Archive for the ‘child’ Category
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
I’m not sure where April went. Now it’s May and the 3 year old is but hours from becoming 4. Today we survived the rain plan for T’s birthday party. I’ve never been so proud of my laziness–only got around to inviting 4 kids and that was about capacity in this small space. Fortunately the skies cleared and we were able to move the festivities to the park around the corner.
And as of tonight we’ve also survived the two week school vacation. It seems that I’m still too American to appreciate all of this vacation time. Lots of “I could never home school” moments, but at the same time, T and I executed some marvelous projects. Behold the goody bags for her party, a combination of re-used bags and decimated “welcome to the world” cards (apologies if yours has not been saved for eternity):
She’s also been getting her math on. We’ve gone from the idea that little F will catch up to her and they’ll be twins by the time they’re twelve to “when I’m 5, F will be 1, and when I’m 6, F will be 2, and on and on.” Her 8’s are calculator style which I really like, and her 15 is, um, a 12.
So, wow, 4. As she reminds me every day, she’s a big sister, but still such a little thing, still working out what it means to be a human yet surprising me every day with her insights and bizarre observations. The addition of #2 seems to be pretty cataclysmic for some, but T’s handled it all quite gracefully, much more so than her mother I have to admit. Four’s going to treat us well.
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Monday, March 15th, 2010
Little F is 2 weeks old today, or 36 weeks if she were still sealed up tightly within. The fact that her age is counted in these two ways might be the perfect quantification of the mindfuck that we’ve endured since it became clear that this girl was about to bust through the emergency exit. As I’m not very interested in reviewing the past month, the events leading up to the exit or pondering too many what-ifs, I’ll skip ahead to the now.
On the happy side, the whole family is back in Paris, with four of us (C, T, catsister and myself) resting cozily chez nous. F is not with us just yet, but I took some lovely pictures today, and in one of them her middle finger is poised just so as if to give the finger, perhaps to the doctor who accused her of being too sleepy to eat, or perhaps to Gaspard whom she’s about to overtake as largest baby in the NICU.
More happy, unlike the 3 years and 10 months it took me to recover from T’s birth, this time I’m like one of those babycenter outliers driving over to the grocery store a few hours later (not exactly but wow, I can walk and I can wear early stage maternity clothes again [a warm welcome back to my amsterdam-purchased mamalicious jeans]. I’m hardly competing with the French mothers of the neonatal room who seem to have contemplated their hospital wardrobe in an entirely different manner–no yoga pants on these women–but I’m not wearing C’s clothes anymore so that’s something).
The anti-happy is a bit too much for the Internet. This is a really long, exhausting haul. Postpartum life is hard enough to navigate in a normal situation, but this is well, so much worse. F is a certainly a little thing, but is far more robust than most in her cohort. In many ways, we are very lucky, but somehow that knowledge is little consolation when we go home each night and leave her behind. Hopefully this will all be a distant memory come next week–I’m sure the sleep deprivation ahead will produce a welcome sort of amnesia.
Posted in child, family, parent | 4 Comments »
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
Just when I was prepared to send a happy times missive off into the blogosphere, the one where I tell you about being back on my feet again, inexplicably excited about my data gathering, and feeling fashionable in my new gigantic petit bateau t-shirts (t as in tent), the moment has passed. I’m still processing the last few days, but to save you any suspense,
everything’s okay.
I felt a little strange Tuesday morning. My belly was unusually tight, as if the creature had outgrown her bubble and the skin hadn’t stretched enough to accommodate her yet, but it felt like one of those pregnancy things, not anything alarming. I went off to meet someone for coffee and then go to yoga, with the plan to check out my just! unearthed! data! cd! at the library in the afternoon. Walking to the metro felt different, not the new post-sciatic lightness I’d welcomed, more of a “this 5 ton beach ball isn’t feeling very portable today” sensation. Still, the morning went, yoga was relaxing, and then I went home, googled around a bit and decided I’d see how things felt after a nap. I couldn’t have been more mellow, relaxed and calm, yet still had this hard bulge messing with my appetite, my ability to sit, and displaying two signs that were a little too reminiscent of a certain day in May 2006: I could not wear pants (nothing could touch the bulge) and I suddenly felt like someone had migrated a little lower down than she was before.
I skipped the library and called my midwife, figuring if I needed to see her, it was easier to do while T was still at school. She wasn’t alarmed but couldn’t really give any feedback without seeing me so I set off for the clinic. I put on pants, packed a few magazines, a couple of snacks and nothing else, hoping I’d have no need for more supplies. That was Tuesday afternoon. I came home today.
It turns out that I was having contractions every three minutes. Three minutes. Not all of them were that strong and the ones I did feel, I wouldn’t necessarily have described as such. Tightness, some pressure. I don’t know. It’s all a bit of a blur. C came home early to pick up T and as I was getting information little by little, I told him not to come. The first proposal was that I go home, rest, and take this contraction reducing pill, but by the time the monitor was off, I was being admitted, on an IV, and run through a bunch of tests. Overall everyone was calm. One line of reasoning was very simple: this is normal, not a big deal, we’ll give you this stuff intravenously for 24 hours, stop the contractions and you’ll go home. The other line was in a sense pure protocol, but more alarming, as in, with situations like this we also measure the baby to see what we’ll be dealing with should she need to come out, we inject you with a steroid to start maturing her lungs, and we tell you about the special neo-natal hospital where you’ll be transferred.
Juggling these two extremes, all the while with no cause attributed to the contractions in the first place, was a lot. The baby is fine and healthy and sealed in tight, but the worry was that if the contractions didn’t stop, they’d keep pushing her further and further down, and well, out, a 31 week old creature who should really wait until the flowers are blooming but instead was threatening to open her eyes to Paris in the snow.
But. The drugs stopped the contractions and now we’re home. Petite’s inside, wiggling around in a much more supple, squishy space than she had on a Tuesday. My French has been tested in new ways and I’m looking at a long, shortest month of the year…in bed. Weird times these.
C brought me home this afternoon and T greeted me with a lavish application of smooches all over the belly. By all accounts she was a real trooper. She was off her schedule, spending time at her old creche and with friends so C could be at the hospital (no kids allowed right now), but managed everything really well. She might be the only one to be a little disappointed that the baby didn’t come out yet, but I think she understands that this outcome is the best one.
Look forward to hearing your podcast/book/movie/knitting suggestions as there is a lot of time to fill all of a sudden.
Posted in child, france | 5 Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
I remember the weeks in the late 20s being somewhat terrible with T as well. The hugeness has set in, but the end is still far off. There’s a lot to do, but it’s too soon to do much of it. The whole process just starts to feel really eternal. This time around it’s been made worse by sciatica. It started intermittently back in November and has gotten progressively crappier. I’ve spent much of January in bed, unable to turn over by myself or take off my socks, and only taking small excursions away from home, to pick up T from school, to hit the library, to breathe some outside air. My list of attempted remedies and their associated appointments is long: chiropractor, osteopath, yoga, swimming, magnesium supplements, maternity support belt, walking stick, hot water bottles, reflexology.
Today as I boarded the bus to go a distance I used to walk, I ran into my French teacher from the class I quit back in November when the pain started. I had my walking stick. She was all, “mon dieu!” I didn’t go into this with her but the goal of the outing was to purchase small speakers so that I could listen to my new hypnobirthing cd in the privacy of our bedroom away from non-relaxing influences. When I got home, I popped the cd in, stretched out and let my mind wander (steering it away from thoughts like: this is so stupid, and so not working). The cat jumped up on my lap such as it is and promptly professed her conversion to the cause. She passed out, completely accepting the whole “3-2-1 relax” mantra.
So, I listened, I breathed, I thought about the pain shooting down my leg, and I woke up twenty or thirty minutes later renewed (falling asleep is not the goal, but seems to be a common side effect). I looked out the window and saw sun! There was sun shining. in Paris. in January. I listened to the last few minutes of the cd, displaced the cat still in her reverie and got up. That’s it. I got up. I didn’t steady myself. I didn’t nearly fall over. I just got up and felt no searing pain. I had to look down to confirm that the beach ball was still present–I felt that good. I got my stuff together and went to pick up T, leaving 20 minutes for the formerly 5 minute walk. I arrived early.
If there’s an option to stay under until April, I might just take it, even if the kid comes out speaking like a very calm British lady. Not quite the same as a glass of wine my friends, but it’ll do. Join me on my idyllic stretch of beachfront property if you need a breather too.
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Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Sometimes, even with the newest state of the art doppler probe, results are anything but certain, not unlike the very provisional looking mimeographed reports I’ve been reading lately. Yesterday we went for an ultrasound, debating until the last minute whether we would find out the creature’s gender. As the doctor scanned from head to toe, she paused and lingered over the heart and then returned to it again later. In the French way, she gave us the most minimal of information, only that there might be a little hole where there shouldn’t be and that we should have another opinion. It might be fine, it’s just that she couldn’t see. It could all be an instrumentation error. She was all “it’s no big deal” and then “make sure you follow up with this.” Initially I chose to focus on the it’s no big deal. She pronounced us done, but by then I really wanted to know something definite, like the sex. She couldn’t see, but had another look. Nope. Creature was seated on both feet with a hand covering the news.
We both worked from home in the afternoon and spent too much time with dr. google. I faxed the results to my midwife and waited for her call. She also emphasized the no big deal, but at the same time, she made us an appointment for tonight. No big deal, unless it is.
We just got home from the second doctor. He didn’t see any problem but recommended we see a heart specialist. When he said this in French, I understood, but had one of those “I know what he said, but it makes no sense” moments, the kind I have everyday here. Then he switched to perfect English and said it again. It still didn’t make much sense, but we’ll see the specialist to be sure. I look forward to having those resultats definitifs in hand.
As long as we were there (and T was with us), I asked if he could answer another question for us.
He could.
As T calculated, when the baby comes out, we’ll be 4 girls (including the feline) and one boy.
Posted in child, parent | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
T, your half-birthday passed us by, but the switch from 3 to 3.5 must have sunken in because you’ve already moved on from the endless discussion of the events that took place on the three candle day to the upcoming four. You’ve been falling back on this trope a lot lately: I need three cookies because I am three, three stories because I am three. I myself prefer the balance of two: one cookie for each hand, one short story and one long, etc., but it’s all fine for now.
On our way out of the restaurant last night, in an attempt to avoid the very nice waitress who offered you a treat for the road, you performed some kind of maneuver–part tantrum, part gymnastic–that left you on the floor and then made your arm hang limp by your side. I couldn’t tell if I had twisted your arm or pulled it as I was holding your hand at the time. It was all unclear, but you were really upset, and what I first took as a post-chocolate crepe crash turned into a huge overnight drama. You were up all night, complaining about your arm, searching for your ice, and causing more of my hairs to turn gray.
Your dad is out of town, but after consulting with him and considering that it’s a holiday here, I decided to take you to the hospital. I did a quick vocabulary study and we headed out the door. You comported yourself well in that I saw them note that you were calm, face content and rosy. At the same time, you would not say a word to them, even when they let on that they had some English. You wouldn’t talk about it or point to where it hurt. Since you didn’t talk, they could only assume the worst and sent us for an x-ray. Radio. It has been added to our dossier, I assume along with a note that your mother is a worrier and the fact that once again you’ve outed as a coquine (read: rascal). At least the nurse didn’t chastise me for using the services of the urgences unnecessarily as she did the mother who followed me. Nothing was broken, just a little unspecified trauma in the end.
We had a long chat yesterday about being finished with the stroller. I told you that I can’t carry it down the stairs anymore, that it’s too hard for me to push right now. You were fine with it as you’re always on me to “not break your baby” anyway. You were so fine that you seemed ready to walk the mile to the hospital before I assured you that this morning was certainly an exception. It’s an interesting time, T. As you like to say, you’re “big and little” and that seems to be the heart of 3.5 at our house. You have this whole world apart from us, you speak better French than we do–in fact, today was that day, the first day you corrected my French–and I can still carry you home when you fall down and cry. Big and little’s not a bad place to be.
…and thanks for that extremely rare and refreshingly long nap today.
Posted in child, parent, paris | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
T has been showing an increasing interest in my knitting of late. It’s gone from help feeding me the yarn, to interest in manipulating the needles, to a somewhat maniacal scissor experience on Tuesday when she really wanted to snip the tangled part. After the blood-draw, I started thinking about safer ways for her to participate, and then I remembered this little gizmo that I bought during the summer sales. I intended to save it for Christmas–and I really don’t know how anyone “saves” purchases from these sales for more than a few weeks–but the time was right yesterday.
I wish I could have taken a picture of her doing it, but my fingers are still essential for the process to work. We worked on the chain for almost two non-consecutive hours yesterday–clearly a hit. It’s a bit too much for small hands to master so I hold the spool and do the initial wrapping around the prongs and she lifts the loops with her “needle.” We changed colors a few times and waiting to see the new color emerge from the bottom of the spool proved to be a big motivator.
It’s started me thinking about other fiber-related skills she might try at this age. Perhaps one of those potholder makers? As for me, I might have to get one of these for myself, or possibly start amassing a collection of vintage ones. I’ve always hated making i-cords and wrapping yarn around a cute mushroom will be a good solution.
Posted in art with t, child, knitting | 1 Comment »
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
Well, we now know how much chocolate ice cream she can handle before all circuits break down, and we also know that she cannot operate any sort of machinery (particularly a bicycle) after such consumption. Apparently she ran right into a vegetable cart outside the huit à huit and despite the helmet managed to cut her forehead and lose a lot of red. After she was all cleaned up, we saw only the faintest scratch and once again the Hello Kitty bandaids cured all.
But, to start at the beginning… This morning we went to the vide-grenier (group yard sale?) for the petits enfants and their associated peuriculture, held in the main square in front of the town hall for our arrondissement. In a word, it was excellent. The clothing selection was incredible, but T doesn’t really need any clothes right now. Instead we focused on toys and footwear.
I’m really excited about the tape recorder, though less excited about the upcoming goose-chase that will be required to locate some cassettes.
Then there is the petit bateau puffy winter coat, (in prune which seemed close enough to purple for T to give her consent) and some boots.
We also scored a spirograph, a snoopy puzzle (snoopy fait du jogging!), lite brite and some crocs. She’s been freaking out about all the kids and her teacher wearing crocs at school lately. I happen to find them very annoying–somehow they encourage a little voice inside me to say [to myself], “wear some real shoes,” but what with wading pool season being upon us and all, I relented. Also, they were the only pair around, in her size, and in green, not the ghastly rose.
Perhaps all of these acquisitions will help make the apartment decision easier? We’ll see.
Posted in child, gear | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 8th, 2009
We visited the school on Saturday and while I have some hesitations–the process (not the curriculum) makes me feel like I’m about to send T off to kindergarten–mostly it was great. The principal was as welcoming as before and kept her remarks brief in appreciation of her audience of two and three year olds. Fortunately, since she’s used to speaking to the small set, I was able to understand everything she said. She set me at ease as she said that the point of the whole endeavor is to make them love school, to start things off right so it’s essentially nothing but a good time. That works for me. Oh, and there’s a pet escargot in the class.
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I don’t know if there’s a word for this. Let me describe. A few weeks ago, step into my thimble shared this bit from craftzine, about making a laundry bag from an old pillowcase. She remembered the pattern from childhood. I remembered it from Albany, CA goodwill. I snagged it and several other sheets back in the early ’00s. It eventually became part of my first and not entirely successful quilt which has come here to Paris, you know, for that touch of home:
(It’s the brownish square with the orange and pink flowers…)
Then Friday night, C returned from Stockholm bearing presents–a super-cute dress for me, a little cup and lunch box for T, and a tie for himself. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the tie, and then I turned it over, recognized the name from my blogroll and remembered why it’s always so hard to find local souvenirs. It’s this tie, from Brooklyn to Stockholm to Paris, with the same hot 70s pattern. The world is small and we Americans, temporarily adrift in Paris, seem to need reserves of visual comfort from our childhoods to steady us. C’s packs a little easier, but my iteration is much better for jumping.
Posted in child, finds, sewing | 2 Comments »
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
I was already up computing when I heard murmurs from her room. She’s generally not a morning person; murmurs turn to whimpers and then whines within a few breaths. I went to her room and climbed into her bed as she usually does with us. She smiled, jumped up to standing and shrieked, “my flowers!” The small pot on the shelf above the heater had sprouted visibly overnight. She hopped down the bed to examine them and essentially remained airborne until she made it over to the window to check her flower box, also know as the big flowers. Another shriek, followed by “come see, come see.”
We planted the seeds on Saturday and they are, well, sprouting, and fast. Each morning she checks them, waters them, and each afternoon, she does the same.
Today:
She examines them carefully and uses every ounce of will not to poke them too hard.
She is amazed. She awaits the flowers, the purple and blue she picked out from the package at the store, but the green fascinates too. I start to wonder why it always seemed so hard to grow that one little seed in a grade school project, why did it seem to take all year? These things grow by the minute, almost like the girl herself, the girl who flew off the handle with her father yesterday until she could find the words to explain her unrest: I want to be big.
Not too fast, my girl.
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