Happy Birthday, Jabber!

When he was nearly three, Jabber patted my gigantic belly and said he would share his toys, he would share his bedroom, but he absolutely would NOT share his birthday with his little brother. So how did that work out for him?  Well, I have to admit that he only readily shares the toys he doesn't much care for.  And the two brothers only peacefully share their bedroom for about sixty seconds a day.  But when Monkey was born the day before Jabber's birthday--an act merely the beginning of a long series of "ME FIRST" moments--Jabber handled the situation with a graceful sort of resignation.  He is...to the best of his abilities, a kind and patient and generous big brother. 

One thing Jabber savors is stories.  Over the last couple of nights, we've been telling stories of the kids as babies, and Jabber hangs on every word.  He loves to listen to a book read out loud, especially books about heroes just a teensy bit more adventurous than he.  He feels deeply, right along the characters, his whole body twisting with anxiety when the action gets tense.  For a while he hated reading--cried and freaked out every time he was asked to do it. He could read.  He could sound out the words.  But it was so much effort--how can you enjoy a story when you have to sound it out letter by letter?  I fought him to get the homework done, and I simply hated the fact that our favorite activity, story time, was turning into a stressful battle. 

Finally I managed to get to the bottom of this issue and I talked with him about how, once you get a lot of practice at reading, you can identify whole words or phrases in one glance.  We used the word automaticity, and he giggled as he said it.  We started reading each page in a book in unison, twice, and then he would read it on his own in his "automatic reading voice."  Which meant fast.  Instantly, all our fights about reading disappeared.  Jabber wanted to practice reading so that he could get automatic: he just wanted to move beyond the letter-by-letter decoding stage and back into the enjoying stories stage.

I can't believe how far he has come in the last year, between age six and age seven.  I look at him sometimes, or overhear some tidbit of wisdom he is either mumbling aloud or trying out on me, and I can't even believe he's for real.  He's such a thinker.

This morning we were, as we often are, running late for work.  It was his birthday, and I was trying to go easy on him, to let him enjoy the feeling of waking up with the whole day belonging to him. But the clock keeps ticking, and the van needs scraping, and the younger brother--tired out from his own ME FIRST birthday--is grumpy, and...well.

"Jabber," I said, as he stood in the bathroom with his toothbrush in his hand, in exactly the same position I'd left him five minutes earlier.  "Why aren't you doing anything? Come ON."

"But I was doing something," he said, slowly lifting his toothbrush up to his mouth.

"You were not doing anything," I argued.  "You were just standing there, holding your brush."

"I was thinking," he said.  And of course he was.

(It's a Pikachu cake)

Happy Birthday, my Daydreamer!

Happy Birthday, Monkey!

Monkey is four today, and it's a ridiculously busy week, like it always is on his birthday.  Midterms have gone out, so my inbox is full of dutiful parents checking up on their children's assertions that they have, indeed, completed and turned in all that work that was missing, and the students themselves are in rare, pre-holiday form.  Sickness has trampled its way through the family and back again.  We are behind on every possible mundane task imaginable, and I remember--

--I remember a very similar week, four years ago.  Monkey still wasn't due for several weeks, but I had a feeling he was coming early, so I had been working like a crazy person to get sub plans in place that could be stepped into at any time, and by anyone, in case my sub wasn't ready yet when I went into labor.

Sure enough, I remember one morning--the day before Jabber's third birthday--when I got up and thought, "Oh, no way.  I really cannot see how I am possibly going to keep doing this for the next week and a half." It felt like there was no possible way there was even a millimeter more room in my abdomen to house that lively child, and there wasn't a chance that I was going to be able to find the energy to complete a single thing that evening.  Nothing, that is, except labor and birth.

And then...everything stopped.  Life grew slow and syrupy sweet, and whole stacks of hours passed doing nothing more productive than snuggling and gazing and nursing. 

He's still that person, even at his craziest, most frenetic pace.  He can stop time, for a while--erase obligations--with the magic of his hugs. 

Happy Birthday, Snuggle-Buggle. 

The Portals Arrived on the Young Heroes' Birthday...

What perils will the Heroes face? What adventures will they have? Happy Birthday with the family--Saturday, December 11, 2010.

Thank you, Aunt Sharon! 

Happy Birthday, Big Brother!

Sometimes Jabber doesn't think it's fair that his little brother sneaked in the day before his third birthday, earning himself a lifelong position of "first," even when he was not, chronologically speaking, first. (It doesn't help that Monkey keeps proclaiming himself to be "SIX!" every time anyone asks him how old he is...)

But when you are in kindergarten celebrating your Monday birthday with treats and paper crowns while your little brother is yesterday's news at daycare, it feels all right to be the grand finale.

I looked at Jabber this evening, telling him bits and pieces of his birth story just as I told Monkey his the night before, and I am so amazed by how far he has come, especially in the last few months.

He can read. He can do math. I mean, tonight the two of us snuggled in his bed and took turns with an easy reader, and he even read the silent e words! Like...when did he learn that? And then he said, "I'm six, and that means I'm four plus two. I'm three plus three. I'm five plus one. I'm..." He paused a minute. "I'm four less than ten."

He has permanent teeth, two of them.

He teaches his little brother songs.

He comes up with big words, big concepts. "Monkey and I are playing animals under the table, and we're nocturnal," he says. "That means we're active at night." Another day, waiting for bus call, he lists the buses that come first to his school and to my school and states, "Well, I think we have a pattern here."

If I'm amazed at the unique personality that Monkey is developing, I'm totally floored by the way Jabberwock thinks. "You and I are just alike, Mama," he said to me on the drive home a couple nights ago. "We spend all our time thinking and dreaming and thinking and dreaming."

Happy Birthday, my eldest! I love you so!

Happy Birthday, Monkey!

It's late...this day has been full of running and grading papers and writing and singing songs to little birthday boys, but I wanted to take just a moment to say happy birthday to my little Monkey, who turned three today.

Three is a good thing. We've spent some time talking and telling stories from the day he was born, and we've eaten a good deal of lovely cake...my mom made a train for Monkey and a whole fleet of tanks for Jabber...and there hasn't been a moment all day where I haven't found myself looking at this child with wonder--thinking about how on earth did he get to be such an individual?

He has grown wiry and athletic, his baby roundness slipping away...this afternoon he almost learned to skip in the living room, and last night the way he stood in his new ice skates made David afraid for our future as hockey parents.

He has grown witty and wise...I watched him tease my cousin Jim with surprising sophistication and laughed out loud when he and his papa were exchanging puns about the cake "Tank you...tanks a lot!"

He has grown fiery and independent...he knows his own mind and woe to any who stand in his way.

Monkey knows the way to push me to the edge, and he knows the way to melt me with the smallest of smiles. His arms still wrap tightly around my neck, even as he shouts at me to go away. Most of all, I am amazed at what a unique little person he is, and I wish him a happy birthday.

I love you, Monkey.

Oh my, my Boy is Five! Happy Birthday, my Sweet Jabber!

Jabber is five. FIVE. It's funny because since he started talking, since he started asking us questions, like, "Can I drink coffee?" or "When will I be able to..." do whatever, David and I have always said, "Maybe when you're five." It seemed like an eternity from where we were. And now it's, well, now. Ever since the moment he first looked up at me, newborn eyes blurry and watery, he has struck me as an old soul, and at five, he seems sometimes just like a little old man--a philosopher old man at that--trapped in the uncoordinated and constantly-changing body of a preschooler. He can be strong and mature; he can be calm and wise; he can melt down like a toddler into a shrieking mass of tears. He can be as sassy as they come. And the next moment he is so sincere and sweet I just about squeeze him to death. He's my boy, my Jabberwock, and I wish him a happy, happy birthday!

The day I went into labor was so...absurd. I had been struggling with this horridly itchy rash for two weeks (PUPPP), and I had been unable to sleep for more than about ten minutes at a time. I had tried everything, and still the itch. I also had carpal tunnel in both hands so that they were almost completely numb, my feet were so swollen I could only fit them into slippers, and my blood pressure was high enough to make my doctor put me on bed rest for the last week. That Friday night was the worst for the itching, and I had spent the entire night in the tepid oatmeal-filled bath, literally screaming at the top of my lungs, wailing, and begging for it to stop. My neighbors probably thought I was having the baby in my bathroom.

Saturday morning, David said, "We're going to the hospital to get this taken care of. Now." So we went into the birth center at about 8:00 that morning. I explained the issue like fifty times to as many doctors, residents, nurses, janitors, whatever. I lay in bed in one of the rooms watching cable, which at least was an improvement over the television at my house, where I had been stuck lying on the couch all week.

All day we sat there, in that hospital room, while they were tracking down a dermatologist because nobody knew what I had. (But I had figured it out on the internet and knew I had PUPPP, though they didn't really believe me or hadn't heard of it or whatever.)

So at 6:00 that evening (!!) a dermatologist finally came to see me...he was really nice, checked me over, said I had PUPPP, made me cry by empathizing with me about how bad it was to itch like that (waaaay worse than pain!), and gave me a prescription for a tube of cream and some prescription-strength antihistamines. We filled the scrips, I took the meds, smeared on the cream, and AT LAST I felt normal. It was like heaven. We went out to eat, and I could concentrate on something besides itching for once. We got home, and I was lying on the couch at 10 pm. I said, "David, I am going to sleep SO GOOD tonight, FINALLY." I got up off the couch, and my water broke. And we went back to the hospital.

Labor was amazing and all-consuming. I admit, I have never felt so close to giving up, so full of doubt and despair, as when I was struggling to push--over and over and over pushing with every atom of my self, and still he did not advance, did not progress. I felt damned to do eternal sit-ups in hell, without even the dignity of wearing pants. People's fingers and probably their whole hands groped around inside me and affirmed that I was a failure, even as they shouted encouragement to me.

Laboring, I was silent, withdrawn, and weary. I had not slept for three weeks. My energy was a dark, murky pool within me, and I was terrified to reach the bottom. I had no idea when it would leave me, leave us, stranded, wheeled off to the mercy of drugs and scalpels. Fear crowded me.

My stomach muscles were so tired and sore from all the pushing, and still the clock ticked on--one hour, then two.

A thought fluttered through me to sit out for a couple of rounds, catch my breath, but each time the contraction would build, and then it was just a blur of breath and prayer. Breathe. Breathe. Breathing and counting and pushing, with him stuck there, moving forward with each push but getting stuck and slipping back each time.

The doctor came in, checked, looked nonplussed, took her lunch break.

"I can't do it," I said, hating the whine in my voice. There were whispered conversations at the foot of my bed, which I couldn't hear, but which I was sure were criticisms.

David was praising me, crying at my side and cheering me on. "You're doing such a good job, my love. You're doing everything right." He ran excitedly back and forth from the foot of my bed to my head, lying on the pillow sucking at the oxygen mask. I knew he was lying. I was doing an awful job for sure; otherwise I would be done right now, holding a beautiful baby instead of lying her stupidly struggling to get my breath.

"Slow...slow...breathe..." intoned the nurse, my tough-love Coach Nurse, who was the one calling the shots in here, pushing me harder than I thought I could be pushed.

"Keep it up, Elissa! You're doing so great!" said my Cheerleader Nurse, holding my hand. Her eyes were the kindest, steadiest blue beacons in the world, and I gazed into them as I forced myself to slow my ragged breathing, to stop swallowing the air in large gulps.

Then there was a moment, something curled right in my back maybe; a burst of energy spurring me into pushing my limits--I felt the baby move beyond that awful spot, that hang-up he'd been banging his head against for hours. I pushed without thinking of that murky pool, without thinking of the next round, and the next, and the next. He moved.

David was hyperventilating at the sight of Jabber's head. "It has hair! Lots of it!" he cried, and Cheerleader Nurse handed him a box of tissues.

"Yes!" shouted Coach Nurse; finally, I was pleasing her. "You're doing it! NOW I'm impressed!" It meant more to me than all the attagirls so far, gave me the strength to keep going.

In the end the room seemed to explode with the sound of cheering and my heart beating blood in my ears and everyone moving around so fast, and then the most tremendously wonderful feeling of him moving, slipping, swimming out like a happy little trout, and David cried, "My love! We have a Jabberwock!" and the realization of his reality, my son, and I looked down over my now-deflated belly and saw him, reached down and touched his head as they suctioned him and moved him and his mouth was working and his little limbs waving erratically and finally sound came out, but I don't remember the sound he made as much as the sound of David crying in wonder.

And then he was born--with blissful breath he was born, and into my world a little boy emerged. A little boy with a perfect smile, ancient eyes, and this joyful grip on life. This love emerged, and it captured me.

They raced him over to the infant warmer, muttering about distress, this and that. They worked on him intently, listening, wrapping, and Coach Nurse looking worried, which worried me; I wanted him back, but the doctor reassured me that he was fine. "Elissa, she's looking concerned because she's doing her job, but I assure you, if he wasn't okay, I'd be over there instead of here with you. He's a fine, fine, healthy boy."

They brought him to me, and the rest is a blur...hours and now years spent gazing into his little face, learning to nurse, feeling the tiny weight of him tugging so heavily at my heart.

Happy Birthday, my little Elliot McCarthy!

My Little Monkey, Happy Birthday!

~Monkey's Birth Story~

It’s 2:10 a.m., and I wake up knowing something is beginning.

“My water just broke,” I inform David, who sits up in bed like a shot. “I’m going to wash my hair.” The warm gush is unmistakable, familiar from my first birth, but instead of sending me into a shaky uncertainty like last time, I am enveloped in a calm, rational state.

I wash my hair, noting the absence of contractions. It doesn’t surprise me, after waiting almost twelve hours after my water broke last time for labor to begin. I begin sticking some stuff into my hospital bag while David makes some phone calls, most importantly to Papa R, who jumps into some clothes and starts the drive down to take care of three-year-old Jabber. Sixty miles and less than forty-five minutes later (you do the math; is it a coincidence the man enjoys watching NASCAR?) he arrives, quiet and nervous and grinning happily.

Right on cue, Jabber wakes up for a moment, and I am so happy that he does, because I am able to give him lots of hugs and explain to him that Mama is going to the hospital and that his little brother is coming, that Papa is here to take care of him and we’ll all see each other later today. He hugs me sleepily and says, “That baby is just gonna pop right out, Mama.”

Contractions have started up quickly and are now about four to five minutes apart. David, taking cues from my calm, is still leisurely gathering photography gear and such from upstairs and giving instructions to Papa about Jabber's allergies, etc. In the meantime, I have realized that I'm contracting every 3-4 minutes, so we pack it up and head out to the van, now breathing through the contractions to keep relaxed.

We park in front of the hospital, and I start to feel the shakiness set into my limbs, anticipation and a little anxiety building, building.... A contraction on the way to the door makes me pause, grip David’s hand, draw in a deep and jagged breath.

The emergency room attendant smiles to see me coming up the stairs and asks if she can have two guesses why I’m there.

“You won’t need the second one,” I say, smiling back. A nurse comes to bring us up to the birthing center on the sixth floor. Our first elevator won’t get moving, and I crack a joke about “Baby born in hospital elevator” that makes David nervous, but he says he was thinking the same thing. “No, no, no,” says the nurse firmly, guiding us into the second elevator.

We’re checked into our room, contracting in between each question, no big deal exactly but it’s after 4:00 a.m. when we arrive, and I’m beginning to think we won’t be making it until 8:00 when Dr. G. gets there.

The resident, Dr. A., comes in shortly to introduce herself and asks if I mind her checking me for progress. She’s very nice, easy to talk to with beautiful eyes, and she tells us she just finished delivering a baby who came so fast the dad didn’t even make it back up from parking the car!

“Wow! You’re already at 6 cm!” she says, and I start thinking about transition phase with a little nervousness. Dr. A. brings me a birthing ball and a hot water bottle for my back, and I labor there with my arm around David’s neck, my face pressed into his chest. Through the contractions, I breathe out Monkey's name, calling out to him in gentleness and love, willing my body to relax and let my womb work.

After maybe an hour, the nurse comes in to tell me I need to have an IV with antibiotics since I was GBS+ last time and there hasn’t been enough time for my test results to come back yet this time since my appt. was the day before. The IV saddens me a little, but by this time the contractions are coming fast and hard, taking most of my concentration and awareness. Monkey's name is my mantra, and I welcome him over and over.

The breathing isn’t working anymore, isn’t keeping up with the pain or overwhelming pressure. I feel the waves building up against me, within me, faster and faster, and each one leaves me wondering what position to move into for the next one because I can’t bear another one in the same way. I hold tightly to my mama beads and to the jade uglystone I picked up so many years ago on Rialto Beach.

Suddenly I feel a fluttery panic as one contraction hits me—how will I know when it’s time to push? What will I do if this gets worse? I think of the two and a half hours of pushing for Jabber--how difficult it was, and fear grips me. For a moment I can’t imagine why I would possibly want to do this without pain medication. I asked the staff not to give any interventions and only to give me pain relief if I ask for it.

But I realize suddenly that they haven’t intervened at all—I mean, nobody has even been in the room with us at all. What if I wanted some pain relief? Somehow my ideal of labor—that people would just leave me alone and trust me to do what I needed to do—somehow this makes me indignant and scared. Why are they all leaving me all alone, damn it?

This all occurs during one contraction, a spell of doubt, and then it’s over and I say to David, “Honey, I don’t know if I can do this much more. I mean, I know I have to, so it doesn’t even matter what I think, but I don’t...I don’t...I can’t...”

I’m looking helplessly into his kind eyes, and he holds me tightly. Moments later, Dr. A. walks in, smiling.

“You are doing so amazingly well with these contractions,” she says.

“You’re so composed. Can I check your progress?”

I make my way to the bed and sit down, work my way through another wave, her steady gaze holding mine through the pain, and then she quickly lowers the bed and does a cervix check. “You’ve had some heavy contracting in here, and you’re at about 7.5 or 8 cm right now. I’ll come back in a few minutes, and we’ll probably start pushing out a baby!”

So I am in transition! “This is the worst part, right?”

I sit on the edge of the bed and make it through about three or four more by growling and moaning a little but mostly by murmuring over and over, “Oh, my little one, my sweet Monkey, it’s okay, baby, it’s okay, my little one, my sweet one, it’s okay....”

Breathing techniques? I don’t remember them. I talk to my baby, holding his image in my heart, willing my body to open up to let him through.

Suddenly I have to pee really bad and I’m a little embarrassed because I think I can't hold it. David helps me into the tiny bathroom, navigating my IV “buddy.” As I’m sitting down, I suddenly know that I’m going to push the baby out right then and there.

My eyes get widen at the realization, and David knows. He knows, and he reaches over and pushes the call button. Instantly, Dr. A. and three nurses are there, all but carrying me back to the edge of the bed with their encouragement and their kind voices, “You’re doing great, just breathe, don’t push yet, please don’t push yet, honey.”

I can’t even believe how clear, how strong the urge to push comes over me—it’s nothing like the hours of sit-ups I did when Jabber was being born. Instead, the contraction builds and my body just sort of involuntarily begins to curve and tense and open up.

“Breathe it out! Don’t push yet! Get Dr. B. in here right away!” shouts Dr. A., checking my cervix quickly. “She’s complete! No lip at all! I just checked her a couple minutes ago and she was at 7.5! Don’t push yet, just breathe through it, sorry my hand is there, I’m holding the baby so he doesn’t come out too fast.

Dr. B. is in the background now, and I hear her say I can push, so I move closer to the edge, sitting close, and now I’m allowing my body to go with the contraction—pushing I guess, although it doesn’t feel like work or pain, just allowing my baby to move down the way he needs to.

One long push and then another short one on the same contraction and I feel so good—everyone is making cheering, excited sounds, and David is crying, trying to breathe. There’s a flurry of excited women and Dr. B. says, “One more and we’ll deliver the shoulders,” and I contract and push and slither-slip he’s out, he’s perfect, and David catches and they place him up on my stomach—he’s so amazing, his purple and red splotches and mouth working. A nurse massages him with a towel as I marvel at his tiny purple feet, running my fingers across his little toes, holding his tiny round head in my other palm, feeling the wet holy weight of his beautiful soul.

Avery James, welcome to the world!

Tears roll down my face, and he cries, a lusty little shout like an angry kitten. He’s so perfect, so lovely, his dark eyes searching my face in wonder as David cuts the cord and the placenta arrives. The nurses quickly wipe him, weigh him (7 lbs, 9 oz—just perfect!), wrap him and hand him back to us. We keep him in our room, nursing and cuddling and crying tears of happiness, for over two hours before they come to clean him up and check his vitals. He was born at 6:26 a.m., just four hours after my water broke!

David presents me with a beautiful string of pearls, and everyone in the room admires them, but nothing is as beautiful as the little boy I hold so tightly in my arms.

Happy birthday, little Monkey.

Birthday Birthday!

Today my little Monkey is a two-year-old!

My sons' birthdays are just one day apart, with the little one sneaking in on the day before his Big Brother. When I tell people this, I can instantly see them performing some mildly complicated math for a moment before their next question: "So, do you guys have, like, an anniversary in March or something?" Uh, no. But I did have a maternity leave to plan and pretty good luck with fertility, I guess. We basically decided both times that the period of time between December and March would be the best for utilizing my 12-week leave and minimizing the amount of time I was trying to work while nursing an infant. And, both times, ta-daaa! Baby due in late December, or early January, in Monkey's case! (He was born at 36.5 weeks, a little early maybe, but perfect, perfect, perfect!)

So, in honor of my boys' birthdays, I'm going to post their birth stories here, which I wrote in both cases about a month afterward, when I was starting to get used to the sleep deprivation and my brain started to make sense with words again! Enjoy!