Category Archive

The shining moment of the past week was when we were attempting to change Zeke’s diaper, which has been a two- to three-person job since his surgery for hypospadias last Friday. I was attempting to remove a poopy diaper and clean Zeke while not disturbing the dressing covering his surgical site, Randy was holding down the enormous foam dressing that he and Zoe nicknamed the Devil’s Tower after a rock formation Zoe was reading to us about, and Zoe was holding Zeke’s hands so he didn’t try to yank the dressing or the catheter. We all started singing. The alphabet song, Twinkle Twinkle, You Are My Sunshine, Peace Like a River. We have a good repertoire. And Zeke stopped squirming and writing and screaming and just smiled.

The ironic moment was when Zoe wanted to watch one of her favorite movies, Babies, so we streamed it on the tv for her, trying to amuse her amid days of benign neglect because her brother has required all of our attention. We forgot that in the movie (which we’ve all seen numerous times) there are many occasions where the babies cry. Randy started laughing until he cried. We are taking a break from hearing our baby cry to watch other babies cry?

I was going to write about all this when it is safely behind us and I can reflect back with some wisdom. Unfortunately we’re still entrenched in the middle of it and it’s still really hard, but I needed to write anyway.

I hate feeling like a needy person who’s always having a crisis. I’ve always wondered what was wrong with those people who always seem to have some major issue. And suddenly I feel like one of them. Both my kids and my husband have had surgeries in the past few years. I don’t have a problem accepting help, but somehow it’s frustrating to need help. I realize I need help in many small ways all the time, but I like to think of myself as someone who can take care of things and take care of people and when suddenly I feel incapable of taking care of anything other than keeping myself and family alive, I feel defeated.

Concurrent with his surgery, Zeke has developed his first real cold, which has proven to be fierce. So in addition to giving him meds twice a day, we’re using a nebulizer to help him breathe. As a result of the cold, or the teething that was also happening pre-procedure, and the surgery itself and resulting pain, he has refused to nurse (I’ve just learned it’s actually called a nursing strike, which brings to mind a picket line of babies) since Friday night, except when he is half-asleep at 4am. On the one hand, we have to give him the medication in bottles because he rejects it any other way, but on the other hand it’s really difficult to not be able to nurse him whenever he’s hungry, not be able to soothe him with nursing, not be able to do this fundamental thing for my son. So I’ve been pumping as much as I can, burning through my frozen milk supply. I bought a can of formula to have on hand just in case. I’ve been frustrated too by the online advice about nursing strikes, which assumes the mom stays at home with baby 24/7. They say things like, avoid giving a bottle–instead express milk and feed it to your baby with a spoon or a syringe. My baby has taken a bottle for months, because–as much as I love my son with everything I am–I need to be apart from him sometimes, whether it is to run my business or just to have a minute to myself to be a grown-up human being. I am hoping that when he’s feeling better and returned to a normal routine that he will resume nursing as much as he was before.

I need to sleep, and everyone else in our house is doing that now, but these thoughts have been flooding my brain for a week. I am so thankful to have in my husband a partner who is as committed to taking care of our kids as I am. I am thankful to my parents for being here to help in any way I ask them to, no matter what. I am thankful for the people who’ve brought or sent us meals, some of whom I barely know. I am thankful for the on-call urology resident at Children’s who answered our questions the six times we called, day and night, while he was on duty last weekend. I’m thankful for our surgeon’s nurse who I’ve also talked with many times and who is patient with me every time something goes wrong, which seems to happen about twice a day.

And, as Randy reminded me today, I am thankful for Zeke’s smiles. Despite this all, when he isn’t having his diaper changed or having some other offensive thing done to him, he is so joyful and filled with smiles. He still loves hugs and kisses and playing and he did fall asleep in the car the three times I drove him to the airport and back, at midnight, 4am, and 10am respectively. Midnight is the best time to drive to the airport–the least amount of traffic for sure. And tonight he made my day by laughing and laughing when I imitated the sounds he was making–“aah aah aah aah aah!” enthusiastically. It was the funniest thing he had ever heard. So as far as he’s concerned, he’s doing ok. We’re doing all the worrying for him, which is what’s supposed to happen.

We have five more nights and four more days till the catheter comes out. That coincides with his 6-month birthday. We will all celebrate.

Yesterday while we were eating frozen yogurt outside the froyo shop, Zoe and I had this conversation.

Z: “Did you and Daddy have jobs before you were married?”

Me: “Yes. You have to get a job after your graduate from college, whether or not you’re married. So Daddy and I have both had jobs for a long time.”

Pause

Me: “Why do you ask?”

Z: “I saw those two men go into the frozen yogurt shop and I wondered if they were married. Or if they just worked together. Or if they were married and worked together. They were wearing ties.”

I surge through half the day fueled solely by adrenaline.

Must make it to school on time.

Must feed and clothe baby.

Everything else is negotiable.

Later, I turn to caffeine.

You decide whether or not it is toxic for you.

For me it is a balm.

By 5:30 the screaming starts.

I am spent.

But I cannot stand the screaming.

So I stuff the baby in the carrier and pace.

Up and down the sidewalk in front of the house on a nice day.

If I remember shoes and sunglasses it’s a plus.

Or in circles around 1584 square feet, dodging toys and baby apparatus.

While the first grader snacks and relaxes.

I am fortunate that she is tolerant.

When the baby is asleep, I can sit down for a few minutes to talk

Or play with the first grader.

As long as I hold myself in just the right position

So as not to disturb the baby.

If only I could sleep. Please please let me sleep.

Eventually, he wakes up smiling and it is time to get oatmeal

or the vegetable du jour all over his face and clothes.

Yesterday when I was cleaning Zeke off after he spit up, Zoe said, in an extremely sincere voice, “I can’t wait to be a mom.”

“Really?” I asked, puzzled but not shocked, since she does love to inspect his dirty diapers. “So you can clean up spit-up?”

“I was being sarcastic,” she explained with an eye roll.

“Oh,” I said. “I understand. You’ll love being a mom. But cleaning up spit-up is not nearly the worst part of being a mom.”

“What is?” She asked. “Poopy diapers?”

While it can be unpleasant, none of that stuff is the worst part of being a mom, I told her. So she asked what was so bad.

“Seeing your kid be sick or unhappy or worrying that something is wrong with them. That’s way worse than cleaning up spit-up or poop,” I explained.

“Oh.”

Tonight at bedtime I could hear Zoe telling Randy about how she was scared about starting first grade. I am scared too. I feel like it’s me starting first grade, but with fear multiplied by a thousand because there are so many more things to be worried about than she even knows exist. Which is a good thing. I will resist the urge to tell her about them. I will do my best to be brave, because I know she has to. She’s already in training to be a mom.

At Target tonight my cashier was a 17-year-old who said I would leave the store feeling better than I had when I came in, thanks to him. He wasn’t clear on how he would accomplish this mood enhancement. Perhaps he thought that simply his dazzling presence would lift my spirits. Then, when he scanned two pairs of size 9m footie pajamas I was buying for Zeke he asked, “do you have grandchildren?”

…

Randy pointed out when I got home that the young man might come from a family where youthful-looking 39-year-olds ARE, in fact, grandmothers. Theoretically I could be a grandmother, if my life had gone very differently. I am thankful it worked out the way it did.

I am inspired by this. If you don’t already know her, check out Glennon’s blog: http://momastery.com/blog/

Zoe has been consistently thrilled at the prospect of becoming a big sister ever since we told her. She’d been wishing for this as long as we had–which was a long time.

The only reservation she had was about moving to a new room. We have three bedrooms, but since I work from home, one of them has to be my office. So we realized the only real option was to move Zoe and the baby into the slightly bigger bedroom. While she said she was up for the change, she expressed a lot of anxiety about it.

At Christmas, my sister’s mother-in-law, who recently moved to this area from South Carolina, surprised us with a generous offer to paint the new kids’ room. She had recently repainted some rooms in my sister and brother-in-law’s house and was in the process of painting in her own house and I guess she was in the painting groove. We happily accepted.

Last week she was here for three days, expertly applying several coats of a bright yellow shade called summer wheat.

When my mom asked Zoe what she thought of the new paint job, Zoe gushed “it’s so beautiful!” and when Randy came home from work, Zoe showed him the room and said, “even when it’s nighttime outside, I’ll have sunshine in my room, and even when it’s winter, I’ll have summer in my room!”

Then yesterday, we moved the furniture around and set Zoe up in the new yellow room. Until we have time to set up the crib, her dolls and stuffed animals have taken up residence on the crib mattress in the corner. At bedtime last night, Zoe said, “I’m not worried about my new room any more. I just couldn’t imagine what it would look like before, but now that it’s all set up, I’m used to it already. It’s fabulous.”

Of course at bedtime last night and tonight, when I told her to get undressed, she wandered into the office. And then turned around and came back down the hall. At bedtime tonight when she was saying what she was thankful for, she said “I’m thankful that Chris is alive and that she painted my room.” Me too! Thanks, Chris.