long, luxurious meals. He appreciates quick snacks. When I’m out in public, especially in a crowded place or if strangers are seated nearby, I feed Zeke under a nursing cover. I can’t imagine it’s very discreet, because anyone would see what I’m doing, but at least my boobs and my belly are not exposed to a room full of people. But at home, or on vacation, I don’t bother. So Family, I hope you haven’t been offended. I am nutritious.
After a long and thorough search for an acceptable day care provider to care for Zeke when I go back to work in earnest, I found someone who has run her home-based day care for 33 years. Her house is five minutes from ours and she seemed conscientious and the kids there seemed happy. Zeke won’t start there until September, and even then he will only be with her two days a week and with my parents for two. I’m sure he’ll be fine, and if I decide I don’t like her, we can always take him out and find someone else. And yet. Putting him in day care at all feels like a colossal betrayal. I am his source of sustenance. Sure, he’s taken bottles of breast milk from his dad and grandparents and great aunt. But it’s me he loves to eat from and with. Sure, there’s some ego involved here. Being the mother of a baby is nothing if not a rush to the ego–look what my body developed and birthed and now I’m feeding him and he’s growing and WOW — I am doing this. Even if it’s basically all happening automatically and you’re not really doing anything yourself, just letting yourself be used as a vessel and a milk factory. Still, it feels impressive and gratifying. Much as you feel pleased with yourself when you take him to the grocery store in the stroller and buy $100 worth of groceries that you shop for with a basket attached to each side of the stroller and then you stroll home the half mile with 9 bags hanging from the hooks on your stroller handlebars. You don’t always have that many opportunities to feel really physically competent–or at least I don’t–but taking care of this baby provides plenty.
I realize that soon after he starts day care, he will likely start eating some solid food, so he won’t be as dependent on nursing as he is now. At some point, that will be a relief to me and certainly to Zoe, who is visibly frustrated with the lack of intimacy she is able to share with me now in terms of snuggles and lap time because Zeke is so often occupying my arms and taking priority. Life will be easier for me, just simpler and less demanding, when I don’t have to nurse so much. But at the same time that intensity of being needed, and being able to provide such an essential service for this wonderful little person, will diminish. And as much as constant breastfeeding has driven me insane, when I just want to eat a sandwich or go to the bathroom, the thought of giving it up makes me equally sad. I know I’m not giving it up just because he’ll be in day care, but it will all be different. And we know change is hard. Although when you have kids, change happens about every five minutes whether you like it or not.
I can see Zoe changing by the minute since her brother was born. While she seems less likely to listen the first time and increasingly able to stand and stare at us when we ask her to do something, or why she did or didn’t do something, wearing this expression of complete intransigence, she is also more independent and both able and willing (if sometimes resigned to doing so with a loud sigh) to amuse herself for long stretches. I guess she realizes it’s either be her own entertainment or stand around being pathetic while we take care of her brother. Last summer I took her to the pool almost every day after camp and played with her in the water. This summer it has proven complicated and exhausting to get in the water with Zeke, although I’ve done it a handful of times, and Zoe has adapted quite nicely. She swims by herself, throwing in pool toys and diving to catch them, or she makes friends, or she plays with kids she’s met before. She’s adapted.
Before Zeke was born, Randy and I easily agreed that we would be sure to spend one-on-one time with Zoe to make sure she got enough attention. Of course that makes sense and is what any good parent would do. But then life happens and it’s harder to do the things that obviously of course you should be doing. I had this idea that I was spending all this time with Zoe because I spend a lot of time driving her places and watching her swim, or do tae kwan do, or what have you. But Zeke is always there. And as often as not, screaming in the car.
So finally, I took Zoe out today for a mommy-daughter outing, to get our nails done. Something definitely not appropriate for babies and something only big girls get to do. She chose neon orange for her toes, and what she called sparkly indigo for her fingernails. And she got flower designs on her thumbs and big toes. Then we went out to lunch, where Randy and Zeke met us. Thoughtfully, Zeke slept through lunch.
Then after lunch I had the opportunity to indulge myself in some mommy-alone-without-kids-and-not-attempting-to-do-work-or-errands time, while Randy hung out with Zoe and Zeke at home. I had a reflexology foot massage, supremely relaxing in its own right, but also just blissful in that I was just on my own, being taken care of, and not taking care of anyone else at all. Even for a minute. My breasts safely cocooned inside my shirt.
It’s good to be needed, even when it’s exhausting. And it’s good to have the chance to give something to other people who need you besides the little one who just likes to suckle and smile. And it’s good to take care of yourself once in a while. And now that it’s bedtime for the grown-ups, that means it’s time for me to pump, to make a bottle for Zeke to enjoy with someone else who loves him.
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I am constantly worried that people are judging my children (and thereby judging me as a parent). If my baby is crying, I worry that they will judge him to be a bad baby or me to be a bad mother who is unable to soothe her fussy baby. When people ask, “is he a good baby?” I feel like they’re suggesting that if he’s not (what’s a good baby anyway?) that somehow he is defective or I am defective. In my mind there is a great deal of weight attached to well-meaning or innocuous comments or questions from strangers or friends. I’ve wondered for the past several weeks if Zoe’s teachers or other adults at school think she is neglected because her has rarely been brushed since her brother was born. Dad has been taking her to school each day so I can rest or nurse and hairbrushing is often one of the items that gets dropped from the morning to do list. Which is fine, in the scheme of things. She is dressed in clean clothes and she is fed and she usually brings her lunch. But still.
When I am driving and I do something I know is wrong, or slightly illegal, I often compose excuses or justifications in my head as part of imaginary conversations with police officers who might pull me over. I am sincerely repentant and simultaneously indignant about being theoretically called on minor offenses. I don’t think other people have these conversations in their heads. Do they?
I don’t know how long I have felt this shadow of judgment looming over me, but it’s been a long time.
One time at lunch a friend of mine–whose frankness and fierceness I admire and also am a little scared of–said she doesn’t really care what anyone thinks of her. She wondered, but seemingly without too much concern, if that was a bad thing. Instinctively, I think it is. But I am on the other end of the spectrum and that is a bad thing too. I think caring what other people think of you helps you be more compassionate and sympathetic, maybe more reliable. Who knows? But obsessing about what other people think and whether they are evaluating your every move is not helpful.
I’m reading the new book by Glennon Melton, the mom and blogger behind Momastery. Glennon’s whole thing is about how we, as moms, or really as humans, need to love more and judge less. She has plenty of personal history that would be easy to judge, and she freely admits where her faults and imperfections still lie. And she is so reassuring. Clearly this is why thousands of people read her blog and comment on her Facebook posts and show up at her readings. If she is such a mess and still such a wonderful person who is clearly trying to do the right thing, and often succeeding, and bringing so much love into the lives of people around her and the total strangers for whom she organizes “love flash mobs” to help in times of crisis, we must be all right too. Right?
When Zoe was born I struggled with feeling isolated as a new mom. Even though I had friends with babies, they all seemed to be far away. We don’t live in a neighborhood filled with kids. Everyone seemed to work. I went to Moms Club events but didn’t seem to connect with anyone or have the opportunity to have a conversation longer than a few minutes because of all the crying babies. I didn’t take a childbirth class or prenatal yoga class where I bonded with all the other moms. It wasn’t until Zoe started preschool at one-and-a-half that I felt like I started to make some local mom friends. Thankfully I am still friends with some of those moms.
But with one exception, none of them have newborns. And though I swore I’d do it differently this time, when you have a kindergartener already, it’s difficult to do everything you want to do. So I find myself again feeling kind of lonely at home, trying to balance relaxing and nursing and trying to be zen with going out and interacting with people to feel sane. Today at Trader Joe’s I wore Zeke in a baby carrier while I shopped. It took him a while to settle down so I was kind of jiggling and rocking as I pushed the cart along, and frequently slid my hands inside the carrier to adjust him to try to make him more comfortable. The whole time I was wondering if people were looking at me, if they thought I was doing it right or wrong. A few people smiled. There were a couple other moms wearing babies and one of them complimented Zeke’s hair. In the parking lot afterward there was a woman getting out of her car, right next to mine, who was carefully inserting her baby into a carrier on her chest, and then extracting her toddler from the car. I asked the mom about her carrier and we chatted briefly. She was friendly but clearly on her way to shop. Some part of me felt like saying, “hey we’re both wearing our babies and have two kids! Can we be friends?” But I didn’t. A few weeks ago outside the Giant in my neighborhood I was having a snack while Zeke slept in the stroller, and another mom on the next bench over was doing the same, with a baby who turned out to be just a week younger than Zeke. Before we walked away, I was tempted to ask for her email address so we could meet up at the park. But I didn’t.
In her blog post today, Glennon talked about going to the makeup counter at a department store and striking up a conversation with the makeup lady who ended up having an intense personal story to tell, which Glennon generously listened to and witnessed. I admire her ability to reach out to people–strangers–and make those connections. Sometimes I want to talk with someone so much but I can’t bring myself to do it. Or ask for a little–very little–help from a stranger. Today I took Zeke and myself out to lunch and while I ate my cheeseburger with one hand, I was cradling and nursing him in the other. I finished my drink and wanted a refill. There was a table of 8 women right next to me and I was tempted to ask one if she would mind getting me some more soda, but I couldn’t do it. She probably wouldn’t have minded. I would be delighted to do something like that if I were asked. But people don’t usually ask. Part of me was worried, I think, that people in the restaurant would be judging me, wondering why I was bringing my newborn to a restaurant, or why I was drinking soda while breastfeeding, or why I couldn’t take care of things myself. They probably weren’t. But still.
I’m trying to figure out how I can make myself reach out more. And wondering what to tell myself when I worry that people will judge me for reaching out. Who cares what they think? Clearly, I do. But why?
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Do you remember this song from Sesame Street?
This little tune runs through my head often these days, as I lead a milk-soaked existence.
I am a milk machine.
This is miraculous.
And messy.
Yesterday during Zoe’s tae kwan do class I suddenly realized that the left half of my shirt was soaked through with milk. I spent most of class nursing Zeke anyway, so no one could see anyway. When I had to get up, walk across the mat where Zoe’s class was practicing their punches, kicks, and form, to reach the bathroom so I could change Zeke’s diaper, I cleverly draped his flannel frog blanket over my shoulder, obscuring my dampness.
Our sheets are populated by milk stains, either fresh from me or dribbled out of Zeke’s mouth. When I nurse and the milk comes out too fast and Zeke pulls away, the milk gets all over his clothes and me and my pants. I go through so many shirts and bras. Breast pads are of limited utility.
When Zoe was three and a half months old, my sister got married. Zoe was the ring bearer and my husband was the ring bearer bearer. Zoe spent most of the wedding sleeping on the shoulder of my mom or aunt. As you might imagine, a bridesmaid dress doesn’t allow for easy access to nursing, nor is there much opportunity to pump (or express milk, if you prefer) during your sister’s wedding. By the end of the evening, the top of my dress was soaked through with milk. I still have it in my closet, although the dry cleaner was not able to get the stain out of the material. Not sure what use I might have for it, except as a souvenir.
A friend who doesn’t have children and doesn’t expect to recently asked me about nursing. Was it wonderful? Was it terrible? Breastfeeding is amazing. It is spectacular that, without me having to do ANYTHING special, my body produces this perfect food for my baby. How cool is that? And it’s free! AND Zeke loves to drink my milk (as did Zoe) and my body makes a ton of it–maybe even too much?–but it’s a great problem to have.
Breastfeeding is intimate, as you can understand, but also public, because you have to do it all over the place when your baby is hungry. It is sweet and tender, except when your baby is fussing and crying and freaking out for no apparent reason. It is relaxing, especially when you’re doing it at home in a comfortable chair, or stressful, when you’re trying to do it in some crowded place and people are getting in your face. Breastfeeding produces some sort of happy hormones (in the mom). It is impossible for me not to fall asleep almost instantly when I go in during the middle of the night to feed Zeke. I end up sleeping in the glider for hours sometimes, which somehow seems wrong, but I guess it’s fine.
Nursing your baby makes you feel very competent, except when it doesn’t. I am grateful for all the ladies at the Breastfeeding Center for Greater Washington for their guidance. Zeke has been great, and the fact that he gained more than two pounds during his first three weeks of life is evident of his rock star ability to nurse, but that doesn’t mean it’s been without tense moments.
Speaking of which, I hear the siren call from the crib of a hungry baby. Duty calls.
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My husband is surprisingly adept at quickly maneuvering his body so that his shirt bears the brunt of the voluminous spit-up that occasionally emerges from our baby boy’s little mouth. I am impressed both with Randy’s agility and with his sensitivity to the little noise that Zeke makes right before he gushes forth. Time for a bath for Zeke and a shower for Dad!
As a parent you become surprisingly stoic when it comes to your children’s bodily fluids. Not that a poopy diaper isn’t still gross, or that you relish extracting a booger from your baby’s nose, but somehow the act of removing something unpleasant or offensive from within or surrounding your child’s body, and therefore making your child cleaner and happier, vastly outweighs your own distaste for whatever substance you’re encountering.
When Zeke was only two weeks old, I boldly ventured to the salon for a haircut so I could look presentable at my sister’s graduation. Zoe wasn’t feeling well that morning so we let her stay home from school in the hope that she could rest up and be better for the ceremony. So she accompanied me and Zeke to the salon. Normally I do not take any children to such places, but I had no choice on this particular day. While I got my hair cut Zeke was fussing, and the stylist asked one of his employees to come over to rock Zeke’s carseat and soothe him. Meanwhile, Zoe, in the next chair over, looked miserable and teary. As we were preparing to leave and I was paying, Zoe threw up. I attempted, unsuccessfully, to catch it. She threw up on herself, her feet and sandals, my feet and sandals, and the diaper bag. Fortunately, she did not throw up on her brother. So when we got home and I was trying to clean up us and our stuff, I was not at all bothered because I was so relieved that Zeke was unscathed.
And for the rest of the afternoon I had this classic song by Barry Louis Polisar stuck in my head. Not exactly the same scenario, but how many songs about throwing up on your brother are there?
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Zeke is nine days old today. Four years of yearning have come to a fruitful and blessed conclusion with his birth. I can hardly express how much better it is in every possible way to be able to snuggle with him outside of my body instead of carrying him within. Our lives have changed so much in the past couple weeks that any words I can think of frankly seem inadequate to the task of describing what we’re feeling and have experienced, but–being a writer–I feel compelled to try to come up with those words anyway. So here are a few brief chapters.
I. The Birth Story (only for those who are truly interested)
We checked into the hospital on a Sunday night so I could be induced on the day before my due date because the doctors suspected Zeke was particularly big and might be too large to be delivered normally if we waited until he was late. The clinical term for this, we learned in the hospital, is macrosomia. It turned out that he was not gigantic, or even bigger than his sister was at birth, although he felt much bigger and heavier to me when I was pregnant. And throughout the day I labored, every person who gave me an exam said, “wow, he has a big head.”
But it was definitely the right time for him to be born. My OB showed me after Zeke was born a knot in his umbilical cord. She said it was a loose knot, but a knot all the same. Anyway, mid-morning on Monday they started me on Pitocin. I breathed through the contractions for a few hours. The doctor broke my water. An Austrian anesthesiologist gave me an epidural. Every single nurse I interacted with in the labor and delivery ward was fantastic. They were all professional, knowledgeable, helpful, and kind. In terms of the hospital staff, our experience this time was completely different than when Zoe was born. It was a pleasure giving birth at Virginia Hospital Center.
Sometime in the evening the contractions broke through the epidural, my cervix went from 5cm to 10cm dilated in less than an hour, Zeke’s heart rate dropped, they gave me oxygen, and suddenly it was time to push. I pushed for nine minutes and he was out. It was a great labor and delivery. Thankful and relieved.
II. Best Baby Daddy Ever
I am so thankful for my husband. He was extraordinarily wonderful throughout every moment of my labor and delivery and those first days in the hospital and at home. It has been powerful to watch him fall in love with our son and I have deeply appreciated everything he has done for me, for Zoe, and for Zeke. None of us is happy that he has to be back at work now. All of us are lucky that he is Zoe and Zeke’s dad.
III. Siblings
Zoe loves her brother. This is clear. She wants to assist with every diaper change and every bath and she asks to hold him often. She kisses his head and she says he is the cutest baby ever.
She has also said, “I wish I were Zeke,” and “I wish I could nurse,” and “Zeke’s getting more attention than me,” and there have been more than a couple moments of sisterly anguish. We know this is normal. It is not unexpected. But it is not easy either. It’s hard when it’s my turn to put Zoe to bed and Zeke interrupts us by demanding dinner number two or three. Zoe loves it (as do I) that I can once again snuggle in bed with her without my belly getting in the way, that I can sit on the floor to play with her, and that I am not quite as delicate as I recently was.
But competing for attention is hard, especially with someone who is attached at the breast to your mom for a good chunk of every day and night. She has insisted that he sleep in the crib in their room even though he sometimes squeaks very loudly at night. She has stopped asking to carry him around. She is enjoying the extra attention from her grandparents who are here to help out, and she hungrily soaked up all the extra time with Daddy before he returned to work. It’s a transition and an adjustment for all of us, and we’ve been very honest about that with her.
When she was holding him on her lap, in her bed at bedtime the other night, I asked her how she felt when she held him. “Proud,” she said. We’ll go with that, for now.
IV. Me
My friend Kim says this post-arrival haze is called Planet Newborn in her family. Makes sense to me. Spending hours nursing or just holding this little person who recently lived inside of you is an otherworldly experience. It can be meditative. It can be exhausting. It feels miraculous and at some moments overwhelming. Sometimes you never want to leave, because you know you can’t go back (at least with this baby). Your regularly scheduled existence feels so far away, which may be a good thing, but which you also know is not sustainable. I don’t want to think about the future too much because it kind of breaks my heart, and because I need to be in this Zen place right now to attend to Zeke. But at the same time, I have a kindergartener to whom I want and need to give generous love and attention to right now as well. But I don’t want to think about returning to my work, or making a to-do list, or anything else besides loving my family and providing for some of our basic needs. That’s all I can handle right now, and all that I’m good for.
You Ask a Lot of Questions 