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Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Recommended reading

What do I do when there's too much on my mind and my words won't stick to the page? I escape into someone else's thoughts. Below is a collection of books and articles that have been sources of information, inspiration, and occasional insight for my own work.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Homesick for the holidays

At the end of the first week of December, D. hauls in the boxes of Christmas decorations from the garage and sets them on the living room floor, amidst the toys O. has scattered in every direction. From upstairs, where I'm getting O. ready to nap, I hear the familiar jingle of a wreath of bells, the rustling of artificial greenery, the whisper of tissue coming off carefully wrapped baubles for the tree. O. doesn't know these sounds yet. He gazes at me, placid and sleep-ready, hardly registering the activity in his customary play area below.

In past years, our halls were, at best, hastily decked ahead of the twenty-fifth. Gift runs were last-minute, and plans for festive meals got pared down because it was just the two of us -- why roast a whole turkey, we said, when we're about to leave for a week-long family visit? We were still in some ways our parents' children, returning to their homes for the real observance of the holiday. 

But this will be our first Christmas as a family of three, a family of our own. And even though O. won't remember anything of the event at ten months, I sense D. and I both feel there's more at stake in feting it properly before we join the celebration at my parents' place.

For starters, we've bought a bigger tree, whose parts D. is inspecting when I join him after O. is settled in his crib. I can tell he's excited -- he's wanted to have something more generous than our skinny six-footer for ages, and this fluffy spruce promises to fit the bill. "Christmas-y enough?" I ask with amusement as he wrestles top and bottom together.

"Absolutely. But how about you?" he asks. "What would make the house feel Christmas-y for you?"

I consider the question as I tackle the garlands D.'s set aside for our banisters. We already have holiday songs playing softly, many from an album of favorites I'd found for us when we were married seven years ago. My mother used to play the same collection -- on vinyl, rather than digital file -- while my sisters and I helped her decorate. As I bend and wrap, bend and wrap, coaxing fat lengths of prickly fir around a stair railing, the memory of my mother doing the same in our old house rises with the strains of Bing Crosby.

To my surprise, I don't have a ready answer for D. There's something needling me, and it's not the fake bristles that have come off on my sweater sleeves. It's a sadness that shouldn't have a place in D.'s invitation to create seasonal joy. Or so I stubbornly tell myself. That is what our efforts are about, right? Joy -- ours to seize, ours to share, with the delights of a first child's first experience of it all to cherish too.

I wonder why, in spite of so much happy, our plans feel flat. What's missing? Should we make Christmas cookies, the tree-shaped ones I used to love pressing M&Ms into as a kid? Should we take some to the family next door? I start to suggest these options but stop myself mid-sentence. Somehow I know they won't change my mood, despite my fond memories of rolling buttery dough in my mother's kitchen.

My mother too, I imagine, is going about her own preparations now for our post-Christmas visit. I hear the brisk slap of her house slippers as she carries armloads of craft-store trappings from room to room. She's talking to herself, sighing over bows that need pressing, noting the dust on the fireplace mantel, remembering the extra powdered sugar she's forgotten to pick up from the supermarket. The closer the holiday comes, the more stressed she grows. "I hate going near the grocery store right now," she'll say when I check in with her on the phone. In spite of her complaints, though, I know she'll make the trip for whatever she thinks she needs because it's part of the traditions she's built single-handedly over three decades of motherhood. The music, the garlands, the goodies she reserves to make at this time of year for the neighbors -- all of these have come to embody what is Christmas-y for her and, by extension, for me.

To duplicate that without my mother's presence, I realize, is impossible.

Still, I add red and gold ribbon bows to the garlands, just as my mother does. Then I step back, debating their effect. They draw my mother near in memory, and yet they make me ever more aware of her physical absence. Of how I'm grasping for pieces of my mother's version of the holiday because it's what represents the comfort of the season for me. Of the contradiction in wanting to capture that comfort, which only grows more elusive the harder I try to make it mine. Traditions take time to build. In a few years, we'll have our own favorite rituals and activities, but until then, the realm of possibility stretches so vast. It's this emptiness, I imagine, that's weighing on me. And the impulse to fill it with what I know.

If D. senses I'm feeling lost, he doesn't say so. But he offers to help me tuck lights around my handiwork -- the final touch my mother usually adds. I let him take over.

Not long after he's finished, O. stirs. There's the sound of soft babble, followed by a series of thumps. I find O. sitting in his crib, pajama-clad feet sticking through the bars he's whacking with his little hands. He flashes an enormous grin as I come into view, and the sweetness of that recognition pushes aside any other thoughts. "Hi there, little man," I say. He reaches to be picked up.

"Come," I say, carrying him into the hall. He looks at me gamely though he doesn't understand. And then his gaze settles on the stairs, the tree, the lights below. Though I haven't yet traced his line of sight, I can see the glow of our work reflected in his eyes.

I watch O.'s expression, expecting a smile or at least some indicator of his usual happy curiosity. After all, this is what I've been hoping for, in spite of the homesickness the last hour has wrought in me. But he observes with uncertainty, lips pressed tight, brows furrowed with concentration -- something's different about that space, his space. It is, I've forgotten, a room he's also used to laying claim to. And now I've made it anything but familiar in my quest for comfort and joy.

O. looks to me as if to ask, is this okay?

I laugh and cuddle him close. "We'll figure it out together," I whisper, trying to reassure us both.

*

This post appears as part of a series on mother-daughter relationships on Daily Plate of Crazy. Click here to read more essays in the collection.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

First day

My alarm goes off and my eyes snap open. Dark. It's 5:45, and even the cat is still quiet in her room, not pawing the door to be let out yet. I shake the grogginess from what feels like an otherwise empty space behind my forehead and will my feet to find the floor, then two old polar fleece slipper scuffs with the backs flattened into the soles.

I'm not in thinking mode yet, but this early morning is meant to provide the opportunity.

I let the tap run at the bathroom sink until warm water makes its way through the pipes. Face cloth, no soap. Just warmth and then coolness over my skin as dry air hits residual moisture. Lotion to seal it in, then downstairs to a borrowed laptop. Mine is hopelessly slow, with a space bar that sticks and a finicky charger. This won't do if I'm going to make these early mornings a habit.

Recipe for lemon curd. I've been craving this since before our fridge died, but only two months later am I finally getting to this just-for-me experiment. I've selected a few potential winners (gluten-, dairy-, and egg-free); all that's left is to pick one to try. I scan the instructions, looking for the most appealing candidate -- this is what I've decided to do with the half-hour that remains before getting O. up for the day. I choose the recipe with the least sugar. Corn starch into a small sauce pot, fresh lemon zest. This is as far as I get before breakfast can't be put off any longer.

I'm fine with the interruption. The lemon curd is what I would have spent O.'s morning nap researching instead of doing what I've really wanted to for months: writing. Really writing. Sitting-in-front-of-a-blank-page writing, the uncomfortable sort where the work is hard but the process is purifying and the lies and truths you tell yourself finally get separated because no one else but you is wrestling with the words on the page. I've needed that. This motherhood thing is wild and strange and moving ever faster and setting sentences down steadies me. Except having a very mobile nine-month-old makes doing that impossible while he's awake. And I want that curd too.

*

O. goes down as expected, three hours later, and I reopen the laptop. My brain is awake now, and the erratic static of synapses coming out of hibernation has given way to slightly more organized flashes of thought. Fuzzy still, but thought with language attached. The muscles that were once poised to translate these impulses into text on a page are stiff and tight with disuse. It actually hurts to make them rise to attention again. This isn't going to work, a voice says, infused with all the authority of the practical, no-nonsense persona I usually inhabit.

But I keep typing, even though the first words that appear make me cringe. You've really let yourself go, a second voice chimes in, its imaginary eye looking my writing up and down as if it might embody its writer.

So you admit there was a self to let go, I counter. That there is a self worth getting back.

At the end of an hour, I've dogged my way through three paragraphs, and the voices are quiet.

*

I expect not to return to the work once O. wakes again. The curd needs curding and I'm hungry enough to quit for lunch before O. starts to make noise in his crib. It's okay, I tell myself as I look at the scant progress on the page. This isn't a race. I add almond milk to the pot, set it on a low flame, and begin to stir. I'll come back to the writing tomorrow.

But even as I make my way through the afternoon with O. -- handing him junk mail to tear and wrinkle as I set aside statements and bills, reading from tooth-marked board books, stealing away for a few seconds to whisk the cooling curd -- my mind returns to the tangle of sentences I've left behind. It's happening. The writing sinews are twitching, demanding time and space to flex and uncramp. So is O. He seems to sense I'm not giving him my complete attention, and my offering the latest grocery coupons is not a substitute for play. He circles the living room aimlessly, shrieking his protests at the papers in his hands, and finally starts to cry. I pick him up. This isn't good enough. He wants a game, to tumble and tussle with me, but now he's too tired yet not ready to nap.

I snuggle him and let him finger the zipper of my fleece jacket, apologizing into the fine, silky hair on the top of his head. This is the part I don't yet know how to manage. Writing is immersive, a state nearly as hard to step out of, once I will myself in, as the bed I left this morning. Alert writer, groggy parent.

This is only the first day, though. O. eventually stuffs his fingers in his mouth and snuggles back, his way of telling me he's getting sleepy at last. I think back to the early weeks when naps had no pattern or predictability, and even learning to hold his flailing limbs to lull him into slumber felt awkward. My arms know his shape and heft now, and not from anything more than lifting, cradling, moving with him daily. I remind myself that the day's routine, too, will make space for new habits as long as I start treating them as parts of me again. With tussles reserved for play, not attention.

O. goes down readily, lower lip tucked up tightly under the top one, the rest of his body limp. I head back to the kitchen. Spoon. Sauce pot. The curd looks thinner than I'd expected, but it coats the sides of its container with promise. I taste.

The brightness of lemon dances on my tongue. Its tart zing is everything I'd been hoping for.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Those busy, busy feet

Before O. was born, we brought home a tiny pair of cowboy boots that D. had loved when he was little. They'd been stored by his parents for years, waiting to be handed down when the occasion arose. A few weeks before O.'s arrival, I set them on the bookshelf in his bedroom, thinking they'd be cute and figuring they wouldn't be needed for at least a year.

O. decided he was ready to walk two weeks ago.

At nine months old this week, he's gone from taking tentative steps to running headlong from one end of the living room to the other. There are slips and stumbles and wipeouts, of course. But our fearless little man has managed to get his legs under him in less time than it took for him to be ready to leave the womb. Consider me gobsmacked.

He entertains himself by toddling in circles around the couches -- following a similar path as the one D. used to wander with O. in his arms when O. needed soothing to sleep. Now these are routes for wide-eyed exploration. Does he realize he's retracing his steps? I wonder as he zips past for the nth time, a favorite stuffed toy rattle in his hands. He pauses only to exchange the jingle of soft bells for the remote control's novel buttons that light up when pressed -- or mouthed. Though he's going nowhere, he moves always with most urgent purpose.


The more speed he gathers, the less forward motion I seem to be able to make on my own roads toward -- well, anything. I know it's normal, but I feel scattered (even with breaks for mug cake). On the wish list of personal projects: work on hand-made Christmas gifts, sort through clothing for donation, reorganize closet, print wedding photos. Yes, wedding photos! We have yet to do that since we got married seven years ago, and now with so many shots of O. also in the queue, I fear it will never happen. His baby book has more in it than our wedding album. In fact, I'm not even sure if we have a wedding album ...

It's odd, that need to get something done. That's all I want, really, to finish something and, if I'm lucky, enjoy the process involved. Maybe the problem is in wanting an end at all -- but I can't turn everything into a love-the-journey thing. Sometimes you really do want to think about and be delighted by the destination and be done with getting there. Holiday travel comes to mind -- preparation for all that is taking priority now too. If you think baby-proofing our own house has been an adventure with an early walker, consider the grandparents' homes we'll be visiting. They're definitely not ready. Thinking ahead of what our families need to know -- and conveying the information effectively -- is my new responsibility.

So here I am, trying to stay one step ahead, to get somewhere, though on some days, I know O. isn't the only one running in circles. He just doesn't mind.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.


Saturday, October 26, 2013

Treats for the overbooked

The fourth-quarter time-crunch is making itself known early this year.

Somewhere in my heart, I love fall and the winter holidays that follow. But for the last several years, the final months on the calendar have felt overstuffed with commitments I've been less than eager to agree to. This one is no different.

Maybe it's the fault of the airlines that make it impossible to enjoy a brief trip for Thanksgiving with our extended family -- an itinerary for a long weekend has now stretched to nine days in a very non-baby-proof house because tickets at a better price couldn't be had for a shorter stay. And maybe it's my giving in yet again to D.'s ambitious plans to transform our front porch into a spook alley of sorts for Halloween, requiring trips to Home Depot and Radio Shack for staging supplies and subsequent test runs with the setup. Add to this that dead fridge we've been working around since the middle of September; a work trip D. took earlier this month, leaving me on complete baby duty for a week; and the head cold* and food poisoning D. managed to get (the latter not because of our dead fridge but from some baaaaaaad catering), extending my round-the-clock call shift to cover not just O.'s usual demands but also D.'s sorry state of affairs.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I'm out of enthusiasm for the remainder of 2013, but I feel like a curmudgeon. Isn't this when I'm supposed to be getting excited? Baby's first Halloween? Turkey Day? Christmas?

I'll get there. The fridge is finally working as of this morning, after six weeks' hiatus. Hooray for no longer living out of a cooler and being done with twice-daily ice pack changes, no thanks to the repair service's obscenely backed up bookings. As if there wasn't enough changing going on in this house ...

What holds stress at bay for me is carving out time to (1) read, (2) write, (3) knit, and (4) bake. Given the demands of most of October, (1) has been occurring in the middle of the night after O.'s 1 a.m. feeding -- fifteen minutes before I make myself get back in bed -- and (3) has been an intermittent affair where, if O.'s playing happily by himself, I steal ten minutes to knit one row of a sweater I'm making for D. while keeping an eye on our busy little man from the couch. Obviously, (2) has received short shrift, though I've gathered plenty of ideas during the morning walks D. and I have been taking with O. -- that half-hour before D. leaves for work is essential check-in time for us and a built-in brainstorming window. Maybe, just maybe, now that our fridge insanity is over, I will get a few precious minutes back in my day to put text on the page.

As for (4)? Well ... it's hard to bake much when you can't store large quantities of milk (alternative or otherwise) and eggs or their substitutes. What's a girl with cake-lust to do?

Leverage the power of the microwave.

Several months ago, I stumbled upon a recipe for single-serving mug cake on the internet. You put the ingredients in a mug, stir, zap, and voila! Dessert for one. The version online used the aforementioned refrigeration-required ingredients, but I figured out how to tweak the concoction and get rid of some fruit that was going to go bad without a good chill. Double bonus! It's the small victories, no?

I'm sharing because this little five-minute treat got me through the last month and a half. If you like your chocolate dark and rich, this is all kinds of molten goodness. And if you prefer your cake on the vanilla side (or apple-walnut, carrot-coconut, ginger-peach, cardamom-pear, blueberry-cinnamon ... I could go on), I have adjustments. Just ask.

Gluten-free Chocolate Mug Cake
Serves 1 frantically fridge-less curmudgeon, with or without germ-laden husband and teething 8-month-old

1/2 very ripe pear, skin removed, or 2-3 tbsp applesauce or leftover baby food puree, any vegetable
1/8 c garbanzo flour or brown rice flour
1/8 c baking cocoa
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp chocolate chips
1 tbsp sucanat or brown sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Several generous dashes of cinnamon

1. If using pear, cut into chunks and heat in mug in microwave with olive oil for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir to mush. Otherwise, place applesauce or baby food puree in mug and proceed to step 2, no heating required. Seriously, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, green beans -- I've used them all. No fridge, remember? I couldn't let that stuff go to waste.

2. Add all dry ingredients with exception of chocolate chips. Add water and, if not already used when heating pear, olive oil. Stir well, then add half the chocolate chips to the batter and distribute throughout. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips over surface.

3. Heat in microwave for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes, depending on the wattage of your machine (ours is pretty weak). If you like your cake really molten, err on the lesser side.

4. Dust with additional sweetener if desired (I found the chocolate chips were enough to carry the rest of the cake). Enjoy, preferably in a location where neither husband or baby can distract you for five blissful minutes. It's worth every second.


* Despite all the complaining, I am enormously grateful that by some miracle, neither O. nor I caught whatever D. got. It really is the small victories.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Bedtime

Tucked under my arm on his back, O. arches and wriggles vigorously until he is prone. He knows we're not in his room, in the easy chair we'd finally started using for nursing just six weeks ago. We're on the guest room bed, light from the halogen bulbs in the adjoining bathroom stabbing into the dark with an almost palpable edge. My attempt at drawing a soft glow through the cracked door for this feeding hasn't quite worked, and the attractions of an as yet unexplored environment are too much for O. to ignore in favor of sleep.

He pushes up on all fours to look at the closet doors, the ironing board left at the foot of the bed, the stitching on the comforter. His mouth forms a tiny O, the expression he wears in moments of discovery. Brows knitted in concentration, he crawls toward the edge of the mattress and is ready to plunge headlong to the floor, but I scoop him up first, carrying him back to his room across the more gently lit hall. "Huh," he says in a tone that mixes surprise and disappointment. He's over it in seconds, looking to see what new territory he might investigate.

I return to the easy chair, which, of late, has been growing too small for the two of us. O. is a long baby -- all torso, with powerful legs that love to kick the back of the seat or its arms, no matter which way I turn. Nursing when he's not already sleepy is sometimes an athletic exercise. I've managed to stop him from biting since his first teeth started coming in, but kicking? We'll work on curbing this -- teaching nursing manners, some call it -- but the day's been long enough with a dead fridge and a repair man who's missed his appointment here for the second time in two weeks that I haven't been inclined to interrupt each feeding repeatedly to get the message across.

Tomorrow, I tell myself. It's just another boundary O.'s revealed that we need to enforce. Not that he understands limits yet -- that won't come for another few months. For now, we're just doing impulse management. Last week, O. figured out how to flip over mid-diaper-change on the bureau by raising his arms and grabbing the edge of the changing pad above his head for leverage. It took several days' consistent interference to discourage him from making it a habit.

Now, O. is wide awake, but I hope that in the dark, in my arms, he'll settle down and begin to drift off as he usually does when I nurse him here at bedtime. But he presses the soles of his feet into my lap, bouncing like a jumping jack. So I let him stand, holding his sturdy form close, and wait. I press my cheek to his and breathe in his babyness, knowing these opportunities are numbered.

It is the first time we've sat together this way, in his room completely unlit. Normally, when he needs to be put down, I walk the floor with his head resting on my shoulder -- if he will rest it there. He is all energy these days, eager to stand with help from any piece of furniture and itching to take his first steps alone. It's all too soon for me. O. is barely seven months old, but like D., who walked at eight, he's been early to seek ambulatory independence. I'm not ready to relinquish the baby who was once content to be cuddled for this new wiggle-worm who protests being asked to lie still, even to eat.

As our vision adjusts, I watch O.'s gaze, dark eyes searching as they do when he wants my attention. Can he see me? I wonder. He must be able to -- I notice his mouth is no longer rounded in wonder but neutral. I am not something newly discovered, or at least his perception of me, indistinct as I may be in deep shadow, is familiar. It is no accident that he reaches for my face with both hands, fingers closing with purpose, and grabs at my cheeks, my nose. I gently move his hands aside, but not before he gets in a good pinch, legs still flexing all the while.

And then his bouncing stops. His eyes have found mine. I give him a smile, which he normally returns readily, but tonight he just gazes back with a look that seems serious and penetrating. Or is it that he really can't make out much in the dark? I can't be sure. In that moment, I see wisdom in those soft, liquid stars reflecting their light at me, a peaceable security in O.'s understanding of the world as he knows it even in this shadowed state.

I'm tempted to ask him what he's thinking. I know he can't answer, but lately, he's been babbling to us as if we are fluent in his language. His unusual silence, then, feels suddenly powerful, almost uncomfortably so -- I'm catching a glimpse of an old soul, one I didn't know existed within O.'s wiggly exterior. To speak -- and elicit O.'s coos in response -- would be to scare this other presence away that lightlessness has revealed. I don't want that, as much as I also yearn for the sounds that reassure me that O. is still no more than a baby.

So I stay silent. After a minute or two, O. reaches once more for my face and brushes his fingers softly over my skin, then plunges his head into my shoulder. He's ready to sleep, even if he isn't falling asleep. We rise together from the chair, his limbs tightening ever so slightly around me against gravity until the familiar firmness of his crib mattress replaces the security of my arms. Without protest, he curls up roly-poly-style, as if nothing unusual has transpired, and I step out of his room into the light.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Sanity, regained


O. is nursing.

At five months, he finally -- finally! -- figured it out and is now able to get what he needs from me without causing either of us trauma. We started giving him the opportunity to nurse without a supplemental feeder just over seven weeks ago, and, within a few days, he was completely off his training wheels. We are ecstatic.

There have been a few bumps along the way since that first day entirely free of the pump -- some frustration on O.'s part, heat waves that have thrown his appetite off, plugged ducts from having to adjust to less frequent feeding demands -- but that's been nothing compared to the brutal routine of juggling so much nursing equipment in the preceding months (see photo). For the first time since O. was born, I've been able to sleep more than two and a half hours at a stretch. This may go without saying, but I have to write the words because I've wanted to for so long: I am a different person -- a sane one -- once more.

Sleep has meant the return of coherent thought. Instead of falling asleep while pumping -- not something I recommend, by the way, as the pump doesn't quit when it's full -- I've had the gift of quiet moments to reflect on what the last five (almost six!) months have been. O. is easily distracted these days, so there's no catching up on Netflix while he's eating. He'll even turn a nursing cover into a toy, so we keep to his room, lights down, for most feedings. He grabs at my hair, my shirt, my hands. And I sit, thinking in twenty-minute stints about the road we've traveled.

For the first two months of O.'s life, I felt robbed. Not of the breastfeeding relationship some books tout as sacred -- believe me, we didn't have any holy notions about my providing nourishment; in fact, we deliberately steered clear of any conversations with well-meaning people who were self-proclaimed boob enthusiasts because we didn't want to get into debates about lactation philosophies and politics. We just hoped breastfeeding would work and we could check it off the list of things to learn to do, like burping and diapering and giving the occasional bath.

But as a few days' nursing strike turned into weeks, I felt my ability to handle the expected abnormal of having a new baby leaching from me. I had no emotional energy left to love O. with. What I would have traded just to have fragmented sleep and unstructured days only from an infant's erratic waking, not his middle-of-the-night cries and the demands of the pump. It wasn't supposed to be this way, I kept repeating to myself, even though I knew it wasn't helpful. I'd look at O. in his rocking seat and dread the next time he'd rouse himself and then feel guilty that I couldn't enjoy him when he was awake. Every interaction we had was too fraught with the frustrations of getting him to eat, figuring out why he wouldn't eat, allotting precious time I could be using to bond with him to contact doctors who could help us help him eat. Eat already! I wanted to scream. "If it weren't for that damned risk of food allergies," I repeated to D. over and over, teary and spent, "we could just stop the insanity and give him formula. I don't care about the rest of the stupid benefits of breast milk. This is crazy."

But the risk was very real because of my family history. And putting ourselves through a few months of pumping to avoid a potential lifetime for O. of eating the way I have since we discovered what was making me sick was worth the heartache. Or so I told myself at my lowest points, when I wanted to quit and said so to O. in no uncertain terms. Fortunately, he understood none of it. He'd grin at me while I mumbled obscenities through gritted teeth, a smile plastered across my own face to disguise the misery I was feeling. I was scraping bottom then but still determined not to let him see or hear it after slipping just once on the phone with D. D. was held up at work, I was on my fourth pump-and-feed of the day (flanges attached, bottle and baby also in my lap), and I was fighting what I didn't realize was a nasty breast infection. "I just need you to come home," I all but wailed at the phone, balanced on speaker mode on a nearby table. At the sound of my agitated voice, O. burst into tears -- not a cry of hunger or tiredness, but alarm. I picked him up immediately, apologizing into the impossibly soft crook of his neck as he rested his head against my cheek and sighed a shuddery half-sigh.

If only everything could be fixed so easily, I thought.

As these recent weeks have brought a new rhythm to our days and nights, I've been drawn to the idea of putting O.'s story into a more formal body of work. Partly to process it all with the tempering effect of distance, partly to reclaim and recast some of those early memories in a way that I couldn't when we were in the midst of the chaos. Hindsight is a gift -- especially with a positive ending.

I don't know what this project will become. Maybe some of it will appear here; maybe it won't. I've learned more than I ever wanted to about making decisions for the life of someone entirely dependent on my good judgment when I was the least objective mind in the room. I know, I know -- this is just the beginning, you say. But had I had the words of experience to hang on to from someone who had once been in our position, I think I would have felt just a little less hopeless at the worst moments. That is a reason, if any, to write all this into something coherent.

Long-form work and I have had a tenuous relationship in the past (think: the MFA thesis that almost wasn't). But the story I was writing then had no resolution. O.'s does. I'll take it as an auspicious sign that I've actually acquired nearly two dozen books from the library just to read what's already out there for mothers who face what we have. There are a surprising number of resources from those shelves that provide information on what we had to learn the hard way or gather in fragmented fashion from so-called lactation consultants. Interestingly, all of the books I requested were readily available -- no waiting lists for holds -- unlike the majority of the popular pregnancy and childbirth books in circulation. I may be jumping to conclusions based on our experience, but I suspect they're hanging out in the stacks because no one knows they exist -- or knows to go looking before they're needed. I certainly didn't.

I hefted my finds into two big canvas bags at our library on one of the hottest days of the summer, wearing O. in his carrier as I bent to remove each title from the holds shelf. He squirmed against me, eager to be free of his constraints or just hungry; I wasn't sure. But he was motivated and so was I. So I'm putting whatever this is -- brainstorm, project, as-yet-formless cloud of inspiration -- out there to give it weight. Matter, in its many senses, because it does matter. And I'm actually a wee bit convinced, dare I say it, that I can carry it for a while.

P.S.: For those of you who have asked how that trip to Florida went, it did indeed get postponed -- and relocated. Stay tuned for our first plane trip coming up in September, as we fete Troubadour Dad's 60th in the Texas panhandle ...

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Positive

It is one year from the day the pregnancy test comes back with a YES+ on its little liquid crystal screen, and we are not, as I'd been planning, about to get on a plane to Florida.

To clarify -- I didn't decide upon learning we were going to be parents that I wanted to observe the first anniversary of said news by hitting the beach. It is sheer luck that on the morning before our trip, I happen to be scrolling through the pictures of O. on my phone, looking for a recent one to e-mail to a friend while I wait for the breast pump to do its business. I notice how long the photo stream has gotten, images predating even the Great Elimination Diet of 2011. Time to clear out the clutter. But then the picture of that YES+ flashes by and I pause. One year tomorrow.

I remember taking the picture, not out of sentiment but out of a need for proof. I knew the battery in that digital dipstick would die long before I'd believe that we were really and truly going to be a family of three, so I snapped the shot and filed it away like a secret. During that shaky first trimester, I let it whisper its promise to me when I worried O. wasn't going to make it. Yes, it's real. Yes, you can handle this. Not just yes, but YES+ you will get through whatever may come.

One year later, I'm making a mental game plan on how to space out the pumpings en route to Troubadour Dad's destination birthday celebration so I don't completely drain the pump battery before I can find a wall socket on our layovers. Life before O. is practically unrecognizable.

I notice the text message from my mother after I've finally chosen a picture to send: "You need to call me right away if u can." I brush aside my momentary irritation with the random shorthand pronoun in the otherwise normally typed sentence. What's this about? I tap the phone's screen to dial my mother's cell. Dread mixes with the feeling of hunger in my gut. I'm always hungry these days. But the thought of granola and coffee (quarter caf) slips down the list of priorities as I wonder if something has happened to my father.

There is no reason to expect such a thing today. But the alarming lack of detail in the message leaves me fearing the worst. You don't text someone the news that a loved one has suddenly taken ill or become victim to some other misfortune -- you call. But we're two time zones apart, and it's barely 7 a.m. in Seattle. I imagine my mother, worried about waking us up but also trying to manage whatever it is that's so serious it can't be conveyed in writing. I wait for the first ring at the end of the line in Texas, eyes scanning the half-packed feeding supplies on the kitchen island. Disassembled bottles and nipples and cleaning supplies wait to be sorted into various carry-ons. I'm hoping they'll all fit. But is my father all right? Was there some kind of accident? Stroke or heart attack?

No -- just a wannabe hurricane raining on his birthday plans.

I'm simultaneously relieved to get this news from my mother and thoroughly exasperated. Couldn't you have just followed up your message with something along the lines of "change in travel plans"? I think to myself. I check the time on the text. It was sent a half-hour before I received it. Plenty of opportunity to add some clarification.

We chat about Tropical Storm Andrea while I make the coffee and toss oats, nuts, a dash of oil, and lots of cinnamon into a bowl. I stick the works in the microwave on half power, fingers flying over the buttons on autopilot. My mother wants to reroute everyone to another destination so we can at least observe my father's birthday as intended. It won't be the same, of course -- my father's been looking forward to heading out with the same sea captain he's been fishing with almost yearly since I was in high school -- but it's the gathering of the clan my father wants more than anything else. And even I can't say no to him, despite all instincts screaming otherwise. O.'s feeding problems make it nearly impossible to get five miles from the house, much less three thousand.

"Yes, I'll take a look at the options," I say to my mother. "Yes, I'll get back to you when I have more information."

Yes, yes, YES+. I have to laugh at the message in that photo, tossed into this alternate context. In truth, I'm not sure which gears to shift to make a new plan work at this stage of the game. It's certainly magical thinking on my mother's part that we'll be able to find affordable tickets, but having strategized on the level of a military maneuver to get O., the pump, and me to Florida and back, I'm not about to pull out of trip-prep mode until we are sure there's no way to convene, whatever the new location. Chez Dr. Sis and Marketing Sis in Boston? My parents' place in Texas?

I'm not an optimist by nature, and if I ever was one, the events of the last three months have certainly had their chance to turn me. It's less crazy-making to consider what might go wrong with O. and plan accordingly than to tell yourself the other shoe has dropped already and to stop worrying, to expect some kind of relief.

But it could always be worse. At every stage of the game when things have gotten worse, I've reminded myself that I should have been grateful for what was working. Maybe this is why I still believe we're going to get on that plane to somewhere the next day. I still have my plan -- it just needs some tweaking to accommodate a new destination.

*

I'm linking up today with Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below!

Mama’s Losin’ It

Friday, June 21, 2013

New standards in multitasking?

On the days O. wakes up early from his afternoon nap, I'm not inclined to give up my plans completely -- nap time, when I'm not pumping or running errands, is for exercise and/or doing a little something exclusively for my own pleasure in order to maintain my sanity. How to build that into baby-entertaining? Witness this four-point intervention:


1. That knitting project you see in the foreground? I've been working on it while pumping in the middle of the night. Turns out it's also doable while ...

2. Ellipticizing. Sure, I'm not using the handlebars (you can see the yarn draped over the left-hand one), but my arms are getting plenty of toning at other times of day from hefting ...

3. O., who is holding my ball of yarn (and also pulling it apart), while I talk to him -- they say you know you're exercising at an appropriate intensity if you can still hold a conversation. I can't say my chit-chat is scintillating, but I'm pretty sure he is fascinated by the movement of the machine, which is a great device for ...

4. Getting O. to turn his head to the left. We had his 4-month check-up last week, where it was determined that all's well -- he's grown another 3 inches since his 2-month visit! We are now, however, supposed to work on evening out the asymmetrical flatness to the back of his head. He favors lying with his head turned to the right, hence the pediatrician's recommendation that we interest O. in all things on the opposite side.

I think I'm going to call this a decent compromise for all parties involved. Or at the very least, something I can look back at and laugh about someday.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Highs and lows

Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Is this thing on? Screech of microphone feedback. Hi! We're still alive over here. Surreptitiously nudges door of bedroom closed to hide ground zero: perpetually full laundry hamper; half-unpacked suitcases; stack of unread magazines and library books; and spit-up rags draped over portable crib, infant rocking seat, and end of (still) unmade bed.

Where was I? Oh, right. O. is thirteen fourteen fifteen almost sixteen weeks old, a good bit past the halfway point to the day we can start introducing him to solid food. (In the name of all that is holy, that day cannot come soon enough.) I'm still pumping up to ten times in a 24-hour period to get him fed, which, per our calculations, is about 7 hours attached to the machine, plus time cleaning pump parts in between each use. Which means this is literally a second job -- the first being to feed the same milk to O., do his oral therapy, change his diapers, play with him, get him to nap, and, of course, love the heck out of him.

Attempts at essay writing have been laughably fragmented, kind of like most mental processes I assail with the grace of a zombie these days. But to provide an update, I thought I'd offer some high/low entertainment for the few who are still checking in here to make sure we haven't completely fallen off the earth. (By the way, you all mean the world to me and the shadow of my former self who misses this space more than I have words even on less sleep-deprived days to use to express my gratitude.) So, for those who've been asking how we're doing ...

High: O. is turning into quite the social little guy. He discovered the world at around ten weeks old and started cooing at everything. Somewhere between an owl's hoot and a dove's cry, his little invitations to converse go out to people and inanimate objects alike, and when he gets a response, his delighted smiles are so enormous that they almost don't fit between his ears. That's made introducing him to others hugely rewarding -- and it's motivated me to keep making lunch dates with pre-baby friends, even if getting out of the house requires precision organization and timing as well as a good bit of luck to make it to an engagement and back before the next scheduled pumping.

Low: Pump schedule anxiety. As you get off by a few minutes here and there throughout the day because you wanted to go have some social time or run errands that you'd otherwise have to depend on your husband to do (which means he'd have to do them after work, depriving you of any time together before you have to go to bed), you're suddenly out an hour or more of sleep because you have to shorten the time between pumping intervals overnight to play catch-up. That sentence probably makes no sense whatsoever if you've never had to do pump schedule math, but just trust me when I say it sucks (ha!) to have to choose to give up even more sleep time, when you already get so little of it, or accept the alternative -- living in near-total isolation five days a week. Hard to say which is more detrimental to one's general mood since the former continues to deplete serotonin, which you need proper sleep cycles to make, while the latter just makes for a very lonely existence. And no, listening to your husband snore in blissful oblivion in the same room while you pump does not count as time spent together.

High: Did you know dark chocolate has been shown to promote serotonin production? I've been leaning heavily (no pun intended) on this brand* of tasty goodness to keep the sleep deprivation from pulling me completely under.

Low: I've been leaning heavily (pun intended) on the aforementioned chocolate. I don't have much baby weight to lose, but it's not going anywhere as long as I'm going through a few bags of these morsels per week ...

High: O. has discovered how to bring his fists to his mouth and keep them there, which means he can self-soothe for much longer periods of time. Hello, three-hour naps!

Low: O. is only successful at self-soothing when he's on his tummy. Putting baby to sleep unsupervised on his front is a big no-no until he can roll over. Enter three-hour sleeping baby-watching sessions. I have nightmares about infants who find creative ways to asphyxiate (self-strangulation with swaddle blanket, among others) the moment someone takes an eye off them. While this is not nearly as great a threat in real life, O. has managed to get his swaddle inside out and up over his head in the throes of slumber:


Note too that he was aligned with the long axis of the crib when I put him down and was able to rotate 90 degrees on his back (how?!) also while asleep. I hope this doesn't mean he's going to be a sleepwalker.

High: Two Skype accounts + two laptops + USB camera = instant video-equipped baby monitor. Skype even puts a video window on your computer screen when you've minimized the application but still have a call in progress. Guess what I'm watching right now as I type. Indeed, I can now take some advantage of O.'s developing nap schedule to do things like exercise. Yes, the laptop is perched on the elliptical at this very moment -- we're big fans of multitasking these days. I wonder if I can also pump while working out on this machine ...

Low: Protecting the nap schedule means even less opportunity to go out. Disturbing your baby's daytime sleep on a regular basis can supposedly lead to poor sleep at night, which is the last thing we want to encourage, and already we know O is much more difficult to get to sleep whenever he gets overtired. Of course, O.'s longest wakeful period happens to occur right before rush hour traffic begins, and you really have to want whatever it is you're going out to get if it means you risk being stuck away from home for way longer than you'd anticipated. Lunch dates may soon give way to afternoon coffee dates. See pump schedule anxiety.

High: Since O.'s become more successful at getting his fists to his mouth, he's done some good work on his jaw to loosen up the muscles. We're now getting him to latch much better, even though he's still not efficient enough to take a full meal on his own. This device, which has a reservoir he can drink from simultaneously at the breast, is helping us. Recently, O.'s occupational therapist increased our "homework" from two nursings a day with the feeder to four, with the goal of eventually doing every nursing this way until we can wean him off the feeder as well. There is hope! I can't believe I can say this after so many weeks of feeling that there wasn't.

Low: More frequent nursing = erratic, delayed pumping + clogged ducts + more nipple damage. We're forever trying to walk the line between getting O. more nursing time and not injuring me to the point of increased infection risk. Unfortunately, we're battling what we think is thrush. I'll spare you the details, but if you're fighting the same fight, there are some decent (though scary) resources available on what you're working with -- consider yourself warned if you really want to go looking. Latching is, to the say the least, way more painful with all of the above going on. One step forward, two steps back. We now log additional time running pump parts through the dishwasher (three cycles daily) and sterilizing every set by steaming it in the microwave afterward.

High: Out of sheer frustration with the limits of being attached to a pump 7 hours a day plus all the extra cleaning time, I've gotten shockingly adept at pumping in unusual places and situations, even with O. in tow. I can now set up and use the pump entirely on my own in a public location (with the help of two nursing covers) as long as there is a flat surface I can set the apparatus on and a safe place to put O. so I don't have to hold or wear him (assuming he's amenable to that in the moment). I have also figured out how to nurse and pump simultaneously to address, at least some of the time, the conflicting demands of maintaining milk supply and getting O. more latch time. I feel like a one-woman circus every time I have to do either of these things, but I'm also weirdly proud that I have developed working solutions to get around these rather sizable situational obstacles. A car adapter even makes it possible to take the show (literally) on the road -- we managed to have our first road trip as a family over Mother's Day weekend. It was just 200 miles to Portland to see some good friends of mine from college, but it might as well have been twice the distance, as it took twice as long to get there with our various stops to dig out or put away pump parts and milk storage supplies. Fortunately, after a few rounds, we started to develop a better system, but it still needs some streamlining to be space-efficient. I think the pumping equipment occupied more of the seat than I did for most of the ride, which won't work for longer trips.

Low: Speaking of which, we have been somewhat arm-twisted into going to Florida for Troubadour Dad's destination celebration in honor of his 60th birthday next week. Feting this occasion will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, which we certainly consider to be a good thing. Working out the logistics of said trip, however, has been a nightmare. There is that whole problem of space limitations when pumping on a plane (and we thought the front passenger seat of a car was a squeeze!) while simultaneously juggling a lap child. There is also the fact that breast pumps, as medical equipment, are subject to certain FAA rules and individual airline policies. The hospital-grade model we had rented isn't permitted for use in flight because it only works when plugged in. Because our airline does not wish to be liable for any passenger's medical needs because of power loss or failure (the outlets on planes are sometimes turned off by the pilot at certain points during flight, according to our airline's Special Assistance desk, which handles queries from folks like us), I had to spend the last several weeks chasing down a hospital-grade rental with a battery that could be recharged and would last for more than a single pumping. I found one after a lot of research (hey, what is overnight pumping time for?) but its battery had been run down so badly that it wouldn't hold more than 15 minutes of charge when I tested it at home. Which meant I had to find more time to take the whole mess back to the renter and have them send it to the manufacturer to exchange for a new pump. See pump schedule anxiety. Oh, and let's not even think about how we're going to make that schedule work across two 14-hour travel days ...

So there you have it -- apologies that it's taken a month to write. We are zeroing in on our departure date with alarming speed, which means I should be using this time to deal (further) with trip logistics. Tips for air travel with an infant and/or taking a baby to the beach are very, very welcome! (Please ... forewarned is forearmed.) I have to say, as the ringmaster of this Cirque du So-Lait, I never thought things could get this crazy. The silver lining, I suppose, is that when O. either figures out how to breastfeed well or he's old enough to get his nutrition in other ways, getting through a normal day, with or without travel, will feel so much easier. At least, I'm counting on it!

* The experts recommend that you consume dark chocolate that is at least 70 percent cacao, and I haven't determined if this product qualifies as such, but given my food sensitivities, this was the only option available to me. If you're dealing with postpartum slump and can consume something clearly marked 70 percent cacao or more, do it!

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Misjudged

It's the day of our weekly parent-baby class at one of the local hospitals, and I am running late as usual. Not that it matters -- it's a casual group for new moms and dads with babes-in-arms (or strollers or carriers or whatever works for your particular infant), and people trickle into the meet-up as they're able to. But I'm late, and before O., I was rarely ever, and I haven't yet reached the point of not caring.

Despite numerous car trips with O. since his birth, I'm apparently also still not used to using the rear passenger doors to get him in and out of his car seat in tight parking spaces. The clunk the door makes when I open it, hitting the SUV next to us, startles me. What the hell? I think. How did I so badly misjudge --

"You have got to be kidding me," a voice says. The driver's door to the SUV has opened, and a woman with a deep tan, enormous sunglasses, and a suit that hugs her buxom figure leans out. "Did you scratch my car?" she asks in a tone that implies that she's sure I have.

I gape and look because it's reflexive. With relief, I note that the black finish is clean, save for some pollen on the surface from the flowering trees that are everywhere, but the woman doesn't pause after her question. "Look what you did," she says, running a manicured finger over the metal. I look again automatically and see nothing but the track she's left in the dust as she continues to berate me for my carelessness, shaking the honey-colored highlights in her perfectly layered coppery brown hair. Do I touch the door to see what she's talking about? Or will she get angrier if she thinks I'm calling her assessment into question? I can't get a word in as her scolding rolls on, disdain dripping off every syllable.

I can feel myself shrinking into the folds of my sweater and yoga pants, suddenly hyperaware of my barely kempt appearance -- bare-faced, hair badly in need of a trim, ragged cuticles from constant bottle washing and treating all manner of stains in O.'s laundry. That I could even fit into my pre-baby clothes at this point after O.'s arrival felt like an accomplishment before I left the house, but now this woman is leveling a kind of contempt at me that I've never encountered before. And this, I realize, is what she wants me to hear. She's used to looking down on people, I suspect, as she wears her attitude like a favorite, broken-in pair of designer jeans.

Make it stop, a desperate voice whispers in my ear, the voice that's felt powerless in the face of motherhood with each day of struggle to get O. fed. I don't have the wherewithal to process anything else, least of all being talked down to. Do whatever you have to so she'll just go away, the voice begs.

"I'm so sorry," I say -- and it's true, I am. But I'm not above playing the pity card to shut down the harangue that's gone on for way too long. I gesture into my back seat. "I have a ten-week-old baby and I'm completely sleep-deprived."

"Oh, like that's any excuse," the woman spits, the acid in her venom so sharp that my eyes sting. But, as if she knows it's pointless to dig her stilettos any further into my dignity, she gets back into her car and slams the door. Sits there as she was when I first pulled in. I hope against hope that she'll start her engine and go, but she remains. I'm half tempted to knock on her window and unload a few choice words instead of letting her have the last ones in this way, but I'm too stunned by what she's implied: Motherhood? Counts for nothing.

Not that the attitude is one I've never encountered before, but I was never on the receiving end of the insult until now.

Reeling from the near-physical force of her words, I gingerly slip into my own car, unbuckle O., wrangle him into the floppy cloth carrier I've wrapped around my torso and then ease us both out again. I open the front passenger door with even greater care, trying not to imagine the woman's scornful gaze boring through her sunglasses into my back as I squeeze the bulky diaper bag out. And then I walk away, praying that my tires won't be slashed and my windshield broken when we return.

I don't start crying until I get into the classroom. I try to hide it, looking intently downward at O. as I wrangle him back out of the carrier into my arms. I press him to my shoulder and bury my face in his little neck, kiss his downy-soft hair, tears dripping all the while. He bobs his head, looking around, and coos. It's a relief to hold him, to feel his solid body nestling against mine in complete trust, to know that nothing else has to matter to either of us in that moment.

As the initial flood of emotion finally begins to ebb, the voice in my ear returns. She can't possibly be a mother, it whispers, trying to comfort me. Otherwise, she would have been more understanding. But even as this thought bubbles up, I bat it away. You shouldn't judge her on that basis, I counter. Doing so makes you no better than she is.

Because that is what I was doing when I made my bid for mercy, wasn't it? Because I sized her up too, assumed she wasn't going to understand, and in a way, let her know I had more important things to worry about than her damn paint job. I'm suddenly ashamed. I'm not sure which to feel worse about: being denigrated by this woman or discovering that I'm guilty after a fashion of dismissing her too.

O. wriggles, trying to pull his fists to his mouth. I take him off my shoulder and settle him on my lap, soaking up the baby-sweet innocence in his gaze. It's too late to go back and change my half-assed apology. But I'm aware now of how easy it is to be drawn into taking the measure of someone else -- how parenthood has suddenly put so many more of these traps before me.

Mother versus mother, mother versus not. There just isn't enough space to maneuver between such narrow terms without risk of a slam, intended or otherwise.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Tongue-tied

Friday, March 29th, 10:55 a.m.

Today is D.'s first day back at work after his month of paternity leave, and it's just the two of us, O. and me, in the bunker of our bedroom. A pile of clean laundry sits on the unmade bed and random receipts and invoices from the last few weeks, most of them for medical care, are stacked on the floor and the ottoman to the nursing chair I don't use for nursing. Instead, I sit there solely to pump these days, every two hours. O., asleep in his rocking seat just within arm's reach, is snoring to the rhythm of the pump motor as I type.

Saturday, March 30th, 8:20 a.m.

I could write this as if it were one continuous post, but the reality is that I can only put down words every so many hours, when O. doesn't happen to need feeding while I'm pumping. I've rigged a hands-free flange holder from a strapless bra that always threatened to slip down whenever I wore it -- there was little for it to grip. It's serving its new purpose with much better success. Even when I'm holding O. in my lap, his powerful little legs kicking in protest when I take the bottle away to burp him, the bra does not yield when his foot swipes the collection containers dangling by his toes. Brings new meaning to the mother of invention indeed.

10:20 a.m.

We determined, after seeing a lactation consultant and an occupational therapist who specializes in infant feeding problems, that O. was born with a tongue tie. The ligament under his tongue was too tight and couldn't allow him to nurse properly, even though he made a remarkable effort for the first three weeks of his life. I had no idea he was struggling -- I just knew he was chewing me to pieces, but I thought it was normal. Breastfeeding is supposed to be painful at first, the on-call pediatrician who saw O. for jaundice said when he was three days old. I accepted that -- I'd planned to breastfeed unless there were extraordinary circumstances preventing it in hopes that O. would be better protected against developing the kinds of food allergies I have. I assumed the blistering would eventually toughen me up. As it was, O. was gaining weight at twice the average rate once we got through the initial postpartum weight loss every baby experiences.

4:15 p.m.

But then O. hit his first growth spurt and couldn't get the milk he needed, despite all the clamping and gnawing he'd been doing to compensate. Once we discovered the tongue tie, it was clear we had to get it clipped -- he was making himself gag too often when he tried to pull his tongue back and he couldn't stick it out far enough to form a proper latch. So we took him to yet another person who could do the procedure. It's a quick one, but I could not watch. The last I saw of O., drunk on the sugar water he'd been given before the frenotomy, was his tiny body swaddled in a hospital-issue blanket, his large, dark eyes gazing up at the nurse who would hold him down. And then the nurse practitioner who performed the clip was pressing gauze into his mouth and dancing from foot to foot with him in her arms while his face turned pink with his silent scream.

6:20 p.m.

We are 10 days from that afternoon and O.'s attempts to nurse are no better, at least from a nutritive standpoint. He no longer leaves me bloody, but he can't get a satisfactory latch, even though we both try so hard. We are now being sent to a group of occupational/physical therapists at Seattle Children's Hospital -- it seems there are more issues with O.'s mouth that we won't be able to address until he has an oral motor evaluation. The residual sensitivity he appears to have -- namely, that hyperactive gag -- is preventing him from being able to suck effectively.

Sunday, March 31st, 5:30 a.m.

It is hard not to be consumed by the quest for answers and assistance. It feels as if for as long as I've been stuck in this seat to pump -- the entire month, as of today -- I've been making appointments for O. and looking for recommendations on the most effective ways to increase milk supply. As he began to have more trouble nursing, I stopped producing as much milk because he wasn't extracting it well. Now we're playing catch-up. D. has a spreadsheet going for the data -- volumes, time elapsed between pumping sessions, time of day. Yes, we're geeks. But if charting will tell us whether we're actually gaining anything, then I can decide whether the hours I'm investing are worth what I'm losing in sleep and, more importantly, time with O.

8:30 a.m.

Of course, O. doesn't understand this when all he wants is to snuggle on my chest, flanges be damned. It's my heartbeat he wants against his cheek, to lull him to sleep when he's tired and to be comforted in his alert moments. Try as I have, I can't find a way to hold him in that position, so we are stuck at best at arms' length, which for both of us is an enormous disappointment. O. knits his little brows, throwing fists in all directions in search of something, anything, to pacify himself.

10:30 a.m.

"Talk to him," D. suggests. But I'm a mediocre conversationalist with the non-verbal set. I feel ridiculous narrating what I'm doing -- really, I'm not doing anything, just waiting passively for the pump to finish its business -- so that's out. And I sense O. is smart enough to know I can do better. D., an extrovert through and through, just has to stick his ever expressive face in front of O. to fascinate him; chit-chat is a bonus.

12:30 p.m.

So I practice my Cantonese on him. Very basic things, as my own retained vocabulary from childhood is scant: the words for parts of his body or a narration of what he's looking at. I follow with the English equivalent. Nothing like doubling the time from one sentence to another when you don't know what to say to replace the language of touch.

Monday, April 1st, 3:55 a.m.

Does he really recognize my voice from his time in utero? I wonder. For D.'s month off, I've had to spend so much time tied to the pump that D. has been O.'s primary caregiver. Bottle-feeding, changing, playing, walking him around the living room in the middle of the night -- it's no wonder I've had trouble finding a connection to this intense little soul now that I'm all he has during the weekday. For the last two weeks, when my face has been in front of his, he's stared past me into my hair. I tell myself it's because he's attracted to high-contrast things, but I worry he's forgotten who I am.

9:10 p.m.

It's also amazing the difference a day makes. Today was our second on our own with this pumping schedule, and for most of it, O. made eye contact with me. And he smiled.

Tuesday, April 2nd, 8:05 p.m.

We've been given exercises to do with O. to help loosen the muscles of his mouth and increase the range of motion of his tongue. He hated having our fingers in and around his mouth right after the frenotomy -- no surprise -- but I've figured out how to make that more, shall we say, palatable. I wait until he's looking at me and then do one of the lip stretches with my fingers on myself while making an interesting noise, such as clicking my tongue, in rhythm with the left-right motions -- we have to push and pull the upper and lower lips sideways. Then I do the same on him. He thinks it's a great game as long as I stay on the outside of his mouth -- he opens it almost as if to laugh and makes cooing sounds. He still doesn't like my touching his gums or tongue, though. He used to welcome having a finger to suck on for comfort, but now he grabs our hands and forcibly pulls them away when we go for the exercise where we have to press on his tongue to encourage him to form it into a trough (it'll help him maintain suction at the breast). I did manage to get him to take my finger briefly when he was sleepy today, just for pacification. It's as if regaining his trust is part of his therapy too.

Thursday, April 4th, 4:15 a.m.

Tomorrow we'll have made it through a work week. I've measured the hours until D. returns each day by pumping intervals -- five, on average, before I can have his help again with O. I consider it a victory if I can feed myself and accomplish one other task in between sessions if O. is asleep: folding laundry, paying bills, anything that can be done not seated in front of my laptop, which is where the pump is set up. I baked bread yesterday. Two beautiful, springy-centered, golden-crusted, gluten-free loaves. I'd mixed the dry ingredients Monday afternoon and was never able to get enough time until 48 hours later to add the wet and then put it all in the oven. But I anticipated that. And I even mixed two extra rations of dry ingredients and bagged them for next time.

9:15 a.m.

I've realized after these simultaneously long and short days -- long when you can never get more than three hours' sleep because of pumping demands, short because there is never enough time in between to finish tasks that you used to count on being able to complete in one attempt -- that a to-do list is laughably moot. So I've renamed it the Wish List. I jot down what I'd like to get done on it and impose no time limits. It gives me the sense that those things still matter, that it is okay to prioritize the time for them, even if it means an entire day's scattered free minutes have to be used to get one wish fulfilled. The bread was worth it. It also keeps me from forgetting the little things that would otherwise nag at me every time I'm reminded of them while I'm attached to the pump or have my hands full with O. (sometimes both). Move ottoman was one of today's wishes, the one that came with the nursing chair. I've wanted to get it out of our bedroom for the entire month as it's not usable at the moment. (Never lean back while pumping unless you really do want to cry about spilled milk.)

7:25 p.m.

I won't say I've accepted all this as the new normal yet. But we're surviving it until the next turn in the road. We'll see the occupational/physical therapy group in just under a week, and then, who knows. At least we've proved to ourselves that some form of life as we once knew it can continue -- only in discrete chunks. O. is worth it. I just can't wait until the pump is no longer between him and me.



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This post happened to coincide with a prompt from Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Sunday, March 10, 2013

At four weeks

... you are feisty and fierce in your demands, little owl. You've kept us on our toes since mere days after you were born, with jaundice that required in-home nursing care. You finally learned how to latch to the breast but then refused to nurse two weeks later for reasons we can't explain. That mild fever you had the same day? A change in the musculature of your mouth? We're at a loss. Thankfully you've gained weight on our alternative measures -- round-the-clock pumping for the bottle feedings we swore we'd only rely on until we got your nipple strike figured out. You'll latch now, but only briefly, and you draw blood sometimes before milk.

You're learning at last how to bring your fists to your mouth to comfort yourself when we are not enough, which feels like it has been every day since March arrived. Your cries break my heart even as my own impatience to find answers takes away any confidence in my ability to choose what to do next for you. Keep you alive, yes. But there are so many avenues we've gone down, trusting the guides -- pediatricians, lactation consultants -- who were supposed to help but only compounded our problems.

I've jotted down parts of the story of your arrival -- also complicated and fraught with decisions I wish we hadn't had to make, but there we were and here you are. I remind myself that you are still safe and whole. Even as we continue to find ourselves against these hurdles no one ever talked about or prepared us for. (And why would they have, given how unusual your circumstances seem to be? No sense scaring expectant parents further.) Every time I go to write about you, thinking we've finally cleared the latest obstacle -- now, now we can report with some distance and relief that all is well, I tell myself -- something else catches at our heels and threatens to throw you from our grasp.

But now you're bundled skin-to-skin with me inside the fleece jacket I've zipped around us both. We huddle against each other, tear-stained but not at odds for once. And while you sleep, I can hold off on deciding what we should be doing next for you, for me, for all of us on this wild course that seems to have no end. What I would give just to remain this way, in this quiet hour holding you, and not have you wake again just yet, hungry.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

He's here

Our little Troubadour sneaked into this life on the last morning in the year of the dragon. He was a wee bit ahead of schedule for those among our friends and family who were guessing he'd be a lunar new year baby, but we're delighted he decided to show up when he did.

We are still getting acquainted after his first week, which has been full of adventures -- some good and some medically unnerving -- so a proper account of his arrival will come later. For now, though, we're pleased to introduce this tiny night owl to you.

O., meet the world.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Scenes from around the table, part 4: prodding

This is the fourth and final post in a series chronicling our last holiday season before baby arrives -- as they say, life is never the same afterward, so in the interest of capturing a few snapshots to remember this time, here are some jottings from moments that have lingered with me over a multi-destination Thanksgiving week.

Dr. Sis is already in bed with her iPhone docked and its music playing when I come out of her bathroom the night before the baby shower. Rolls of teal tissue, turquoise wrapping paper, and silver ribbon lean against one another in the corner amidst shipping boxes I have been instructed not to poke around in -- quarters in Dr. Sis's Boston condo are cozy, leaving few options for hiding gifts except covering them in plain sight. I climb under the comforter, trying not to disturb a second pile of boxes on my side of the bed.

The clutter, some hardly shower-related, spills into the living room in the form of shoes, books, cleaning supplies, grocery bags. In my own home, the mess would drive me crazy, but I respect that this is my sister's space and that she's a junior resident. That she can find time to feed herself is already a feat on her demanding schedule. Preparing to host a party? Unimaginable. And yet, that's exactly what she's been doing all evening, to my amazement. She and Marketing Sis have already wrapped a large pile of packages now nestled on an arm chair in the dining nook, waiting to be opened the following afternoon.

Through my homebody's eye, I see more than just gifts buried in the corners of this condo. It's a part of Dr. Sis's life, which I've lost the ability to inquire about without feeling like I'm intruding. She is, and has always been, someone who gets her joy from being around other people, usually in spaces not her own -- or maybe it's that she immerses herself in that which is outside her home because the world behind her own door is something she'd rather not steep in alone for too long. So things pile up and get left behind as she comes and goes, stopping to sleep but not, I imagine, to be still here. Whenever she is home, she runs Pandora or tracks from her iTunes account, the music, it seems, a buffer against too much rumination.

I want to be wrong about all of that. Except, perhaps, the part about joy -- if she really does find her happiness outside, out loud, out and about, more power to her. Just because I'm a homebody doesn't mean I think she ought to be.

On this night, I'm not sure what kind of mood she's in, but heart-to-hearts have been rare between us, so I don't expect to plunge into any heavy conversation. We have so little time and we both need sleep; it would be unwise to tread too far into those questions I'm dying to ask anyway. What is it to be where you are now, doing what you're doing? Who's in your life these days? What makes you tick? Basic things I thought I used to know about her.

I admit I haven't been forthcoming with the same information myself. When I have offered up those pieces of my life to her, though, I've never felt satisfied with them. The true answers to most of those questions are that I don't know, it's complicated, things are still a work in progress, I need more time to think. And Dr. Sis, an analyst by nature and in her line of work, delves deeper, harder, faster than I can regroup to get more detailed answers out. She has to be direct, efficient in diagnosing her patients. I don't like feeling like a patient when we start talking. Tell her this, and she'll likely respond, "Really. Well, say more about that."

It's like falling into a trap. A heart-to-heart shouldn't feel like a catch-22 -- and yet. And yet. I wonder if having a mind as sharp as hers is partly why she keeps her music running. I imagine a brain like that needs a regulator, to quiet its inclinations to examine, evaluate, spin. I know reflection has been a big part of Dr. Sis's medical training, but too much introspection can be more harmful than helpful. Writing has its similarities.

Dr. Sis is poking around on her laptop, so I scoot down under the comforter away from the light from the screen, even though I'm not quite sleepy. I expect her to drop off soon -- she's just come off studying for and taking a two-day certification exam on top of taking call over part of Thanksgiving weekend and hosting a Turkey Day dinner -- but Dr. Sis turns toward me, a thoughtful expression on her face, and begins prodding at my belly.

After Marketing Sis's unabashed interactions with her unborn nephew, this doesn't surprise me. I'm amused at the difference in each sister's approach, though. While Marketing Sis has talked to, laid an ear against, and even kissed the belly, Dr. Sis methodically examines it for landmarks. She palpates low, just as my OB has in recent weeks, looking for identifiers I can't name. "He's supposedly rotated downward," I say. Dr. Sis nods and continues to press and poke, her other hand now at the top of my abdomen as if to take the measure of her nephew's body.

"There's an appendage," she says as he squirms a little.

"How can you tell?" I ask. Even though my sister's focus is not in obstetrics, she has done a rotation in the field and delivered her share of babies. I'm awed that she can find a fetal heartbeat with just her stethoscope, fascinated that the random movements I feel under my skin make a difference between heel and head to her. The baby, not so much -- he suddenly kicks vigorously beneath my sister's fingers, as if perturbed. We look at each other, both a little startled, and laugh.

"I'm sorry," she says to the nephew. To me: "When those parts are next to each other but you can feel them moving independently, that's how you know." Dr. Sis makes a flippery motion with her two hands as our middle school swim team coach used to show us when we were learning how to execute an efficient flutter kick.

Then she lets the belly be, respecting its resident's protests. Too much, those kicks seem to say. For once, though, I don't mind the prodding.

For more from this series, please click here.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

It's not nesting if it involves fleas

At nearly 11 p.m. on Saturday, when 30-somethings without kids are likely out and 30-somethings with kids are likely out cold, I'm holding a one-quart Pyrex measuring cup full of borax powder, swinging it like a censer over the living room carpet. The cat is upstairs in the laundry room, crying to be let out, but as long as the floors are coated in this fine, white dust that I'm counting on for salvation, my will isn't bending on that score.

It has been six days since the discovery of flea "dirt" -- the blood meal that fleas excrete like little pepper grains -- in our cat's coat, and seven since our vacuum happened to break down. Impeccable timing. While we're fortunate to have caught the problem very early -- our indoor-only cat almost certainly picked up the fleas from an indoor-outdoor cat whose house she shared while we were traveling over Christmas -- I'm still kicking myself for not having the vet treat her on a preventive level, knowing the risks of boarding her with D's friend, the owner. Never mind that said owner failed to mention that he suspected his cat's flea treatments hadn't been working. I try not to think about what we could have done differently and concentrate on getting the borax distributed evenly over the carpet. And here I was a week ago, just hoping to get the vacuum repaired in time to do a once-over on the house before this baby's arrival.

Would I call that pre-flea impulse nesting? Not really. That instinct everybody keeps asking me about is there, but only so far as the preservation of future sanity goes. Of course I want to get the baby room furniture assembled; the baby laundry washed and folded; the extra meals cooked, labeled, and frozen -- so I won't have to do it once the baby is here. But no, I'm not scrambling to organize my sock drawer by brand and color or alphabetize the spice cabinet.

In the name of making more space, I would love to purge our closets of clothes we haven't worn in several years, books from long-finished college classes that we haven't been able to resell, electronics that are obsolete enough to be laughed off Craigslist. While we've gone as minimal and practical as possible in deciding what we truly need or wish to have for this tiny person, who promises to outgrow it all quickly enough, the sheer volume of what other well-meaning friends have been sending us in the last few weeks is beginning to threaten our storage capacity. Or at least the limits I currently believe in maintaining -- yes, there is always a way to make room, but is that really a practice I want to embrace without reservations when this child will be accumulating things wherever we are for the next 18 years?

These thoughts scroll through my mind as I swing the glass back and forth, back and forth, over the room D has helped me clear of all furniture except the couches. The next morning, I will vacuum with our freshly serviced vacuum, hoping that the borax will have desiccated any eggs or fleas overnight. It's not the kind of purge I envisioned, but the irony of it is almost funny. Not funny enough, though, to keep me from asking why this now, of all things?

I finish dusting the carpet, set the heavy glass on the stairs, and massage my aching hand. It's advisable to work the borax into the deeper fibers, so I make a slow circuit of the room in blue running shoes turned gray from their coating of powder. The cat mumbles to herself upstairs, giving up on me for the night, and it's finally quiet. I've been lucky not to have the raging insomnia so many women have told me is part and parcel of the third trimester, but I am on this evening a little too overcharged to want sleep -- I'd just welcome the chance to sit. Still, the room goes on, suddenly much larger as I make myself side-step, ankle to ankle, around the perimeter, working my way back toward the stairs.

Just let this be done, I think, tempted to turn my methodical pacing into a mad grapevine. There are too many other things I'd rather be doing to prepare not just our home but my state of mind for this baby. But to give in to that desire -- to give up my controlled march so I can get some control back elsewhere -- is the paradoxical opposite of surrender. Maintaining this slow dance is the very act of yielding that I know I'm terrible at. And I'm about to bring into the world a little being who will need me to do just that -- ignore the closets, the old books and electronics, and the mental space they occupy.

So I traverse the room, step by step, carrying us both across the powdery landscape I've committed to tamping down. And I tell myself that nesting for me may be clearing out the detritus of old lives. But only so that I can take on this new one.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Scenes from around the table, part 3: needles and threads

This is the third in a series of posts chronicling our last holiday season before baby arrives -- as they say, life is never the same afterward, so in the interest of capturing a few snapshots to remember this time, here are some jottings from moments that have lingered with me over a multi-destination Thanksgiving week.

As the sun fades from the kitchen mid-afternoon, my mother furrows her brow at the knitting draped over her knees. The two pieces of a cowl she's trying to put together with three needles are a jumble of burgundy loops at the row where they should join, some strangely tight, others oddly loose, in a stockinette pattern that should be completely even. She mumbles to herself as she peers at the instructions, counts by twos in Cantonese along the width of the cowl and then utters with dismay, "I'm missing a stitch!"

Across the table, I set my own knitting on my lap and wait to see if she wants help. For the last hour, my mother has been going back and forth over the same few rows, taking out mistakes only to add other ones, and it is all I can do to let her continue without intervention -- getting more involved risks disrupting the balance we've managed to achieve on this visit so far. No fights or gross misunderstandings, as we are prone to have at least once per trip.

We've been talking, certainly -- just light conversation about nothing of great importance. Unfortunately, I suspect the more she speaks, the more errors she makes in her work. Neither of us would win contests for being able to walk and chew gum. But my gradual retreat for her sake from the chit-chat in our knitting circle of two hasn't seemed to prevent her from gabbing on, interrupting herself only to exclaim over new tangles.

This time still, she returns to counting, trying to determine where her stitch has fallen, so I go back to the little blue sweater on my own needles. The piece I'm working on has been growing at a creep, not because the pattern is hard but because the numerous cables are slow-going. I think of the intricately textured baby vests and cardigans Nga Po, my mother's mother, used to turn out so quickly for all of her grandchildren and have to marvel at her skill. No patterns, no guidelines, just intuition. "Nga Po could look at someone else's work and duplicate it, even resize it," my mother tells me whenever we talk about her mother's talents.

"Nga Po taught you to knit, right?" I ask.

"The basics," my mother says. "She was so patient. Whenever I messed up, I'd take my work to her and she'd help me fix it. Every time, no matter how tangled up. She was so good too -- I don't know how she could figure out where I'd made my mistakes, it was so bad sometimes!"

I, too, can only wonder how my grandmother could see the often deceptive logic of stitches meant to twist, cross, double, or join in their over-under fashion to produce the leaves, diamonds, and other figures she'd create in an evening -- frequently while playing mahjong -- for the tiny garments she'd send us. I try to picture her, the same two lines between her eyebrows that are now between my mother's, as she peers at my mother's needles. She holds the mass of yarn in both hands, her long fingers gently stretching the web of loops and holes that spell out their secrets in a script only she can read, and suddenly the point of one needle flicks into action. It noses into the heart of a row, fishes up some length of yarn, the other needle grabs it and begins to work in tandem, and like magic, the tangle is transformed. It has happened too quickly for me to see what she's done, but there's the panel of knits and purls, whole again.

This isn't the only moment in which I've tried to draw my grandmother's quiet presence near during these months of preparation for motherhood. Because the beginning of this pregnancy was shaky -- there were questions about the baby's viability around 7-8 weeks -- we waited as long as possible before telling our families our good news. So in the first trimester, while we watched anxiously for signs that we could breathe more easily, I placed my grandmother's photo on my nightstand. Please protect this baby, I asked her, a mother of six, before turning off the light at the end of the day. While I've never practiced ancestor worship as her generation did, the idea that she was always a guardian to the integrity of her family -- the thread that drew it close even in her old age -- made her seem a natural confidante for my worries. And, of course, all the questions and hopes and bizarre hormone-induced dreams I'd wake up to the next morning, unable to share them yet with anyone else.

Now in the darkening kitchen, there is only the whish of one needle against another -- my mother has stopped talking; her error must be serious. I glance at the clock. The following day, we are both slated to head to Boston, where my sisters are throwing a baby shower for me, and neither of us is packed. But I resist the urge to go fold my clean laundry for the trip while my mother's concentration deepens.

There is much I wish I could talk about with my mother while we still have this time alone together -- all that I kept between me and my grandmother's picture, to start with, and the roller coaster of anticipation I've been on as this final trimester has begun. In Boston, we'll be busy with shower preparations -- more cooking, at the very least -- and my sisters will be there, of course. Not that I'm not looking forward to seeing them, but my mother is an even more scattered person when all of us are gathered. Like this woman who can't help putting more tangles in her knitting just because we're talking, my mother is practically impossible to have a real conversation with in the presence of all three daughters. She'll ask one person a question and in the same breath turn to another to comment about something else before the first can answer. I find myself stepping away from her attempts to divide her attention in this fashion because it feels petty -- and futile -- to want her to focus for once on each of us, one at a time.

All the more reason to talk now, though from the harried look on my mother's face, this isn't the time either. But just as I start to tuck my work back in its bag, my mother lifts her knitting from her lap, turns it left and right, and shakes her head. "This is a disaster," she says. She leans across the table, holding out her needles. "C, can you be Nga Po for me?"

I'm momentarily thrown by her almost plaintive tone. In an instant, that image of my grandmother holding my mother's tangled yarn comes back to me, and it is at once endearing and painful. It's idealized in my imagination, I know, but it's the quintessential picture of a mother-daughter moment, the little girl at her mother's elbow, trusting that she will make everything right. I've missed having that trust in my own mother, especially throughout this pregnancy. Not that she would have had any way to influence the outcome of this baby's life in his first tenuous weeks, but on an emotional level, I needed to know she would be an ear that would truly listen. Which she hasn't been for so long partly because I've been too skittish to try confiding in her, afraid of being hurt by her response, distracted or otherwise. Again, it's the risk of misunderstandings I shy away from.

After a second, I take the mess of stitches from my mother's hands and lay the work on the table, stretching it apart in search of an answer for her. I don't have my grandmother's knitting intuition, but I do have the pattern my mother's been working from. I lift it from the seat next to her and scan the instructions for clues.

"So you put one piece on top of the other and knit across the rows simultaneously to join them?" I ask, looking at the half-completed graft.

"Yes, but then I realized I had dropped the stitch and needed to undo the row again," my mother says.

This has to be where the problem lies. Sure enough, I can see that my mother has started to unravel the row properly on one needle's piece of her cowl but not on the other. In fact, she's dropping or twisting her stitches each time she tries to separate the pieces further, hence the wild variations in her tension. But how to fix this? I can't even begin to trace where the errors originate. Reluctantly, I explain what I've figured out. "I'm sorry I can't tell you what to do next, though," I say.

But my mother's hands now spring into action. "I know what to do," she reassures me. And with the point of a needle, she works column by column, sometimes fishing up a length of yarn, sometimes untwisting a loop and returning it to her other needle, and suddenly, like magic, the tangles are transformed. There are her two panels of knits and purls, whole once more.

"Finally!" my mother says. "I would never have understood what to do if you hadn't explained the problem to me."

I laugh in amazement. "I thought you needed Nga Po to do the repairs!" I say.

"No," my mother says. "I can fix it once I know what I've done wrong." She pats the soft wool and then puts her needles down.

We are neither of us experts like Nga Po. But maybe that is what I need to remember more often about my mother and motherhood -- to trust that she may surprise me with what she does understand when I'm least expecting it.

All the same, I don't pursue any deeper conversation for now. As we both roll up our knitting for the day, it's enough for me that we've solved this practical problem together. That we are a mother and daughter still at peace.

For more from this series, please click here.

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This post happened to coincide with a prompt from Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below!

Mama's Losin' It

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Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Homesick for the holidays

At the end of the first week of December, D. hauls in the boxes of Christmas decorations from the garage and sets them on the living room floor, amidst the toys O. has scattered in every direction. From upstairs, where I'm getting O. ready to nap, I hear the familiar jingle of a wreath of bells, the rustling of artificial greenery, the whisper of tissue coming off carefully wrapped baubles for the tree. O. doesn't know these sounds yet. He gazes at me, placid and sleep-ready, hardly registering the activity in his customary play area below.

In past years, our halls were, at best, hastily decked ahead of the twenty-fifth. Gift runs were last-minute, and plans for festive meals got pared down because it was just the two of us -- why roast a whole turkey, we said, when we're about to leave for a week-long family visit? We were still in some ways our parents' children, returning to their homes for the real observance of the holiday. 

But this will be our first Christmas as a family of three, a family of our own. And even though O. won't remember anything of the event at ten months, I sense D. and I both feel there's more at stake in feting it properly before we join the celebration at my parents' place.

For starters, we've bought a bigger tree, whose parts D. is inspecting when I join him after O. is settled in his crib. I can tell he's excited -- he's wanted to have something more generous than our skinny six-footer for ages, and this fluffy spruce promises to fit the bill. "Christmas-y enough?" I ask with amusement as he wrestles top and bottom together.

"Absolutely. But how about you?" he asks. "What would make the house feel Christmas-y for you?"

I consider the question as I tackle the garlands D.'s set aside for our banisters. We already have holiday songs playing softly, many from an album of favorites I'd found for us when we were married seven years ago. My mother used to play the same collection -- on vinyl, rather than digital file -- while my sisters and I helped her decorate. As I bend and wrap, bend and wrap, coaxing fat lengths of prickly fir around a stair railing, the memory of my mother doing the same in our old house rises with the strains of Bing Crosby.

To my surprise, I don't have a ready answer for D. There's something needling me, and it's not the fake bristles that have come off on my sweater sleeves. It's a sadness that shouldn't have a place in D.'s invitation to create seasonal joy. Or so I stubbornly tell myself. That is what our efforts are about, right? Joy -- ours to seize, ours to share, with the delights of a first child's first experience of it all to cherish too.

I wonder why, in spite of so much happy, our plans feel flat. What's missing? Should we make Christmas cookies, the tree-shaped ones I used to love pressing M&Ms into as a kid? Should we take some to the family next door? I start to suggest these options but stop myself mid-sentence. Somehow I know they won't change my mood, despite my fond memories of rolling buttery dough in my mother's kitchen.

My mother too, I imagine, is going about her own preparations now for our post-Christmas visit. I hear the brisk slap of her house slippers as she carries armloads of craft-store trappings from room to room. She's talking to herself, sighing over bows that need pressing, noting the dust on the fireplace mantel, remembering the extra powdered sugar she's forgotten to pick up from the supermarket. The closer the holiday comes, the more stressed she grows. "I hate going near the grocery store right now," she'll say when I check in with her on the phone. In spite of her complaints, though, I know she'll make the trip for whatever she thinks she needs because it's part of the traditions she's built single-handedly over three decades of motherhood. The music, the garlands, the goodies she reserves to make at this time of year for the neighbors -- all of these have come to embody what is Christmas-y for her and, by extension, for me.

To duplicate that without my mother's presence, I realize, is impossible.

Still, I add red and gold ribbon bows to the garlands, just as my mother does. Then I step back, debating their effect. They draw my mother near in memory, and yet they make me ever more aware of her physical absence. Of how I'm grasping for pieces of my mother's version of the holiday because it's what represents the comfort of the season for me. Of the contradiction in wanting to capture that comfort, which only grows more elusive the harder I try to make it mine. Traditions take time to build. In a few years, we'll have our own favorite rituals and activities, but until then, the realm of possibility stretches so vast. It's this emptiness, I imagine, that's weighing on me. And the impulse to fill it with what I know.

If D. senses I'm feeling lost, he doesn't say so. But he offers to help me tuck lights around my handiwork -- the final touch my mother usually adds. I let him take over.

Not long after he's finished, O. stirs. There's the sound of soft babble, followed by a series of thumps. I find O. sitting in his crib, pajama-clad feet sticking through the bars he's whacking with his little hands. He flashes an enormous grin as I come into view, and the sweetness of that recognition pushes aside any other thoughts. "Hi there, little man," I say. He reaches to be picked up.

"Come," I say, carrying him into the hall. He looks at me gamely though he doesn't understand. And then his gaze settles on the stairs, the tree, the lights below. Though I haven't yet traced his line of sight, I can see the glow of our work reflected in his eyes.

I watch O.'s expression, expecting a smile or at least some indicator of his usual happy curiosity. After all, this is what I've been hoping for, in spite of the homesickness the last hour has wrought in me. But he observes with uncertainty, lips pressed tight, brows furrowed with concentration -- something's different about that space, his space. It is, I've forgotten, a room he's also used to laying claim to. And now I've made it anything but familiar in my quest for comfort and joy.

O. looks to me as if to ask, is this okay?

I laugh and cuddle him close. "We'll figure it out together," I whisper, trying to reassure us both.

*

This post appears as part of a series on mother-daughter relationships on Daily Plate of Crazy. Click here to read more essays in the collection.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

First day

My alarm goes off and my eyes snap open. Dark. It's 5:45, and even the cat is still quiet in her room, not pawing the door to be let out yet. I shake the grogginess from what feels like an otherwise empty space behind my forehead and will my feet to find the floor, then two old polar fleece slipper scuffs with the backs flattened into the soles.

I'm not in thinking mode yet, but this early morning is meant to provide the opportunity.

I let the tap run at the bathroom sink until warm water makes its way through the pipes. Face cloth, no soap. Just warmth and then coolness over my skin as dry air hits residual moisture. Lotion to seal it in, then downstairs to a borrowed laptop. Mine is hopelessly slow, with a space bar that sticks and a finicky charger. This won't do if I'm going to make these early mornings a habit.

Recipe for lemon curd. I've been craving this since before our fridge died, but only two months later am I finally getting to this just-for-me experiment. I've selected a few potential winners (gluten-, dairy-, and egg-free); all that's left is to pick one to try. I scan the instructions, looking for the most appealing candidate -- this is what I've decided to do with the half-hour that remains before getting O. up for the day. I choose the recipe with the least sugar. Corn starch into a small sauce pot, fresh lemon zest. This is as far as I get before breakfast can't be put off any longer.

I'm fine with the interruption. The lemon curd is what I would have spent O.'s morning nap researching instead of doing what I've really wanted to for months: writing. Really writing. Sitting-in-front-of-a-blank-page writing, the uncomfortable sort where the work is hard but the process is purifying and the lies and truths you tell yourself finally get separated because no one else but you is wrestling with the words on the page. I've needed that. This motherhood thing is wild and strange and moving ever faster and setting sentences down steadies me. Except having a very mobile nine-month-old makes doing that impossible while he's awake. And I want that curd too.

*

O. goes down as expected, three hours later, and I reopen the laptop. My brain is awake now, and the erratic static of synapses coming out of hibernation has given way to slightly more organized flashes of thought. Fuzzy still, but thought with language attached. The muscles that were once poised to translate these impulses into text on a page are stiff and tight with disuse. It actually hurts to make them rise to attention again. This isn't going to work, a voice says, infused with all the authority of the practical, no-nonsense persona I usually inhabit.

But I keep typing, even though the first words that appear make me cringe. You've really let yourself go, a second voice chimes in, its imaginary eye looking my writing up and down as if it might embody its writer.

So you admit there was a self to let go, I counter. That there is a self worth getting back.

At the end of an hour, I've dogged my way through three paragraphs, and the voices are quiet.

*

I expect not to return to the work once O. wakes again. The curd needs curding and I'm hungry enough to quit for lunch before O. starts to make noise in his crib. It's okay, I tell myself as I look at the scant progress on the page. This isn't a race. I add almond milk to the pot, set it on a low flame, and begin to stir. I'll come back to the writing tomorrow.

But even as I make my way through the afternoon with O. -- handing him junk mail to tear and wrinkle as I set aside statements and bills, reading from tooth-marked board books, stealing away for a few seconds to whisk the cooling curd -- my mind returns to the tangle of sentences I've left behind. It's happening. The writing sinews are twitching, demanding time and space to flex and uncramp. So is O. He seems to sense I'm not giving him my complete attention, and my offering the latest grocery coupons is not a substitute for play. He circles the living room aimlessly, shrieking his protests at the papers in his hands, and finally starts to cry. I pick him up. This isn't good enough. He wants a game, to tumble and tussle with me, but now he's too tired yet not ready to nap.

I snuggle him and let him finger the zipper of my fleece jacket, apologizing into the fine, silky hair on the top of his head. This is the part I don't yet know how to manage. Writing is immersive, a state nearly as hard to step out of, once I will myself in, as the bed I left this morning. Alert writer, groggy parent.

This is only the first day, though. O. eventually stuffs his fingers in his mouth and snuggles back, his way of telling me he's getting sleepy at last. I think back to the early weeks when naps had no pattern or predictability, and even learning to hold his flailing limbs to lull him into slumber felt awkward. My arms know his shape and heft now, and not from anything more than lifting, cradling, moving with him daily. I remind myself that the day's routine, too, will make space for new habits as long as I start treating them as parts of me again. With tussles reserved for play, not attention.

O. goes down readily, lower lip tucked up tightly under the top one, the rest of his body limp. I head back to the kitchen. Spoon. Sauce pot. The curd looks thinner than I'd expected, but it coats the sides of its container with promise. I taste.

The brightness of lemon dances on my tongue. Its tart zing is everything I'd been hoping for.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Those busy, busy feet

Before O. was born, we brought home a tiny pair of cowboy boots that D. had loved when he was little. They'd been stored by his parents for years, waiting to be handed down when the occasion arose. A few weeks before O.'s arrival, I set them on the bookshelf in his bedroom, thinking they'd be cute and figuring they wouldn't be needed for at least a year.

O. decided he was ready to walk two weeks ago.

At nine months old this week, he's gone from taking tentative steps to running headlong from one end of the living room to the other. There are slips and stumbles and wipeouts, of course. But our fearless little man has managed to get his legs under him in less time than it took for him to be ready to leave the womb. Consider me gobsmacked.

He entertains himself by toddling in circles around the couches -- following a similar path as the one D. used to wander with O. in his arms when O. needed soothing to sleep. Now these are routes for wide-eyed exploration. Does he realize he's retracing his steps? I wonder as he zips past for the nth time, a favorite stuffed toy rattle in his hands. He pauses only to exchange the jingle of soft bells for the remote control's novel buttons that light up when pressed -- or mouthed. Though he's going nowhere, he moves always with most urgent purpose.


The more speed he gathers, the less forward motion I seem to be able to make on my own roads toward -- well, anything. I know it's normal, but I feel scattered (even with breaks for mug cake). On the wish list of personal projects: work on hand-made Christmas gifts, sort through clothing for donation, reorganize closet, print wedding photos. Yes, wedding photos! We have yet to do that since we got married seven years ago, and now with so many shots of O. also in the queue, I fear it will never happen. His baby book has more in it than our wedding album. In fact, I'm not even sure if we have a wedding album ...

It's odd, that need to get something done. That's all I want, really, to finish something and, if I'm lucky, enjoy the process involved. Maybe the problem is in wanting an end at all -- but I can't turn everything into a love-the-journey thing. Sometimes you really do want to think about and be delighted by the destination and be done with getting there. Holiday travel comes to mind -- preparation for all that is taking priority now too. If you think baby-proofing our own house has been an adventure with an early walker, consider the grandparents' homes we'll be visiting. They're definitely not ready. Thinking ahead of what our families need to know -- and conveying the information effectively -- is my new responsibility.

So here I am, trying to stay one step ahead, to get somewhere, though on some days, I know O. isn't the only one running in circles. He just doesn't mind.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.


Saturday, October 26, 2013

Treats for the overbooked

The fourth-quarter time-crunch is making itself known early this year.

Somewhere in my heart, I love fall and the winter holidays that follow. But for the last several years, the final months on the calendar have felt overstuffed with commitments I've been less than eager to agree to. This one is no different.

Maybe it's the fault of the airlines that make it impossible to enjoy a brief trip for Thanksgiving with our extended family -- an itinerary for a long weekend has now stretched to nine days in a very non-baby-proof house because tickets at a better price couldn't be had for a shorter stay. And maybe it's my giving in yet again to D.'s ambitious plans to transform our front porch into a spook alley of sorts for Halloween, requiring trips to Home Depot and Radio Shack for staging supplies and subsequent test runs with the setup. Add to this that dead fridge we've been working around since the middle of September; a work trip D. took earlier this month, leaving me on complete baby duty for a week; and the head cold* and food poisoning D. managed to get (the latter not because of our dead fridge but from some baaaaaaad catering), extending my round-the-clock call shift to cover not just O.'s usual demands but also D.'s sorry state of affairs.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I'm out of enthusiasm for the remainder of 2013, but I feel like a curmudgeon. Isn't this when I'm supposed to be getting excited? Baby's first Halloween? Turkey Day? Christmas?

I'll get there. The fridge is finally working as of this morning, after six weeks' hiatus. Hooray for no longer living out of a cooler and being done with twice-daily ice pack changes, no thanks to the repair service's obscenely backed up bookings. As if there wasn't enough changing going on in this house ...

What holds stress at bay for me is carving out time to (1) read, (2) write, (3) knit, and (4) bake. Given the demands of most of October, (1) has been occurring in the middle of the night after O.'s 1 a.m. feeding -- fifteen minutes before I make myself get back in bed -- and (3) has been an intermittent affair where, if O.'s playing happily by himself, I steal ten minutes to knit one row of a sweater I'm making for D. while keeping an eye on our busy little man from the couch. Obviously, (2) has received short shrift, though I've gathered plenty of ideas during the morning walks D. and I have been taking with O. -- that half-hour before D. leaves for work is essential check-in time for us and a built-in brainstorming window. Maybe, just maybe, now that our fridge insanity is over, I will get a few precious minutes back in my day to put text on the page.

As for (4)? Well ... it's hard to bake much when you can't store large quantities of milk (alternative or otherwise) and eggs or their substitutes. What's a girl with cake-lust to do?

Leverage the power of the microwave.

Several months ago, I stumbled upon a recipe for single-serving mug cake on the internet. You put the ingredients in a mug, stir, zap, and voila! Dessert for one. The version online used the aforementioned refrigeration-required ingredients, but I figured out how to tweak the concoction and get rid of some fruit that was going to go bad without a good chill. Double bonus! It's the small victories, no?

I'm sharing because this little five-minute treat got me through the last month and a half. If you like your chocolate dark and rich, this is all kinds of molten goodness. And if you prefer your cake on the vanilla side (or apple-walnut, carrot-coconut, ginger-peach, cardamom-pear, blueberry-cinnamon ... I could go on), I have adjustments. Just ask.

Gluten-free Chocolate Mug Cake
Serves 1 frantically fridge-less curmudgeon, with or without germ-laden husband and teething 8-month-old

1/2 very ripe pear, skin removed, or 2-3 tbsp applesauce or leftover baby food puree, any vegetable
1/8 c garbanzo flour or brown rice flour
1/8 c baking cocoa
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp chocolate chips
1 tbsp sucanat or brown sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Several generous dashes of cinnamon

1. If using pear, cut into chunks and heat in mug in microwave with olive oil for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir to mush. Otherwise, place applesauce or baby food puree in mug and proceed to step 2, no heating required. Seriously, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, green beans -- I've used them all. No fridge, remember? I couldn't let that stuff go to waste.

2. Add all dry ingredients with exception of chocolate chips. Add water and, if not already used when heating pear, olive oil. Stir well, then add half the chocolate chips to the batter and distribute throughout. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips over surface.

3. Heat in microwave for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes, depending on the wattage of your machine (ours is pretty weak). If you like your cake really molten, err on the lesser side.

4. Dust with additional sweetener if desired (I found the chocolate chips were enough to carry the rest of the cake). Enjoy, preferably in a location where neither husband or baby can distract you for five blissful minutes. It's worth every second.


* Despite all the complaining, I am enormously grateful that by some miracle, neither O. nor I caught whatever D. got. It really is the small victories.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Bedtime

Tucked under my arm on his back, O. arches and wriggles vigorously until he is prone. He knows we're not in his room, in the easy chair we'd finally started using for nursing just six weeks ago. We're on the guest room bed, light from the halogen bulbs in the adjoining bathroom stabbing into the dark with an almost palpable edge. My attempt at drawing a soft glow through the cracked door for this feeding hasn't quite worked, and the attractions of an as yet unexplored environment are too much for O. to ignore in favor of sleep.

He pushes up on all fours to look at the closet doors, the ironing board left at the foot of the bed, the stitching on the comforter. His mouth forms a tiny O, the expression he wears in moments of discovery. Brows knitted in concentration, he crawls toward the edge of the mattress and is ready to plunge headlong to the floor, but I scoop him up first, carrying him back to his room across the more gently lit hall. "Huh," he says in a tone that mixes surprise and disappointment. He's over it in seconds, looking to see what new territory he might investigate.

I return to the easy chair, which, of late, has been growing too small for the two of us. O. is a long baby -- all torso, with powerful legs that love to kick the back of the seat or its arms, no matter which way I turn. Nursing when he's not already sleepy is sometimes an athletic exercise. I've managed to stop him from biting since his first teeth started coming in, but kicking? We'll work on curbing this -- teaching nursing manners, some call it -- but the day's been long enough with a dead fridge and a repair man who's missed his appointment here for the second time in two weeks that I haven't been inclined to interrupt each feeding repeatedly to get the message across.

Tomorrow, I tell myself. It's just another boundary O.'s revealed that we need to enforce. Not that he understands limits yet -- that won't come for another few months. For now, we're just doing impulse management. Last week, O. figured out how to flip over mid-diaper-change on the bureau by raising his arms and grabbing the edge of the changing pad above his head for leverage. It took several days' consistent interference to discourage him from making it a habit.

Now, O. is wide awake, but I hope that in the dark, in my arms, he'll settle down and begin to drift off as he usually does when I nurse him here at bedtime. But he presses the soles of his feet into my lap, bouncing like a jumping jack. So I let him stand, holding his sturdy form close, and wait. I press my cheek to his and breathe in his babyness, knowing these opportunities are numbered.

It is the first time we've sat together this way, in his room completely unlit. Normally, when he needs to be put down, I walk the floor with his head resting on my shoulder -- if he will rest it there. He is all energy these days, eager to stand with help from any piece of furniture and itching to take his first steps alone. It's all too soon for me. O. is barely seven months old, but like D., who walked at eight, he's been early to seek ambulatory independence. I'm not ready to relinquish the baby who was once content to be cuddled for this new wiggle-worm who protests being asked to lie still, even to eat.

As our vision adjusts, I watch O.'s gaze, dark eyes searching as they do when he wants my attention. Can he see me? I wonder. He must be able to -- I notice his mouth is no longer rounded in wonder but neutral. I am not something newly discovered, or at least his perception of me, indistinct as I may be in deep shadow, is familiar. It is no accident that he reaches for my face with both hands, fingers closing with purpose, and grabs at my cheeks, my nose. I gently move his hands aside, but not before he gets in a good pinch, legs still flexing all the while.

And then his bouncing stops. His eyes have found mine. I give him a smile, which he normally returns readily, but tonight he just gazes back with a look that seems serious and penetrating. Or is it that he really can't make out much in the dark? I can't be sure. In that moment, I see wisdom in those soft, liquid stars reflecting their light at me, a peaceable security in O.'s understanding of the world as he knows it even in this shadowed state.

I'm tempted to ask him what he's thinking. I know he can't answer, but lately, he's been babbling to us as if we are fluent in his language. His unusual silence, then, feels suddenly powerful, almost uncomfortably so -- I'm catching a glimpse of an old soul, one I didn't know existed within O.'s wiggly exterior. To speak -- and elicit O.'s coos in response -- would be to scare this other presence away that lightlessness has revealed. I don't want that, as much as I also yearn for the sounds that reassure me that O. is still no more than a baby.

So I stay silent. After a minute or two, O. reaches once more for my face and brushes his fingers softly over my skin, then plunges his head into my shoulder. He's ready to sleep, even if he isn't falling asleep. We rise together from the chair, his limbs tightening ever so slightly around me against gravity until the familiar firmness of his crib mattress replaces the security of my arms. Without protest, he curls up roly-poly-style, as if nothing unusual has transpired, and I step out of his room into the light.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Sanity, regained


O. is nursing.

At five months, he finally -- finally! -- figured it out and is now able to get what he needs from me without causing either of us trauma. We started giving him the opportunity to nurse without a supplemental feeder just over seven weeks ago, and, within a few days, he was completely off his training wheels. We are ecstatic.

There have been a few bumps along the way since that first day entirely free of the pump -- some frustration on O.'s part, heat waves that have thrown his appetite off, plugged ducts from having to adjust to less frequent feeding demands -- but that's been nothing compared to the brutal routine of juggling so much nursing equipment in the preceding months (see photo). For the first time since O. was born, I've been able to sleep more than two and a half hours at a stretch. This may go without saying, but I have to write the words because I've wanted to for so long: I am a different person -- a sane one -- once more.

Sleep has meant the return of coherent thought. Instead of falling asleep while pumping -- not something I recommend, by the way, as the pump doesn't quit when it's full -- I've had the gift of quiet moments to reflect on what the last five (almost six!) months have been. O. is easily distracted these days, so there's no catching up on Netflix while he's eating. He'll even turn a nursing cover into a toy, so we keep to his room, lights down, for most feedings. He grabs at my hair, my shirt, my hands. And I sit, thinking in twenty-minute stints about the road we've traveled.

For the first two months of O.'s life, I felt robbed. Not of the breastfeeding relationship some books tout as sacred -- believe me, we didn't have any holy notions about my providing nourishment; in fact, we deliberately steered clear of any conversations with well-meaning people who were self-proclaimed boob enthusiasts because we didn't want to get into debates about lactation philosophies and politics. We just hoped breastfeeding would work and we could check it off the list of things to learn to do, like burping and diapering and giving the occasional bath.

But as a few days' nursing strike turned into weeks, I felt my ability to handle the expected abnormal of having a new baby leaching from me. I had no emotional energy left to love O. with. What I would have traded just to have fragmented sleep and unstructured days only from an infant's erratic waking, not his middle-of-the-night cries and the demands of the pump. It wasn't supposed to be this way, I kept repeating to myself, even though I knew it wasn't helpful. I'd look at O. in his rocking seat and dread the next time he'd rouse himself and then feel guilty that I couldn't enjoy him when he was awake. Every interaction we had was too fraught with the frustrations of getting him to eat, figuring out why he wouldn't eat, allotting precious time I could be using to bond with him to contact doctors who could help us help him eat. Eat already! I wanted to scream. "If it weren't for that damned risk of food allergies," I repeated to D. over and over, teary and spent, "we could just stop the insanity and give him formula. I don't care about the rest of the stupid benefits of breast milk. This is crazy."

But the risk was very real because of my family history. And putting ourselves through a few months of pumping to avoid a potential lifetime for O. of eating the way I have since we discovered what was making me sick was worth the heartache. Or so I told myself at my lowest points, when I wanted to quit and said so to O. in no uncertain terms. Fortunately, he understood none of it. He'd grin at me while I mumbled obscenities through gritted teeth, a smile plastered across my own face to disguise the misery I was feeling. I was scraping bottom then but still determined not to let him see or hear it after slipping just once on the phone with D. D. was held up at work, I was on my fourth pump-and-feed of the day (flanges attached, bottle and baby also in my lap), and I was fighting what I didn't realize was a nasty breast infection. "I just need you to come home," I all but wailed at the phone, balanced on speaker mode on a nearby table. At the sound of my agitated voice, O. burst into tears -- not a cry of hunger or tiredness, but alarm. I picked him up immediately, apologizing into the impossibly soft crook of his neck as he rested his head against my cheek and sighed a shuddery half-sigh.

If only everything could be fixed so easily, I thought.

As these recent weeks have brought a new rhythm to our days and nights, I've been drawn to the idea of putting O.'s story into a more formal body of work. Partly to process it all with the tempering effect of distance, partly to reclaim and recast some of those early memories in a way that I couldn't when we were in the midst of the chaos. Hindsight is a gift -- especially with a positive ending.

I don't know what this project will become. Maybe some of it will appear here; maybe it won't. I've learned more than I ever wanted to about making decisions for the life of someone entirely dependent on my good judgment when I was the least objective mind in the room. I know, I know -- this is just the beginning, you say. But had I had the words of experience to hang on to from someone who had once been in our position, I think I would have felt just a little less hopeless at the worst moments. That is a reason, if any, to write all this into something coherent.

Long-form work and I have had a tenuous relationship in the past (think: the MFA thesis that almost wasn't). But the story I was writing then had no resolution. O.'s does. I'll take it as an auspicious sign that I've actually acquired nearly two dozen books from the library just to read what's already out there for mothers who face what we have. There are a surprising number of resources from those shelves that provide information on what we had to learn the hard way or gather in fragmented fashion from so-called lactation consultants. Interestingly, all of the books I requested were readily available -- no waiting lists for holds -- unlike the majority of the popular pregnancy and childbirth books in circulation. I may be jumping to conclusions based on our experience, but I suspect they're hanging out in the stacks because no one knows they exist -- or knows to go looking before they're needed. I certainly didn't.

I hefted my finds into two big canvas bags at our library on one of the hottest days of the summer, wearing O. in his carrier as I bent to remove each title from the holds shelf. He squirmed against me, eager to be free of his constraints or just hungry; I wasn't sure. But he was motivated and so was I. So I'm putting whatever this is -- brainstorm, project, as-yet-formless cloud of inspiration -- out there to give it weight. Matter, in its many senses, because it does matter. And I'm actually a wee bit convinced, dare I say it, that I can carry it for a while.

P.S.: For those of you who have asked how that trip to Florida went, it did indeed get postponed -- and relocated. Stay tuned for our first plane trip coming up in September, as we fete Troubadour Dad's 60th in the Texas panhandle ...

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Positive

It is one year from the day the pregnancy test comes back with a YES+ on its little liquid crystal screen, and we are not, as I'd been planning, about to get on a plane to Florida.

To clarify -- I didn't decide upon learning we were going to be parents that I wanted to observe the first anniversary of said news by hitting the beach. It is sheer luck that on the morning before our trip, I happen to be scrolling through the pictures of O. on my phone, looking for a recent one to e-mail to a friend while I wait for the breast pump to do its business. I notice how long the photo stream has gotten, images predating even the Great Elimination Diet of 2011. Time to clear out the clutter. But then the picture of that YES+ flashes by and I pause. One year tomorrow.

I remember taking the picture, not out of sentiment but out of a need for proof. I knew the battery in that digital dipstick would die long before I'd believe that we were really and truly going to be a family of three, so I snapped the shot and filed it away like a secret. During that shaky first trimester, I let it whisper its promise to me when I worried O. wasn't going to make it. Yes, it's real. Yes, you can handle this. Not just yes, but YES+ you will get through whatever may come.

One year later, I'm making a mental game plan on how to space out the pumpings en route to Troubadour Dad's destination birthday celebration so I don't completely drain the pump battery before I can find a wall socket on our layovers. Life before O. is practically unrecognizable.

I notice the text message from my mother after I've finally chosen a picture to send: "You need to call me right away if u can." I brush aside my momentary irritation with the random shorthand pronoun in the otherwise normally typed sentence. What's this about? I tap the phone's screen to dial my mother's cell. Dread mixes with the feeling of hunger in my gut. I'm always hungry these days. But the thought of granola and coffee (quarter caf) slips down the list of priorities as I wonder if something has happened to my father.

There is no reason to expect such a thing today. But the alarming lack of detail in the message leaves me fearing the worst. You don't text someone the news that a loved one has suddenly taken ill or become victim to some other misfortune -- you call. But we're two time zones apart, and it's barely 7 a.m. in Seattle. I imagine my mother, worried about waking us up but also trying to manage whatever it is that's so serious it can't be conveyed in writing. I wait for the first ring at the end of the line in Texas, eyes scanning the half-packed feeding supplies on the kitchen island. Disassembled bottles and nipples and cleaning supplies wait to be sorted into various carry-ons. I'm hoping they'll all fit. But is my father all right? Was there some kind of accident? Stroke or heart attack?

No -- just a wannabe hurricane raining on his birthday plans.

I'm simultaneously relieved to get this news from my mother and thoroughly exasperated. Couldn't you have just followed up your message with something along the lines of "change in travel plans"? I think to myself. I check the time on the text. It was sent a half-hour before I received it. Plenty of opportunity to add some clarification.

We chat about Tropical Storm Andrea while I make the coffee and toss oats, nuts, a dash of oil, and lots of cinnamon into a bowl. I stick the works in the microwave on half power, fingers flying over the buttons on autopilot. My mother wants to reroute everyone to another destination so we can at least observe my father's birthday as intended. It won't be the same, of course -- my father's been looking forward to heading out with the same sea captain he's been fishing with almost yearly since I was in high school -- but it's the gathering of the clan my father wants more than anything else. And even I can't say no to him, despite all instincts screaming otherwise. O.'s feeding problems make it nearly impossible to get five miles from the house, much less three thousand.

"Yes, I'll take a look at the options," I say to my mother. "Yes, I'll get back to you when I have more information."

Yes, yes, YES+. I have to laugh at the message in that photo, tossed into this alternate context. In truth, I'm not sure which gears to shift to make a new plan work at this stage of the game. It's certainly magical thinking on my mother's part that we'll be able to find affordable tickets, but having strategized on the level of a military maneuver to get O., the pump, and me to Florida and back, I'm not about to pull out of trip-prep mode until we are sure there's no way to convene, whatever the new location. Chez Dr. Sis and Marketing Sis in Boston? My parents' place in Texas?

I'm not an optimist by nature, and if I ever was one, the events of the last three months have certainly had their chance to turn me. It's less crazy-making to consider what might go wrong with O. and plan accordingly than to tell yourself the other shoe has dropped already and to stop worrying, to expect some kind of relief.

But it could always be worse. At every stage of the game when things have gotten worse, I've reminded myself that I should have been grateful for what was working. Maybe this is why I still believe we're going to get on that plane to somewhere the next day. I still have my plan -- it just needs some tweaking to accommodate a new destination.

*

I'm linking up today with Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below!

Mama’s Losin’ It

Friday, June 21, 2013

New standards in multitasking?

On the days O. wakes up early from his afternoon nap, I'm not inclined to give up my plans completely -- nap time, when I'm not pumping or running errands, is for exercise and/or doing a little something exclusively for my own pleasure in order to maintain my sanity. How to build that into baby-entertaining? Witness this four-point intervention:


1. That knitting project you see in the foreground? I've been working on it while pumping in the middle of the night. Turns out it's also doable while ...

2. Ellipticizing. Sure, I'm not using the handlebars (you can see the yarn draped over the left-hand one), but my arms are getting plenty of toning at other times of day from hefting ...

3. O., who is holding my ball of yarn (and also pulling it apart), while I talk to him -- they say you know you're exercising at an appropriate intensity if you can still hold a conversation. I can't say my chit-chat is scintillating, but I'm pretty sure he is fascinated by the movement of the machine, which is a great device for ...

4. Getting O. to turn his head to the left. We had his 4-month check-up last week, where it was determined that all's well -- he's grown another 3 inches since his 2-month visit! We are now, however, supposed to work on evening out the asymmetrical flatness to the back of his head. He favors lying with his head turned to the right, hence the pediatrician's recommendation that we interest O. in all things on the opposite side.

I think I'm going to call this a decent compromise for all parties involved. Or at the very least, something I can look back at and laugh about someday.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Highs and lows

Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Is this thing on? Screech of microphone feedback. Hi! We're still alive over here. Surreptitiously nudges door of bedroom closed to hide ground zero: perpetually full laundry hamper; half-unpacked suitcases; stack of unread magazines and library books; and spit-up rags draped over portable crib, infant rocking seat, and end of (still) unmade bed.

Where was I? Oh, right. O. is thirteen fourteen fifteen almost sixteen weeks old, a good bit past the halfway point to the day we can start introducing him to solid food. (In the name of all that is holy, that day cannot come soon enough.) I'm still pumping up to ten times in a 24-hour period to get him fed, which, per our calculations, is about 7 hours attached to the machine, plus time cleaning pump parts in between each use. Which means this is literally a second job -- the first being to feed the same milk to O., do his oral therapy, change his diapers, play with him, get him to nap, and, of course, love the heck out of him.

Attempts at essay writing have been laughably fragmented, kind of like most mental processes I assail with the grace of a zombie these days. But to provide an update, I thought I'd offer some high/low entertainment for the few who are still checking in here to make sure we haven't completely fallen off the earth. (By the way, you all mean the world to me and the shadow of my former self who misses this space more than I have words even on less sleep-deprived days to use to express my gratitude.) So, for those who've been asking how we're doing ...

High: O. is turning into quite the social little guy. He discovered the world at around ten weeks old and started cooing at everything. Somewhere between an owl's hoot and a dove's cry, his little invitations to converse go out to people and inanimate objects alike, and when he gets a response, his delighted smiles are so enormous that they almost don't fit between his ears. That's made introducing him to others hugely rewarding -- and it's motivated me to keep making lunch dates with pre-baby friends, even if getting out of the house requires precision organization and timing as well as a good bit of luck to make it to an engagement and back before the next scheduled pumping.

Low: Pump schedule anxiety. As you get off by a few minutes here and there throughout the day because you wanted to go have some social time or run errands that you'd otherwise have to depend on your husband to do (which means he'd have to do them after work, depriving you of any time together before you have to go to bed), you're suddenly out an hour or more of sleep because you have to shorten the time between pumping intervals overnight to play catch-up. That sentence probably makes no sense whatsoever if you've never had to do pump schedule math, but just trust me when I say it sucks (ha!) to have to choose to give up even more sleep time, when you already get so little of it, or accept the alternative -- living in near-total isolation five days a week. Hard to say which is more detrimental to one's general mood since the former continues to deplete serotonin, which you need proper sleep cycles to make, while the latter just makes for a very lonely existence. And no, listening to your husband snore in blissful oblivion in the same room while you pump does not count as time spent together.

High: Did you know dark chocolate has been shown to promote serotonin production? I've been leaning heavily (no pun intended) on this brand* of tasty goodness to keep the sleep deprivation from pulling me completely under.

Low: I've been leaning heavily (pun intended) on the aforementioned chocolate. I don't have much baby weight to lose, but it's not going anywhere as long as I'm going through a few bags of these morsels per week ...

High: O. has discovered how to bring his fists to his mouth and keep them there, which means he can self-soothe for much longer periods of time. Hello, three-hour naps!

Low: O. is only successful at self-soothing when he's on his tummy. Putting baby to sleep unsupervised on his front is a big no-no until he can roll over. Enter three-hour sleeping baby-watching sessions. I have nightmares about infants who find creative ways to asphyxiate (self-strangulation with swaddle blanket, among others) the moment someone takes an eye off them. While this is not nearly as great a threat in real life, O. has managed to get his swaddle inside out and up over his head in the throes of slumber:


Note too that he was aligned with the long axis of the crib when I put him down and was able to rotate 90 degrees on his back (how?!) also while asleep. I hope this doesn't mean he's going to be a sleepwalker.

High: Two Skype accounts + two laptops + USB camera = instant video-equipped baby monitor. Skype even puts a video window on your computer screen when you've minimized the application but still have a call in progress. Guess what I'm watching right now as I type. Indeed, I can now take some advantage of O.'s developing nap schedule to do things like exercise. Yes, the laptop is perched on the elliptical at this very moment -- we're big fans of multitasking these days. I wonder if I can also pump while working out on this machine ...

Low: Protecting the nap schedule means even less opportunity to go out. Disturbing your baby's daytime sleep on a regular basis can supposedly lead to poor sleep at night, which is the last thing we want to encourage, and already we know O is much more difficult to get to sleep whenever he gets overtired. Of course, O.'s longest wakeful period happens to occur right before rush hour traffic begins, and you really have to want whatever it is you're going out to get if it means you risk being stuck away from home for way longer than you'd anticipated. Lunch dates may soon give way to afternoon coffee dates. See pump schedule anxiety.

High: Since O.'s become more successful at getting his fists to his mouth, he's done some good work on his jaw to loosen up the muscles. We're now getting him to latch much better, even though he's still not efficient enough to take a full meal on his own. This device, which has a reservoir he can drink from simultaneously at the breast, is helping us. Recently, O.'s occupational therapist increased our "homework" from two nursings a day with the feeder to four, with the goal of eventually doing every nursing this way until we can wean him off the feeder as well. There is hope! I can't believe I can say this after so many weeks of feeling that there wasn't.

Low: More frequent nursing = erratic, delayed pumping + clogged ducts + more nipple damage. We're forever trying to walk the line between getting O. more nursing time and not injuring me to the point of increased infection risk. Unfortunately, we're battling what we think is thrush. I'll spare you the details, but if you're fighting the same fight, there are some decent (though scary) resources available on what you're working with -- consider yourself warned if you really want to go looking. Latching is, to the say the least, way more painful with all of the above going on. One step forward, two steps back. We now log additional time running pump parts through the dishwasher (three cycles daily) and sterilizing every set by steaming it in the microwave afterward.

High: Out of sheer frustration with the limits of being attached to a pump 7 hours a day plus all the extra cleaning time, I've gotten shockingly adept at pumping in unusual places and situations, even with O. in tow. I can now set up and use the pump entirely on my own in a public location (with the help of two nursing covers) as long as there is a flat surface I can set the apparatus on and a safe place to put O. so I don't have to hold or wear him (assuming he's amenable to that in the moment). I have also figured out how to nurse and pump simultaneously to address, at least some of the time, the conflicting demands of maintaining milk supply and getting O. more latch time. I feel like a one-woman circus every time I have to do either of these things, but I'm also weirdly proud that I have developed working solutions to get around these rather sizable situational obstacles. A car adapter even makes it possible to take the show (literally) on the road -- we managed to have our first road trip as a family over Mother's Day weekend. It was just 200 miles to Portland to see some good friends of mine from college, but it might as well have been twice the distance, as it took twice as long to get there with our various stops to dig out or put away pump parts and milk storage supplies. Fortunately, after a few rounds, we started to develop a better system, but it still needs some streamlining to be space-efficient. I think the pumping equipment occupied more of the seat than I did for most of the ride, which won't work for longer trips.

Low: Speaking of which, we have been somewhat arm-twisted into going to Florida for Troubadour Dad's destination celebration in honor of his 60th birthday next week. Feting this occasion will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, which we certainly consider to be a good thing. Working out the logistics of said trip, however, has been a nightmare. There is that whole problem of space limitations when pumping on a plane (and we thought the front passenger seat of a car was a squeeze!) while simultaneously juggling a lap child. There is also the fact that breast pumps, as medical equipment, are subject to certain FAA rules and individual airline policies. The hospital-grade model we had rented isn't permitted for use in flight because it only works when plugged in. Because our airline does not wish to be liable for any passenger's medical needs because of power loss or failure (the outlets on planes are sometimes turned off by the pilot at certain points during flight, according to our airline's Special Assistance desk, which handles queries from folks like us), I had to spend the last several weeks chasing down a hospital-grade rental with a battery that could be recharged and would last for more than a single pumping. I found one after a lot of research (hey, what is overnight pumping time for?) but its battery had been run down so badly that it wouldn't hold more than 15 minutes of charge when I tested it at home. Which meant I had to find more time to take the whole mess back to the renter and have them send it to the manufacturer to exchange for a new pump. See pump schedule anxiety. Oh, and let's not even think about how we're going to make that schedule work across two 14-hour travel days ...

So there you have it -- apologies that it's taken a month to write. We are zeroing in on our departure date with alarming speed, which means I should be using this time to deal (further) with trip logistics. Tips for air travel with an infant and/or taking a baby to the beach are very, very welcome! (Please ... forewarned is forearmed.) I have to say, as the ringmaster of this Cirque du So-Lait, I never thought things could get this crazy. The silver lining, I suppose, is that when O. either figures out how to breastfeed well or he's old enough to get his nutrition in other ways, getting through a normal day, with or without travel, will feel so much easier. At least, I'm counting on it!

* The experts recommend that you consume dark chocolate that is at least 70 percent cacao, and I haven't determined if this product qualifies as such, but given my food sensitivities, this was the only option available to me. If you're dealing with postpartum slump and can consume something clearly marked 70 percent cacao or more, do it!

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Misjudged

It's the day of our weekly parent-baby class at one of the local hospitals, and I am running late as usual. Not that it matters -- it's a casual group for new moms and dads with babes-in-arms (or strollers or carriers or whatever works for your particular infant), and people trickle into the meet-up as they're able to. But I'm late, and before O., I was rarely ever, and I haven't yet reached the point of not caring.

Despite numerous car trips with O. since his birth, I'm apparently also still not used to using the rear passenger doors to get him in and out of his car seat in tight parking spaces. The clunk the door makes when I open it, hitting the SUV next to us, startles me. What the hell? I think. How did I so badly misjudge --

"You have got to be kidding me," a voice says. The driver's door to the SUV has opened, and a woman with a deep tan, enormous sunglasses, and a suit that hugs her buxom figure leans out. "Did you scratch my car?" she asks in a tone that implies that she's sure I have.

I gape and look because it's reflexive. With relief, I note that the black finish is clean, save for some pollen on the surface from the flowering trees that are everywhere, but the woman doesn't pause after her question. "Look what you did," she says, running a manicured finger over the metal. I look again automatically and see nothing but the track she's left in the dust as she continues to berate me for my carelessness, shaking the honey-colored highlights in her perfectly layered coppery brown hair. Do I touch the door to see what she's talking about? Or will she get angrier if she thinks I'm calling her assessment into question? I can't get a word in as her scolding rolls on, disdain dripping off every syllable.

I can feel myself shrinking into the folds of my sweater and yoga pants, suddenly hyperaware of my barely kempt appearance -- bare-faced, hair badly in need of a trim, ragged cuticles from constant bottle washing and treating all manner of stains in O.'s laundry. That I could even fit into my pre-baby clothes at this point after O.'s arrival felt like an accomplishment before I left the house, but now this woman is leveling a kind of contempt at me that I've never encountered before. And this, I realize, is what she wants me to hear. She's used to looking down on people, I suspect, as she wears her attitude like a favorite, broken-in pair of designer jeans.

Make it stop, a desperate voice whispers in my ear, the voice that's felt powerless in the face of motherhood with each day of struggle to get O. fed. I don't have the wherewithal to process anything else, least of all being talked down to. Do whatever you have to so she'll just go away, the voice begs.

"I'm so sorry," I say -- and it's true, I am. But I'm not above playing the pity card to shut down the harangue that's gone on for way too long. I gesture into my back seat. "I have a ten-week-old baby and I'm completely sleep-deprived."

"Oh, like that's any excuse," the woman spits, the acid in her venom so sharp that my eyes sting. But, as if she knows it's pointless to dig her stilettos any further into my dignity, she gets back into her car and slams the door. Sits there as she was when I first pulled in. I hope against hope that she'll start her engine and go, but she remains. I'm half tempted to knock on her window and unload a few choice words instead of letting her have the last ones in this way, but I'm too stunned by what she's implied: Motherhood? Counts for nothing.

Not that the attitude is one I've never encountered before, but I was never on the receiving end of the insult until now.

Reeling from the near-physical force of her words, I gingerly slip into my own car, unbuckle O., wrangle him into the floppy cloth carrier I've wrapped around my torso and then ease us both out again. I open the front passenger door with even greater care, trying not to imagine the woman's scornful gaze boring through her sunglasses into my back as I squeeze the bulky diaper bag out. And then I walk away, praying that my tires won't be slashed and my windshield broken when we return.

I don't start crying until I get into the classroom. I try to hide it, looking intently downward at O. as I wrangle him back out of the carrier into my arms. I press him to my shoulder and bury my face in his little neck, kiss his downy-soft hair, tears dripping all the while. He bobs his head, looking around, and coos. It's a relief to hold him, to feel his solid body nestling against mine in complete trust, to know that nothing else has to matter to either of us in that moment.

As the initial flood of emotion finally begins to ebb, the voice in my ear returns. She can't possibly be a mother, it whispers, trying to comfort me. Otherwise, she would have been more understanding. But even as this thought bubbles up, I bat it away. You shouldn't judge her on that basis, I counter. Doing so makes you no better than she is.

Because that is what I was doing when I made my bid for mercy, wasn't it? Because I sized her up too, assumed she wasn't going to understand, and in a way, let her know I had more important things to worry about than her damn paint job. I'm suddenly ashamed. I'm not sure which to feel worse about: being denigrated by this woman or discovering that I'm guilty after a fashion of dismissing her too.

O. wriggles, trying to pull his fists to his mouth. I take him off my shoulder and settle him on my lap, soaking up the baby-sweet innocence in his gaze. It's too late to go back and change my half-assed apology. But I'm aware now of how easy it is to be drawn into taking the measure of someone else -- how parenthood has suddenly put so many more of these traps before me.

Mother versus mother, mother versus not. There just isn't enough space to maneuver between such narrow terms without risk of a slam, intended or otherwise.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Tongue-tied

Friday, March 29th, 10:55 a.m.

Today is D.'s first day back at work after his month of paternity leave, and it's just the two of us, O. and me, in the bunker of our bedroom. A pile of clean laundry sits on the unmade bed and random receipts and invoices from the last few weeks, most of them for medical care, are stacked on the floor and the ottoman to the nursing chair I don't use for nursing. Instead, I sit there solely to pump these days, every two hours. O., asleep in his rocking seat just within arm's reach, is snoring to the rhythm of the pump motor as I type.

Saturday, March 30th, 8:20 a.m.

I could write this as if it were one continuous post, but the reality is that I can only put down words every so many hours, when O. doesn't happen to need feeding while I'm pumping. I've rigged a hands-free flange holder from a strapless bra that always threatened to slip down whenever I wore it -- there was little for it to grip. It's serving its new purpose with much better success. Even when I'm holding O. in my lap, his powerful little legs kicking in protest when I take the bottle away to burp him, the bra does not yield when his foot swipes the collection containers dangling by his toes. Brings new meaning to the mother of invention indeed.

10:20 a.m.

We determined, after seeing a lactation consultant and an occupational therapist who specializes in infant feeding problems, that O. was born with a tongue tie. The ligament under his tongue was too tight and couldn't allow him to nurse properly, even though he made a remarkable effort for the first three weeks of his life. I had no idea he was struggling -- I just knew he was chewing me to pieces, but I thought it was normal. Breastfeeding is supposed to be painful at first, the on-call pediatrician who saw O. for jaundice said when he was three days old. I accepted that -- I'd planned to breastfeed unless there were extraordinary circumstances preventing it in hopes that O. would be better protected against developing the kinds of food allergies I have. I assumed the blistering would eventually toughen me up. As it was, O. was gaining weight at twice the average rate once we got through the initial postpartum weight loss every baby experiences.

4:15 p.m.

But then O. hit his first growth spurt and couldn't get the milk he needed, despite all the clamping and gnawing he'd been doing to compensate. Once we discovered the tongue tie, it was clear we had to get it clipped -- he was making himself gag too often when he tried to pull his tongue back and he couldn't stick it out far enough to form a proper latch. So we took him to yet another person who could do the procedure. It's a quick one, but I could not watch. The last I saw of O., drunk on the sugar water he'd been given before the frenotomy, was his tiny body swaddled in a hospital-issue blanket, his large, dark eyes gazing up at the nurse who would hold him down. And then the nurse practitioner who performed the clip was pressing gauze into his mouth and dancing from foot to foot with him in her arms while his face turned pink with his silent scream.

6:20 p.m.

We are 10 days from that afternoon and O.'s attempts to nurse are no better, at least from a nutritive standpoint. He no longer leaves me bloody, but he can't get a satisfactory latch, even though we both try so hard. We are now being sent to a group of occupational/physical therapists at Seattle Children's Hospital -- it seems there are more issues with O.'s mouth that we won't be able to address until he has an oral motor evaluation. The residual sensitivity he appears to have -- namely, that hyperactive gag -- is preventing him from being able to suck effectively.

Sunday, March 31st, 5:30 a.m.

It is hard not to be consumed by the quest for answers and assistance. It feels as if for as long as I've been stuck in this seat to pump -- the entire month, as of today -- I've been making appointments for O. and looking for recommendations on the most effective ways to increase milk supply. As he began to have more trouble nursing, I stopped producing as much milk because he wasn't extracting it well. Now we're playing catch-up. D. has a spreadsheet going for the data -- volumes, time elapsed between pumping sessions, time of day. Yes, we're geeks. But if charting will tell us whether we're actually gaining anything, then I can decide whether the hours I'm investing are worth what I'm losing in sleep and, more importantly, time with O.

8:30 a.m.

Of course, O. doesn't understand this when all he wants is to snuggle on my chest, flanges be damned. It's my heartbeat he wants against his cheek, to lull him to sleep when he's tired and to be comforted in his alert moments. Try as I have, I can't find a way to hold him in that position, so we are stuck at best at arms' length, which for both of us is an enormous disappointment. O. knits his little brows, throwing fists in all directions in search of something, anything, to pacify himself.

10:30 a.m.

"Talk to him," D. suggests. But I'm a mediocre conversationalist with the non-verbal set. I feel ridiculous narrating what I'm doing -- really, I'm not doing anything, just waiting passively for the pump to finish its business -- so that's out. And I sense O. is smart enough to know I can do better. D., an extrovert through and through, just has to stick his ever expressive face in front of O. to fascinate him; chit-chat is a bonus.

12:30 p.m.

So I practice my Cantonese on him. Very basic things, as my own retained vocabulary from childhood is scant: the words for parts of his body or a narration of what he's looking at. I follow with the English equivalent. Nothing like doubling the time from one sentence to another when you don't know what to say to replace the language of touch.

Monday, April 1st, 3:55 a.m.

Does he really recognize my voice from his time in utero? I wonder. For D.'s month off, I've had to spend so much time tied to the pump that D. has been O.'s primary caregiver. Bottle-feeding, changing, playing, walking him around the living room in the middle of the night -- it's no wonder I've had trouble finding a connection to this intense little soul now that I'm all he has during the weekday. For the last two weeks, when my face has been in front of his, he's stared past me into my hair. I tell myself it's because he's attracted to high-contrast things, but I worry he's forgotten who I am.

9:10 p.m.

It's also amazing the difference a day makes. Today was our second on our own with this pumping schedule, and for most of it, O. made eye contact with me. And he smiled.

Tuesday, April 2nd, 8:05 p.m.

We've been given exercises to do with O. to help loosen the muscles of his mouth and increase the range of motion of his tongue. He hated having our fingers in and around his mouth right after the frenotomy -- no surprise -- but I've figured out how to make that more, shall we say, palatable. I wait until he's looking at me and then do one of the lip stretches with my fingers on myself while making an interesting noise, such as clicking my tongue, in rhythm with the left-right motions -- we have to push and pull the upper and lower lips sideways. Then I do the same on him. He thinks it's a great game as long as I stay on the outside of his mouth -- he opens it almost as if to laugh and makes cooing sounds. He still doesn't like my touching his gums or tongue, though. He used to welcome having a finger to suck on for comfort, but now he grabs our hands and forcibly pulls them away when we go for the exercise where we have to press on his tongue to encourage him to form it into a trough (it'll help him maintain suction at the breast). I did manage to get him to take my finger briefly when he was sleepy today, just for pacification. It's as if regaining his trust is part of his therapy too.

Thursday, April 4th, 4:15 a.m.

Tomorrow we'll have made it through a work week. I've measured the hours until D. returns each day by pumping intervals -- five, on average, before I can have his help again with O. I consider it a victory if I can feed myself and accomplish one other task in between sessions if O. is asleep: folding laundry, paying bills, anything that can be done not seated in front of my laptop, which is where the pump is set up. I baked bread yesterday. Two beautiful, springy-centered, golden-crusted, gluten-free loaves. I'd mixed the dry ingredients Monday afternoon and was never able to get enough time until 48 hours later to add the wet and then put it all in the oven. But I anticipated that. And I even mixed two extra rations of dry ingredients and bagged them for next time.

9:15 a.m.

I've realized after these simultaneously long and short days -- long when you can never get more than three hours' sleep because of pumping demands, short because there is never enough time in between to finish tasks that you used to count on being able to complete in one attempt -- that a to-do list is laughably moot. So I've renamed it the Wish List. I jot down what I'd like to get done on it and impose no time limits. It gives me the sense that those things still matter, that it is okay to prioritize the time for them, even if it means an entire day's scattered free minutes have to be used to get one wish fulfilled. The bread was worth it. It also keeps me from forgetting the little things that would otherwise nag at me every time I'm reminded of them while I'm attached to the pump or have my hands full with O. (sometimes both). Move ottoman was one of today's wishes, the one that came with the nursing chair. I've wanted to get it out of our bedroom for the entire month as it's not usable at the moment. (Never lean back while pumping unless you really do want to cry about spilled milk.)

7:25 p.m.

I won't say I've accepted all this as the new normal yet. But we're surviving it until the next turn in the road. We'll see the occupational/physical therapy group in just under a week, and then, who knows. At least we've proved to ourselves that some form of life as we once knew it can continue -- only in discrete chunks. O. is worth it. I just can't wait until the pump is no longer between him and me.



*

This post happened to coincide with a prompt from Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Sunday, March 10, 2013

At four weeks

... you are feisty and fierce in your demands, little owl. You've kept us on our toes since mere days after you were born, with jaundice that required in-home nursing care. You finally learned how to latch to the breast but then refused to nurse two weeks later for reasons we can't explain. That mild fever you had the same day? A change in the musculature of your mouth? We're at a loss. Thankfully you've gained weight on our alternative measures -- round-the-clock pumping for the bottle feedings we swore we'd only rely on until we got your nipple strike figured out. You'll latch now, but only briefly, and you draw blood sometimes before milk.

You're learning at last how to bring your fists to your mouth to comfort yourself when we are not enough, which feels like it has been every day since March arrived. Your cries break my heart even as my own impatience to find answers takes away any confidence in my ability to choose what to do next for you. Keep you alive, yes. But there are so many avenues we've gone down, trusting the guides -- pediatricians, lactation consultants -- who were supposed to help but only compounded our problems.

I've jotted down parts of the story of your arrival -- also complicated and fraught with decisions I wish we hadn't had to make, but there we were and here you are. I remind myself that you are still safe and whole. Even as we continue to find ourselves against these hurdles no one ever talked about or prepared us for. (And why would they have, given how unusual your circumstances seem to be? No sense scaring expectant parents further.) Every time I go to write about you, thinking we've finally cleared the latest obstacle -- now, now we can report with some distance and relief that all is well, I tell myself -- something else catches at our heels and threatens to throw you from our grasp.

But now you're bundled skin-to-skin with me inside the fleece jacket I've zipped around us both. We huddle against each other, tear-stained but not at odds for once. And while you sleep, I can hold off on deciding what we should be doing next for you, for me, for all of us on this wild course that seems to have no end. What I would give just to remain this way, in this quiet hour holding you, and not have you wake again just yet, hungry.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

He's here

Our little Troubadour sneaked into this life on the last morning in the year of the dragon. He was a wee bit ahead of schedule for those among our friends and family who were guessing he'd be a lunar new year baby, but we're delighted he decided to show up when he did.

We are still getting acquainted after his first week, which has been full of adventures -- some good and some medically unnerving -- so a proper account of his arrival will come later. For now, though, we're pleased to introduce this tiny night owl to you.

O., meet the world.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Scenes from around the table, part 4: prodding

This is the fourth and final post in a series chronicling our last holiday season before baby arrives -- as they say, life is never the same afterward, so in the interest of capturing a few snapshots to remember this time, here are some jottings from moments that have lingered with me over a multi-destination Thanksgiving week.

Dr. Sis is already in bed with her iPhone docked and its music playing when I come out of her bathroom the night before the baby shower. Rolls of teal tissue, turquoise wrapping paper, and silver ribbon lean against one another in the corner amidst shipping boxes I have been instructed not to poke around in -- quarters in Dr. Sis's Boston condo are cozy, leaving few options for hiding gifts except covering them in plain sight. I climb under the comforter, trying not to disturb a second pile of boxes on my side of the bed.

The clutter, some hardly shower-related, spills into the living room in the form of shoes, books, cleaning supplies, grocery bags. In my own home, the mess would drive me crazy, but I respect that this is my sister's space and that she's a junior resident. That she can find time to feed herself is already a feat on her demanding schedule. Preparing to host a party? Unimaginable. And yet, that's exactly what she's been doing all evening, to my amazement. She and Marketing Sis have already wrapped a large pile of packages now nestled on an arm chair in the dining nook, waiting to be opened the following afternoon.

Through my homebody's eye, I see more than just gifts buried in the corners of this condo. It's a part of Dr. Sis's life, which I've lost the ability to inquire about without feeling like I'm intruding. She is, and has always been, someone who gets her joy from being around other people, usually in spaces not her own -- or maybe it's that she immerses herself in that which is outside her home because the world behind her own door is something she'd rather not steep in alone for too long. So things pile up and get left behind as she comes and goes, stopping to sleep but not, I imagine, to be still here. Whenever she is home, she runs Pandora or tracks from her iTunes account, the music, it seems, a buffer against too much rumination.

I want to be wrong about all of that. Except, perhaps, the part about joy -- if she really does find her happiness outside, out loud, out and about, more power to her. Just because I'm a homebody doesn't mean I think she ought to be.

On this night, I'm not sure what kind of mood she's in, but heart-to-hearts have been rare between us, so I don't expect to plunge into any heavy conversation. We have so little time and we both need sleep; it would be unwise to tread too far into those questions I'm dying to ask anyway. What is it to be where you are now, doing what you're doing? Who's in your life these days? What makes you tick? Basic things I thought I used to know about her.

I admit I haven't been forthcoming with the same information myself. When I have offered up those pieces of my life to her, though, I've never felt satisfied with them. The true answers to most of those questions are that I don't know, it's complicated, things are still a work in progress, I need more time to think. And Dr. Sis, an analyst by nature and in her line of work, delves deeper, harder, faster than I can regroup to get more detailed answers out. She has to be direct, efficient in diagnosing her patients. I don't like feeling like a patient when we start talking. Tell her this, and she'll likely respond, "Really. Well, say more about that."

It's like falling into a trap. A heart-to-heart shouldn't feel like a catch-22 -- and yet. And yet. I wonder if having a mind as sharp as hers is partly why she keeps her music running. I imagine a brain like that needs a regulator, to quiet its inclinations to examine, evaluate, spin. I know reflection has been a big part of Dr. Sis's medical training, but too much introspection can be more harmful than helpful. Writing has its similarities.

Dr. Sis is poking around on her laptop, so I scoot down under the comforter away from the light from the screen, even though I'm not quite sleepy. I expect her to drop off soon -- she's just come off studying for and taking a two-day certification exam on top of taking call over part of Thanksgiving weekend and hosting a Turkey Day dinner -- but Dr. Sis turns toward me, a thoughtful expression on her face, and begins prodding at my belly.

After Marketing Sis's unabashed interactions with her unborn nephew, this doesn't surprise me. I'm amused at the difference in each sister's approach, though. While Marketing Sis has talked to, laid an ear against, and even kissed the belly, Dr. Sis methodically examines it for landmarks. She palpates low, just as my OB has in recent weeks, looking for identifiers I can't name. "He's supposedly rotated downward," I say. Dr. Sis nods and continues to press and poke, her other hand now at the top of my abdomen as if to take the measure of her nephew's body.

"There's an appendage," she says as he squirms a little.

"How can you tell?" I ask. Even though my sister's focus is not in obstetrics, she has done a rotation in the field and delivered her share of babies. I'm awed that she can find a fetal heartbeat with just her stethoscope, fascinated that the random movements I feel under my skin make a difference between heel and head to her. The baby, not so much -- he suddenly kicks vigorously beneath my sister's fingers, as if perturbed. We look at each other, both a little startled, and laugh.

"I'm sorry," she says to the nephew. To me: "When those parts are next to each other but you can feel them moving independently, that's how you know." Dr. Sis makes a flippery motion with her two hands as our middle school swim team coach used to show us when we were learning how to execute an efficient flutter kick.

Then she lets the belly be, respecting its resident's protests. Too much, those kicks seem to say. For once, though, I don't mind the prodding.

For more from this series, please click here.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

It's not nesting if it involves fleas

At nearly 11 p.m. on Saturday, when 30-somethings without kids are likely out and 30-somethings with kids are likely out cold, I'm holding a one-quart Pyrex measuring cup full of borax powder, swinging it like a censer over the living room carpet. The cat is upstairs in the laundry room, crying to be let out, but as long as the floors are coated in this fine, white dust that I'm counting on for salvation, my will isn't bending on that score.

It has been six days since the discovery of flea "dirt" -- the blood meal that fleas excrete like little pepper grains -- in our cat's coat, and seven since our vacuum happened to break down. Impeccable timing. While we're fortunate to have caught the problem very early -- our indoor-only cat almost certainly picked up the fleas from an indoor-outdoor cat whose house she shared while we were traveling over Christmas -- I'm still kicking myself for not having the vet treat her on a preventive level, knowing the risks of boarding her with D's friend, the owner. Never mind that said owner failed to mention that he suspected his cat's flea treatments hadn't been working. I try not to think about what we could have done differently and concentrate on getting the borax distributed evenly over the carpet. And here I was a week ago, just hoping to get the vacuum repaired in time to do a once-over on the house before this baby's arrival.

Would I call that pre-flea impulse nesting? Not really. That instinct everybody keeps asking me about is there, but only so far as the preservation of future sanity goes. Of course I want to get the baby room furniture assembled; the baby laundry washed and folded; the extra meals cooked, labeled, and frozen -- so I won't have to do it once the baby is here. But no, I'm not scrambling to organize my sock drawer by brand and color or alphabetize the spice cabinet.

In the name of making more space, I would love to purge our closets of clothes we haven't worn in several years, books from long-finished college classes that we haven't been able to resell, electronics that are obsolete enough to be laughed off Craigslist. While we've gone as minimal and practical as possible in deciding what we truly need or wish to have for this tiny person, who promises to outgrow it all quickly enough, the sheer volume of what other well-meaning friends have been sending us in the last few weeks is beginning to threaten our storage capacity. Or at least the limits I currently believe in maintaining -- yes, there is always a way to make room, but is that really a practice I want to embrace without reservations when this child will be accumulating things wherever we are for the next 18 years?

These thoughts scroll through my mind as I swing the glass back and forth, back and forth, over the room D has helped me clear of all furniture except the couches. The next morning, I will vacuum with our freshly serviced vacuum, hoping that the borax will have desiccated any eggs or fleas overnight. It's not the kind of purge I envisioned, but the irony of it is almost funny. Not funny enough, though, to keep me from asking why this now, of all things?

I finish dusting the carpet, set the heavy glass on the stairs, and massage my aching hand. It's advisable to work the borax into the deeper fibers, so I make a slow circuit of the room in blue running shoes turned gray from their coating of powder. The cat mumbles to herself upstairs, giving up on me for the night, and it's finally quiet. I've been lucky not to have the raging insomnia so many women have told me is part and parcel of the third trimester, but I am on this evening a little too overcharged to want sleep -- I'd just welcome the chance to sit. Still, the room goes on, suddenly much larger as I make myself side-step, ankle to ankle, around the perimeter, working my way back toward the stairs.

Just let this be done, I think, tempted to turn my methodical pacing into a mad grapevine. There are too many other things I'd rather be doing to prepare not just our home but my state of mind for this baby. But to give in to that desire -- to give up my controlled march so I can get some control back elsewhere -- is the paradoxical opposite of surrender. Maintaining this slow dance is the very act of yielding that I know I'm terrible at. And I'm about to bring into the world a little being who will need me to do just that -- ignore the closets, the old books and electronics, and the mental space they occupy.

So I traverse the room, step by step, carrying us both across the powdery landscape I've committed to tamping down. And I tell myself that nesting for me may be clearing out the detritus of old lives. But only so that I can take on this new one.

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I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Scenes from around the table, part 3: needles and threads

This is the third in a series of posts chronicling our last holiday season before baby arrives -- as they say, life is never the same afterward, so in the interest of capturing a few snapshots to remember this time, here are some jottings from moments that have lingered with me over a multi-destination Thanksgiving week.

As the sun fades from the kitchen mid-afternoon, my mother furrows her brow at the knitting draped over her knees. The two pieces of a cowl she's trying to put together with three needles are a jumble of burgundy loops at the row where they should join, some strangely tight, others oddly loose, in a stockinette pattern that should be completely even. She mumbles to herself as she peers at the instructions, counts by twos in Cantonese along the width of the cowl and then utters with dismay, "I'm missing a stitch!"

Across the table, I set my own knitting on my lap and wait to see if she wants help. For the last hour, my mother has been going back and forth over the same few rows, taking out mistakes only to add other ones, and it is all I can do to let her continue without intervention -- getting more involved risks disrupting the balance we've managed to achieve on this visit so far. No fights or gross misunderstandings, as we are prone to have at least once per trip.

We've been talking, certainly -- just light conversation about nothing of great importance. Unfortunately, I suspect the more she speaks, the more errors she makes in her work. Neither of us would win contests for being able to walk and chew gum. But my gradual retreat for her sake from the chit-chat in our knitting circle of two hasn't seemed to prevent her from gabbing on, interrupting herself only to exclaim over new tangles.

This time still, she returns to counting, trying to determine where her stitch has fallen, so I go back to the little blue sweater on my own needles. The piece I'm working on has been growing at a creep, not because the pattern is hard but because the numerous cables are slow-going. I think of the intricately textured baby vests and cardigans Nga Po, my mother's mother, used to turn out so quickly for all of her grandchildren and have to marvel at her skill. No patterns, no guidelines, just intuition. "Nga Po could look at someone else's work and duplicate it, even resize it," my mother tells me whenever we talk about her mother's talents.

"Nga Po taught you to knit, right?" I ask.

"The basics," my mother says. "She was so patient. Whenever I messed up, I'd take my work to her and she'd help me fix it. Every time, no matter how tangled up. She was so good too -- I don't know how she could figure out where I'd made my mistakes, it was so bad sometimes!"

I, too, can only wonder how my grandmother could see the often deceptive logic of stitches meant to twist, cross, double, or join in their over-under fashion to produce the leaves, diamonds, and other figures she'd create in an evening -- frequently while playing mahjong -- for the tiny garments she'd send us. I try to picture her, the same two lines between her eyebrows that are now between my mother's, as she peers at my mother's needles. She holds the mass of yarn in both hands, her long fingers gently stretching the web of loops and holes that spell out their secrets in a script only she can read, and suddenly the point of one needle flicks into action. It noses into the heart of a row, fishes up some length of yarn, the other needle grabs it and begins to work in tandem, and like magic, the tangle is transformed. It has happened too quickly for me to see what she's done, but there's the panel of knits and purls, whole again.

This isn't the only moment in which I've tried to draw my grandmother's quiet presence near during these months of preparation for motherhood. Because the beginning of this pregnancy was shaky -- there were questions about the baby's viability around 7-8 weeks -- we waited as long as possible before telling our families our good news. So in the first trimester, while we watched anxiously for signs that we could breathe more easily, I placed my grandmother's photo on my nightstand. Please protect this baby, I asked her, a mother of six, before turning off the light at the end of the day. While I've never practiced ancestor worship as her generation did, the idea that she was always a guardian to the integrity of her family -- the thread that drew it close even in her old age -- made her seem a natural confidante for my worries. And, of course, all the questions and hopes and bizarre hormone-induced dreams I'd wake up to the next morning, unable to share them yet with anyone else.

Now in the darkening kitchen, there is only the whish of one needle against another -- my mother has stopped talking; her error must be serious. I glance at the clock. The following day, we are both slated to head to Boston, where my sisters are throwing a baby shower for me, and neither of us is packed. But I resist the urge to go fold my clean laundry for the trip while my mother's concentration deepens.

There is much I wish I could talk about with my mother while we still have this time alone together -- all that I kept between me and my grandmother's picture, to start with, and the roller coaster of anticipation I've been on as this final trimester has begun. In Boston, we'll be busy with shower preparations -- more cooking, at the very least -- and my sisters will be there, of course. Not that I'm not looking forward to seeing them, but my mother is an even more scattered person when all of us are gathered. Like this woman who can't help putting more tangles in her knitting just because we're talking, my mother is practically impossible to have a real conversation with in the presence of all three daughters. She'll ask one person a question and in the same breath turn to another to comment about something else before the first can answer. I find myself stepping away from her attempts to divide her attention in this fashion because it feels petty -- and futile -- to want her to focus for once on each of us, one at a time.

All the more reason to talk now, though from the harried look on my mother's face, this isn't the time either. But just as I start to tuck my work back in its bag, my mother lifts her knitting from her lap, turns it left and right, and shakes her head. "This is a disaster," she says. She leans across the table, holding out her needles. "C, can you be Nga Po for me?"

I'm momentarily thrown by her almost plaintive tone. In an instant, that image of my grandmother holding my mother's tangled yarn comes back to me, and it is at once endearing and painful. It's idealized in my imagination, I know, but it's the quintessential picture of a mother-daughter moment, the little girl at her mother's elbow, trusting that she will make everything right. I've missed having that trust in my own mother, especially throughout this pregnancy. Not that she would have had any way to influence the outcome of this baby's life in his first tenuous weeks, but on an emotional level, I needed to know she would be an ear that would truly listen. Which she hasn't been for so long partly because I've been too skittish to try confiding in her, afraid of being hurt by her response, distracted or otherwise. Again, it's the risk of misunderstandings I shy away from.

After a second, I take the mess of stitches from my mother's hands and lay the work on the table, stretching it apart in search of an answer for her. I don't have my grandmother's knitting intuition, but I do have the pattern my mother's been working from. I lift it from the seat next to her and scan the instructions for clues.

"So you put one piece on top of the other and knit across the rows simultaneously to join them?" I ask, looking at the half-completed graft.

"Yes, but then I realized I had dropped the stitch and needed to undo the row again," my mother says.

This has to be where the problem lies. Sure enough, I can see that my mother has started to unravel the row properly on one needle's piece of her cowl but not on the other. In fact, she's dropping or twisting her stitches each time she tries to separate the pieces further, hence the wild variations in her tension. But how to fix this? I can't even begin to trace where the errors originate. Reluctantly, I explain what I've figured out. "I'm sorry I can't tell you what to do next, though," I say.

But my mother's hands now spring into action. "I know what to do," she reassures me. And with the point of a needle, she works column by column, sometimes fishing up a length of yarn, sometimes untwisting a loop and returning it to her other needle, and suddenly, like magic, the tangles are transformed. There are her two panels of knits and purls, whole once more.

"Finally!" my mother says. "I would never have understood what to do if you hadn't explained the problem to me."

I laugh in amazement. "I thought you needed Nga Po to do the repairs!" I say.

"No," my mother says. "I can fix it once I know what I've done wrong." She pats the soft wool and then puts her needles down.

We are neither of us experts like Nga Po. But maybe that is what I need to remember more often about my mother and motherhood -- to trust that she may surprise me with what she does understand when I'm least expecting it.

All the same, I don't pursue any deeper conversation for now. As we both roll up our knitting for the day, it's enough for me that we've solved this practical problem together. That we are a mother and daughter still at peace.

For more from this series, please click here.

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This post happened to coincide with a prompt from Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below!

Mama's Losin' It