Sunday, September 5, 2010
A new home for my blog
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Bipples and Shit Towels
We have some new words and phrases around here. Some are common words that we never really used before, and are now regulars, and some are special just to our family. I thought I’d share some with you all.
Spit rag~ A cloth diaper used to clean up baby spit up. For our purposes, we decorated them, sewed some pieces of flannel onto them to make them cute, cause you know, we’re girls and we do that. I’m glad that I did, especially because Brice seems to be getting kind of attached to the spit rags. This could be because he spits up a lot, and so there is always one under his head, in his car seat, or across his eyes (I don’t know why, it helps him sleep when he’s crabby.) Or he could have taken a liking to them because Georgia and I did such a great job sewing them and making them pretty. Either way, if the spit rags become the item that he can’t leave the house without, I’ll be happy that we took the time to spruce them up a bit.
Shit towel~ A towel whose sole purpose in life is to be placed under the baby when he is audibly pooping. First off, we didn’t name it this on purpose, and I realize I’m kind of a bad influence on my older two kids by calling it a shit towel. The truth is though, I’m a realist, and my girls are in high school and middle school, so I’m fairly certain they hear worse things in homeroom. We were actually using receiving blankets for the eruptions, but I’m kind of short on those and he has a tendency to explode, and ruin whatever is near him with a paste of mustard yellow. If I’m diligent and do a bunch of rinsing, spray’n’washing, scrubbing and immediate washing, nothing stains. But c’mon, like that’s going to happen…I’m lucky if I get to shower everyday. So I just picked a couple towels, and then I can wash them, and who cares if they stain. You know, cause they’re just the shit towels…
Bipples~ Baby nipples. As in “Are his bipples purple because he’s cold?” I don’t know why we call them that, we just universally agreed.
Beekit~ Baby blanket. Specifically, the quilt I made for him that is super soft and that he seems to like. He sleeps with it around him and smiles when I rub it on his face. My niece Riley always said “beekit” for blanket, and I loved it, and it stuck in my head. And somewhere in my sleepy mind, I started calling it that in the wee hours. Now it’s stuck.
Lucky~ A small yellow giraffe we got for Brice to cuddle with. Lucky is also a good luck charm, because Brice seems to be a head trauma magnet already in his little life, and we thought a good luck charm couldn’t hurt.
Pacifier~ Brice only likes one kind, and even then, sometimes he doesn’t like them at all. The jury is still out on this one. Still, we don’t leave home without one.
Penis~ We pretty much never said penis before, because, well, why would we? But now we do. I think we’re all kind of fascinated, to be honest. We think it’s especially funny when it visibly shrinks when we open his diaper. It is not so funny when he uses it to pee over the changing table and onto our feet.
I can't put a picture of his penis up here. I want him to still talk to me when he gets older...
Spit rag~ A cloth diaper used to clean up baby spit up. For our purposes, we decorated them, sewed some pieces of flannel onto them to make them cute, cause you know, we’re girls and we do that. I’m glad that I did, especially because Brice seems to be getting kind of attached to the spit rags. This could be because he spits up a lot, and so there is always one under his head, in his car seat, or across his eyes (I don’t know why, it helps him sleep when he’s crabby.) Or he could have taken a liking to them because Georgia and I did such a great job sewing them and making them pretty. Either way, if the spit rags become the item that he can’t leave the house without, I’ll be happy that we took the time to spruce them up a bit.
Shit towel~ A towel whose sole purpose in life is to be placed under the baby when he is audibly pooping. First off, we didn’t name it this on purpose, and I realize I’m kind of a bad influence on my older two kids by calling it a shit towel. The truth is though, I’m a realist, and my girls are in high school and middle school, so I’m fairly certain they hear worse things in homeroom. We were actually using receiving blankets for the eruptions, but I’m kind of short on those and he has a tendency to explode, and ruin whatever is near him with a paste of mustard yellow. If I’m diligent and do a bunch of rinsing, spray’n’washing, scrubbing and immediate washing, nothing stains. But c’mon, like that’s going to happen…I’m lucky if I get to shower everyday. So I just picked a couple towels, and then I can wash them, and who cares if they stain. You know, cause they’re just the shit towels…
Bipples~ Baby nipples. As in “Are his bipples purple because he’s cold?” I don’t know why we call them that, we just universally agreed.
Beekit~ Baby blanket. Specifically, the quilt I made for him that is super soft and that he seems to like. He sleeps with it around him and smiles when I rub it on his face. My niece Riley always said “beekit” for blanket, and I loved it, and it stuck in my head. And somewhere in my sleepy mind, I started calling it that in the wee hours. Now it’s stuck.
Lucky~ A small yellow giraffe we got for Brice to cuddle with. Lucky is also a good luck charm, because Brice seems to be a head trauma magnet already in his little life, and we thought a good luck charm couldn’t hurt.
Pacifier~ Brice only likes one kind, and even then, sometimes he doesn’t like them at all. The jury is still out on this one. Still, we don’t leave home without one.
Penis~ We pretty much never said penis before, because, well, why would we? But now we do. I think we’re all kind of fascinated, to be honest. We think it’s especially funny when it visibly shrinks when we open his diaper. It is not so funny when he uses it to pee over the changing table and onto our feet.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Baby trade offs
We used our last newborn diaper on Brice yesterday. They still fit him, but barely, and they won’t fit long enough to justify buying another package. I set one aside when I decided to move him up to size 1’s, to keep with his baby items. I looked back at pictures of him in them when he was 5 days old, so incredibly small, just swimming in that diaper. His little naked body is scrawny and bony. You can count his ribs; see his sternum like a button sticking out of the middle of his chest. He looks like a baby bird that fell from a nest. And now those diapers don’t fit. And he looks more like a Butterball turkey.
I put away the outfit he came home from the hospital in. Like the diapers, it still fits, but barely. His feet stretch at the ends, and he fills the middle. I don’t have the heart for trying to put it on him and seeing that he’s outgrown it. It felt better to take it off of his little body, warm and smelling like him, and put it in the Ziploc baggie on top of my dresser designated for such memorabilia.
I’ve been bathing him in my blue bread bowl. It’s shallow and fits in the sink, and his little body curls into it. It takes mere seconds to fill, and the baby tub my friend Holly gave me was way too big for his 6 pound frame. But his body fills the bread bowl now, and I know that he is sturdy enough for the actual baby tub now. I will have to get the tub out of storage, and put the bread bowl back in the cupboard soon.
I set aside a bag for clothes that he’s outgrown that I’m not keeping for posterity. It only contains one Onsie right now. But that will change. I know it.
Even towards the end of my pregnancy, I kept thinking that I had to wrap my brain around the idea that a baby was coming. I kept telling my friend Holly that it still felt so surreal. I believe she told me that it was real and I better get used to it because the baby was coming, believe it or not. The pregnancy always felt real, it was the fact that it would lead to a baby that I couldn’t quite grasp. I did the whole nesting thing, got all the things that I needed. I washed and organized and was prepared, but it didn’t feel real. Not until he was born, in which case the reality of his existence, and how much I loved him, both proceeded to hit me like a Mack truck.
Maybe that’s why I feel this need to absorb it all as it happens. Or maybe it’s just because I know that it goes so very fast and this is the last little person that I will grow in my body and call my own. Either way, I would rather stay in the moment with him in my living room than be out anywhere showing him off. He is still the baby that I can’t put down.
But with this growing, with these stages that are left behind, come new blessings. When my daughter Holly was six, she grew out of the last few things that made her seem little and hands on. She started climbing out of the huge Jacuzzi tub by herself, brushing her own hair, getting ready by herself. She had been my little one, and probably let me help her longer than she truly needed it. But one day, out of the clear blue sky, she was doing it on her own. I felt like she didn’t need me anymore. I felt sad for days, trying to adjust to how life would be with just “big kids”. And then, that very week, Holly learned to do a back flip at gymnastics. And then, like 12 back flips, all in a row. She was asked to join the team, and from that moment on my life became more about being a cheerleader and chauffeur than a nose wiper. I settled into it, still needed, only in a different way. If life is a trade off, then parenthood defines it.
So Brice grows by the moment. I swear he wakes up bigger than when he went to sleep. The girls never grew this way; it must be a boy thing. But just as I was ready to get myself good and upset about him growing so fast, I found the tradeoff. A smile. And then another. And now these gummy smiles come when the dog licks his arm, or when Grandma talks to him, or when he sees my face as he wakes up. We can’t elicit them on command, but they are right there beneath the surface, showing up as little surprises.
And if the smiles don’t make up for all the things that are already in the past now, I’m pretty sure that the new dimples in his chubby elbows and the rolls on his neck more than make for an even trade.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Brice Eli
"Our lives are made
in these small hours,
these little wonders,
these twists and turns of fate.
Time falls away,
but these small hours,
these small hours still remain."
Rob Thomas
Our lives truly are made from small moments, and piece by piece they are strung together to create our realities. I am going to try to remember it all as clearly as I can. The wrinkles on your knees, your scrawny little neck that can’t support your head. Your dark knowing eyes. Your little old man face. Your expressions. I am going to take these moments and stitch them together in my heart, and let them become a part of me, and change me forever.
When you were born, the Tiger Lilys were in full bloom on front lawns and all over the Wisconsin countryside, blazing orange. The corn on your Uncle Joeys land was shoulder high rather than knee high, thanks to a hot and humid spring and early summer. The fireflies still came out at dusk each night, and everyone was getting ready for the holiday weekend.
It was two weeks ago last night, I was at the festival in Columbus with your sisters. We knew you were coming soon, so we planned to spend the 4th of July weekend doing things together, the three of us. We were going to go swimming, watch movies, check out my cousins softball tournament, watch fireworks, go to a parade. Friday night was the festival, just the start of our girl’s weekend. We shared a huge soda, an order of cheese curds, and then a funnel cake. Your sisters rode the Tilt-a-Whirl, and I sat on a bench and watched. I was so pregnant with you that I had to keep sitting down to rest. Obscenely pregnant, that’s what I kept saying.
I woke up the following morning to my water breaking, just as the first streaks of light stretched across the sky. I knew that it was the day that you would be born, but I was in labor for hours. More than twice as many hours than when I had your sisters, combined. At one point I rested, napped lightly, and I dreamt that I was telling you a story. You were still high up in my belly, and I told you stories about how everyone has to find their way. How baby birds have to peck and fuss to break out of their eggs. How caterpillars have to wiggle and squirm out of their warm and safe cocoons, and baby kangaroos have to find their way right after birth to a warm pouch to grow in. That everyone has a journey to make. And that I loved you, and would still be right there when you got to the other side.
Even after so many hours, and so much time pushing, you stopped at the door. You gave everyone a scare. But as soon as you were born, I knew that you would be fine. I looked at you, still a purplish blue color, your head swollen and bruised, and I could tell that everyone else was worried, but I knew that you were fine. You were just taking your own time, doing things your way, just like you had done all along. Your sister Georgia cut the cord between us, and you turned pink within a few minutes.
After you were born, when they handed you to me, you looked up at me with the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen. We had just officially met, but I knew you already. We passed you around the room, to your sister Holly, who passed you to your sister Georgia, who passed you to your Grandma, who handed you off to your Aunt Holly. If life is made of small moments, they create circles that come back around again and again. We had all been waiting just for you.
in these small hours,
these little wonders,
these twists and turns of fate.
Time falls away,
but these small hours,
these small hours still remain."
Rob Thomas
Our lives truly are made from small moments, and piece by piece they are strung together to create our realities. I am going to try to remember it all as clearly as I can. The wrinkles on your knees, your scrawny little neck that can’t support your head. Your dark knowing eyes. Your little old man face. Your expressions. I am going to take these moments and stitch them together in my heart, and let them become a part of me, and change me forever.
When you were born, the Tiger Lilys were in full bloom on front lawns and all over the Wisconsin countryside, blazing orange. The corn on your Uncle Joeys land was shoulder high rather than knee high, thanks to a hot and humid spring and early summer. The fireflies still came out at dusk each night, and everyone was getting ready for the holiday weekend.
It was two weeks ago last night, I was at the festival in Columbus with your sisters. We knew you were coming soon, so we planned to spend the 4th of July weekend doing things together, the three of us. We were going to go swimming, watch movies, check out my cousins softball tournament, watch fireworks, go to a parade. Friday night was the festival, just the start of our girl’s weekend. We shared a huge soda, an order of cheese curds, and then a funnel cake. Your sisters rode the Tilt-a-Whirl, and I sat on a bench and watched. I was so pregnant with you that I had to keep sitting down to rest. Obscenely pregnant, that’s what I kept saying.
I woke up the following morning to my water breaking, just as the first streaks of light stretched across the sky. I knew that it was the day that you would be born, but I was in labor for hours. More than twice as many hours than when I had your sisters, combined. At one point I rested, napped lightly, and I dreamt that I was telling you a story. You were still high up in my belly, and I told you stories about how everyone has to find their way. How baby birds have to peck and fuss to break out of their eggs. How caterpillars have to wiggle and squirm out of their warm and safe cocoons, and baby kangaroos have to find their way right after birth to a warm pouch to grow in. That everyone has a journey to make. And that I loved you, and would still be right there when you got to the other side.
Even after so many hours, and so much time pushing, you stopped at the door. You gave everyone a scare. But as soon as you were born, I knew that you would be fine. I looked at you, still a purplish blue color, your head swollen and bruised, and I could tell that everyone else was worried, but I knew that you were fine. You were just taking your own time, doing things your way, just like you had done all along. Your sister Georgia cut the cord between us, and you turned pink within a few minutes.
After you were born, when they handed you to me, you looked up at me with the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen. We had just officially met, but I knew you already. We passed you around the room, to your sister Holly, who passed you to your sister Georgia, who passed you to your Grandma, who handed you off to your Aunt Holly. If life is made of small moments, they create circles that come back around again and again. We had all been waiting just for you.
Two weeks ago right now you were still in my belly. And now you’re here. In my living room, in my bed, in my arms. And now, I can’t imagine a time that you weren’t here. That you weren’t a part of our family. I know that there are people who don’t like the tiny baby stage, who can’t wait for real little smiles, heads that don’t need to be cradled, goofy little belly laughs. But I love the tiny baby stage. I find myself whispering “Stay little. Don’t grow too fast,” into your tiny little ears, almost begging. Already, two weeks of life have passed in the blink of an eye. Already, without leaving my sight, you have grown a quarter of an inch and gained three ounces. Already you are getting bigger right before my eyes.
You are the baby that I didn’t know I wanted, that came to complete our family, where no baby will come after. I know this, so I try to soak it all up like a sponge. The only sadness I feel in all the world right now is the knowledge that you will only be this tiny right now. That you have grown and changed already. I want to push a pause button, so that I can memorize your noises, your little bird mouth, your long toes and fingers.
Between your sisters and I, we have taken over a thousand pictures of you in the past two weeks. We pass you back and forth, a constant stream of kisses and cuddles and loved ones for you to nap on, and you almost never even fuss. I’ve heard that third babies have often “gotten the memo” that the world does not revolve around them. Maybe it’s that, or the fact that you are so fawned over that you have no reason to cry or complain. I’d like to think all babies are loved, but I can’t imagine a baby being more loved that you are.
You are an unbelievably mellow baby, fine with lying on your own, but I lay you down only when I have to. When I pick you back up, I whisper “I missed you. I missed you…” into your tiny little ears. You are the baby I don’t want to put down.
So in this moment, I won’t. Not until I absolutely have to.
Welcome to the world, Brice Eli Roth. 6 lbs 7 ounces, 19 ½ inches long. Born July 3rd, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
his things
Little tiny hats. Cotton sleepers made for babies that weigh less than ten pounds. Impossibly small socks. Handmade quilts, receiving blankets, fuzzy towels with hoods. All of it, covered in little ducks, miniature baseballs and footballs, and puppy dogs. And all of it bought and picked out with love.
We wash it all in special soap made for a baby’s skin. We fold all the little pieces, one by one, and pile it carefully into drawers and closets, and a few into an overnight bag for the hospital. And it suddenly occurs to me: a baby is going to fill these things.
It’s not like I’ve forgotten that I’m pregnant, cause at 37 weeks along, I guarantee you that I never forget that. Never. But I seem to forget the part that links this very uncomfortable and tiring state to the arrival of a person. But that’s exactly what it means.
As I went through his clothes and belongings tonight, I realized I was thinking of him. Because this is his car seat, his breastfeeding pillow, his toys, his clothes. I will put his tiny little feet into the impossibly small socks. I will put the little cotton hats on his tiny head to keep him warm. I will slip little cotton nighties around his neck. I will wrap him in the quilt I made for him. These are his things. I’m not even sure of his name yet, and I don’t know what his face looks like or what color his hair is, but he has this little place in our home already. Piece by piece, we prepare for his arrival, and it becomes so very real. I am having a baby. The girls will have a baby brother. We will have a new person in our family so very soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
