Archive for the ‘parent’ Category
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.
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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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Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
We reviewed all of the times we’ve been wished a “bonne continuation,” one of those phrases that sounds really funny to American ears. There was the successful renewal of our identity cards, the farewell to our first landlord, at least one or two other times I’ve forgotten, and now this, the assurance that all is well with little sister’s heart. It’s as if to say, yes we will never see each other again, but in this case, that’s a good thing.
So that’s that. On y va.
Posted in france, parent | 5 Comments »
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.
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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 »
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
Somehow I thought we’d chosen our fork in the road last year, but still it feels like we’re stuck in an endless series of roundabouts giving us too many opportunities to rethink past moves and to over-think current and future choices. I’ve been making some attempts to rejoin the workforce of late, but it’s not easy. Today I was asked to describe my dream job and as I stumbled along with my answer, I had to summon great force to squash the “can a job be a dream?” thought bubble. The response I offered was a legitimate and intellectually stimulating way of contributing to my profession and society at large, but a dream…no.
On the way home, some more shimmery, iridescent thought bubbles floated above. “You are already living the dream…the dream…the dream,” they chanted. Sometimes that dream puts me face to face with an angry toddler (not my own) who screams “C’est interdit!” as she belts me in the playground, but more often, the dream streams across an endless series of afternoons spent sewing as I please and engaged in interviews of a different sort, filled with questions from my favorite three foot tall interrogator, this afternoon’s including: why does the rhinoceros have a horn, why does the crocodile have big teeth, and, mama, why are you here? The first two, for defense and for eating, were easy, and as I started to get all philosophical on the last one, she interjected, “no why are you standing over there, not next to me?”
And to top it off, in a few weeks I’m told I’ll be almost 4. Dreamy times, these.
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Sunday, September 7th, 2008
T, suddenly you’re 1/3 of the way through 2. Many things have changed for you of late: you started “school” this week, you’ve given up diapers, and you’ve given up napping. Right now you’re rolling around your bed during the mandatory midday seclusion that has replaced naptime. You are shouting “Mama, my eyes are closed” as well as “Mama, I’m all done napping.” I no longer care about enforcing naps. Instead I tend to down a huge amount of chocolate before retrieving you from your room and proceeding on to our afternoon adventure. If you saw me with the brown, you would have proof that excellent things do happen while you’re asleep so I try to swallow and wipe my mouth before I see you. Today I came to your room to surrender, we read a story and I tried to fake nap, hoping that you would follow my lead. Instead, you smothered me with kisses and told me it was time to get up. So I did.
You’ve been adapting really well to your new “school.” When I picked you up, you told me that you loved it. I think you could love it for the toys alone, but you are also already fond of your teacher and the other kids. Someday I hope to describe to you how it incredible it is to watch you learn French. I mean, it’s been incredible to watch you learn English, and in some ways, this is more of the same, but as I’m attempting to learn the same language at the same time, I’m very jealous. There you are in the class, talking away about colors and giraffes as if everyone is nodding along with you, but NO ONE KNOWS WHAT YOU’RE SAYING. Maybe you’re used to this being a two year old, but I’m not. It doesn’t make you sad that the teacher speaks French and you have no idea what she’s saying. You just go with it. You’re not embarrassed, you’re not tongue-tied. You go with it, but me, your poor mom, I am left with the job of explaining–in French–your idiosyncrasies, your likes and your dislikes. Did you notice how I crashed and burned trying to describe how you say “learning” when you need the bathroom, or the look of confusion on the teacher’s face as I explained why you had a bandage on your finger and how you couldn’t get your hand wet? No you didn’t, because you’re awesome like that. You just smiled, gave me a smooch and said see you later.
So far, none of this seems strange to you. You told me today that you like Paris. You also told me that I like Paris and Dad likes Paris and our cat likes Paris. You’re there, and we’re all coming around. I don’t want to simplify your feelings, but it’s like the people say, kids are adaptable. You don’t seem to realize that the friends who used to be around the corner are now thousands of miles away (I think video-chatting has really warped your sense of proximity) but girl, I miss the face time. I really wished we could meet up with “T-back-home” and his parents for brunch in the old hood this weekend, especially when we passed the huge line outside Breakfast in America.
It’s strange–compared to many of the people we’ve met so far, our stay here will be over in a blink. You could have no memory of this place. I can imagine you asking years from now, “really, we lived in Paris when I was 2?” Or maybe the election will go a certain way and we’ll decide that we could do with a good four more years away from America. We’ll see.
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Friday, July 18th, 2008
We went to visit a creche this morning, the equivalent of daycare for kids under 3. This place is what we would call a coop in San Francisco. We (in this case, me) have to volunteer 4 hours per week and cook once every three weeks (hopefully this will be C’s responsibility). T was like a cat in a garden full of little delectable birds (or so our previously kibbles only kitty leads to me to believe), or maybe like a child who’s been stuck with her mother in an apartment with no toys. There were kids! and toys! and balls! and bright colors! She really liked it and so did we. There is space, specifically for girls in her age range (they try to keep the gender and ages balanced) and it seems like she’s in. It closes for August so she’ll start in September, and apparently be speaking French by October.
It seems too good to be true. All the rumors point to 20 creche spaces for every 1000 kids or something. You sign up when you’re a few weeks pregnant, etc., but this place seems to exist outside of the main system. We’re still waiting on exact pricing, but all signs point to cheap(er). It’s not all free here like Michael Moore tells you, but it should be doable and will give me time to find a job, or, um, sit in cafes and look at art. My only hesitation is how I’ll do with the volunteering. The other parents were cool and seemed really into it, but as some of you know, I’m not really a “kid” person. I like my kid, and my friends’ kids, but the thought of changing another kid’s diaper still brings up the pre-parenting gag reflex. I’m secretly keeping my fingers crossed for the nap shift, but I’ll deal.
Seeing her there today makes me really glad that this is an option. The girl is on fire and needs a little more sharing in her world. This morning her reaction to some kid touching “her” orange ball sent a shiver down my spine. I started scanning the faces of the other parents to see if they were ready to expel the americaine before she even enrolled.
T’s reaction to the news has been positive. When asked if she would like to go to school. She replied, “Yes, orange school.”
Posted in child, parent, paris | 2 Comments »
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
My girl, you’ve just about come undone this week. You spent a good portion of your time sitting in boxes, as if you’re worried that we’ll forget to pack you. Don’t worry, we’re on it. We would never leave you, or your cat sister, or your five required blankets and six? core members of your stuffed animal clan. Many things will be left behind and I apologize if I’ve chosen badly, but space is at a premium and from what I’ve heard there are toys in France.
Today is my last day of work. You came with me yesterday and you were a great help. You emptied my recycling basket paper-by-paper, you calculated various sums on the little ‘puter and ran many laps around the library. You also smashed your face on my ergonomic chair and woke up from your nap screaming in terror, but otherwise you were a model library patron.
T, this has been one of those otherworldly days that always seem to happen when a transition is in the works. I went to run a few errands before and ran into a woman I knew from my study abroad program ten years ago. I got an email from a college friend who has lived in this town for years, but I haven’t seen and now, will not. I can’t imagine that there will be time to cry (except if the van doesn’t pick us up) at 4:45 on Saturday morning, but forgive me if your mama gets a little sad this weekend. We’re leaving the only home you’ve known to go to this place that has excellent bread but where we have no friends and no family. If it turns out to be a really bad idea, then I’m sorry, but my hope is that once we get over the initial shock, we will all have an excellent time.
I can promise you this though: that dream you’ve had of spending every waking moment right-next-to your mother is about to come true. Here’s to spending 14 hours in extremely close quarters with hundreds of (hopefully very understanding) strangers.
mama.
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Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
The concept of being cozy is at the forefront these days. T was first inspired to use the word after being presented with her new orange jacket and its application has snowballed ever since.
What could be bad about being cozy? Really nothing. Applying the term “cozy” to the potty formerly known as the “little” potty transformed it yesterday from an outcast to the depositing receptacle of choice.*
And what could be bad about wanting one’s stuffed cow to be cozy? Really nothing, until you scream for your parents to return to your room and again and again because cow is not cozy. Cow must be wrapped in “orange blanket” to achieve optimal coziness. Sometimes this swaddling gets loose and cow gets very disorganized, causing his toddler guardian to freak out. That’s when you start to see the limitations of the coziness panacea.
Another instance of undesirable coziness arose this morning. T had her first dentist’s appointment after taking a terrible fall from our front steps during Saturday’s yard sale. Her teeth weren’t loose, but there was so-much-blood, it felt like a professional visit was warranted. I’m glad I didn’t have to be there–just the thought of my girl’s bloody face makes me lightheaded–but C reported that everything seems fine now. Hopefully her front tooth won’t turn grey and demand out in France because our French is not up for that conversation. I also received this text on my phone: “I hope you have an orthodontist in your family because she’s already got a pretty severe cross bite, tooth crowding and angulation…” Cozy teeth, not ideal. Future adolescent encounters with the palatal expander, not very cozy. I’m sure she’ll have other words for it by then.
*We had unwittingly set up the little/big girl duality in her toileting choices leading T. to choose the “BG” option again and again with mixed results. Yesterday, all-by-self, she picked up the cozy vessel, brought it into her room of choice and sat on it. I sensed she was antsy so for the first time in her life, I offered television–well, actually youtube. For a girl has never watched television, her reaction was impressive. We stumbled on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, an animated version of the classic board book of the same name, and she smiled, raised her hands in the air and waved her arms from side to side. She also peed. She peed about five more times yesterday afternoon, each time sitting cozily in front of my computer watching CCBB or something similar. Pavlovian toddler.
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