White Dress

Dear Ava Leigh,

I thought it best to warn you: today is one of Mommy's hard days.

I was watching a movie last night in which an old man assures his daughter's well-being by seeing to it that she is married off to an approved suitor before he begs God to relieve him of his earthly burdens.  

While I know that marriage is not necessarily a required ingredient for a meaningful life, the scene turned my stomach sour and I dismissed myself to the privacy of your bedside, where I hid my face and sobbed until my hair was wet and tangled in my fingers.

(GENTLEMEN'S ALERT: THOSE OF DELICATE SENSIBILITIES NEED READ NO FURTHER.  I lay the responsibility for these oppressive feelings squarely upon my own shoulders -- it was unwise of me to watch Les Miserables on a particularly hormonal day.  I forget how resuming the pill can shade your emotions and induce the belief that everything Nicholas Sparks has produced is pure magic.  Nothin' says bonkers like a fresh flush of hormones and a beat-up uterus.

OKAY. YOU'RE SAFE NOW, GUYS.)

I was ashamed to be crying, but in the daylight hours I've come around to forgive myself and allow the assurance of the Holy Spirit to clarify His answers to even my most selfish questions regarding your future.

I want you to know what it is to be loved, daughter -- this is a normal hope every mother carries for her child.  But I don't understand why part of me fixates upon and mourns for the very real possibility you might not require the kind of romantic love that once blinded me to the challenges of reality -- the amorous idol that I once craved and valued above all, at the cost of misspent youth and squandered opportunities.  Why would I regret sparing you this curse of this self-inflicted idiocy?  The prisoner loves best their own chains, I suppose...

Let me clarify this, little one: it's not my intention to foist my own concept of happiness upon you and force you to make it your own.  If all the love your family gave you turns out to be all the love you need, then I will understand.  If the only time I see you in a white dress is when you're playing dress up in my church slip, well then, honey, that's fine.  You will be just as touching to me in that moment as you would be if I was looking on as your Daddy gave you away.  

I know it's still early in your development to try and forecast your future according the encouraging medical assessments you've received thus far.  After all, none of us truly know what kind of shape we'll be in ten years from now, ten days from now, or even tomorrow.  I might be one-eyed, diabetic, blonde, and living in hut in Hawaii with ten dogs and one very nervous cat in 2023.  Who knows.  I've seen for myself that life can be a very unpredictable endeavor, whether you sign up for the scenic tour or not.

What I should do is simply tell you this here so I can see the words for myself in all their discomforting glory:

I'm afraid for you to be lonely when you grow up.  I just know how happy and fulfilled I am being married to your Daddy, and I believe that being a wife and mother is the way in which my life was meant to mirror the kingdom of God.  But maybe the mirror He's made in you is completely different than mine.  It's so difficult to say on behalf of your child, "Not my will, but yours, Lord...", and entrust Him with your future happiness.

It won't stop me from praying selfishly for you, though.  If for no other reason than you are my daughter, I want to know that someone will treasure and care for you long after your Daddy and I are gone.  So I'm going to start asking God now to provide you with someone, or many someones, to meet you at where you need to be loved when you grow up.  Maybe that'll be a best friend, or a group of friends, or a sibling....or even a sweetheart.  The type of relationship doesn't matter -- I would just rest in knowing that you would be valued and understood.

And because I have asked Him, and because I know what my Father is capable of, I trust that it is already done.  There will be a heart that will compliment yours.  There just will.

99.44% pure

I like clean hands.  Strike that -- I LOVE clean hands.

Clean means yes, you can tickle, hold, and squeeze our perfectly fatty baby.  You can cuddle her and relieve memories of nights you spent rocking your own in nurseries that now exist only in your memory.  I don't mind sharing my child.

I love to watch Ava Leigh learn to respond joyfully to people who love her.  Daddy and I are grateful there are so many on this list.  We want her to learn that her world is a friendly place and that her hugs and smiles will open doors for her and might even break the hearts of those who might not initially be so accepting.

But please, PLEASE, I beg to plead my case on behalf of wee ones everywhere: if you've been the least bit wheezy, barfy, stuffy, achy, or explosively incontinent, I politely demand that you keep your love safely bottled up in your heart until the hour you are no longer so.

I don't want to turn into one of those parents who feels compelled to carry Lysol in a hip holster and leave jet trails of the stuff two steps before my child at all times.  

Just give the Ivory some love, and under NO circumstances try to snuggle with my infant daughter if you've recently spewed anything from any of your unsanitary escape hatches.

Don't make me crazy.  You can't afford my therapy.  

Playing with the octagon toy.  Not my health.  Peas and thank you.

Shots in the Dark Side....

I had an odd dream last night.  

I was standing on a long metal catwalk suspended in the belly of a spaceship, and Darth Vader was approaching me with a syringe sporting a shiny, menacing needle.

When I awoke, I realized that Ava was up and needed the services of her saline drops and the bulbous booger sucker.  I guess that explained Darth Vader.  Come to think of it, he did sound a little soupy.

And the appointment on our calendar explains his weapon of choice.  Today, Ava goes to her pediatrician to receive the shots she missed out on a few weeks ago when she was admitted to Children's for a incisional hernia surgery.  I knew when I went the first time that she was in too much agony to even consider giving her the immunizations that day; this time, there's no holding back.  

Like most parents who find themselves standing at this milestone, I'd rather stick Darth's needle in my own eyeball than to watch her be a baby pincushion again.  I know, though, that these early shots are one of those necessary evils inflicted during childhood from which one quickly recovers and eventually forgets.  Thank God for giving infants the memory of earthworms.

On the other hand, Mommies and Daddies are very unlikely to forget days like today.  I'm a little nervous about experiencing a Vietnam flashback to her previous hospitalizations....  During her first go-round, Ava Leigh had already had so many sticks at one point that they nearly ran out of locations to place her IV.  I keep reminding myself in a mental voice that sounds like Mr. Rogers that such a problem Will Not Occur Today.  This is a completely different color of a situation.  

This is why I'm trying in my head to walk myself through how things SHOULD go.  My baby girl will cry her little tongue-curling wail and claim a terribly broken heart, I might shoot a well-meaning nurse an undeserved dirty look, and I will rub her little back and talk to her in a low voice, telling her how brave she is and how this singular moment entitles her to a childhood of unlimited kitten adoptions.  Then I might barf.  And then she'll take some sweet grape Tylenol and a bottle, and we'll return home where Daddy and I will take turns warming her against the unseasonably cool drafts in the house and singing her Gene Kelley songs.  

Before this is all over, I might need a stiff shot of milk, too.  Even normal parenthood things like this can just rip your heart out and stomp that sucker flat.

"I'll see your three shots, and I'll raise you five calicoes."

Name That Game!

Dear Ava Leigh,

I wonder what your little baby brain is imagining as you play.

I can only interpret according to references familiar to a 30-year-old hillbilly mommy.

For example:

Imaginary Daytona 500 win!

Did you hear that, Beary Brandt?  THEY'RE COMING.

Clutch the pearls, what a sneaky thing to do!

See this?  Five dollars.

Bottle vs. Boob

Being a new parent brings you a refreshed appreciation for the simple things.  Like a clean house.  Or an unstained shirt.  Or fresh coffee.  Pots and pots of strong, volcanic-temperature coffee.

Needless to say, I'm back on the juice again.  Without it, asking a mom to perform her mom-ly duties on a schedule that would exhaust Sting is downright cruel.  

Now, I know moms who abstain for the sake of jazzing their babies up on caffeine through their breast milk.  They are saints who amaze me with their ability to nurse with one hand and play Michael Jackson's "Heal the World" on medieval lute in the other.  I am not that woman.  Anymore.  I had lofty aspirations of becoming her, but somewhere along the line between the breast pump, bottle washing, and laundering sweet pea's entire wardrobe twice a day,  I didn't accomplish the sleep sufficient to operate my own body and, well, I crashed.

Imagine college, with a midterm test every day and no Starbucks on campus.  

Then multiply that by a roommate who wants to party.  All. Night. Long.

At the suggestion of my shaky mental health, I made the choice to bottle feed my sweet daughter after holding back months of unexpressed stress and deciding that the dam was about to burst.  From the time we started getting strange ultrasounds until she was about five weeks old, I didn't cry.  I just labored and read and wrote.  Then she began vomiting (which resulted in her last surgery) and I just about went fruit loops.

Funny how your own failure causes you to adjust your definition of the word.

Part of me mourns the breastfeeding picture of mommy/baby closeness I had imagined when I was pregnant.  When our Ava Leigh's tummy began working after her initial surgery and we could feed her, it had to be accomplished by bottle so her doctors could observe her intake levels.  Day after day, her little mouth became accustomed to the deceptively comforting feel of that rubber nipple and learned to accept it as food source.   When her medical team finally allowed her to make an attempt to feed from me, it was a little heartbreaking -- like a pug trying to eat baloney off the floor.  Even after I brought her home and continued trying to breastfeed her,  both of us ended up disappointed and grumpy.  

I think if she had been able to begin life as a breastfeeder, things would've turned out differently.  After all, we know this sweet 'tater can chug-a-lug like Charlie Sheen.  We're thankful for that accomplishment alone!  After all, this was the baby whose doctors wanted to place a G tube in her tummy because it was assumed she'd be a poor feeder.  

A lot of children with Downs need this help because poor muscle tone and difficulty sucking often come with the territory.  But at her bedside, we had watched her tear up her pacifier for hours on end.  We saw her chubby little limbs kick and flail and fight off nurses with the best of them.  So we said no to the G tube, and she learned to eat.  It was the right choice for her.

After we came home, I dragged my backpack pumping kit up and down the stairs, looking very much like a milking hobo in my own home.  I used it to supply the contents of Ava's bottles until I started seeing purple people dancing down the front lawn.  Then I mixed my milk with the best Enfamil we could buy until I had assured myself that our baby wouldn't spontaneously combust if I fed her on formula alone.  I began to sleep, and to form complete sentences in conversation.  And then she began to sleep, sometimes through my feeding alarm.  Now, we both awake refreshed and in our right minds.  It's nice.

If things had worked out the way I'd originally dreamed they would, I would have breastfed her in a heartbeat.  I won't deny that it's nature's perfect baby food (not to mention nature's way of sparing Daddy's wallet for the first few months).  

Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice for her.  On one hand is the offering of perfect food, which requires stopping the world to acquire with a machine which, frankly, disturbs me; on the other hand, I can give her a well-rested and cheerful Mommy who can regulate her baby's sleep/eat/play schedule so much more effectively and have time to snuggle, teach, and soothe, to boot.

When I first learned I'd have to bottle feed my daughter, I was afraid that it would somehow diminish the bonding that the La Leche League exclusively promises breastfeeders.  But now when my little peapod can hardly finish her final ounce for stopping to smile at me during every feeding, I know that being able to hold her close and speak softly to her is the only right answer I'm sure of

Expressions Du Jour

"Psst!  Wanna hear a secret?  I voted for Andy Dick on DWTS!"

"Romeo, o Romeo, wherefore art my gas drops?"

"DO THE PEANUT BUTTA JELLY, PEANUT BUTTA JELLY, PEANUT BUTTA JELLY WITH A BASEBALL BAT!"

"Bwa ha!!! You thought that plum was Mommy's real hair color!  Get real!"

"You mean to tell me I'm gonna be this awful pale color my whole life?!" #stevemartin 

"Nonono, that's okay.  I've already tried Amway."

Beyond the Pale

Dear Ava,

You can accomplish a lot in this world without melanin.

Just take it from me.

Think of those twins who sing "500 Miles" from the movie Bennie & Joon.

Or the recently departed Margaret Thatcher.

Or former Vogue contributor, author, and foodie goddess Nigella Lawson.

Or half the cast of Twilight.

As insignificant as this is, I used to see my failure to bronze in the sun as something that significantly affected one's quality of life.  Growing up during the belly-baring 90's, you could imagine how much this fashion made me look like a Coleman lantern, especially if I wore olive green.

Since the sun had scalded me enough times for me to get serious about skin protection, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm a bummer as a lakeside companion.  I'll always have to do the majority of my swimming at night.  Random strangers will forever ask me if I'm Irish (and I don't know why that makes them feel like they're the most brilliant people in the world!  It's mostly Scotch-Irish on my dad's side, from what I understand.) And there are some colors I just can't wear without looking like a TB case -- pastels and bright white, mostly.  Yick.

But in any case when you stand as an extreme case of anything (which in our situation, my fair darling, is paleness), you stand out, and standing out can make you stronger.  When you get chilly and your skin becomes transparent and marbled in appearance like Gorgonzola cheese (my favorite, might I add), I've learned to expect questions of whether that coloring is normal.  I don't even raise an eyebrow, because I know that it is -- I remember my complexion behaving the very same way as I froze my way through high school.  (And if you people had brought the air up to a decent temperature in the classroom, you wouldn't have caught me sleeping in my hoodie in April.  So there.)

As your Mommy, I know I'll have to do a lot of explaining on your behalf, especially early on.  I know that not everyone will understand the things you do, or the way you are, no matter how fascinating or adorable or unique those attributes are to me.  The world isn't comfortable with "different", or those who stand out, whether it's out of defiance (eh, me), or whether it come naturally (like you, my popsnorkle!). I came to terms with that a long time ago.  I think your Daddy did, too.  So much so between the two of us, we've adopted it as a trait characteristic of our little family.  Maybe that's why God gave you to us.  

Until today, I guess I never considered your fair skinned loveliness to be one of those things...  So I suppose I had simply better learn to be patient with the world and get used to explaining why I won't ever allow you to spend the day at Magic Springs without hosing you down with SPF 1,052 every two hours.

Don't get me wrong -- I love that you're colored like me.  I also secretly enjoy making your Daddy feel like gingers are taking over his world.  Just don't ever let anyone make you feel like you're any less of a lovely little lady because you're fair.  Take it from a gal who's received nothing but a few extra freckles and an itchy butt from the couple of times I've flirted with a tanning bed.

Burns and blisters are nature's way of reminding us that pale is beautiful, too.

In honor of pale princesses everywhere: 

Baby Riverdancing!

In a name

If you didn't know I was hanging out with an eleven week old and you heard me babbling around the house, you'd think I've gone crazy as a Betsy bug (whatever those are, besides a colorful southern expression).

Take this morning, for instance: 

"I like to swing-swing-swing, swingidy-swing!  I like to swing-swing-swing, swingidy-swing!"

 

.....which became:

"I like to sing-ah, I like to swing-ah, I like the moon-ah and the June-ah and the spring-ah!"

(And if you've ever seen the special features from the movie Happy Feet, you'll know that's not a product of my own genius.)

Around Ava Leigh, odd words and songs abound.  For example, today she's Monkey-Moo.   I was so happy that her chubby little baby body was big enough to sport her sock monkey onesie for the first time this morning, it seemed appropriate.  Never mind arguing the reproductive incompatibility of primates and cattle.  

Then we get to the real brilliance.

Pooter-scooter.  Moon pie.  Baby popper.  Snoozle.  Snortle.  Puglet.  Pea pod.  Peanut butt.  Squishy.  Pretty girl.

And then there's my favorite, the name I find on my lips more and more as her personality blossoms: Baby Bright Eyes.  The way her entire face lights up when she locks eyes with Mommy or Daddy.... Forget puppies, kittens, rainbows, and jellybeans.  This is The Stuff.

This weekend, as I attended a women's retreat at church and took the opportunity to   simply focus on being a child of God, I wondered what names I would inspire him to give specifically to me.  Would I be his bright-eyed girl? His lovely daughter?  His faithful servant?  His strong-willed child?  His quiet, thoughtful one?

Those are what I'd want to hear.

The names I have for myself sometimes aren't so loving, even if they carry a grain of cruel truthfulness.

Hermit.  Failure.  Inconsistent.  Big-haired, googly-eyed college dropout.

Sometimes we need to hear someone call upon us in a way that reminds us that we're worthy of love.  When you hear something repeatedly regarding who you are, it tends to stick with you, whether you believe it or not.

So today, daughter, I tell you that you are brilliant.  And I will tell you this over and over throughout your life.  Because in so many ways I will never be, you already are. 

You love me already, every day, consistently....and I really needed you to.  

Daddy Dressed Her...