Excitement

Despite my few weeks of extreme frustration (and by frustration, I mostly mean offering to work midnight shifts, if need be, to escape my parental responsibilities), Lilah's teeth and I have reached an understanding. I am aware that 32 of them need to enter the world in a relatively short amount of time, cutting through flesh in order to do so. They are aware that, as a nurse, I have extensive knowledge of the human body, medicine, and herbs, so I will keep her as numb and comfortable as I can without sedating her entirely. I most frequently use gripe water, infant Motrin, Orajel swabs, and the occasional finger dipped in whiskey. She usually wakes up to nurse around 3AM, but goes back to sleep until around 9. I can handle that. I can not handle hourly crying and nothing to soothe her.

Lilah has been saying "Mama" for several weeks now. It's really cute, and takes quite a bit of effort, usually coming out closer to "Mmmmumah". The first time she said it, she was playing in bed on a Sunday morning, trying in vain to get her lazy parents to wake up and interact with her. In frustration, she slapped Dano on the face and said, "Mama!" Then she moved on to banging her hands on her high chair and yelling, "Mama!" when I would get distracted while feeding her. I was afraid she would associate the word with food (having already mastered saying "Mmm" when she wants something to eat), which Dano found hilarious and encouraged. Just this morning, she was in her basket wanting to be picked up and awake. I wasn't quite awake enough to respond. After a few minutes of fussing mildly, I could hear her frustration building as I tried to drag myself away from dreaming. Finally, she gave a howl and yelled, "Mamaaaa!" I couldn't help laughing and scooping her up, praising her for her accomplishment. 7 months is very young to have mastered a word. I'm not entirely sure of her understanding of its meaning. I don't know if she associates it with me exclusively now, either parent, or just realizing it's the fastest way to get her needs met. Small babies are unbelievably clever.

Speaking of clever, Lilah is crafty beyond belief. In her efforts to explore the entire world around her, it seems like she innately knows what she is and is not supposed to touch. Not that something being forbidden stops her from attempting to grab/eat it. I've been reading that now is the time discipline (not punishment) needs to begin with setting limits on a baby's behavior and interactions. I learned that at this stage, babies are constantly reading their parents' faces for cues on the world around them. Mothers that are forever following their tiny explorer with a worried look will create an anxiety-ridden child who is wary of the world around him. This explained how Lilah knew when she had encountered something she wasn't allowed to have. When she inches toward an electrical cord, she always turns around to look at my face, which is wearing a "Don't even think about it" expression. Babies have no poker face. I can always read exactly how her synapses are firing just by watching her face. Synapses are as follows: "I want that. Mama is not happy. I am not supposed to have that. I will smile at her. I love her. She did not smile back. I am very fast now on this shiny floor. She is over there. Here I go!" She always seems shocked when I beat her there. I'm not sure what to say to her. I want to save "No" for serious things. The medical journals I've been reading said "Ouch" is fine, but even just removing her from the object with a stern face is enough for her to get the idea.

I was unaware that I was supposed to set limits on Lilah's interactions with people at this stage. I didn't even notice that her relationship with Soupin Cat has been changing. I would allow her to tug and wrestle the poor animal for a few minutes before setting the cat on her lap and teaching her to pet softly, saying, "Nice to kitty" and "Gentle". Again, Lilah would watch my face and watch me pet the cat. Now she and Soup are best friends. Soup will approach her and sit very close to her. After an initial shriek of happiness that the cat willingly put itself within reach (and sometimes a fistful or two of hair), she calms down and pats Soupin nicely, who responds in kind by head-butting her and nuzzling.

I had never thought about doing the same thing with people. She has a bad habit of grabbing glasses, pulling hair, and smacking faces in an attempt to touch and feel the person holding her. It isn't out of meanness in any way. She just has no concept of hurt. The more I read, the more important I see it is for us to teach her that "Nice" and "Gentle" don't just apply to the poor cat, and it isn't mean to remove her from someone/something she is interested in if she isn't being nice. It's a fine line between making her afraid to explore and teaching her to be kind to her surroundings. I have vehemently sworn myself from controlling parenting, but I would never want to raise a spoiled little girl. It's such a difficult thing to know where to draw the line. She's an adventurous, independent baby who gets pure joy out of exploring the wide world around her she just discovered was there. I never want that to change, and I wouldn't quell that spirit in her for anything. I just also see so much of myself in her some days - my temper, my defiance, my independence and willfulness - and I want her to be like me in some of those ways. I am never afraid to speak my mind, and I chose to become fully my own person, even though it cost me my whole world at the time. I just also made many mistakes along the way out of pure stubbornness, and I would love to keep her from doing the same. I just know that the Irish in her is as prominent as it is in her mother, and just by expressing my displeasure in something, I'll send her crawling toward it as fast as her chubby little arms and legs can propel her.

How could I forget?

Lilah started to cry last night at the exact moments our heads hit the pillow. I got her out of her crib and rocked her for several minutes before nursing her. When she was latched and sucking away between whimpers, I just let my eyes wander around the room in an attempt to stay awake. My gaze ended up resting on the small corner of the white banister in Lilah's room.I remembered a night about 5 months ago, and saw a ghost of my husband sitting in that corner crying while I rocked Lilah and nursed her, feeling like life was falling apart.

I can't believe I haven't written about this before. Maybe it was so painful and stressful at the time, I blocked it out or couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I felt like I needed to, now that things have improved, so other new parents didn't feel so alone and lost. When I first went back to work, it was still only two days a week, but it was the first time Dano had been left in charge of the baby regularly for significant periods of time. I had plenty of milk stored up, so I wasn't worried about that. I was worried about the two of them getting along well and being able to handle each other.
It didn't go well. For the first several months, I would receive calls at work from Dano not knowing how to soothe her. Lilah would scream, and refuse a bottle entirely. Every night I came home, my husband would look like he had been hit by a car, and Lilah would clutch me and whimper. I felt helpless, like a failure as a mother and wife. My job was stressful enough without being paged because my family was in shambles and I was, apparently, the only one who could put it together again. Work was very understanding, and Dano frequently brought her up for me to nurse her and calm her down so she would sleep. It was frustrating and somewhat embarrassing to me, but it worked so who cared?
I didn't have time to realize this solution was only a Band aid to the real problem. One night, a resident was really losing it and getting violent. Dano showed up with a crying Lilah, and I nursed her as fast as possible, hoping against hope I could get them out of there before the resident came to this end of the building. I thrust her back in his arms as soon as she finished. He started talking about how he was frustrated, an argument he had gotten in with his dad, and I was making no effort to pay attention. The resident was headed toward us, and I was not having my husband and daughter attacked my a rogue woman with Lewy Body dementia. I have them a hard shove toward the door and took the punch from the woman that had been aimed at them. As soon as they'd made it out the door safely, I went back to my work. Disaster had been averted, but there was an obvious problem.
Dano was at the peak of frustration. He said he would never dream of shaking a baby, but he could see how people could get to that point. Many times, he would just have to put her in her crib, crying, to calm himself down. It broke my heart. My husband was as upset as I'd ever seen him, my normally perfect baby was barely functioning when I was gone, and I couldn't get through a night at work without solving a crisis at home. His mom came over to help several times, and that eased my mind somewhat.
One night, I came home to Dano pacing with a screaming Lilah. I took her and went upstairs to rock and nurse her. Dano came up, sat in the corner, and cried. His glasses were broken in half on the floor - in his frustration with Lilah wanting nothing to do with him, my completely pacifist, gentle husband had thrown them at a wall.
After that, he realized that his frustration was getting him nowhere and making Lilah more agitated. He grew gradually more patient. He didn't acquire any magical new skill, and it could be that as she got older, she got more adaptable and easygoing, but after that especially horrible night, it got better. He stopped calling me and bringing her up to work. She didn't freak out as often, and was easier to soothe when she did. It's been much easier since then, but those first couple months of me going back to work were horrible. Looking back, it amazes me we got through it without losing our sanity. Our family learned adaptation and patience, and all it cost us was a pair of glasses.

Sick. And Tired.

The last 5 nights have featured the first stretch of sleepless night in our parenting experience thus far. During a growth spurt, Lilah has woken up for a small snack before going back to bed. Her top 4 teeth seem to be racing each other to break through. She's been miserable, and dragging her parents to misery as well. She's been waking up multiple times a night to eat, play, whine, cry, what have you. She only wants me, but keeps Dano awake as well. I'm resentful because she won't go to anyone else, and he's resentful of being constantly dragged from sleep by a baby who doesn't want him. It's a lovely combination.

Several people have suggested all-natural homeopathic teething tablets. They have raved, "They work instantly", "Babies love 'em!", "They can have as many as they want!", and "All natural = healthy!" I was a nanny for a family who started using them. I looked at the package before giving one to the little girl. They were sublingual tabs, which is one of the fastest routes of med administration. That caused me to be a little leery. Fast is good, but in the case of an allergy or ill effect, fast is very bad very quickly. I read the list of ingredients and two in particular caught my eye. Coffea Cruda - coffee. Why in the world would there be coffee extract in a teething tablet? I read on. Belladonna. Holy crap. There was seriously a small dose of belladonna in these tablets! And you can give the baby as many as they need to do the trick! Belladonna is in the nightshade family. It has narcotic properties and is a natural sedative. Ann also informed me it is one of the most ancient abortifacients. All that being said, why was it being used by parents for small babies?! I gave the parents I worked for a list of the ingredients from the back of the box and also a list of their effects, both positive and negative. They stopped using the tablets, something they had started because they felt more comfortable with natural products! Since becoming a nurse, I realize coffee was often used as a natural antidote for narcotic poisoning. I am extremely uncomfortable with these tablets and would never use them for my baby. I have, however, found a great alternative - gripe water. It's available at Walgreen's, and not terribly expensive. The active ingredients are deionized water, ginger, and fennel - all wonderful. It soothes colic, upset stomach, gas, and teething pain in babies, children, and adults. It works quickly, and it does work. Lilah likes the taste and smiles when she sees the bottle.

In other news - H1N1. Scary stuff. Even the regular flu seems to be hitting hard this year. School are closed and people are near panic. I'm not overly concerned about Lilah. She's breastfed and not in daycare. She has an excellent immune system. I'm mostly fearful for our already over medicated culture. If it ails you, there's a pill for it. The FDA normally takes 7-10 years to produce a drug it is comfortable is safe for the masses. It worries me that they can declare "safe" an H1N1 vaccine that is so new, no possible long-term effects could have even been considered. I won't even get a flu shot. My RN supervisor has seen many cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome as a result of the vaccine, even though it isn't supposed to be a live virus. We're seeing MRSA as a consequence of over medicating with strong antibiotics. Shingles and whooping cough are popping up in the college age population despite varicella and pertussis vaccinations. Strange cases of scarlet fever are being reported. I believe America is setting itself up for an epic fail of the human immune system. Pharmaceutical companies are making literally billions in profits, but at what cost? People did, indeed, survive to adulthood before us.

Coming from a nurse, this rant might seem a little strange. I rail against natural medicine in one half, and against conventional medication in the rest. The point I'm trying to make is somewhere in the middle - be informed, and be careful. You only have one body, and it's a temple. As parents we are charged with the holy responsibility of caring for our children. We need to make informed, responsible decisions about their medical care and not respond out of fear. We have opted out of several vaccines for Lilah, but there are an equal amount where the benefits outweigh the risks. As the patients, you always have the option to say no. Protect your body and take careful note of what is being put into it. It matters more than you think.

Time for me to go. My daughter is sucking on my ankles, then looking up at me and hissing. I don't know who this child is sometimes.

The Strangest One

The more babies and parents we come into contact with, the stranger our small clan appears. I'm not sure if every husband gets up early to brew coffee for his inept wife prior to heading to class, but I doubt it. I'm also not convinced other husbands slip a 6 month old into bed with their wives so, when the baby wakes up, the wives don't have to go get them. Most recently, I haven't heard of any other girls my age (or any age, to be perfectly honest) who are aroused from sleep every morning by what sounds very much like the hissing of snakes, only to open her eyes to find a small, fat baby millimeters from her face, sticking her tongue out and hissing to wake her mama up.

That is what I experience every morning. Dano's alarm goes off (not at all abrasive, as it is an string quartet version of "In Keeping Secrets With Silent Earth: 3" by Coheed and Cambria) and he gets out of bed and gets ready quietly. He eases Lilah out of her crib and into the bed with me (sometimes she's awake and nurses before going back to bed, sometimes she's still out cold). He makes coffee and leaves a cup for me in the microwave. I have tried hundreds of times to make coffee. It always fails. I burn it, it's watery, too strong, I don't mix in the proper cream-to-sugar ratio, or the milk has turned. By some design of the gods, I am unable to make coffee, so my husband always leaves me a cup. He then steals quietly back into the bedroom, kisses me and says, "Your coffee's in the microwave. Love you, bye." I attempt to mutter a response, a thank you, and that I love him as well. He kisses Lilah, and is on his way.

Lilah and I sleep for another hour or two. She always wakes up first. She amuses herself as best she can by trying to get at the cat until Soup lets out a discontented croak (yes, my cat croaks) and stalks away. Lilah pulls at the covers, rolls around, and finally gets bored and wakes me up. She does this the same way every morning. She creeps up close to me and, when she's so close I can feel her breath on my face (or would be able to if I were conscious), she sticks out her tongue and hisses. It never ceases to frighten me out of a deep sleep. I don't know why she does it or how she learned it, but she does it very well. When my eyes snap open, I see two large blue/purple eyes and a grin containing exactly two teeth. The hissing only lasts until she knows I'm awake. If I roll over or close my eyes again, she proceeds to slap my face or claw me with her talons. She is, truly, a Wild Thing. Maurice Sendak would be so proud.

Speaking of Sendak, we are taking Lilah to see Where the Wild Things Are this Saturday. She's been going to movies with us since she was a month or two old. She never cried, and mostly slept. I went to see The Watchmen a few days before she was born, hoping the loud sounds and vibrations would scare her right on out. They didn't. We recently stopped taking her to adult movies. She still doesn't cry, but she's more restless and also noticed the screen. What purpose would giant, talking people serve if not to amuse her, and what kind of baby would she be if she didn't talk back to them? The people around us thought it was cute, but I didn't want to be "those people", so we stopped taking her. Mostly that means we stopped going to movies. This one should be fine, as it is a children's film anyway, and some interaction with the screen and over exuberance is to be expected. When I took my siblings to see Happy Feet in Imax 3D, there were random children of all shapes and sizes dancing in their seats along with Mumble the Penguin, yelling, singing, crying, throwing popcorn, and running up and down the aisles. I figure it will be fine to take her to this one. I'm sure I will cry. Something about kid movies makes me cry. I took Gracie to see Meet the Robinsons when she was 6. I was bawling halfway through and she looks at me with disgust and says, "Are you crying? WHY are you crying?" In my defense, the mother put her kid in a basket or box or something and left it on the steps of the orphanage. WHO DOES THAT? It was a kids' movie for crying out loud. What happened to Beauty and the Beast or, well I can't even say Bambi. Why must we indoctrinate death in a child's life so early? Why make abandonment, divorce, death, pain, and evil so prevalent? I'm not one for sheltering kids from reality, but couldn't they have gotten their point across without having a mother leave a baby on a doorstep? I cried at Lilo and Stitch as well. Parents dead, the older sister is raising the younger, and CPS is about to step in and take Lilo away. Come on!

Anyway, moving on, I'm hoping this will be a fun, adventurous film we can all enjoy. Dano and I grew up with the book, and now our child will grow up with the movie. Funny how times change.

Breakdown

Not the cool kind of breakdown, like in a song where they say "break it down" and proceed to do a bunch of amazing licks. This was more of an emotional breakdown, and probably my first of many as a mother.

We live a pretty low-key life. I have a good job where I could easily get full-time hours, but we've chosen to live an economical life until Lilah is a year old and spend as much time with her as we can possibly squeeze in. This means a lot of lazy days just spent rolling around on the floor with her, taking walks, blueberry/apple picking, camping, and just general family time. When I work more than three days a week, I start to feel a little frazzled. Not because I can't handle it, but I literally feel the minutes ticking away - minutes with my family I will never get back. I do pick up extra days for bills, or to pay for something fun we want to do, but generally I try to keep it to a minimum.

Here's a time line for this past week. Saturday - work. Sunday - work. Monday - off and we did nothing. Tuesday - picked up a shift for end-of-the-month paperwork. Wednesday - Lilah's 6 month appointment (switched from 12:45 to 7:45 at the last minute!), grocery shopping, lunch with Ann, apple picking, visiting Ann at the new office, Target supply run, pharmacy run, autumn care package baking extravaganza, trying out a new dinner recipe. Thursday - appointment with an ophthalmology specialist, lunch at Tamaki and Tea, Dano's class, eye appointment for me, a couple pies to bake, and the Junoon concert at 7:30. Friday - work. Saturday - Blessing of the animals in the morning and Dano playing a can drive in the afternoon after his class. Sunday - church, pumpkin patch and corn maze trip.

Just a tad busy!

So the actual reason for my breakdown was mostly Lilah's appointments. It was early in the morning, but she was charming, as usual. She weighed 14lbs, 13 oz. She was 26in long. I was bothered by her weight gain. She had consistently gained 2lbs every 2 months, and all of the sudden she was just barely putting on a pound? I asked the doctor about it, who dismissed it completely. "Look at her. She's moving all over the place. She's actually burning calories now. The growth charts are put out by a formula company anyway. I don't apply it the same way to breastfed babies." I felt slightly better. I can't remember if I mentioned it before (and future 16 year old Lilah will be mortified), but when she was born, Lilah had a labial adhesion. The skin around her vaginal opening was, for lack of a better term, stuck together. It separates with growth, but we were watching it to make sure it was indeed separating instead of adhering more. At this appointment, Dr. Hatfield wanted to start an estrogen cream to the area to get the skin to release, since it wasn't shrinking and could start to interfere with her ability to urinate. That bothered me a bit, not because I was opposed to the treatment, but because (stupid, absolutely) it meant there was something wrong with her. Something minor and cosmetic, but something nonetheless.

At the appointment, I also brought up her pupils. They were both the same size, so I knew it wasn't a neurological disorder, and her vision was developmentally appropriate, but when they dilated in a dim room, one had a chunk missing! It was round, then all of the sudden at the top, it dipped down, like the moon when it's not quite full. It wasn't a coloboma, since those are near the bottom. Dano said he saw nothing and I was crazy, but it nagged at me. Pupil size and shape is very important. They should always be equal. I mentioned it to the doctor, who looked at it with her penlight and saw nothing. I said, "It only happens when her pupil dilates. If they're constricted, they're equal." I felt a "Let's indulge the worried mother" vibe emanate from her, and she turned out the light and shined the penlight at the wall.

"Oh! You're right. There it is." I felt a hundred percent better.
"My husband said I was crazy."
"You're not crazy. I can see it. I'm going to refer you to a specialist, since I don't know enough about eyes to be able to give you a good idea what it is."

Lilah finished up the appointment with 3 shots in the leg and a tasty lunch of Middle Eastern food. She had hummus and loved it, but mostly threw it up as a side effect from the shots.

Her appointment with the ophthalmologist was the very next morning. She flirted with the office staff and other patients in the waiting room. I saw our transporters from work with a resident after her appointment, so I chatted with them to quell the panicky feeling in my stomach. We were checked in by the assistant, who was very nice and found Lilah a stuffed purple fish to play with, since we had forgotten Ignatius (her plush pig and most favorite friend) at home. Even she noticed her pupil, since we were in a dim room.

We met with Dr. Ulrickson who made friends with Lilah and asked some questions. He noticed exactly what I was talking about and told me what I already knew - her pupils were equal and reactive, her vision appropriate, it wasn't a coloboma, and he had never seen anything like it. He also said, "Some babies will let me cover one eye while I look at the other, and some absolutely refuse to do it. The ones who refuse turn out to be very stubborn later, every time. Miss Lilah wants nothing to do with it." "Great," I thought. It was true enough. He would smile and talk to her, waving a toy around, and attempt to cover one eye up. She would skillfully weave to one side and avoid it, smiling as if to say, "I like you. You're nice. But I have no intentions of letting you cover my eye. Thank you, though." He asked us to hold her still while her he looked at her eye under a microscope. You would have thought we were beating her. We had no sooner gotten ahold of her when she started to stiffen her body, flail, and scream (clamping her eyes tightly shut, of course). I'm sure it was scary to have a stranger pull on her eyelid in a dark room with lights shining in your eye and being held down, but she could have spared the theatrics. He got a few quick glances before giving up. She buried her face in my chest and bawled pitifully. He said he'd just suggest looking again in 6 months, because he couldn't see enough, but didn't think it was a tumor or anything that could cause her to go blind. "If it was, I'd suggest putting her under general anesthesia so we could take a good look under a powerful microscope. Ugh! If only I could get another look at that eye! It's rare. I've never seen anything like it." As a mother, my ears heard only "tumor...blind...general anesthesia" and this fierce feeling reared its ugly head and I wanted to hide her away and not let him touch her again. In a rural area like this, rarities are, well, rare, and there have been a lot of "exploratory surgeries" performed at the teaching hospital with no solution found, just fishing around to show the students. "Not my daughter," I thought. Obviously, Dr. Ulrickson wasn't suggesting anything close to that, but I was still afraid. I was also afraid she would go blind or have cancer go into her brain from something they didn't catch. I suggested laying her in my lap with Dano and I talking to her quietly, and him examine her with a handheld magnifier. He took another look, then started laughing.

He saw tiny strands of her pupil that had adhered to the front of her cornea. When the pupil constricted, they weren't pulled taut, so they looked normal. When it dilated, they were tugged at and the top of the pupil appeared to dip down. He said he's seen it on a minuscule scale before - one or two strands - under a microscope, where the person wasn't even aware and had never noticed a vision change. He had never noticed it on such a large scale, and still wants to see her in 6 months, but it appears to be just a genetic abnormality. "I see in her history she has a labial adhesion. It's kind of like that. Just a small adhesion of the pupil and cornea, only not so easily fixed with a cream." Something happened in utero, causing small, random adhesions in her body. Undoubtedly it's something from my genes, but at least it's something that is, for all intents and purposes, cosmetic only.

Still, the good news didn't keep me from having a complete and utter breakdown later in the day. Too much activity, stress, and pent up emotion and fear from that appointment pushed me over the edge. I think I've been building up to it for 6 months. Maybe I can go another 6 before the next one. Here's to hoping. In other news, Dr. Hatfield had said Lilah is so busy and curious, love standing, has little interest in sitting up, and her leg muscles already so well developed, she expects the child to be walking by 9 months. Walking. If that isn't enough to get me working up to another freak-out, I don't know what it.