Maternal aphasia: Month Four

Abe is officially four months old today, and was weighed and measured accordingly. He gained three pounds since our last checkup, grew another inch, which puts him in the 94th percentile for height. The height is no surprise, but I'm thrilled that his weight gain is finally established. I had dark days early on, where I doubted myself for not giving formula to bulk him up. But he didn't need it. He did get a small amount of it, in those early weeks, so he doesn't have a "virgin gut" (a ridiculous phrase I learned on a breastfeeding website). The doctor - there are two in the practice, and today we got the one who is 100% friendly and lovable, as opposed to the one who is anxious and excitable and quick to alarm - came in and saw Abe sitting happily in the Bumbo and said he looked like a judge. He got two shots and one oral dose of vaccine and took them like a champ.

Jonah went the whole week at school without a single potty accident, which was a welcome relief after he dropped a turd on the floor of a restaurant last Sunday (there were no other diners, fortunately). He seems poised at the brink of big changes - he makes plans and expects to have them implemented, but he also demands to take part in rituals like meal preparation and dinner, and woe betide if we don't have some job for him, or we want him to go to sleep before we've eaten our own dinner. He turns three and a half on Sunday. I told him I'd bake him half a cake - wonder if I'll have the time and energy. Perhaps we'll just make pancakes for Daddy instead.

This afternoon I had the most unexpected respite - Jonah (who has been rising too early all week) crashed on the couch for a much-needed nap, and Abe settled down to sleep after an extended nursing session, during which I also nodded off. The past two nights, both boys have gone to sleep around 8 pm, leaving us staring at each other and wondering what to do with all the child-free time. My mind is not used to this kind of break - I need to become better, faster, at shifting from Mama mode to grownup mode, or all these hours and half-hours will slip through my fingers and suddenly I'll be 45 and the kids won't need me so much and I won't be able to remember what I used to do for recreation or release.

Maternal aphasia: Week Sixteen/Month Four

So it turns out that around sixteen weeks is when you start losing track of the weeks of your new baby's life. Plus, things get confusing - yesterday Abe turned sixteen weeks, but he won't be four months until next Friday. So far he is absolutely acting his age, which means, unfortunately, that we're probably in for a bit of a sleep shakeup. His skills are developing fast and furiously - he seems to be perhaps even a little more advanced than his brother was at this stage, not that I aim to compare them... This means he wakes himself up at night because he has scooted himself into an uncomfortable corner of his crib, and I am too tired to try to just put him back in the right position and see if he'll fall back asleep. This means I'm still spending about three hours a night with him on my chest, either nursing or sleeping or fighting to nurse or sleep, while I am uncomfortable due to his increasing weight on my sternum. My pneumonia is cleared but for optimal healing, I probably am not supposed to sleep with a wiggly baby on my chest.

I am in fact supposed to "take it easy" for the next 3 weeks. Luckily Jonah is in school for two more weeks, and then that leaves just a few full days that I need to lay low before I can resume my normal exertions. I have to believe we can do this. The fact that I'm starting out not nearly as weak as last time is encouraging, but also worries me that I'll try to overdo it before I'm ready. I was flying Abe above me like an airplane before, and then wondered if that could be considered "taking it easy."

I wish someone could tell me why motherhood gives me pneumonia. Now that I've had it twice in a year and a half I'm starting to worry it is lurking - dark shadow in my lungs, ready to strike at the slightest show of weakness on my part. Plenty of moms have as much or more on their plates than I do, and they don't get pneumonia! I'm back to squirting a couple of droppers full of astragalus tincture into my drinking water every day. It tastes nasty so it must be improving my "lung chi," right? RIGHT?

In other news, Jonah is becoming a potty champ. I'm so proud of him but still in such disbelief that he finally figured it out. Now we just have to figure out when we can back off and stop asking him if he needs to go. He doesn't seem to have a problem pooping or peeing in toilets outside our house, which is great. I almost think he sees it as an adventure - a whole new dimension to the outside world, with its differing fixtures and levels of cleanliness and soap dispensers. We'll be spending lots of time in the cafe around the corner from our house, since Jonah loves it there, and their bathroom is clean and very kid-friendly and, most importantly, right by the window into the kitchen where Jonah stands to watch them baking.

I caught myself trying to write a poem the other evening, while waiting to see the doctor. Instead of bringing reading material I brought a small notebook that I've used on and off for writing for the past few years. I didn't know where I was going to go when I started scribbling, but I wound up with a possible germ for a poem in there. Now I just have to find the time and inclination to follow it through...

Maternal aphasia: Week Fifteen

In case I forgot this, with babies things can turn on a dime. My sweet little sleeper is still a sweet little sleeper, but he has been doing so in his own crib almost since the moment I wrote the last post. One morning I finally got tired of waking up groggy with Abe's increasing weight on my sternum, or else patting down the blankets making sure he didn't wind up under them, and we cleared all the crap we'd been storing in his crib away, and I put him down, swaddled, for a nap. And it worked. And then I put him down for another one later that day. And it worked. And basically he loves to sleep in a crib.

The only problem is: me. When he wakes at night, I have done what I've always done, the lazy thing, which is bring him into bed, latch him on, and fall back asleep as soon as possible. Which leads to what I described above: groggy, backache, panicked search for baby. Last night, for the first time, I made an effort to stay awake. The sum total of my strategy was waking Josh up to ask him for his Blackberry to play with. Apparently access to the internet can keep me awake for an hour at a time, which was the length of the two wakeups.

Well, there may have been a bit of adrenaline rushing too. See, I've had this cold for two weeks? And a bad cough the past 5 days? And yesterday evening I finally saw my doctor. When she listened to my breathing for more than the requisite amount of time, giving me breaks in between breaths "so you don't pass out," I started fearing the worst. Yup, I've been struck down with pneumonia again, left lung this time. I got it in my right lung on Halloween 2008, wound up in the ER. This time, luckily, the fever/chills have been minimal, which means I have "walking pneumonia." Which means I can sort of function, but it totally winds me to do so.

This afternoon with both kids was the first since my diagnosis (I have yet to get my chest x-ray, as the machine was broken at the place I was going to go this evening). I kept praying for rain so Jonah wouldn't feel so bad about not going outside. No dice. Then I prayed for the phone to ring with a playdate fallen from heaven. No dice. What I got instead was increasing angst from Jonah about not going outside (though never actually verbalized) and finally, the pièce de résistance: my big boy, who is learning to use the potty, wedged himself inside a closet door and peed on the floor there. Thanks, buddy. That was around 4:30 pm, and I decided I couldn't possibly go on, so I tearfully summoned Josh home from work early. Things had settled somewhat by the time he got back, but I had to put Jonah back in a diaper, which I regretted, and the yelling match we'd had with each other after the closet incident woke Abe up from his attempt at a nap.

I felt like a huge failure. Most days I do. Because I'm supposed to have this figured out by now, how to engage the baby just enough to hit all of his milestones on or before schedule, while at the same time doing all of the great things I'm supposed to be doing at home to help Jonah with his various fine and gross motor skill delays , still allowing for time to just goof off and have fun and enjoy being a mom (and then exercise and eat right). I'd say I get the goof off/enjoy time about 10 minutes a day, max, and the rest is either logistics, threats aimed at getting day-to-day tasks like putting on shoes accomplished, answering the same question 30 times in a row, or changing diapers. Of course, there are hugs and kisses all day, and Abe pretty much will smile at anything, so I try to make the most of those moments. Still wasn't enough to save my health this time around.