Following Elias

What we don't talk about

So...

Olive screamed and screamed AND SCREAMED last night.

No milk stained miracle cure for this girl.

(Though she did sleep for five straight hours after her wailing and arching and red-faced crazy-making.)

There is a fine line between shaking a baby and SHAKING a baby.  One I will never cross but I understand how someone without support, resources or a deep well of empathy could. It just takes a moment to succumb to anger, to slip from the protective parent to the fried victim of your child's needs.

I understand why Elias grits his teeth and squeezes his fists when Olive screams. He doesn't have the pragmatic language skills to express his annoyance, his jealousy, or his sheer exhaustion at the sound of it all.

But man when she smiles...

Or finally relaxes her tensed muscles and falls asleep on my shoulder...

It's as if angels stitched her cells together with silken threads. Man do I love her then.

(Even Elias thinks she's cute when she's sleeping.)

And I love her when she screams but it's a desperate, confused, exasperated love that's unsure where to land, tired of pacing, rocking, swinging, and dancing to please only to be greeted by more indecipherable wails. It's a messy ugly love. Not the kind I want to write home about. Not one that fills me with pride.

Not a butterfly purple sky kind of love. A love with pimples and scars and question marks where the exclamation points should be.

In this newborn haze I find it hard to read, hard to concentrate on the lines on the page. But Louise Erdrich's book, The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year, with it's un-sequential page-long chapters, allows me to read a paragraph here, a page or two there, without re-reading to remember where I've been.

When I read the following two paragraphs yesterday I stopped after each one and read them again:

"A baby in a true snit, screaming uncontrollably for hours can reduce the most loving mother or father to a low extreme. The rise and fall of the voice is primal and relentless. One is driven to exquisite levels of frustration as each remedy fails. There's very little nonplatitudinous intelligence written on this problem. Even in these millennial times, perhaps, we don't care to admit that we don't live up to the combination Victorian Angel of the House and sixties and seventies Earth Goddess as well as the supremely competent Power Mother of our current age--a woman who is never made helpless by infant dissatisfaction...Anger or frustration, it comes to the same thing, is a shameful subject when its cause is a physically powerless infant. Yet more honesty would help here."

"One Reason there is not a great deal written about what it is like to be the mother of a new infant is that there is rarely a moment to think of anything else besides the infant's needs. Endless time with a small baby is spent asking, What do you want? What do you want? The sounds of her unhappiness range from mild yodeling to extended bawls. What do you want? Our baby's cries are not monotonous. They seem quite purposeful, though hard to describe. They are a language that changes every week, one so primal that the meaning I gather is purely physical. I do what she "tells" me to do--feed, burp, change, amuse, distract, hold, help, look at, help to sleep, reassure--without consciously choosing to do it. I take her instructions without translating her meaning into words, but simply bypass straight to action. My brain is a white blur. I lose track of what I've been doing, where I've been, who I am."

Exactly.

So what was I saying?

The Power of a Smile

Your comments always help.

This line from my old friend Duffy put my feelings into words: "It sounds horrible, but I loved her because she was mine...but I didn't like her right away."

This past week, as Olive nursed and pulled off and screamed, and nursed and pulled off and screamed, I found myself looking at her like: Who is this needy unhappy child?

Where did she come from? What did I get myself into?

When she slept I'd look down at her small face and feel a surge of unspeakable love. So beautiful. So precious. So perfect.

When her face scrunched and turned red and her scream hit that high pitch that causes Elias to grit his teeth and cover his ears I'd think, "You're not so attractive. Or lovable. Or fun..."

When the screaming on Sunday night lasted hours I'd hand her to Nick--I'm done--only to reclaim her moments later convinced that I'd be able to calm her down this time.

I'm her mama after all. With breasts to soothe. Arms to comfort. A born nurturer.

But no.

More screams. Frantic now. With my own tears mixing with hers.

On Tuesday, I met with a lactation consultant; and convinced I have an over-abundance of milk that is causing her stomach aches she encouraged me to feed on one side at a time, while reclining, with Olive in the football hold.

And when my grumpy daughter finished nursing, she smiled and smiled and cooed like the model Gerber baby who would never think of screaming for three hours straight.

So beautiful. So precious. So attractive. So lovable. So fun.

This new feeding method hasn't turned out to be the miracle cure it seemed to be yesterday morning when I left the appointment, she still grew frantic last night and screamed on and off for almost an hour, but that's better than three hours.

And she slept for two three hour periods last night, giving me some much needed rest.

So today, we both found reasons to smile.

I'd write more if I could

The sun rises in Barrow for the first time since November 18th today--and I feel like my days are short.

I crave sunlight, the subtle warmth of spring, the lack of layers, evening shadows.

Foot-long icicles hang from our neighbors roof and we wake to single digit temperatures. I sit on the couch under not one but two blankets, both literally and figuratively.

I feel weighted down by the constant needs of two children. Last night, Elias and Olive had simultaneous meltdowns, forcing Nick and I to divide and conquer, leaving both of us feeling inadequate.  Ripped in half.

And now Olive is crying again...

**********

She's with me now, in the cradle of my left arm, unsure whether she wants to scream, sleep, or suck, confused by this out-of-womb world with its onslaught of sensations.

I struggle to hunt and peck my thoughts one handed, but chasing words keeps me from sinking with the sun.

It's January in Anchorage, a month with thick winter bookends, when the color green feels like a mirage on the horizon, always out of reach, teasing us with vibrant shades of earth we can almost smell.

**********

I push Elias away only to want to pull him closer.

When I nurse his sister he wants a piece of me too and I have nothing left, mere crumbs on a plate, consumed by the angst of discerning her post-feed disposition. Will she pull off my breast, satisfied and sleepy, or will she arch and howl and become the "angry baby" we can't soothe?

When the world sleeps and nothing will please her, I only want to curl my body around Elias's familiar frame, The boy with multiple needs who asks for so little. The boy who finds delight in the sound of words, in bread with butter,  in the winter weather I've come to resist. I miss our time together.

I grieve the loss of Elias as our "one and only" even as I thank god for the safe arrival of his sister.

**********

I know it will get easier. I'll learn how to balance the needs of both kids, or to live with the teeter totter of imbalance, pleasing one and then the other. I know Olive won't always scream and that Elias may someday find delight in his sister. I know that Nick and I will have time for each other again. Kid-less conversations. Uninterrupted kisses.

I know that I won't always feel so depleted. Like there isn't enough of me to go around.  I'll have more time to write, to find myself again amidst nouns and verbs.

And the sun will keep rising.

Sibling Rivalry Justified

I brought Olivia to the senior activity center on Wednesday where the elders from my writing group threw us the most generous of baby showers. Handmade gifts galore. Flowers. Chocolate cake. Poems.

Love born from the sharing of stories over time.

One of the grandmas gave me the following metaphor for the natural jealousy of older children when the new babe arrives home:

Imagine that after years of a blissful marriage your husband arrives home and says, "Honey I want you to meet my second wife. I expect you to greet her with open arms and to share everything with this new member of our family. I still love you but I love her too. She will be sleeping with us so you may need to spend more time in your own room, in your own bed, and I'll need to hold her a lot, A LOT, you understand right? ...

...Oh, and I want you to love her too."

 

 


 

Happy Friday!!!!!

My Pump Never Cried

Just got off the phone with Olive's pediatrician and this time even he used the word: "colic". Crying baby with no known cause. Its heartbreaking to watch her scream and to not be able to do a damn thing about it. Nursing often makes her more upset. We swaddle, we swing, we  shush, we un-swaddle, we lay her on her side on her stomach, we try the spin cycle, you name it, we try.

"Maybe this is just what a full term baby does," I said.

Uh no. Our doctor assured me. Not normal.

Perfect. 

Elias hardly ever cried. And when he did it never pierced the air in a room, not like the machete strikes of Olive' shrieks. The people sitting behind us on Elias's first flight east said at the end, "What a great traveler your baby is, he never let out a peep," when actually he had cried for almost an hour, as we fretted and rocked and shushed and hoped he'd fall asleep soon.

During the months after Elias's birth I woke every two to three hours to pump, religiously, as it was the only thing I could do for my son. I couldn't hold him or rock him or walk him around the house at night as he lay three miles away in the windowless Newborn Intensive Care Unit, so I pumped. I hated pumping, even as I relied on it, as the whir of the mechanical machine could not replace the rapid breath of a baby. The plastic cups only made me ache for soft cheeks. And yet the act of rising and pumping was my anchor during those helpless months as a mother. My one act of giving.

I think of those lonely nights now as I pace the floors with Olive.

The pump never cried. It didn't look at me with pained eyes. It didn't need help passing gas. It didn't leave me flustered wondering what else I could do to calm my struggling baby. It let me return to sleep after my milk drained.

On some nights it seems like there's no time to sleep. Olive finishes nursing and lays in my arms satiated for one blissful moment before her eyes widen, her face flushes and she grunts her way up to a full-throated scream. Its all I can do not to cry right along with her. Often I do. We try everything, and by the time she somehow falls back asleep, and I finally do, she's usually ready to eat again.

As she is now.

The Perfect Gift

Nick made bacon and french toast for my birthday this morning. "Do you love bacon?" Elias asked me.

"Yes, I love bacon."

"Do you love french toast?" he asked.

"Yes, but do you know what I love more than bacon or french toast?"

"Who? What?" he asked, his hands sticky with maple syrup.

"You," I said.

"I love you more than bacon too!" he said. This from a boy who can eat four or five pieces at a time.

"Wow! That's a lot," I said, "I love you more than ice cream."

And then this. The best gift Elias could give me:

"I love Olive more than ice cream," he said, bringing his sister into the conversation, unprompted, with the word love.

On this Friday

My heart is with Haiti.

Hug your family.

Help if you can.

(Edited to add: In the middle of the night while nursing Olive, I thought of one more line for this short post: And to hell with Pat Robertson)

A, B, C, Baby You and Me

I feel as though I'm losing braincells with my milk. 

As proof I've written and erased this next line more times than I can count.

Elias and Olive both sleep and I sit here on the couch exhausted but awake with a rare free moment to write.

But.

I can't seem to get the words from my head to the screen. Can't decide where to start.

Do I tell you that Elias is learning to read, that he can sound out words: nap, cat, van, tag...

As he discovers words I lose mine.

Nick and I look at each other amazed when Elias sits at our kitchen table, with his professor glasses, head bent close to the paper, sounding out letters, asking us if he can read the words again.

Yes. Yes. Yes!!!

We don't know what to say because we didn't dare expect this, not when he was first labeled legally blind. Or developmentally delayed. Or with CP.

Or...you know "special".

"I want to practice my letters," Elias says often. He asks to do homework, his worksheets with letters and numbers; when he finishes he says: "I want to do more homework!"  When I read him stories at night he pulls the book closer to his face to study the words. "There's my," he says when he recognizes a word he knows. He points to tags on blankets and asks, "What do these words say?"

His love affair with the alphabet is in full bloom.

 

And I'd tell you more--because there is so much more-- I'd write a sonnet for my son if I could, but I feel that familiar tingle and the baby girl with the siren lungs is beginning to stir, so I'm off to the milking chambers, to dumb down a little more as I sit glossy-eyed and stare at her butterball cheeks, just another fool in love.

With not one but two children I was somehow smart enough to co-create.

Elias: The Big Brother

Elias first saw Olive on Saturday, a day after she was born. (The day of her birth I was in no shape for visitors) He walked into our hospital room, with both sets of grandparents and Cuzuncle David, stopped when he saw me lying down in the center of the cramped room, turned to his Nana and said, "I want to go home."

His lower lip quivered.

The scene, in his five-year-old eyes, didn't match the anticipatory talk about the arrival of his baby sister that had been going on for months. When we showed him Olive he said, "Aw cute," with as much enthusiasm as a student saying "here" during roll call, rehearsed, monotone, just an echo of the adult words he'd heard over the years when they leaned over babies.

His next words were: "I want to go for a walk."

Nick and I had to ask for hugs and kisses as he seemed reluctant to leave the familiar attention of his grandparents, unsure suddenly of his Mom and Dad in this sterile medical environment, with this strange small creature in their arms. Why did we leave him for that?

During every visit he spent more time in the hallway reading room numbers than he did with his new family of four. I shared some of the more Kodak moments of Elias holding Olive but this next picture better captures Elias's enthusiasm for his sister:

Every morning Elias asked to come to the hospital to visit us, but once he arrived he wanted to leave.

On one of his final visits, I asked him to climb up next to me in my bed so we could snuggle. He leaned in and asked in a soft voice, "When are you coming home?" And then he fell into me and sniffed my neck. His way of saying: I really do miss you Mommy.

We had just turned his stable world upside down.

Since we've been home, he's only head-butted Olive once, elbowed her in the back of the head once, and pushed into her once. Not bad. And not on purpose.

Like most five-year-old boys, he's a kid in motion, without much body awareness. Add in the Cerebral Palsy that affects his grated movements and balance, as well as his lack of visual acuity and well, he's an accident in action.

When I watch him navigate our new house, with its hardwood and tile floors, multiple corners and sharp edges, my heart isn't merely in my throat its thumping around behind him as he walks, willing him not to fall, as I sit glued to the couch, helpless, with baby lips on my nipple.

I can't catch you, I think.

And depending on my level of exhaustion, sometimes these words  come with a cloud of frustration directed towards my little boy who can't help it but to stumble and weave as he walks unassisted across his new space.

Oh my god I can't believe you just fell again. Why can't you be steady? Why can't you be still?

And I know its not him that really frustrates me but the challenges he lives with and my inability to make them go away. I'm the all powerful mom after all. I should know what makes Olive scream in the middle of the night and be able to comfort her with a caress and I should make my son's muscles behave. Kiss his head and fix the damage to his brain.

At the very least I should cushion the corners and leap across the room to catch him when he falls.

But no. I can just watch. As I tie a string to my heart so I don't lose it completely as he makes his way in this world on his own.

Since we moved into our new home, almost two weeks ago, Elias hasn't used his canes in the house. And our abode may not be huge but its a 1400 square foot ranch, twice the size of our old house, not counting the basement.  When I'm in a better head space I look at him in awe. Overjoyed.

He walks. Unsteady and with horrible posture but unassisted. He even turns corners and changes directions. And he can stand up now from the floor without holding onto a desk or a chair.

And he can walk carrying something so that he can sometimes be the big helper he wants to be. Bringing me a diaper. Or a muffin.

"How old is your son?" People often wondered after asking me if I was pregnant with my first.

"He's five."

"Oh that's great-- he's old enough to help you with the baby."

"Well.."

Hes not really five I'd think. Or he still needs so much help.

If you only knew...

And yet in many ways they were right. Elias may not be able to help as much as other kindergartners, but his desire to help keeps growing as he asserts himself as a big boy. And as we let him be one.

"What can I get for you?" he asked me the other day.

"Here's your nursing pad Mom," he says whenever he finds a stray one on the couch. (And there's always a stray one on the couch.)

He loves throwing Olive's diapers in the diaper pail. And helping me "organize" her room. He wants to help with his sister, even if he's still not sure about this new addition to our family, and whether or not he really wants to share our attention with her,

Almost everyday he asks me why we wanted a baby. Or why she came out of my belly. And we have multiple conversations about all the things Elias did as a baby, just like Olive. Or unlike her. And we talk about everything he can do that she can't. Eat ice cream. Go to school. Walk to the park.

Use his words

(Sometimes.)

When we packed up to go to the store yesterday, he wanted to leave Olive at home. "Do we ever leave you home alone?' Nick asked.

"No," he responded.

"Well, we can't leave Olive home alone-- its not safe."

"Yeah, lets do it," he said as he bounced up and down with a big grin. "Lets do it!"

Last night, he lay on his mat building a house with his Lego-like-but-bigger linking blocks. "I'm building a house just for me," he said, "Just for boys and dogs."

"No Mommy's or Daddy's?" I asked.

"No."

"What about babies?" I asked, expecting him to say no.

"Yeah babies. There's a baby in there right now," he said, surprising me.

"Really?"

"Yeah and I'm building a fence so she can never ever ever ever  get out."

Ahhhh...

*****

Deep breath.

I wrote the first part of this post earlier today, in pieces, but Olive didn't let me finish it. Maybe she knew I'd have another anecdote to share. Not an accident this time.

Elias asked to hold Olive tonight. She was hungry and just starting to fuss so I said he could hold her quickly but then I'd need to feed her.  He sat in a chair and I supported Olive in his arms. He put his head against hers. "Ah, that's a nice snuggle, " I said.

And then he hugged her. Or what I thought was a hug.

But it was more of a death grip. 

Olive shrieked.

"Elias, Let go now," I demanded.

But instead of releasing her, he squeezed his baby sister even tighter as he gritted his teeth. I pulled Olive from his arms as Nick yanked Elias from the seat and brought him to his room for a time out.

So yes, Elias has words and Olive doesn't. But he doesn't have the emotional vocabulary to express his anxiety and jealousy that stems from the arrival of his sister.

But I mean, really, do any of us have the ability to express these complicated emotions? Haven't we all wanted to hug a family member a little too tight?

Or to build our very own house where no one could disrupt our world?

Three Weeks Old Today

 

And already 8.1 pounds!

 

Happy Friday!!!