jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

I’m going to try to present this neutrally. I’m curious to hear what you think Damon should do.

When he was in college he befriended a girl who didn’t have much of a social circle. She had cerebral palsy and, seemingly, some emotional issues connected to the same. Their relationship was conducted via party conversations and the occasional phone call and email.

She began confiding in him more than he felt was comfortable. She also was pushing for more frequency of contact. He had no idea if her intentions were romantic, but he did his best to keep things where they were and stay out of the drama she tended to create. After graduation he faded out of her life fairly quickly.

Shortly after that she contacted his mother repeatedly over the course of several months, trying to locate him. His mom declined to share his contact information and she eventually gave up.

Now, about ten years later (she and Damon are both in their mid 30s), she’s found him on Facebook and sent a friend request. It came with a fairly involved note about how she’s still upset that he abandoned her and vanished, that she wants an explanation, wants to rekindle their friendship, etc. He decided to just ignore it. Multiple friend requests followed with an escalating level of ALL CAPS. Her final one went along the lines of, “I’ll never know why you hate me now so I’ll never have closure. But fine. I hope you’re happy. PS — I almost died six months ago.”

That was last week. Today he got an email from a woman he doesn’t know. She is a friend of this woman, and wanted to make an appeal to Damon to contact her. She said it’s very important and that a simple hello would bring this sick woman a lot of joy.

Damon has always felt sorry about the emotional distress she experiences, self created or not. I can see him starting to crack and want to send her a “I just got really busy so please don’t take it personally. I’m still really busy, but I hope you’re happy and well.” kind of email.

Smart internet friends, what say you?

I wasn’t kidding when I said I would try to stretch this birthday out.

Tonight I returned to the kitchen for the first time in weeks. I think I washed out in about my eighth month of pregnancy and mom has been handling the honors since she got here.

The thing is, I love to be in the kitchen and I’m awfully attached to controlling the nutritional input for my family. I’m far from perfect, but at least I can control whether I’m hitting my own minimum standards.

I decided that tonight is “birthday dinner” night and I would cook and then bake a cake.

Sidebar: I’ve latched on to the idea that every year I am going to bake my sons’ birthday cakes with my own little hands. Not from scratch, mind you. But at least I cracked the eggs, I ran the mixer, and — whatever the end result may be — it came out of my oven.

Last year I made an abomination of a monkey cake.

It did taste great.

This year I decided to take it down a level and make a rainbow cake. It went fine until about here:

I baked it as long as the box instructed. And then a little longer. When the toothpick came out clean I took it out to cool. But about ten minutes after that it became clear the cake wasn’t really done. I threw it back in the oven and dumped a plate of store-bought cookies on the table. Everyone got a glass of milk for dunking. Birthday dinner will carry over until tomorrow if it turns out that the extra bake time finished off the cake. If not I’ll just save up the rest of my fumbling for next year.

On a more successful note, I made white wine risotto with roasted shrimp, tomato and thyme for dinner and it was delicious. Alden spent the entire meal begging for his fourth serving of pickled okra.

And now, unrelated, let me see if I’ve got this video posting thing down. I took this months ago and finally managed to get it from camera to computer.

My sweet potato turned two yesterday.

He has no idea what a birthday is, but he knows to yell “Happy Day!” whenever he sees a pointy paper hat.

His day started on a down note, as we reported to his 2-year-old checkup at 8:15. Two vaccinations and a blood test were on the schedule, and all things considered I think he took it well. The blood draw took a minute and the whole time he sobbed into my shoulder, alternating between “No thank you!” and “I’m sorry!” The “I’m sorry” came, I think, in response to the nurse saying it first. But it still made me queasy. The nurse could be heard muttering, “Oh god, I can’t wait until I get my master’s and don’t have to do this anymore.” He was pitiful indeed. I am a little bit excited about the test though. In addition to testing his cholesterol (They start that at two — good grief) they will test his lead level. I fully expect it to have dropped dramatically from our horrifying one-year-old results and I can’t wait to hear it confirmed.

Other than the needle sticks, the appointment went just fine. He’s 25 pounds and he’s 33 (I think) inches tall. A peanut. But a smart peanut. His language is well ahead, he knows his numbers, colors and shapes (including funky stuff like trapezoid) and he can even do some simple counting like telling us how many stickers he has. Normally I get a little impatient with “My kid’s so smart” stuff. But it’s his birthday, so I’ll indulge just a little. Most importantly, he continues to crack me up. The other day I said, “I’m making you saag paneer for lunch” and he said, “Mommy, what are you talking about?” in this utterly exasperated way that just laid me out.

Last night we took him to Market Square, which is the little restaurant and funky shop spot downtown.

We found an air vent in the sidewalk.

And I let him take some photos with my camera.

Then we got a table on the patio of one of our favorite restaurants and had a vanilla and blueberry cupcake for dessert.

Grammy gave Alden his own watch.

His expression tells the story of how mommy and daddy aren’t so good with the fancy wrapped presents, as he had no idea what that was. When she handed it to him and said, “What is this?” He said, “Trash!” and our every entreaty to open it got the same response. “Need trashcan.”

What was exciting to him (other than the food) was that the hostess would stand right by our table when she yelled for parties waiting out on the square. He was enthusiastic about helping her and spent part of the night with his hands cupped around his mouth shouting “Betty! Betty! Lady is waiting for you!” until Betty and her friends were safely seated and drinking their wine.

He even capped off the night with a little love for little brother.

Note the restraining hand of Grammy, keeping him from loving too much.

Tomorrow the progressive celebration continues. We’re going to eat lunch in the park and then swing and slide and swing and slide. Maybe if I keep the second birthday party rolling he will consent to pause here for a little while, rather than growing up so fast.

Damon is taking Alden down to bed.

Damon: Say goodnight to everyone.
Alden:
— Good night Mommy
— Good night Grammy
— Good night Foot-Bump Elliot*
— See you tomorrow pizza**
(trailing away down the stairs)
— Good night noodles***
— Good night cookies***

*Out of concern for flu season in general and swine flu in particular, our pediatrician suggested we teach Alden to greet Elliot by patting him on the foot rather than getting right in his face. Every single nurse I saw in the hospital warned me about swine flu — it’s rampant here.
**As he passed our boxed leftovers. He was correct.
***He ate no such thing that day.

I thought it would be routine. And then I was surprised. Then I thought it might suck. But it totally didn’t.

One week ago today I had just been admitted to the hospital, and was drifting away on a tide of demerol and phenergan. Not, as one might assume (and most people did), because I was in labor. Instead it seems my gall bladder surrendered under the irritation of the pregnancy. One minute I was cruising along and the next I was snapped over with a very specific kind of piercing pain. Monday morning I got the shot in the hip and then went home to sleep it off and hoped to see the back of the issue. But when the drugs wore off the pain was back and I was admitted at about 9pm. Sonograms were not helpful because my gall bladder was shoved so far up under my ribs, and finally the doctors decided that we needed to get the baby out before anything else could be done. The hope was that would correct the issue and we could all forget it. Otherwise, at least a gastroenterologist could proceed with more invasive tests.

I never thought I’d be induced, but also wasn’t too worried about it. I was 39 weeks pregnant and already 3cm dilated, so I felt confident my body was already warming up the orchestra.

The nurses put in my IV and started me on little bumps of pitocin at around 8am on Tuesday. I dilated to 4cm. And stayed there for about 7 hours. One of the many weird things about this was that I was braced for the agony of the pitocin contraction. And then it turns out they were not remarkable to me. I was offered an epidural, and declined at that point because I still valued my ability to move around freely more than I felt hampered by pain. So on and on we went. No one, bless them, at any time said anything about a c-section or otherwise made me feel like a clock was ticking. Finally, because no position was having an impact, I said I’d go ahead and take that epidural. They hooked me up with the epi-lite (TM, if only in my head) which meant I could still move my legs and happily sit up cross-legged or kneel, which had been my preference all day. And still no real progress. I’d made it maybe to near 5cm by 5:45. My doctor came in and spent a lot of time checking out the situation. She finally said, “I think he’s just sitting a little bit funny and not hitting your cervix at the right angle.” Her suggestion was that we turn the epidural up and that I lie down on my left side, on the theory that would rotate him in the right way. Her hope was that if it worked we could have him in just a few hours. She asked me if I felt comfortable with her going to a work dinner she had planned, reassuring me that she could be back in 15 minutes if we called her. I said something breezy like, “Oh please do, no reason to sit around and watch me poke along.” Damon went down to grab dinner around 6. He rolled back in around 6:15. At about 6:20 my nurse came in to say, “I thought I’d come check and see if anything is happening.” The next thing she said was, “OH! He’s on the perineum. Don’t! Move!” I swooped my hand down, and there he was. The nurse hit her walkie talkie and a handful of other nurses came scooting in just Elliot glided into the arms of Nurse Diane. I had just enough time to say, “Seriously?!?!?!” before she dropped him on my chest. I guess Dr. Roberts was on to something with her funky angle observation. After that I got a serious talking-to from the on-call doctor, who wanted me to really hear her when she said that if we choose to have another baby we should be fully prepared for an unassisted home birth. Should the next one not be at a funky angle we might have less than an hour from start to finish. (PS — A “next one” is not on the agenda.)

The birth experience was at no point what I expected. And yet, it was funny, thrilling, and perfect for us.

Note the lack of head molding, as he spent just about no time in the birth canal.
7 lbs 3 oz
21 inches
seriously delightful

Alden is being generous and sweet, but he’s also clearly insecure. He wants to nurse every time he lays eyes on me, and gets all “Moooooommmmmmmmy” about everything. I’ve got a lot of patience for it. I know this is rocking his world.

Elliot is already deeply committed to scientific research.

His hair is so thick and black that one nurse asked me if my husband is Hispanic. Then the pediatric nurse practitioner said, “I speak Spanish so I see an awful lot of Hispanic families. I have never seen a baby with this much hair.” The truth is that I had the same head of hair. It’s a call back to our Sicilian heritage. He’s also a champion nurser and I may need to write a whole other post about how much easier (which is not to say totally easy) it is to nurse the second time around.