Bumps and Barf

How come you all didn't warn me about that ghastly stomach bug that rips through families and turns them upside down and makes the walls spin and leaves an otherwise capable set of parents completely debilitated and calling for reinforcements? Ooosh! The last 48 hours have been an adventure in acquainting myself with ye olde John Donne-ism that No Man is an Island. Indeed, I may have been marooned on the island of the pukeys in which I could NOT keep a drop of fluid down for more than 3 hours this weekend, but I was not alone. Lovey Loverpants was there on the Island of Puke, just trying to keep upright long enough to shovel the snow in order to make way for the Green Bus to make important trips to CVS for Pedialyte runs and to go to work. Baby Girl was there, too, and just clearly not herself. Didn't want to eat, didn't even smile before trying to dive off the bed where we change her diaper. Before Loverpants left for work yesterday, I did call some local friends like they were on my Samaritan hotline asking if they could spare an hour to keep Baby Girl from sucking on batteries while I napped. But then, by the mercy of God, I started to feel a little bit better, and this morning I woke up feeling like I had been given a new body. During our stay on the Island of Puke, two things became abundantly clear:

1.) We are very, very blessed with a caring set of friends. And I need to pay this realization forward, for sure.

2.) If there is ever a Baby Loverpants #2, he/she will not be raised in a place where the Island of Puke cannot be attended by members of the extended family. I was so desperate to just call my mother yesterday and for her to come over and wash my dirty dishes and tell me to go back to bed, because she had it all under control. I shall not be taking family for granted ever, ever again.

***

Here on the Island of Puke, we took directives from Nana Red to make ghetto pops: Half portion of Pedialyte, half portion of Propel, a little drizzle of apple juice; pour into Dixie cup, pop spoon in, freeze, give to teething sickly child.

Baby Girl thinks Ghetto Pops are suspect.

I don't blame her. ***

Oh! Also!! Baby Girl got her first battle wound! I saw it all go down and was paralyzed to stop it. A little girl at Itsy Bitsy Yoga who is otherwise sweet-mannered and maybe even a little passive saw Baby Girl gamely standing up and decided to pull her arm so she could go walk with her. I see the little girl taking Baby Girl by the hand, and suddenly I am thinking, Naw, she knows Baby Girl can't wa----OH shoot. Baby Girl clunks her head on the corner of a wall and breaks into the squishy mushroom face cry.

See the crease on her forehead?

Poor little bunny.

Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow...'cause Yesterday's Gone, Yeah Yesterday's Gone....

I am already a fan of 2009. The openness to this adjustment is rather surprising to me since 2008 was such a groundbreaking year of figuring out exactly how many rounds of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" it takes to get a toothing infant back to sleep AND WE MADE IT. I've been so focused on documenting each milestone (five and half months, slept through night; eight months, waved; nine months, pulled to standing) that the passage of one calendar into the next seems kind of negligible, irrelevant. I think this change in the way I perceive the passage of time makes me a little bit of a loser, but also little less daunted by the moments that keep on slipping away, like water in my sand ditch at the beach. But our calendar from Small Liberal Arts College on a Hill tells me it is indeed 2009 year of our Lord and so far I've been having a ball. Lovey Loverpants has had ample time off of work to chill and demo for Baby Girl the myriad batteries not included toys that now populate our WHAT WAS THAT I JUST PASTED TO THE FLOOR living room. Also, we've been wildly social. I mean playdate in the morning, a dinner at a restaurant with a waitstaff in the evening. Followed the next day by Itsy Bitsy yoga in the a.m. followed by a raucous toddler birthday (the second in a week!). Yoko Loco! We're pushing through a veritable hangover from the fun alone. In the meantime, I've been staying up to finish some final projects for class. I don't know how it all got done, but the files are uploaded and I feel happy for what I've learned, but even happier about what's to come, regardless of whose calendar we're consulting.

above: Baby Girl and I in front of the Talking Tree, Tower City, Cleveland

2008

2008: A performance play in five actsBy Kendra Stanton Lee with a nod to Susan Orlean

Act I: Birth

A handsome social worker answers the page and goes to the hospital at midnight, leaving his wife at home to breath through a deepening set of contractions. The irony is not lost upon the audience. Moments later, the social worker is at the hospital and receives a call. It is his wife. Buckets of water pour from the rigs up high. Symbolism! “My water broke, but I’m not in labor so take your time,” she says. The social worker moves between one hospital setting to the next. Comedy! The wife sits on a birthing ball. The wife paces the floor. The wife gives the nurses her book report on Eat Pray Love. The social worker husband takes a fitful nap. A dancing set of penguins in tuxedos cha-cha into the birthing room and offer an assortment of tea, cookies, and epidural. The wife chooses the epidural. A large clock winds in centerstage. Symbolism! The wife mock barfs and a nurse cries, Her temperature is 108! The wife is wheeled into a shop class where students in scrubs are making birdhouses and Amish benches with saws. She asks many important questions of the students, like, “Can I have some lip balm, it’s cold and dry in here.” The students tell her everything will be okay, she’s been through a lot, and by the way, she had a baby girl with big feet. The baby lets out a very loud cry, not unlike her mother’s. The first performance receives rave reviews. Various visits from several of the major donors follow.

Act II: Show and Tell

The new parents hold the new baby up like Simba on Pride Rock- only not so similarly so as to risk plagiarism – and then yank the child back. “Look, don’t touch,” they say in unison. The new parents default to perma-grins. Puppies jump over a rainbow in the backdrop. (Symbolism!) “She’s so cute,” the parents say, over and over. “She looks like me,” the parents say. The audience looks bored, with the exception of the major donors. “That’s the point,” says the director, satisfiedly.

Act III: Sleep

Zombies walk robotically across the stage. (Symbolism!) The baby cries. The mother wakes. “It is 1p.m., time to start our day!” she says, her enthusiasm questioned by the audience. The baby feeds. The mother looks at a calendar and asks, “Is it a freak leap year? Because yesterday was January 31 and today it is March 13!” The husband calls and asks for the 320532539082nd time how everything is going at home. The wife says she is hungry and can he bring home some sushi and KFC and a pumpkin pie? The baby smiles and says Noogoonoogoonoogoonoo. The husband arrives home on his bike with all of the rations. (Comedy!) The baby sleeps in her crib. The wife sleeps in the bottom of the bucket of KFC. The husband hides in the bathroom reading five months worth of ESPN the Magazine.

Act IV: Forgetting

The wife looks at a cart of merchandise from Target. “I didn’t pay for half of this?!” she says, incredulous. The baby laughs. The wife smacks her forehead. “I forgot to turn the oven off when I left the house!” The baby does a raspberry. The wife calls her husband on the phone. “You left your sandwich on the counter this morning. And then I left it there, too, even though I was supposed to bring it to you. Do you still want it?”

Act V: Remembering

The wife looks at pictures from the last year. She gets misty-eyed, even at the pictures of her face looking like a topographic road map and her pants covered in Desitin. The father sleeps for the first time in a year. The baby stands and says, “George,” and hugs her stuffed monkey. It is too early yet for her to know how to take a bow.