Maternal aphasia: Month 5

Happy 5 months Abe! In less than half a year you've turned us into your devoted mama and daddy, and your big brother into a quivering puddle of sweetness who cannot resist grabbing and nuzzling your little hands and feet at every opportunity (and by that I mean, EVERY opportunity). There is nothing sweeter than your smile, than your head slumped in sleep against my chest, than the weight of you when I lift you up after nursing and I feel how very solid you are. You would be a very hard act to follow and the feeling in my heart these days is, enough babies. Hard to know if my ovaries are on board with that plan.

Happy July, Jonah! You are almost 43 months old. Congratulations. Now would you, could you, PLEASE lighten up? It seems that every morning has to start with you whining that you don't want to go pee. And then it's a downward spiral to power struggles over cleaning up your infinite cars, which you repeatedly roll in every direction in the living room. Admit it: It's not play, it's passive aggression. I can absolutely understand why the subtitle of the book Your Three Year Old is: Friend or Enemy? For the record, Jonah, I am sick of taking your toys away when you misbehave. I am tired of telling you to be a good listener. And I am fed up with myself whenever I just yell at you instead of trying to find some magical third way to get you to do what you need to be doing. A wise mama of many more children than I have recently let me in on her coping technique when things are not getting done: She has a mental filter, and in every situation, she applies it, asking herself whether the behavior of the child in question is really worth getting angry over, or not. If not, she moves on and doesn't engage. I need to practice...

Maternal aphasia: Month 4.5

Stop!!!!!! Time is passing way too quickly and I can't update this blog weekly. Let's try for bi-weekly, or semi-monthly, or, as I used to note in the database I used to check in periodicals at the IMF library, "24TY."

I'm on borrowed time - it's 11:15 pm and I was out late at a rock show last night (the second I've attended since Abe was born, and maybe the last for a while, since the morning after is always brutal) - but today was, despite the 100+ degree temp, one of the best with the two kids in a long time. We just hunkered down and enjoyed being with each other today. Jonah and I made an aquarium mural, and then he decided we should hang the paper on his bedroom wall and pretend it was a movie that we all sat on his bed to watch. He was concerned that Abe would be afraid of the shark. Then Jonah played the "pouring game," which involves him at the kitchen sink with all manner of vessels, pouring water between them and using tools like a ladle and a funnel to make it more fun (and instructive).

Abe is an amazing creature. Both kids have had a summer cold for about 4 days, and despite this, my little one soldiers on, not nearly as fussy as he could be. He is scooting and rolling around and never stays where we leave him for very long. He sometimes speaks in a low, guttural growl that I remember from Jonah at this stage. Yet he's an excellent listener when you talk to him. Tonight I was folding a fitted sheet while he was lying on our bed looking up at me. He was interested in the way I kept disappearing and reappearing from behind the sheet. And I told him that I was doing one of the things in life that is the most frustrating, and that I hoped that his biggest frustration in life would be trying to fold a fitted sheet properly. He listened, eyes gleaming, smirking a little. I felt as though I were in the presence of a confidant. It was a lovely thing.

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.

Maternal aphasia: Week Thirteen

Last night when my swaddled baby boy was brought to bed by Josh, I couldn't bear it and may have wept a little. I told Josh that I don't know if Abe will ever sleep in his own crib, because the joy of that moment, when he is brought in, wrapped and sweetly sleeping with the most pure expression of relaxation on his face, is something that will be very, very hard to give up. That, and the fact that he's probably the last of a series. Between the cost of living where we do, and the fact that pregnancy is hard on the body, and perhaps that I can't fathom keeping good track of three kids, even though my parents did, I think we're probably done reproducing. Which makes me sad, naturally, as the weeks of Abe's short life start piling up behind us. My body is capable of such an incredible feat, and I'm not going to do it again? I am going to need to mourn this for a while.

But not on Abe's watch. This baby is one of the happiest I have ever encountered. My cousin's second son was also similarly smiley last time we saw him, and I remember wondering how it was possible. It is possible. Abe can be screaming his head off when he's about to get a diaper changed, but as soon as the dirty diaper comes off, and he feels the cool air on his bottom, he calms immediately and starts smiling, cooing, provoking us to smile. I'm a junkie for it, and when I'm with both kids I guiltily prolong diaper changes just to soak up more of those smiles. He's got what can now be called the family smile, the one that comes from Daddy, and starts in the eyes.

Jonah is being "very three," but occasionally, like yesterday, we have days that are good through and through, when whining and screaming is at a minimum and the cooperative, easygoing, fun to be with kid that he is never leaves the building. Yes, he did slap his brother earlier this week, and he ran across a street without stopping when I asked him to today, but the angel on his shoulder protected him from the latter, and Mama Bear scolded him for the former, and we still love each other. In fact, we have a new thing we say, which he starts: "I love you ONE." "I love you TWO." And so on until he gets tired of it (we never get to ten). Earlier this week we were invited to a dinner that didn't start until quite late, and other kids from his school were there. I peeped in to the kids' room at one point late in the evening (we didn't get home until 11) and found two six-year-olds sitting on the bed and interrogating Jonah thus: "What do you LOVE? What do you like TO DO?" Poor kid was so tired and confused that he didn't answer. When I repeated the question for him, he looked up, blinking, and said in a tiny voice, "I love... bagels?" Moments like that, and when I watch Jonah holding Abe's hand and becoming a loving and sweet big brother in front of my very eyes, make me feel idiotic for mourning the fact we aren't having more kids.

Maternal aphasia: Week Eleven

I knew the blog would start to lag. Apparently even a once-a-week check-in is a tall order these days. I get to the end of the day grateful for nightfall, for Jonah's bedtime, for Abe's big sleep, but wondering when the thank you notes will get written, when the laundry mountain will start eroding, when I will have time to plan my next move.

Abe is the best little sleeper this side of the Mississippi. He starts his night in the swing (tonight I didn't even have to switch it on), and then between 11 and midnight, Josh makes the daring attempt to transfer him to our bed. Last night, his virtuosity shone through, as he needed to CHANGE SWADDLE BLANKETS while attempting not to wake Abe, who had already started fussing. The operation was a success. Though I was smug in the knowledge that if it hadn't been, there was a bottle of milk I'd just pumped in the fridge, and I would have been able to go to sleep while my milk filled Abe's little belly in another room.

When he's awake, Abe likes staring intently at the ceiling fan, gesturing at it with wild hands and legs. He is sure it is sending him a message.

Jonah has been challenging us on a daily basis. Today I had to cancel another planned outing, to the library, due to insubordination in the ranks (he jumped down each step of our crumbling, treacherous outside stoop, despite my warning him at each step not to). But I tried really hard to keep calm, and even though he initially went ballistic and I thought he'd hurt himself bashing into walls or a door, he finally did settle down and we had a quiet talk about what happened, followed by some very sweet time reading together (while I nursed Abe) and then working on a new jigsaw puzzle.

It really helps when I don't lose perspective. It helps even more when I don't feel 100% invested in the plans that get canceled. Last week, when we were supposed to go to IKEA for apple cake and then take Jonah's scooter out on the Red Hook piers, I was much more disappointed when I had to cancel it, and this made me less patient and less loving.

In other news, it seems that ten weeks postpartum was the charm this time around. I haven't bled in almost two weeks. I wish this meant that my old clothes suddenly fit, that I had some semblance of a libido, and that the heavens opened and the angels sang. But not having to wear pantiliners or pads anymore? I'll take it.