girl at large

I like to write about life when you have a job, some kids, a fixer upper and a fatal disease.

recent posts

about

  • Darkest Before the Dawn

    Parenting is a nocturnal experience. We four are still in one bedroom, in our separate sections, but still all in together. Each night is a campsite of mysterious thumps and hums; something is always vibrating. Previous silence is filled with sniffles, snores and baby wheezes. We are awakened by coughs, hunger cries, dead batteries. I am awakened by my own worry, restless until I check the crib. In turns, and as often both at once, we tend to the little ones through dusk and midnight and early dawn.

    When the adult bedroom is at last habitable, it may take me many nights to get used to the quiet. Or not.

     

  • 47, 4, 4 months

    Yes, those are birthday candles in corn muffins. October is a month of milestones. Paulie turned 47, Vivi turned 4, and Charlie grew into his 4th month. Celebrations would be nice, but an organized gathering, an organized anything (!), seems out of our reach these days.

    Who can bake a cake and make dinner and wrap presents and what presents? who picks up the kids and we're out of diapers and Viv needs a haircut and am I still nursing and I have to work in Chicago tomorrow and go get milk again at Walgreens…..Mostly, we are keeping our heads above water.

    But in a quiet Sunday morning, at last, I can reflect. And all three of my people are asleep. Thank god.

     

  • Papa Said It

    "Parenting is one small indignity after another; from my robe falling open at inopportune times, to the goldfish I just snacked on that I'm pretty sure had been on the floor". -Paulie

    Add to that:

    -Changing a diaper on a public restroom floor.

    -An Uncle asking "Is the baby under here?" as he lifts the nursing scarf away.

    -Wishing I had more of those mesh underwear from the hospital.

    -Closing the bathroom door for those five sweet minutes alone.

    -Shaving the left leg on Tuesday, the right leg on Wednesday.

    -Seriously discussing the merits of Nurse Holly's (of Doc McStuffins cartoon fame) record keeping (the Big Book of Boo Boos) with the three year old.

    -Assembling any stroller, swing, bouncy chair, or car seat together without divorcing.

    -Milk in the cabinet, coffee beans in the fridge, toothpaste in the kitchen, crackers in the bathroom.

    -Asking "Is this poop?" more than once a day.

     

  • Babies Are Awesome and Not At All Gross

    Today during lunch out at a restaurant (out of the house!) Charlie simultaneously loaded his diaper and blew milk out of his nostril.

     

  • Five Weeks

    Charlie is five weeks old tomorrow. I have aged five years. Some highlights:

    -"Am I wearing pants? Not 'should I wear pants', but can you tell me at this moment do I have my pants on?"

    -"They are so cute so that you won't kill them" (thanks Grandma)

    -"The sheets were always so scratchy" (birth story from another era)

    -"Your boob looks like a weapon"

    -"Uh oh mama, he fell off your boob!"

    -The third sling is the charm. Or the fourth…

    -"What are you going to do for three whole months?" (Apparently maternity leave is a vacation)

    -We have enough baby blankets. What we need is a Walgreens platinum card. That's a thing, right?

    -"It goes up his butt til the stopper then you listen for the whistle"

     

  • One Row At A Time

     
    The bathroom is finished! It took a year, but at last we have a working sink, toilet AND shower on the second floor. Our tile guy, dear and beloved Scott, did our job moonlighting between a day time tile gig and a night shift driving gig. So, one row at a time, over the past four weeks, our complicated patterned shower tile was installed (and Scott was made dizzy).

    And of course, a shout out to this guy, for doing everything else that makes a bathroom a bathroom (and a house a home):

     

  • Toddler + Newborn + Fixer-upper = Surrender.

    Viv dropped her doll's blankie in the sprinkler puddle. Clever girl, she used the dryer vent to take care of it. Of course, the dryer vent is missing its cover, because that's just how we roll these days. Surrender.

     

  • The Ring of Fire Is Not About Johnny Cash

    The second baby is both easier and more difficult. I knew what was coming, so I dreaded labor and delivery. My experience with Viv was so tough, I feared a repeat. And no, "getting a healthy baby at the end" does not erase a bad birth experience. It certainly helps over the alternative, but a crummy time is a crummy time.

    The birth plan this time around was certainly more flexible (and less lengthy–"Take it as it comes") but still focused on as natural as possible. When baby was breech at 36 weeks and my conservative OB/GYN firmly announced it would be a c-section if he didn't flip by 38 weeks, I was in a panic. I saw the chiropractor every other day, did accupressure and stood on my head for twenty minutes each night. A surgeon's daughter avoids surgery like the proverbial plague.

    Lucky me, it worked!

    I was so relieved to avoid a scheduled c-section that I didn't see the preeclampsia coming. A few spiked blood pressure readings didn't alarm me, but sharply declining platelets and scary liver function readings did. A scientist's daughter also knows when to trust the numbers. It's a good thing I'm so organized and had wrapped up work a week before my due date, because it was time to get that baby out!

     

    -When faced with an unknown, Paulie goes to his comfort zone. As we were scrambling out the door Saturday morning for the emergency induction, he vacuumed the cars. Both cars.

    -When your childcare plan (i.e. Grandma) says they are going on a winery tour the weekend before your due date, be sure to ask WHERE. Do not assume it's local. It's more likely, inexplicably, in Appleton. By charter bus.

    -Intravenous Magnesium is the devil. The devil that saves your life, but the devil.

    -I've never been so happy to get a catheter. Or had such a deep, meditative exchange with an anesthesiologist.

    -Doctors tell, and you think you understand and nod your head like you understand. But after the doctor is out the door moments later, the nurses interpret. And then you truly DO understand. You understand that the nurses do everything. And then they also clean up your food tray.

    -"Why does the window hurt so fucking much?!?" I asked Paulie over and over during transition. I had an area in my abdomen, near my hip that the epidural didn't take effect on. It happens sometimes. The nurse explained it to me, calling it an epidural "window", while Paulie was in the bathroom. As he leaned over the bed to comfort me, he was so perplexed when I grunted "No, godfuckingdamnit it's not about the blinds".

    -Pushing when I felt like it, as I felt like it without the sitcom "push push push" count down was so much better. Pulling on a towel like a rope, with both Paulie and the doula pulling in the other direction was brilliant. That baby popped out in thirty minutes!

    -A doc who saves your stuff (as one observer noted "She worked the hell out of it") is forgiven for all else.

    -My hair looked amazing.

     

  • Dad vs Daughter (or Science vs Disney)

    Viv: "Look Papa, that airplane is making a line in the sky"

    Paulie: "That's because the turbine engine makes water and it's cold up there so it makes a vapor trail".

    Viv: "Oh, it's like a magic princess!"

     

  • After My Own Heart

    After a long, chilly spring weekend out in the grassy fields at the race track, Viv said:

    "I want to go back to the city, watch tv, eat chips and be comfortable!"