Wednesday, September 27, 2006

2-month pics



Music for babies

My mother has a number of wonderful French and Hebrew songs that she sings to Daisy, and she seems to like them so much that I’ve learned a few of them to sing to her, too. But I was gratified to learn that this educational process is NOT a one-way street: yesterday, from the living room, I heard Mom singing “Come Sail Away” to Daisy as she changed her diaper.

I have said this before, and I’ll say it again: I don’t know why music intended for babies has to be so sad. The thin-sounding, tinny classical music that her swing and vibrating chair play makes me feel completely depressed. And I have a CD of music intended for “baby’s quiet time,” not all of which is traditional lullabye music, but anyway, it makes me cry every time I listen to it. I suppose the question is, then, why do I keep listening to it?

I must try to be jolly. Everyone prefers a jolly autumnal Sarah to a morose autumnal Sarah.

Next time, I want to write about my parents and infants group.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Oh god, I love her

As embarrassing as this is to admit, I am finally, now, understanding why people adore being parents. It is not that I have had no feelings of love for Daisy over the last 2 months; I have. In fact, I felt intense love, along with unexpected (and therefore somewhat traumatizing) feelings of sorrow, loss, fear, and even resentment. I thought, "Okay, this is motherhood. You love your child deeply, but contend with grieving all the time." I was not experiencing joy or happiness or contentment along with the love. It was scary to realize that love did not necessarily equal happiness. I could conceivably love her with all my heart and yet be deeply sad, indefinitely.

But lately that is changing. Although I am very sad about some other things in my life (which I am afraid I can't write or talk about right now), I have been feeling wonderful surges of joy and hope sometimes when I am with Daisy. Some things in my life are over--that remains true. But what a beautiful beginning is occurring, too. She is changing into a person! It felt like it happened overnight--the day she turned 2 months, in fact. If it was a gradual change, then I just didn't experience it that way. Seems like one morning she woke up, looked directly into my eyes, and smiled at me in a way that showed she really *recognized* me.

True, she was smiling before yesterday, and I was laboring to reassure myself that these were actual smiles, not gas or facial spasms. People tried to convince me they were real "social" smiles, and I wanted to believe them because everything I'd read on infant development indicated that she should have a social smile by now. The literature, and other parental testimony, said that she could have a real smile by four weeks, or six at the latest. Now here I was, with a baby going on nine weeks, ashamed to admit that I didn't think she was smiling a real, relational smile, one that showed a connection with and recognition of me. Or, I thought, maybe what I'm seeing ARE the real smiles everyone goes on about, and they just turn out not to be a big deal.

No: I was wrong. They ARE a big deal, and for whatever reason, I didn't see one till yesterday. I recognized it the instant I saw it, and it was worth waiting for. She really looked at me--we looked knowingly at one another--and since that breakthrough moment, it's happened again and again, so it was no fluke or trick of an eager imagination. It happened, actually, when I had given up on looking for it. It doesn't matter now if she was developmentally "behind" other babies. All I care about now is that I finally see some of the reason why other parents are so happy.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Getting her jabs

Dazelbaum got her 2-month vaccines today. The trauma was not relieved even by the wonderful new British expression I've learned for vaccination ("getting her jabs"). It was terrible. First, she threw up. The culprit was the rotavirus vaccine, a brand new vaccine that is orally administered. Dazilla barfed voluminously, all over Mark, who was holding her, and the nurse. We were sent, rather shamefaced, into an exam room to change her and calm her down before the next attempt.

When we returned, she had to get the rotavirus dose again, along with a sickly grape dose of infant Tylenol meant to ward off some of the pain of the upcoming shots. She then got three shots--two in one chubby brown thigh, one in the other--containing five vaccines. She began to scream and wail, seemingly in great pain, her little face bright red. I have never seen her cry that way, so it was traumatic for me, too, and I will admit that I cried as well, not helping the situation. (In my defense, I quietly wept; I did not fly into disruptive hysterics.)

All in all, a rather terrible day. But the good news was that her doctor thought she was looking healthy, from the physical. She weighed 11 pounds, 12 ounces and measured 23 inches (almost two feet!). She was in the 75th percentile for height and weight, and between the 50th and 75th for head circumference (I'm not sure of the significance of that last one).

Wednesday is her official 2-month birthday.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Two minor jolts of reality

1) Yesterday, I went for a walk by myself and gradually came to feel that something very, very strange and different was in the air. What was it? I pondered. It slowly dawned on me that no one beamed at me; no one made puppy dog eyes at me; no one slowed down in the crosswalk so as not to mow me down with their SUV. Yes, the aggressive, reckless San Francisco drivers now plowed straight at me in the crosswalk, just as I dimly remembered they used to do in days of yore. Of course! My slow brain thought. I am neither visibly pregnant nor wielding a small, cute baby. I'll bet they won't let me cut ahead of them in line for the bathroom now, either.

No; I was just like any other frumpy, unshowered, no longer perkily young woman, wearing baggy pants and a schlumpfy flannel shirt pilfered from her husband, hair untidily thrown up in a bun, dark circles under her eyes. Not only did people not make puppy dog eyes at me, but they occasionally looked at me distastefully. Where was that cute baby to distract them from my personal appearance?

2) Two days ago I was waiting to take the bus by myself for the first time since my last trimester. A jam-packed 1 California finally arrived. It's okay, thought the brain; at least *I* will get a seat. *I* can sit in the front seats reserved for the elderly and disabled. ...Oh wait, no I cannot, the brain then realized, as I climbed on the bus and it dawned on me that I was not packing an enormous stomach anymore. I used to have to sit down, or I would not be able to keep on my feet when the bus lurched and jerked to an abrupt stop, as it perpetually did. My whiny brain thought self-pityingly of my invisible-to-the-naked-eye, fairly-recent C-section as I clung to the strap-thingies above me, wedged in next to 50 other standing people. I almost fell down several times.

How things have changed! The other night I went to the corner store in my pajamas, thinking in some way that it was acceptable (again, more acceptable when actually wielding a cute baby; I was not). Once in the store, a little Korean girl, the daughter of the woman working there, began laughing and pointing at me and saying things I didn't understand. Her mother, also laughing, finally translated: "She wants to know, what is this costume you are wearing?"

"My pajamas," I said sourly, before stalking home without buying my favorite, Skittles gum.

I guess the moral of the story is: don't go out in your pajamas, or the next best thing, unless you are wielding a puppy, a baby, or a pregnant belly.

Also, you probably shouldn't eat Skittles gum. It is extremely sweet and bad for the teeth, with absolutely no nutritional value.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

I like it

Borrowed from the journal of silk_noir:

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Lo! Who is that, skulking through the hotel lobby! It is Sarahgoss, hands clutching a burning branch! She grunts ominously:

"I'm going to forcibly reverse your gender!"

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Monday, September 11, 2006

7-week pictures



Wow

Today my free parenting newsletter, which I somehow find myself subscribed to, came with a top story on "how to look great in a bikini, post-partum," even though bikini season is over. Right below that the stories were: "Arm your kids with a bulletproof body image" and "Accepting your children for who they are." Uh, hello mixed messages?

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Hello.

You know, I think that my determination not to become a cliche of a person who talks incessantly about her child is really having a silencing effect on me. I probably always swore I would never become one of those people who now talks about nothing else, and obliviously believes that everyone else is equally interested in her adorable imp, and has no other identity outside of being a mom; but now that I am here with a six-week-old, I have to admit that the experience is totally consuming and that it's hard to think of other things to talk about. And I wish I wasn't stressing myself out feeling bad about that. Taking care of a newborn is pretty much a full-time job... if you can imagine a job that lasts 24 hours a day.

I feel like my eyeballs are falling out of my head with tiredness right now, and I should probably go to bed rather than think of things to say to my blog. But I wanted to say hello...and that someday, I will have other things to talk about. Someday, I will be introspective and analytical and reflective and witty and clever again. I think. But for now, I think I have to allow myself to be the slow-witted, literal-minded, tired, bovine creature I have temporarily become, and not beat myself up for it. So I guess this entry is mostly me talking to myself and giving myself a pep-talk... very fascinating. Perhaps I should attempt a sonnet about spit-up.