12 years in the making

Things have been going comparatively well. Lilah is growing more mobile and more crafty by the minute. I was a bit concerned for a very short while that she wasn't adequately meeting her milestones. She could sit up easily enough, but the moment she saw something mildly entertaining and seemingly within arm's reach, over she toppled so she could better scoot after it (these amusing things included anything from one of her toys to a piece of fuzz on the carpet). I never could tell if her muscles were developed enough to support her, or if her spine was straight enough for her to sit up for long periods of time. Strangely enough, when her attention span lengthened, so did the amount of time she spent sitting up on her own.

Crawling was something else I was wondering about. Don't get me wrong - my kid could move. She could scuttle around the carpet until she made it to hardwood, and then she was off. She'd simulate a breaststroke as fast as her little arms and legs could flail. She could also get on her hands and knees and rock back and forth, grinning up at us, and propel herself backward at top speeds. I recently discovered my little daughter had been holding out on me.

It was one of those days Lilah wanted every member of her family within reaching-distance of her chubby arms while she played. We didn't have to be interacting with her just as long as she could touch and see us at all times. This meant no leaving for extended periods of time, no unnecessary bathroom breaks, and a lot of non-floor activities being conducted on the floor (such as decorating a cheesecake). I had to get the cappuccino cheesecake decorated before Max's confirmation party, but Lilah wasn't having any of it. I ended up transporting my cheesecake on a plate, bowl of Kahlua-infused whipped cream, and chocolate decorative autumn leaves to a place on the rug about three feet from Lilah. She wasn't that fast on carpet, and I would have plenty of time to stop her before she got too close. I set to work on my masterpiece, but it wasn't too many minutes before Lilah started fussing over one thing or another. Exasperated, I went to her and gave her a tiny taste of whipped cream. Her pretty blueberry eyes lit up like purple stars and she was placated. I went back to work and was shocked when a tiny fist dove into my bowl of whipped cream literally seconds later. She had clearly teleported from her toys three feet away to my workspace after realizing I had sweet stuff she normally wasn't allowed to taste.

Upon cleaning out the closet today, I fondly opened up several boxes of my American Girl Doll collection. I remember the Christmas I got my first doll. I had asked my mom if I could have the one named Felicity the first time I saw her smiling back at me from the glossy pages of the catalogue. I had been told very apologetically that one doll was almost a hundred dollars, and her entire collection of beautiful things almost a thousand, and the money for something that extravagant just wasn't there that year. I was 10, I think, and cried pitifully, promising I'd go without birthday presents, or presents for Christmas next year, if I could just have this doll. The answer didn't change. By Christmas, I still hadn't forgotten that in the modest pile of brightly wrapped packages, there should have been a pretty green-eyed doll. I hadn't opened very many when I noticed that beneath the paper of one rectangular box, there was a white cardboard box with burgundy trim - clearly the American Girl colors. Nestled inside was my treasured doll. It was one of the happiest Christmases I can remember and I flashed back to it vividly when I was cleaning. I collected for years and ended up with thousands of dollars worth of dolls, beautiful dresses, furniture, and accessories. In the back of my mind after I outgrew tending to my doll family, I always made sure to take meticulous care of my treasures. Somehow, I knew I would someday have a lovely daughter and I would be able to pass down my collection.

I pulled Felicity out of her watermarked and wrinkled box, smoothed the wrinkles from her dress, and took her downstairs. I knew full-well that Lilah was far too young to appreciate or probably care at all. She doesn't have any dolls currently. I had put my foot down with all our well-meaning friends and family. "No dolls. I want to get her her very first doll, and I don't want it to talk, pee, cry, walk, get sick, eat, or do anything at all." My wishes were respected, and this Christmas, I will buy Lilah a doll of her very own and I wanted to see how she would react. Doll under one arm and Lilah under the other, I plopped her down on the couch and placed the doll in her lap. She let out this amazing squeal and her eyes were as wide as dinner plates as she held out her arms to the doll's face. I told her "gentle", and she softly ran her fingers through the vinyl hair and touched the green glass eyes that opened and closed. She was completely in awe and full of happy coos and I did my best not to cry. That moment had been 12 years in the making, and it was absolute magic.

Somebody call someone

I probably don't deserve to be going anywhere tonight. I should be grounded. However, at my husband's insistence (for fear of my becoming homicidal), I am going to L'attitude with Kevin Rush tonight for a martini and perhaps edamame. I like Kevin and greatly enjoy conversing with him. I'm turning off that part of my brain that's constantly whispering, "Dano talked him into it. He wouldn't be going on his own. He likes Dano and just tolerates me. He's doing it out of pity to help out a buddy." All of those might be factual statements, but I'm going anyway. The following is the series of mishaps that led me to be undeserving of it.

The heating and plumbing guys came today to fix the sink and hot water heater. Unlike the electricians, they were friendly, respectful and efficient. Example: Electric men take hours out of two separate days to stomp through the house while the baby is asleep and wake her up, stare rudely at me when I say good morning, and yell at each other from different floors of the house while slamming the occasional door. Heating/plumbing men make polite small talk, compliment my child (although calling her a "nice little fella" didn't win any major points, especially after I made a point of calling her by her name), fixed all three problems in an hour, and didn't turn up their noses at the piles and piles of dirty dishes that resulted from no running water for nearly a week.

When they left, I decided to take a shower with Lilah. We went to the doctor's yesterday for some rashes and blisters, and Lilah was diagnosed with very mild eczema. I was relieved. We're treating it with bathing only twice a week (bathing her, that is. We're continuing to bath regularly), olive oil in her bath, only organic lotions and soaps, and Bactraban ointment on any blister or open area to prevent infection. Our bathroom is located off our bedroom, so as usual, I places Lilah on our bed, surrounded her on all sides with large pillows, gave her a toy, and went to fill her baby tub and start the shower at an appropriate temperature. I sat on the toilet seat while it's filling so I could keep an eye on her, as usual. When her tub was half full, I leaned forward and added a cap full of EVOO and as I did so, I heard a very ominous thud. I believe expletives were the only coherent things running through my brain and I'm fairly sure I teleported the three feet out the bathroom to the floor where my child was lying face down on the floor, screaming. I picked her up to assess the damage, which included another bruise to her forehead (she conveniently pitched herself headfirst into Dano's computer while on the selfsame offending bed not a week ago; I yelled at my husband for not being more careful with the baby, as he had let her play on the bed with him in the presence of a deadly laptop), and a rugburn-esque abrasion to her right eye which was bleeding on both bony prominences above and below her eye, leaving her actual eye-socket remarkably unscathed. Being a nurse and an idiot, I promptly started doing "neuros" on her. At work, whenever any of the residents' falls happen to include a bump on the head, we do neuros every 15 minutes for an hour, every hour for 4 hours, every 4 hours for a shift, and then once a shift for 2 days. We check equal pupil reactivity and size, proper pain response, blurred vision, slurred speech, equal movement and reflexes to extremities, any numbness or tingling, and change in mentation. I, in my infinite wisdom (i.e. panic), attempted assess these things on a scared, screaming, bleeding 7 1/2 month old before giving up (since she was, for some reason, unable to tell me if her vision was blurred or had any numbness and her eyes were closed). She calmed relatively quickly and I stopped acting like an idiot and did an age-appropriate assessment on her. Her battle wounds were uglier than they were serious with a swollen, red scrape near her eye and matching bruises on her forehead - one green and old and one purple and new. Her screams subsided to hiccupy gasps, and I decided to proceed with the shower.

We stepped in, and I plopped her in her tub. The wisest would have foreseen the folly of placing a child in a tub full of water and...wait for it...oil. Under the water she slid, and my arms shot in after her to haul her up, sputtering and (again) screaming. Sure the neighbors were on the verge of calling CPS, I soothed her as best I could, assuring her I wouldn't let her drown, crawl off the bed, concuss herself, or bleed again. Today. It took a little longer the second time around before I could put her down again. I dumped all but a 1/2 inch of water out of her tub and sat her in it again before starting to wash my hair.

It was at this point I noticed the shower floor was filling with water and, after a closer inspection, realized there was a Bandaid stuck in the drain. I leaned down to pull it out and while I was leaning down, heard a gasping/sputtering/trying-really-hard-to-cry-but-can't sound and glanced over at the baby. Lilah's moronic mother hadn't given a thought to what would happen to the spray of water from the shower head if she weren't standing in it anymore and leaned down to unclog the drain. If she had, she would have realized it would pretty much catch Lilah full in the face, who was in her poor little tub and unable to escape. At this point, I was terrified of killing her if she spent another hour in my care, so I hauled her out of the tub, turned off the water, and called it a day. I dried and dressed her, not even bothering to comb her hair before she fell asleep, exhausted from her ordeal(s). I called Dano to tell him to come home and rescue his daughter as soon as he could, or he might not have a daughter to come home to.

I went downstairs to collect myself and had a French candy shaped like a log made out of dark chocolate and filled with milk chocolate fluffing. And it was good.

Three short, three long, three short.

That's all I know of Morse code, but I feel like I'm mentally sending out a constant S-O-S.

So Lilah learned how to say "Mama" with meaning less than a week ago. Saturday, I believe, was the first time she said, "Mama" in distress, for only me. It was darling to hear her call for me in the middle of the night if she woke up scared (we were house-sitting and she didn't do well at all sleeping away from home for so long). It seems that for every exciting new stage of development, there is a flip-side I never considered.

We're trying to work on "Papa" with her. She'll make the "P" sound, then grin and say, "Mama".

As I type, she is on the couch next to me crying for me. Her blues eyes fill with fake tears and she moans, "Mamaaaa! Mamaaaa!" until I plop her in my lap. Then we're happily playing with toys again. We have hardwood floors, so she scoots after me as fast as she can, crying if I so much as take my eyes off her to make my breakfast. It seems like she was only independent and mobile for a few weeks before hitting this separation anxiety. I feel like house-sitting made it worse, because she was out of her element and insecure. I've been working even less than normal lately, so it can't be added separation. Teething makes her clingy, too, and that's an on again/off again affair. It seems like the gods of motherhood are working against me so I lose my mind.

If Dano wants any "husband time", at this point I honestly feel like slapping him or screaming. Or both. I want to dress in jeans that make my butt look good, NOT wear a nursing bra and easy-to-pull-aside shirt, gather a small assortment of girls (hell, I don't even care if I like them at this point), and go do something fun. Gone are the worried days of new-motherhood where I checked my watch continually and imagined my poor child suffering without me. I love my daughter dearly and realize this is a normal stage of development that we will work through as a family, but other than going to Bible study once and out for drinks once, I haven't had any time away from work, Dano, and Lilah in almost 8 months and I'm a woman on the edge.

The walls are closing in. In my mind, I see Marquette as an island floating in a sea of pines. Driving here at night scares me because there aren't the brilliant lights of the city to guide me. Nashville had its faults, but it was so easy to navigate. The interstate ran north/south, so no matter where I was, I could jump on I-65 and get home. I feel panicky here. I have water on all sides of me, and miles between gas stations and tiny towns. I fear becoming delusional but I feel like even Lake Superior is menacing with over 350 shipwrecks to her name. She's a bloodthirsty empress with complete and irrevocable sovereignty and I feel trapped.

I think of the friends I want to rescue me - Bekah, Deidre, Kalli, Kim, Danielle, Sarah, Richelle, Mia, Sara, Kristina. Bekah is the mother of Sofia Milan, born only days ago, and in Texas. Deidre is in Ohio. Kalli is adjusting to life with Mellisa Sophia, and I know full well how crazy that transition is from newborn to infant. Kim is in Ireland having amazing adventures. Danielle is in Coldwater and going through her own trials right now. Sarah is tending to 7 month old Gavin in middle-Michigan. Richelle is in Utah but keeping me from becoming a homicidal maniac with her enlightening online chats. Mia is wonderful, but also a full-time student (and I always feel like Dano's friends are friends with me out of pity). Sara is wonderfully 12 1/2 weeks pregnant with Emma's little brother or sister in Hillsdale. Kristina is working hundreds of hours in Nashville. I'm here in Ishpeming singing a song by City in Colour, a band I don't even like. "Someone come and, someone come and save my life. Maybe I'll sleep when I am dead but now it's like the night is taking up sides with all the worries that occupy the back of my mind...Madness fills my heart and soul as if the great divide will swallow me whole. I'm breaking down."