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Jan. 24th, 2010 06:07 pmThis afternoon, Grant and I were standing in the hallway talking. Jake walked up trying to interrupt; I held up a finger to say "just a sec". He started doing this really obnoxious lot of grunting and inarticulate frantic sounds to get my attention, while rapidly poke-poke-poking me in the boob. My brother was walking by looking uncomfortable. I turned to Jake and said, "Listen, we're talking - you just have to wait! You're being very rude, and my boobies are private!" Anyway I basically forgot about this after that, he ran off and I talked to everyone a bunch and whatever.
About half an hour later, I came into our room and sat down at the desk at my laptop. I heard Jake from my bed, saying "You broke my heart, Mom" sadly. I hadn't realized he was even in the room and turned to him confused - "what?" He was laying down under the covers with this woebegone expression. He repeated himself, all forlorn and pathetic, "You broke my heart". Grant came in as he said it that time and saw my confused expression. He suggested it was because we didn't want him to interrupt us in the hallway, and Jake scowled at us and shook his head no. Jake sat up with his arms across his chest and sadly said, "It was you Mama, you said your boobies were private." He started to quietly cry as I looked at Grant like...whoa. Ok. *sigh*
I called him over to the computer chair and told him I mean I don't want him poking my boobs angrily because this is my body and that hurts me, and that it's not nice to mess with my boobs in front of Uncle Bob with Aunt DeeDee in the house right there while I talk to Dad, either. But I love him and I know he used to have milk and it's ok if he needs to "lay with a booby pillow" or rest his hand on the side while he's in my lap or something.
Jake and I made a deal that he would wean on his birthday last October. He stuck with it and never asked after that, but he was also very obviously moodier and just super irritable for about a month afterward. Since then, he's evened back out most of the way, but he isn't NEARLY as affectionate with me as he used to be and is much moreso with Grant. Like he lays on the side of Grant where I am not, when he comes in the bed in the middle of the night. I really miss it sometimes because we were just so cuddly before, but it obviously had to end sometime and all that.
Today he says, after all this broken heart business, "I just want milk sometimes". And I said, well, how would you feel if we just cuddled and had a lot of love? And I could read you some books? He acted frustrated and answered, "I want to have milk while I do those things!" I continued to hedge and finally he put a hand on each of my cheeks (he'd been standing in front of my chair) and said, "Can I please just have some more milk Mama? Please?"
Figuring it was 50/50 if he'd even "remember how" or like it 4+ months later, I said, alright. HE TOTALLY REMEMBERED HOW AND LOVED IT. He was grinning the whole time. I asked, "Is it good?" and he nodded and made "Mmhmm!" noises around it. It was only about 5 minutes. Grant came in and said, "Are you having milk?" and he popped off and said, grinning ear to ear, "YES I AM!"
He's been bubbly and giddy and beside himself with happiness ever since. I don't know where we are at, now, exactly, with it, but damn is he cute.
My Aunt DeeDee spent the last two nights here with us. It's extremely convenient that she is also on a 5am-1pm sleep schedule; we don't generally get that out of a house guest.
My Dad's whole side of the family is so full of stories, and I eat it up. I love it. Sometimes I call my Dad just to hear some stories. DeeDee did not dissapoint.
Some I had heard before; others were fleshed out in new ways or altogether new. What really struck me, more than anything, was this legacy of bizarre birth trauma and medical mishandling. I've known my whole life that my mother only had c-sections, and her mother only had c-sections; but I don't really take after my mother's side physically or health wise much. I'm a female, younger my Dad to an almost ridiculous extent, and I talk, eat, cook and dress way more like a Hernandez, too.
So, listening to these horror stories that my Dad's sister, and their mother, and HER mother all went through was this whole other sort of eye-opening. I'm considering including some of this in this narrative nonfiction "life after surgery" (for lack of better phrasing) book I'm writing.
With my great grandmother, there's a story that's practically legend:
She was hugely pregnant. She lived next door to someone with chickens that were supposed to stay in their fence, but her born children were always letting them out. The neighbor got home at a set time each day and would be irate if these chickens were out at that time. One afternoon she - Ottelia - looked out and saw the chickens out loose when it was getting close to that time. She rushed outside and started running around, chasing these chickens towards their open gate, and she tripped - tripped UP, a bit, and came down HARD, on her belly. She started bleeding heavily immediately and somebody called the doctor who came to the house (in Key West). The doctor said she was going to hemmorage and the solution back then was to invert her - to make her lay slanted upwards, butt higher than her head, legs up even higher. Bedpan and all. She layed like that for a couple of days with a constantly worsening fever and eventually vomiting. Finally she got up, and individual PARTS of the baby started coming out - a detached arm first. !
More reliably (detail-wise) as there are so many living witnesses to this story, my grandmother, Matilda, was having her 4th and 5th kids (twins) - she did not know it was twins. This was in the late 60s, again in Key West, this time at the makeshift hospital that was an old converted conch house. They didn't let anyone in the delivery room back then. Ma (as we called her) wanted her tubes tied, and in those days they cut you open to tie your tubes (it's through the belly button now). So it was a planned c-section; BUT, a week before it was planned for, Ma went into labor. By the time she got to this hospital, my Uncle Michael was in the birth canal. This doctor took her to the OR anyway, knocked her out. He was actually CROWNING by this point. The doctor cut her open, and PULLED HIM OUT through the abdomen by his feet. At which point Ma's heart stopped. This fool ass doctor says/does NOTHING about the twin he surely must have seen in that uterus, instead rushing out to the waiting room to tell my Pa "Matilda's heart stopped, she's died on the operating table". As this is happening, another doctor who delivers is walking in to read some x-rays, and hears him, and rushes into the OR. He gets Ma's heart going again, delivers Michelle, and sews her up. He's saved her life. But in street clothes, off the street - with no sanitation involved. So Ma has a horrendous infection and doesn't fully regain consciousness for like 8 days. Meaning it's over a week before she even finds out she's had twins.
DeeDee also had twins, as her 2nd and 3rd child (my cousins Annette and Andrea). After telling her doctor just how many sets of twins run up and down both sides of her family tree, and how she has a hunch based on how the movement feels inside, the doctor does some careful listening and detects a 2nd heartbeat. They were in a T shape, with Andrea the vertical one on the bottom and Annette horizontal on top. It was 5 weeks before her due date and her OB told her that she had to make a decision. Choice #1 was to deliver them by c-section right then; twins 5 weeks early in the 70s in Key West, meaning not even a decent hospital WITHOUT a NICU within an hour in any direction. Choice #2 was to wait and go into labor naturally; then it was possible that after Andrea was born, Annette would fall down into the right position and be able to be born vaginally, too. But if she fell transverse like she was, they'd have to deliver her by c-section. There were only two ORs on the island at the time; so there was no guarantee it would be quick and easy to get in there. If the twins were identical, meaning sharing one placenta, they were probably going to lose the second one after they cut the first umbilical cord. One other doctor suggested they just break baby #2s arm, dislocate the shoulder, and get her out through the vagina too, which was too horrific for anyone to consider seriously. DeeDee knew that ALL the twins in our family were non-identical twins, and she took the chance on waiting. She did have to have the 2nd one by c/s, and it was over an hour and a half wait, but luckily they were not identical so that part was ok.
There's actually a lot more where all this came from.
So this - this is my lineage. These are my genes. Women who I've loved; who I look like.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Is it just women in general? Is this why people are really loathe to have big families, and some to even have kids at all, anymore?
I had some pretty wack dreams last night.
But I'm also really glad to know it all, along with a whole lot of other things that have nothing to do with babies. It was a good visit overall and I tell you what...my Aunt DeeDee, walking around this house in a mumu-like nightgown and slippers, looks SO MUCH LIKE MY (dead) Ma...it's almost like my kids got to know her after all. A more mobile and independent, less volatile her ;) They drug her around looking at things, engaged her in games of Old Maid and Aaron dazzled her with his latest original piano piece.
Which is really incredible - I NEED to get it recorded and up somewhere.
About half an hour later, I came into our room and sat down at the desk at my laptop. I heard Jake from my bed, saying "You broke my heart, Mom" sadly. I hadn't realized he was even in the room and turned to him confused - "what?" He was laying down under the covers with this woebegone expression. He repeated himself, all forlorn and pathetic, "You broke my heart". Grant came in as he said it that time and saw my confused expression. He suggested it was because we didn't want him to interrupt us in the hallway, and Jake scowled at us and shook his head no. Jake sat up with his arms across his chest and sadly said, "It was you Mama, you said your boobies were private." He started to quietly cry as I looked at Grant like...whoa. Ok. *sigh*
I called him over to the computer chair and told him I mean I don't want him poking my boobs angrily because this is my body and that hurts me, and that it's not nice to mess with my boobs in front of Uncle Bob with Aunt DeeDee in the house right there while I talk to Dad, either. But I love him and I know he used to have milk and it's ok if he needs to "lay with a booby pillow" or rest his hand on the side while he's in my lap or something.
Jake and I made a deal that he would wean on his birthday last October. He stuck with it and never asked after that, but he was also very obviously moodier and just super irritable for about a month afterward. Since then, he's evened back out most of the way, but he isn't NEARLY as affectionate with me as he used to be and is much moreso with Grant. Like he lays on the side of Grant where I am not, when he comes in the bed in the middle of the night. I really miss it sometimes because we were just so cuddly before, but it obviously had to end sometime and all that.
Today he says, after all this broken heart business, "I just want milk sometimes". And I said, well, how would you feel if we just cuddled and had a lot of love? And I could read you some books? He acted frustrated and answered, "I want to have milk while I do those things!" I continued to hedge and finally he put a hand on each of my cheeks (he'd been standing in front of my chair) and said, "Can I please just have some more milk Mama? Please?"
Figuring it was 50/50 if he'd even "remember how" or like it 4+ months later, I said, alright. HE TOTALLY REMEMBERED HOW AND LOVED IT. He was grinning the whole time. I asked, "Is it good?" and he nodded and made "Mmhmm!" noises around it. It was only about 5 minutes. Grant came in and said, "Are you having milk?" and he popped off and said, grinning ear to ear, "YES I AM!"
He's been bubbly and giddy and beside himself with happiness ever since. I don't know where we are at, now, exactly, with it, but damn is he cute.
My Aunt DeeDee spent the last two nights here with us. It's extremely convenient that she is also on a 5am-1pm sleep schedule; we don't generally get that out of a house guest.
My Dad's whole side of the family is so full of stories, and I eat it up. I love it. Sometimes I call my Dad just to hear some stories. DeeDee did not dissapoint.
Some I had heard before; others were fleshed out in new ways or altogether new. What really struck me, more than anything, was this legacy of bizarre birth trauma and medical mishandling. I've known my whole life that my mother only had c-sections, and her mother only had c-sections; but I don't really take after my mother's side physically or health wise much. I'm a female, younger my Dad to an almost ridiculous extent, and I talk, eat, cook and dress way more like a Hernandez, too.
So, listening to these horror stories that my Dad's sister, and their mother, and HER mother all went through was this whole other sort of eye-opening. I'm considering including some of this in this narrative nonfiction "life after surgery" (for lack of better phrasing) book I'm writing.
With my great grandmother, there's a story that's practically legend:
She was hugely pregnant. She lived next door to someone with chickens that were supposed to stay in their fence, but her born children were always letting them out. The neighbor got home at a set time each day and would be irate if these chickens were out at that time. One afternoon she - Ottelia - looked out and saw the chickens out loose when it was getting close to that time. She rushed outside and started running around, chasing these chickens towards their open gate, and she tripped - tripped UP, a bit, and came down HARD, on her belly. She started bleeding heavily immediately and somebody called the doctor who came to the house (in Key West). The doctor said she was going to hemmorage and the solution back then was to invert her - to make her lay slanted upwards, butt higher than her head, legs up even higher. Bedpan and all. She layed like that for a couple of days with a constantly worsening fever and eventually vomiting. Finally she got up, and individual PARTS of the baby started coming out - a detached arm first. !
More reliably (detail-wise) as there are so many living witnesses to this story, my grandmother, Matilda, was having her 4th and 5th kids (twins) - she did not know it was twins. This was in the late 60s, again in Key West, this time at the makeshift hospital that was an old converted conch house. They didn't let anyone in the delivery room back then. Ma (as we called her) wanted her tubes tied, and in those days they cut you open to tie your tubes (it's through the belly button now). So it was a planned c-section; BUT, a week before it was planned for, Ma went into labor. By the time she got to this hospital, my Uncle Michael was in the birth canal. This doctor took her to the OR anyway, knocked her out. He was actually CROWNING by this point. The doctor cut her open, and PULLED HIM OUT through the abdomen by his feet. At which point Ma's heart stopped. This fool ass doctor says/does NOTHING about the twin he surely must have seen in that uterus, instead rushing out to the waiting room to tell my Pa "Matilda's heart stopped, she's died on the operating table". As this is happening, another doctor who delivers is walking in to read some x-rays, and hears him, and rushes into the OR. He gets Ma's heart going again, delivers Michelle, and sews her up. He's saved her life. But in street clothes, off the street - with no sanitation involved. So Ma has a horrendous infection and doesn't fully regain consciousness for like 8 days. Meaning it's over a week before she even finds out she's had twins.
DeeDee also had twins, as her 2nd and 3rd child (my cousins Annette and Andrea). After telling her doctor just how many sets of twins run up and down both sides of her family tree, and how she has a hunch based on how the movement feels inside, the doctor does some careful listening and detects a 2nd heartbeat. They were in a T shape, with Andrea the vertical one on the bottom and Annette horizontal on top. It was 5 weeks before her due date and her OB told her that she had to make a decision. Choice #1 was to deliver them by c-section right then; twins 5 weeks early in the 70s in Key West, meaning not even a decent hospital WITHOUT a NICU within an hour in any direction. Choice #2 was to wait and go into labor naturally; then it was possible that after Andrea was born, Annette would fall down into the right position and be able to be born vaginally, too. But if she fell transverse like she was, they'd have to deliver her by c-section. There were only two ORs on the island at the time; so there was no guarantee it would be quick and easy to get in there. If the twins were identical, meaning sharing one placenta, they were probably going to lose the second one after they cut the first umbilical cord. One other doctor suggested they just break baby #2s arm, dislocate the shoulder, and get her out through the vagina too, which was too horrific for anyone to consider seriously. DeeDee knew that ALL the twins in our family were non-identical twins, and she took the chance on waiting. She did have to have the 2nd one by c/s, and it was over an hour and a half wait, but luckily they were not identical so that part was ok.
There's actually a lot more where all this came from.
So this - this is my lineage. These are my genes. Women who I've loved; who I look like.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Is it just women in general? Is this why people are really loathe to have big families, and some to even have kids at all, anymore?
I had some pretty wack dreams last night.
But I'm also really glad to know it all, along with a whole lot of other things that have nothing to do with babies. It was a good visit overall and I tell you what...my Aunt DeeDee, walking around this house in a mumu-like nightgown and slippers, looks SO MUCH LIKE MY (dead) Ma...it's almost like my kids got to know her after all. A more mobile and independent, less volatile her ;) They drug her around looking at things, engaged her in games of Old Maid and Aaron dazzled her with his latest original piano piece.
Which is really incredible - I NEED to get it recorded and up somewhere.
