Bad

Turns out that when my breasts got engorged a couple of weeks ago very bad things happened inside them, and then Penelope adjusted the way she nurses in order to get the milk to come out as normal, and in the process she nicked a chunk of skin on the side of the nipple. The upshot is, I've had severe pain inside that breast which has been radiating out and up into my armpit, and the feel of her latching on or off is as close to Soviet torture tactics as I ever wish to come. I saw my midwife today and I'm now taking lots of ibuprofen, using a topical antibiotic cream to stave off a staph infection (cause it could be even more fun!), and pumping that breast to keep Penelope off it for 24 hours.

I honestly think I can take the pain of natural childbirth over this sort of pain--and I've done natural childbirth--over 14 solid hours of it--so I know that of which I speakest.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day and baby's first. We started off tired from the night before but it ended up being one the most relaxing Christmas Days we've ever had. Around 9:30 am or so, my mother, sister, and brother arrived, laden with packages and food and coffee. Oh, coffee! Albina Press coffee, no less--our favorite. We served up platefuls of the cinnamon rolls that they had made, perfectly sticky with glaze and rich with homemade potato dough and dried cherries and nuts, and got to work on all the presents.

This year we were supposed to pool the majority of our Christmas funds, as a family, and find someone who otherwise wouldn't have Christmas and do whatever we could to give them Christmas. And we did. But it was hard to keep things to a dull roar with a baby and a baby who is now at an age when toys are actually fun to play with. Penelope made out like a bandit. My friend Kristen would like to know how, exactly, bandits make out and whether or not they use their guns.... all I know is that Pea got some serious holiday loot. There was a drum and Fischer-Price toys from daddy and mama, a walking/riding toy (already! and she loves it! should I be scared?), a stacking toy, and clothes from Grammi, there was a sock-puppet bear, and a new coat, and a dress, and a puzzle.... it was amazing. What made it really fun was how interactive she was, she actually got really excited about the toys and played with everything the rest of the day. The next day when she woke up we nursed, and then she started whining and whining and mewling something urgent in her baby talk and pointing. It turns out that she had remembered her toys and was anxious to start playing with them again!

I got some lovely earrings from my mom and sister, some travel books to drool over and dream with, some gorgeous makeup, and clothes. Jeffrey's and my gift to each other was a date at the art museum to see the big Egypt exhibit. We went today and then had lunch together. Not only getting to spend time together, one on one, but in the middle of the day, and doing something out of the ordinary (for instance, not running to Target or discussing work) was so, so, so much fun. We've decided that from now on this is what we'd like to do for each other at Christmas.
Besides the other things, the things we would like to do to each other all year long....

Seriously, how does one resist?

Beautiful baby face.

After the delicious rolls and coffee we had eggs and bacon and rolled around on the carpet in our sleek new suits of holiday fat and joy. We spent the rest of the day playing with Pea, making and eating two big pots of soup, sneaking cookies and holiday candy, and watching Talladega Nights and The Family Stone.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve with Jeffrey's Family

Dinner. This is what 9 lbs or so of prime rib looks like, just in case you were curious. Jeffrey did an AMAZING job of cooking this to perfection--you'd think he'd been doing it all his life. The rest of us acted as if we'd been eating it all of our lives and tucked in like nobody's business. I made mashed potatoes with green onions and chives and more butter and half and half than I care to admit, but it's Christmas for goodness sake. I also made roasted carrots with olive oil and fresh thyme and a big salad of greens, tomatoes, cucumber, and purple cabbage. Then there was the homemade pumpkin pie with whipped cream that I whipped by hand. Again, because it's Christmas. And because it impresses the relatives.

We put Penelope to bed close to the normal time of 7:15, after feeding her a Christmas Eve dinner fit for a baby: pureed organic winter squash, organic applesauce with blueberries, mashed potatoes, and part of a potato-sage bread roll. I put the mashed potatoes on tray of the high chair she was using (grandma and grandpa are ready for anything!) and she fed herself. The delight was mutual. She loved being in control and stuffed herself mightily. Because her daddy and I keep forgetting to order the $5.oo tray that goes with her $18.00 highchair (IKEA, of course), Pea does not normally have this option. Instead she must wait patiently while her slow-fisted parents shovel the food, clumsy and shaking, into her mouth. Poor child. (For the record, her parents are also cheap, and are trying to figure out what else they need from IKEA to off-set the enormous cost of shipping the $5.00 item).


After the grown-ups had their dinner (stuffing themselves silly), and the dishes were cleared away and the pumpkin pies had warmed in the oven, we got Penelope up from her little travel crib and took her out into the living room where all the presents were laid out. She was mad that she couldn't just have some boob and then go back to bed, but I bribed her with her first-ever bites of pumpkin pie and she decided she would be okay. For a few minutes. I know it seems cruel, but we really wanted Jeffrey's parents to get to see her open her presents and I knew that once there was something to do (like tearing paper) she would pull herself together and bravely persevere.

Once the presents were all taken care of, I nursed Pea and we put her back to bed. She only cried for a few minutes, bless her heart. She's such a trooper.

It was a really fun night. We got home really, really late and slept later on Christmas morning than we had planned. In fact, I got up a few minutes after my family arrived for brunch.

Just go ahead and carve your initials into my delicate, Irish skin already. With your little razor fingernails.

Nursing a baby with 7 big teeth, all fully out from gum and jawbone, and #8 peeping through on the bottom HURTS LIKE HELL. I'm not sure if it surpasses the pain of virgin skin being mauled by hungry, awkward baby mouth of only 9 days old, but it's far closer than I think necessary. And here I have all these plans to be a really good mother and nurse her till she's a year old. That's 4 more months from now. 4 months in which the 8 existing teeth get longer and longer and the potential for more becomes more and more possible.

I am not, emotionally or even physically, ready to end this part of our life. She still loves it and needs it and desires it for comfort as much as for food. I know that as soon as I give this up, the chances for unbroken minutes of holding and cuddling and telling her stories and secrets is suddenly gone as she is otherwise always in motion. But how could this possibly get better? The slow and steady burn of my skin drawn tight between prickly new teeth is just plain awful.

Birthday Photos

Jeffrey threw me a little birthday party on Saturday, the day of my birthday. It was and (amazingly) it was relaxing. There were black and white cupcakes, lots of chocolate and peppermint, and peppermint martinis. There were friends, all so dear to my heart and necessary parts of my life. There was money given for the tattoo I've been planning for months.

Penelope stayed the night with my sister--her first overnight trip and our first night without her since April 29th (I'm counting April 30th as I labored all night that night so she was very much with me, even though we had yet to actually see her face). We felt giddy and silly and stayed up even later watching TV, and then we felt sad and needy and like we hadn't seen her in days. We managed to sleep soundly, though.

Of course it so happened that I of the breasts that do not really ever feel full , and which have not easily filled or let down since the second week of May, I got really, really, badly engorged. I did not pump because I have gone long stretches before and nothing has really happened, other than actually feeling a bit full for once. And anyway, I have never had much success pumping, even though I have a really good pump and it seems like I've read almost everything on the internet about successful pumping. Oh, but this time , this time, it was bad, bad, bad. So bad. In fact, my breasts still haven't gone back to feeling normal. It was painful. They looked like Dolly Parton on supplements. When I went to pick Pea up on Sunday morning, the seatbelt caused my whole chest wall to ache and throb.

Here are a few shots Jeffrey and I took after everyone had gone home. This is proof, Penelope, that your parents are not only deeply in love, but that we love being around each other. Not everyone has both in their life and we are so very, very lucky.

Oh, the cuteness

She would love to have the camera, but alas, mother always moves it (in the nick of time).

We were eating pears, sitting on the kitchen floor and waiting for her daddy to come home.

Proof that she stands on her own. She will sometimes lean in for support but usually it's all her. She's also pushing her high-chair around the kitchen while walking. Silly baby, you're only 7 1/2 months--what in the name of all that is holy are you trying to pull? There is no race, no contest, no prize offered. Your parents are the laid-back, let-the-child-decide type. You keep stressing out the other moms at OMSI who are suddenly insecure of their children's abilities and intelligence. Which I find funny, since we could give a rats ass when you actually start walking, as long as it eventually happens. It's so funny when those same moms get all flustered and want to know what we're doing with you that has made you so advanced in movement, coordination, talking, etc. and all I can say is, "um, nothing?"

Birthday

It was my birthday on Saturday. Twenty-eight years. Young and old. I'm wise in some areas and horribly green in others. Still anxious in some areas, though I know better, and still hopeful, though I've had plenty of things happen to me that should have kicked the proverbial shit out of that. A mother now. A mother? Some days I wonder if anyone knows that I've been charged with the care and feeding of a helpless baby, and I'm positive that once they find out I'll be dragged into whichever generic county or state building is closest and questioned as to "why the hell someone in my mental state, and with my history, would consider this a good or appropriate life-choice". And on certain days, when the fatigue and monotony and lack of daily adult interaction has reduced me to a level far below blubbering idiot, I'm sure I will do something pitiful and silly like hug the officer and demand that he tell me the story of his life, leaving out nothing, while we go shopping and share stupid coffee drinks "with whip" and with straws. It could happen, you know.

I haven't even had time to process this birthday. There's no time to sift through the memories of the past year and pull out the best in celebration and think through the hard ones and start hoping and planning for the next twelve months. I feel adrift without this usual practice. Even when I was growing up, stuck fast within the walls of terror and fear I did this and it's so GOOD, you know? It feels so healthy to look back and take stock and then look forward and dream. My life is going by so fast now. So fucking fast. I love it and I'm almost painfully aware that I have it so fucking good. The best I could dream for myself when I was under the constant watch of my father was not even close to this good. Yes, of course I dreamed of having more things and more money and all the silly trappings of a good life as presented by Hollywood and the American advertising industry, but what I have today, this minute, is far and away better than all those other things. Not just in comparison to my life as a child, with a distant, emotionally vague mother and an abusive (in every single sense) father, but in comparison to having it all financially and materially and lacking in love and peace.

I have love all around me, the deep, deep love of friends and my family (a miracle!), and my beautiful husband and daughter (daughter!). I have a peace struck deep in my soul. I have a future that is hopeful and open and wide.

I'm twenty-eight. I'm figuring this mothering thing out as I go and so far I'm not fucking it all up. My daughter is bright and healthy and loving and feisty as hell. I have a husband who loves me even when I nit-pick and stress over things that don't matter. He and I are the only ones for each other. Barring a tragedy, and please, God, there have been too many of them already in our families, we will never look for love anywhere else. That's amazing and rare, I know. We could make it through anything--even though it's only been four years or so, we know this. I already have all this--why do I worry about the details? Some people don't have this at fifty or sixty or eighty.

I'm in a thoughtful mood, so I'll close with this quote from Anne Lamott:
“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

Amen. Here's to twenty-eight more years. And please, God, we've had enough tragedies in the first twenty-eight.

So much

There's just so much to process every single minute of every single day. I know that's really true of life in general but man, does having a child make it worse. Or better, as it means I'm living every moment the very best I can.... But there's just so damn much. And I'm so tired all the time that it's only because I need my bed so badly these days that I'm not writing as often as I should. There are so many little things that happen every day that I want to somehow capture and hold and keep and remember forever and yet.... And yet I fear that my voice, my weak words, don't do all these things justice and so I decide to wait for another day that will hopefully bring the words in, tumbling over themselves in their eagerness and truth. But the words don't come perfectly. Ever.

What I'm trying to say, Penelope, is that you are so much. So much happiness and joy and work and when I look into your eyes so much comes tumbling out inside my heart, so many wishes for one day having this life and here I am, and here it is, and here are all the things I dreamed of and more and yet being here, being HERE and present and aware with all my heart is so much work. It doesn't leave me much, most days, to turn around and offer to you in the form of a journal or record. Just know that I love you more than I ever knew it was possible to love someone. I'm sorry I can't get myself together enough to write more down. But on the other hand, we are living this, you and I and your daddy. We are in this life and living it passionately and if that makes us tired, then it's an even better gift to you than if I jotted down every boring detail of our relatively simple life.

I'll always be in this with you, Peanut--like the song I sing you at bedtime, "always, always, always."

The best birthday present. Ever.

One more and now I'm done

Dooce linked to this beautiful piece and I must attach it here as well.... and now I try to move on, though always in the back of my mind will be the sweet and haunting pictures flashed across the news all last week. Pictures only meant to show a family, not the remains of one. Not what gets left behind when the public services we take for granted (police, Coast Guard, mountain rescue teams, etc) fail.

The cutest little elf

We waited in line for about 45 minutes at the mall near us. This being our first year, I was naive and left the stroller at home. She was anxious to get down, crawl, stand, anything other than being held for so long, being so restrained. There was a really nice family in line with us, mom, dad, and a very sweet ,4 year old boy named Nathan. Nathan kept reaching up to hug her and she kept leaning down to give him drooly kisses. The long, tug-of-war wait was worth it, and more, when we saw this:

Not bad, huh? As my friend Cristina says, it's always a plus when Santa's sober. He was so very nice and kind that he really should be be in charge of Santa training.

"That's what dad's do"

This article, by C.W. Nevius of the San Fransisco Chronicle, says everything everyone, including myself, have been has been trying to about James Kim. You can gripe all you want about what this family did wrong or could have done better, but I'd like to see you handle the same situation with as much fortitude, hope, and determination as they did.

7 months, 6 days

She waves, she claps (one palm on top of the other hand's knuckles), she laughs, she pulls herself up (all by herself), she stands, she lets go of the piece of furniture she's standing against, she falls, she gets up, she stands again, she crawls (sometimes with her left leg dragging out behind her like it's wooden and wasn't fit correctly), she drums on everything she can find, she stretches her arms up above her head and says "yay!", she says "hi", she says "da da da", and Tuesday, when I left for a meeting, she crawled to the door crying, "ama ama ama". Mama. Wow. And she's saying it all the time now, though mostly when she wants milk or thinks I'm about to leave the room. She's also cuddling more, of her own free will just shoving her face into our necks, holding tight and breathing us in, before she's done and on to the next thing.

Have I mentioned lately just how much I love this Peanut Baby? I am tired, bone, muscle, fatigue tired, and yet I'm still excited to see her every single morning, still amazed that she's mine, ours, for now.

Emotions

This has been a very emotional week. Beginning last Wednesday I haven't been able to sleep--the urge to pray for the Kim family has been so strong. On Thursday, I was in the most physical kind of prayer I've ever experienced...the only way I know how to describe it is throwing up for several hours. I'll never know for sure why God chose me to be a part of this, when there are so many other people around the whole entire world praying for this amazing family and their incredibly scary predicament, people who I'm sure know far more about prayer and God and have a lot more faith than I do. But I haven't been able to shake it. Only now, at the sad ending to what was becoming such a hopeful story, do I feel a lessening of this burden, though I am deeply aware of the great need for grace and hope for Kati and her girls right now.

On Thursday of last week God told me to pray that Kati's milk wouldn't run out. I didn't know what that meant, really. I am still nursing and I know that one of her girls is 7 months, like Pea, but not a whole lot of people continue nursing at 7 months and her other daughter is 4. I thought for sure that this was something I, in my over-zealous empathy, was projecting onto the situation. But God wouldn't let me over-think this one. I kept hearing, "she doesn't have a way to nourish herself adequately so pray that her milk doesn't run out--pray that she can have your milk, too, as her babies need it more than yours does." So this is what, in great anguish, I prayed every hour, every day until Monday when the three of them were found. My milk definitely lessened over the next few days and I hoped, every time I tried to nurse a frustrated Pea that Kati's girls had full bellies and were staying warm. Monday night, as I was sitting in the kitchen feeding Penelope dinner and listening to NPR news, I suddenly heard the announcer say, "Katie kept her children alive and healthy by breastfeeding both of them during the 9 days they were stranded in the wilderness." I started sobbing. I was crying so hard that I had to get Pea out of her highchair and hold her and tell her that Mama was ok, she was just overwhelmed. An hour after Kati and the girls were found my milk returned.

The other thing I'd been praying throughout this ordeal was that the children would be found healthy and whole, with no harm done to them physically, emotionally, or mentally. We know now that physically they are in excellent shape. The rest will no doubt be the story of a lifetime, but I'll keep praying as I know others are too.

I am so sad that James wasn't found. There is a tragic shortage of good daddies and good husbands, men that fight for their families and love them in concrete terms, and I had really hoped that God was going to show himself merciful in this entire story, not just in part. I don't understand this and I never will. I don't know what good can come out of taking such a good daddy from his baby girls. I don't see mercy in that, I just don't.

Be sure to check out this website and if you have any extra at all that you can donate to the Kim family, Kati, Penelope, and Sabine, please do so. And most all, please keep them close to your hearts and prayers, whatever faith you are and whatever beliefs you do or don't have. These little girls must grow up knowing what a brave, selfless man their father was and how much he loved them.... Kati needs to know that she's not alone.

To Katie Kim, with love

Kati-

I know there are no words for a time like this--you have just been
through the longest and hardest 11 days, and remaining hopeful and
strong is also hard work. I want you to know, as a fellow mother and
as a friend, that I am so very, very proud of you! You have just
shown the whole world the force and triumph of a mother's love and
will to survive. I know being brave doesn't usually feel very brave
at all, but you have been incredibly, awesomely brave. Your babies
are alive--and even well! You did such good work--and so did
James. I am so sorry that the news we were all hoping desperately
for did not come... he, too, was being incredibly brave and focused
in order to save his family. It is so clear in all of this just how
much he loved his girls. I know he is incredibly proud of you!

I've been praying for you ever since the middle of last week when
something woke me up and told to start praying that your milk
wouldn't run out--I didn't even know why, but I prayed that you would

have enough and even for God to give you my milk (I'm still nursing my 7- mth old). I really hope he did--my milk supply got really low and didn't return until an hour

after you were found. I have prayed for you, night and day. And I
won't stop. I pray that the three of you always feel James near you
and that you are comforted and have peace somewhere inside all of this.

Peace to you and love to your girls,

Annagrace, Jeffrey and Penelope