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And I couldn't be happier.
Night before last, Elise rolled over. So I was really excited about that. She was on flat hard (well, carpeted) floor, too, not like cheating on a bed with me sitting and making a dent or something.
Then yesterday was our neurologist appt. I had to get up SO EARLY to bake the carrot cupcakes I'd told A and A and Isaac would be for breakfast, and make the chore chart I'd told them would be done, and then there was a huge financial hullaballoo at the hospital that I spent hours sorting out...
But the neurologist was great. He tapped her feet, stroked her calves, tapped her knees, poked her sides, spun her around and watched her eyes, put his fingers in her hands, "stood" her up - so on and so forth, like 30 short little tests of this or that reflex or response. All as I explained her backstory. And at the end of it he said he's with Dr Geraldi and would never have thought anything was unusual about her if I hadn't told him. A freaking pediatric neurologist said this, after a full exam! I cried. I may have told him I loved him in the heat of the moment. He also ordered an eeg to look for subclinical seizure activity just in case, and assuming it is ok (as she has had no clinical seizures and her eegs in the NICU were clear) we'll start weaning off the phenobarbital immediately.
She smiled at everyone we talked to at Miami Children's Hospital, unless she was asleep in the sling or kozy. I don't know what the eeg showed and won't for 2 more days, but I know that she didn't do anything visibly/clinically weird even when they shined a variable, intermittent strobe light in her eyes, and she was 3 hours overdue for her medicine at the time.
Parenting is a huge challenge lately. I'm mostly rising to it, and I know this is the hardest it's ever gonna be, with all of them so young. Some of it I savor...like the tough conversations we've been having. Ananda asked what a strip club was, as we drove by one, and on another day Robbie was in the hospital after eating some neighborhood berry and we were all praying for him as I explained about how he might have to stay for awhile, and it strayed into how he doesn't really have parents teaching him these things (like not eating random unidentified berries)...but when I expressed concern, Aaron, my perceptive little nut, says - "But Mom, you don't even like Robbie." *headdesk* Ananda and Isaac looked confused, like, of course she does! This of course is all following weeks of explaining brain injuries and their sister and hospital stays. I had to tell them about how Chuck has cancer on the way up to him and Teresa's, and how he's recovering from surgery and dealing with it being untreatable...Heavy times...when they AREN'T in the kiddie pool, horseplaying or jumping on the trampoline. I try to always be super honest with them, even about the strip clubs or how I feel about Robbie. I wonder what other people would think if they could hear me talking.
Then there is Annie pulling me aside to tell me her vagina is sticking together and hurting, and we need to look at it, and Aaron sitting me down to admit he stole an action figure from Eli and it's been eating at him for months. I don't know how to explain how amazing it is that they come to me with whatever is on their minds, even when they're embarassed or ashamed or whatever.
I do not savor the challenge of Jake getting his molars. I'm glad we figured out that is his problem, and that it's temporary, but geez. Grant and I have been taking turns "sleeping" on the couch with him (he's up most of the night whining or moaning). Whoever is in the bed with Elise (usually me) actually gets to sleep.
I've never worked this hard, all day and all night for months on end. I feel purified by it, though...or something. Like I'm getting stronger everyday for it. Like I'll be bored when they're bigger. Maybe that's why I kept having new ones this long.
I have a lot of birth remorse. It stays with me. We got off the exit for Miami Children's yesterday, and I haven't been there since Isaac was discharged. I didn't even remember what the neighborhood was going to look like, consciously - I haven't even really been able to separate what was Jackson and what was Miami Children's very well, in my mind - but as soon as we got off my stomach was clenching just from seeing the first block again. Right in middle of a happy song and happy talking with Grant. It's intense how my body holds onto things...I hadn't even formed a thought about it, when I started physically reacting.
And then last night I took a bath with Elise, after dinner (because we were both covered in a poop explosion...) and as soon as we were both naked and I held her to my chest...we just stopped. Her fussing stopped, my hurrying stopped, and everything stopped while I held her there. When I eventually opened my eyes and saw us in the mirror...her so tiny on my chest, and fitting into me so naturally - it made me sigh, in a heavy way. It looked like I wanted it to. Liek what I missed. I wonder if it would do me any good sometimes to just sit down and visualize it all another way, one minute at a time. But I don't.
We got in the tub and she was so drowsy and happy in all that warm water :) It's hard for me to not think that every positive association most babies should have about warm water or the womb has to be tainted for her - I worry sometimes that she'd be scared or freaked out by anything that managed to remind her of being inside. I worried when she was in the hospital that she'd scream bloody murder when I held her because I'd smell like pain and dying. But...I'm blessed in a lot of ways.
And it's hard to forget that when you're at Miami Children's Hospital's Brain Institute and you're holding a beautiful smiling baby, and you're surrounded by kids who are hurt, and struggling, and parents who are strained. An 8 year old boy chewing on his foot with vacant eyes, a 10 year old tipped back in a special needs stroller...there are so many conflicting things that run through my head. I would love her like that, too. I'm so glad we maybe won't have to go there. I think those parents are blessed by their kids as well, though, and that those kids are just as special. And so on.
My paramedic brother in law was over here today talking about a clinical he had to do in a NICU and how a nurse told them one baby wasn't going to make it. I wonder if anyone told anyone else that about Elise, now that I know they were all just sitting and waiting for it to happen. I wish often that I could walk in there with her right now, barely discharged a month and looking so different. I'm eager to write them letters and send pictures.
I don't know where I'm going with all this, but I can't waste this precious "opportunity" time any longer...Isaac, Jake and Elise are all napping while Ananda and Aaron play in the kiddie pool. Which means I should be transferring and putting away more laundry, cleaning the dining room, and probably that will be all I have time for.
It's so awesome that I can write in a journal that other people see and read. Seriously, I love the internet. I have DOZENS (literally, it's a bit psycho) of spiral bound journals in a big tupperware in our laundry room, that will one day end up with my children and a person or two may have poked through, but this is such a cool networking thing. I've really appreciated it as a novelty lately.
Last: My Abuela died. My paternal great grandmother, who came from Cuba as a girl, and only spoke spanish. She was 98, and recently reconciled with my grandfather (her son) so I'm glad for that. I would have liked to see her again. She lived on her own, worked part time and jogged regularly until she was 95 and her twin sister died, which hit her hard and slowed her down. That was also the year her 108 year old brother died...he was called "the 3 century man" in the Key West Citizen because he'd been born in 1896 and lived to see 2004. He worked on the original, now abandoned seven mile bridge as a teenager. I hope my Abuela had peace, and is well remembered.
Night before last, Elise rolled over. So I was really excited about that. She was on flat hard (well, carpeted) floor, too, not like cheating on a bed with me sitting and making a dent or something.
Then yesterday was our neurologist appt. I had to get up SO EARLY to bake the carrot cupcakes I'd told A and A and Isaac would be for breakfast, and make the chore chart I'd told them would be done, and then there was a huge financial hullaballoo at the hospital that I spent hours sorting out...
But the neurologist was great. He tapped her feet, stroked her calves, tapped her knees, poked her sides, spun her around and watched her eyes, put his fingers in her hands, "stood" her up - so on and so forth, like 30 short little tests of this or that reflex or response. All as I explained her backstory. And at the end of it he said he's with Dr Geraldi and would never have thought anything was unusual about her if I hadn't told him. A freaking pediatric neurologist said this, after a full exam! I cried. I may have told him I loved him in the heat of the moment. He also ordered an eeg to look for subclinical seizure activity just in case, and assuming it is ok (as she has had no clinical seizures and her eegs in the NICU were clear) we'll start weaning off the phenobarbital immediately.
She smiled at everyone we talked to at Miami Children's Hospital, unless she was asleep in the sling or kozy. I don't know what the eeg showed and won't for 2 more days, but I know that she didn't do anything visibly/clinically weird even when they shined a variable, intermittent strobe light in her eyes, and she was 3 hours overdue for her medicine at the time.
Parenting is a huge challenge lately. I'm mostly rising to it, and I know this is the hardest it's ever gonna be, with all of them so young. Some of it I savor...like the tough conversations we've been having. Ananda asked what a strip club was, as we drove by one, and on another day Robbie was in the hospital after eating some neighborhood berry and we were all praying for him as I explained about how he might have to stay for awhile, and it strayed into how he doesn't really have parents teaching him these things (like not eating random unidentified berries)...but when I expressed concern, Aaron, my perceptive little nut, says - "But Mom, you don't even like Robbie." *headdesk* Ananda and Isaac looked confused, like, of course she does! This of course is all following weeks of explaining brain injuries and their sister and hospital stays. I had to tell them about how Chuck has cancer on the way up to him and Teresa's, and how he's recovering from surgery and dealing with it being untreatable...Heavy times...when they AREN'T in the kiddie pool, horseplaying or jumping on the trampoline. I try to always be super honest with them, even about the strip clubs or how I feel about Robbie. I wonder what other people would think if they could hear me talking.
Then there is Annie pulling me aside to tell me her vagina is sticking together and hurting, and we need to look at it, and Aaron sitting me down to admit he stole an action figure from Eli and it's been eating at him for months. I don't know how to explain how amazing it is that they come to me with whatever is on their minds, even when they're embarassed or ashamed or whatever.
I do not savor the challenge of Jake getting his molars. I'm glad we figured out that is his problem, and that it's temporary, but geez. Grant and I have been taking turns "sleeping" on the couch with him (he's up most of the night whining or moaning). Whoever is in the bed with Elise (usually me) actually gets to sleep.
I've never worked this hard, all day and all night for months on end. I feel purified by it, though...or something. Like I'm getting stronger everyday for it. Like I'll be bored when they're bigger. Maybe that's why I kept having new ones this long.
I have a lot of birth remorse. It stays with me. We got off the exit for Miami Children's yesterday, and I haven't been there since Isaac was discharged. I didn't even remember what the neighborhood was going to look like, consciously - I haven't even really been able to separate what was Jackson and what was Miami Children's very well, in my mind - but as soon as we got off my stomach was clenching just from seeing the first block again. Right in middle of a happy song and happy talking with Grant. It's intense how my body holds onto things...I hadn't even formed a thought about it, when I started physically reacting.
And then last night I took a bath with Elise, after dinner (because we were both covered in a poop explosion...) and as soon as we were both naked and I held her to my chest...we just stopped. Her fussing stopped, my hurrying stopped, and everything stopped while I held her there. When I eventually opened my eyes and saw us in the mirror...her so tiny on my chest, and fitting into me so naturally - it made me sigh, in a heavy way. It looked like I wanted it to. Liek what I missed. I wonder if it would do me any good sometimes to just sit down and visualize it all another way, one minute at a time. But I don't.
We got in the tub and she was so drowsy and happy in all that warm water :) It's hard for me to not think that every positive association most babies should have about warm water or the womb has to be tainted for her - I worry sometimes that she'd be scared or freaked out by anything that managed to remind her of being inside. I worried when she was in the hospital that she'd scream bloody murder when I held her because I'd smell like pain and dying. But...I'm blessed in a lot of ways.
And it's hard to forget that when you're at Miami Children's Hospital's Brain Institute and you're holding a beautiful smiling baby, and you're surrounded by kids who are hurt, and struggling, and parents who are strained. An 8 year old boy chewing on his foot with vacant eyes, a 10 year old tipped back in a special needs stroller...there are so many conflicting things that run through my head. I would love her like that, too. I'm so glad we maybe won't have to go there. I think those parents are blessed by their kids as well, though, and that those kids are just as special. And so on.
My paramedic brother in law was over here today talking about a clinical he had to do in a NICU and how a nurse told them one baby wasn't going to make it. I wonder if anyone told anyone else that about Elise, now that I know they were all just sitting and waiting for it to happen. I wish often that I could walk in there with her right now, barely discharged a month and looking so different. I'm eager to write them letters and send pictures.
I don't know where I'm going with all this, but I can't waste this precious "opportunity" time any longer...Isaac, Jake and Elise are all napping while Ananda and Aaron play in the kiddie pool. Which means I should be transferring and putting away more laundry, cleaning the dining room, and probably that will be all I have time for.
It's so awesome that I can write in a journal that other people see and read. Seriously, I love the internet. I have DOZENS (literally, it's a bit psycho) of spiral bound journals in a big tupperware in our laundry room, that will one day end up with my children and a person or two may have poked through, but this is such a cool networking thing. I've really appreciated it as a novelty lately.
Last: My Abuela died. My paternal great grandmother, who came from Cuba as a girl, and only spoke spanish. She was 98, and recently reconciled with my grandfather (her son) so I'm glad for that. I would have liked to see her again. She lived on her own, worked part time and jogged regularly until she was 95 and her twin sister died, which hit her hard and slowed her down. That was also the year her 108 year old brother died...he was called "the 3 century man" in the Key West Citizen because he'd been born in 1896 and lived to see 2004. He worked on the original, now abandoned seven mile bridge as a teenager. I hope my Abuela had peace, and is well remembered.
