1 Mother 2 Another

File this under How Cute Is My Kid:

Dear John:


Somehow, the fact that my brother is about to take his family
vacation via MINIVAN escaped me until just yesterday. I thought
you’d be spending a couple hours in-flight, then having a
good time visiting our cheesehead family.


I now know this is not the case, and thought I might pass on some
wisdom to you about traveling with infants. Yes, I know
you’ve done a few hours already, and yes, I know I’ve
never done a cross-country trip myself. But you see, there’s
a reason for that.


IT’S INSANITY.


However, I’m guessing it’s too late to talk you out of
it, so here are some suggestions. I am, after all, your sister, and
nothing if not opinionated.

I am allergic to poison ivy. I mean,
really allergic. I mean, a shot of cortisone allergic.


Lucky me, we’ve got a thoughtful back-yard neighbor who has
trained it to grow over our back wall and it cascades luxuriantly
down, intermingling coyly with our English ivy. This year’s
crop is especially lush, spanning a good ten feet and sporting
roots as thick as Brian’s forearm.


I try to avoid the stuff, but since a few years ago when I had to
get two cortisone shots in four months and my dermatologist tersely
ordered me to not get within 20 feet of that $#@# (his word) wall,
I really try to avoid it. Mostly I just stare and seethe.


But since Maddie’s become mobile that poison bouquet just
taunts me. I’m paranoid a stray leaf will blow towards the
lawn and my baby will be miserable for weeks. And now that
we’ve got two kids and a wading pool, I decided enough was
enough. It was gonna be me, or that stupid poison ivy.


And by me, I mean my husband.

Madeleine was born with very little hair, which then took a really long time to grow in. I mean, really long time. First she had to have that dark brown newborn hair fall out, which took several months; right around three months old she was sporting a sort of Paul Giamatti bald fringe thing due to her awkward newborn hair combining with the unfortunate bald spot she was rubbing into the back of her head.

While surfing the internet a few months
ago in search of the latest and greatest products for us moms, I
came across something I’d never seen before – a product
called Momspit. Intrigued, I delved deeper and discovered
it’s brand spanking new and very unique. After a few emails
back and forth with the inventor (a mom- of course!) I decided to
give it a try and see what exactly this thing is.


Intrigued yet? Check this out –

A couple days ago we did something that
was either incredibly inspired or incredibly stupid.


We took both girls for well-baby visits at the same time.


Maddie was due for her 2-year check-up, so we scheduled it to
coincide with Cora’s 2-month visit. We had it all planned:
first Cora and I would go into the room, and I’d nurse Cora
after her shots to comfort her. Then Maddie and Daddy would come
in, and home we’d go. How did it go?


Guess.

With a slightly-less-than-two-year span between Madeleine and Cora, Brian and I felt pretty confident that we wouldn’t need to double up on a lot of gear. All the toys Cora would want, Maddie has already grown out of. Ditto for clothing and gear like bouncy seats and swings. Sure, we’d need to solve the stroller dilemma, but we’re basically covered.

Our one big problem is the crib. Madeleine wasn’t quite old enough to move out of it before Cora was born, and obviously bringing in a newborn while simultaneously kicking a kid out of her crib and giving it to the usurper wasn’t quite the most sensitive thing to do. We also knew that even if we did push Madeleine to move out of her crib right before Cora was born, chances were high that she’d regress and want to go right back to the crib after a baby showed up: all our friends warned of regression in the early days and encouraged us to not waste our time pushing anything new like sleeping arrangements or potty training.

One of Maddie’s favorite books is You Can’t Take A Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum. It follows, among other things, a girl through her visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We’ve been to the museum before but hadn’t gone for a while, so one day last week Maddie and I decided to make a spontaneous day of it and headed into the city, with the clear goal of following in the character’s footsteps. And in case you’re worrying about my newborn, she was safely at home with Daddy. Unemployment has its advantages.

Since Maddie’s over two and
definitely developing a will of her own, we’re working on
consistent discipline with Maddie and sometimes it seems the
“punishment” is harder on the parent than on the
kiddo.

Cora’s almost two months now, and for the first time since she was born, Madeleine’s having to compete for my attention.

Sure, I’ve been taking care of Cora and lovingly tending to her needs this whole time. But there’s been a bit of “housekeeper-ness” to the whole thing: play with Maddie while holding a sleeping baby. Feed and talk to Madeleine while keeping Cora’s pacifier in her mouth. Read Maddie a book while nursing Cora. Cora’s been in the potted plant stage thus far – carry it around and water it and it’ll live. Not a lot of interaction needed. Some of it’s been simply the way it is, and some of it’s been deliberate – trying to ease Cora into the household with the minimum of hurt feelings and abandonment issues.

Keeping breastfeeding in the national eye,
a Maine woman just received a settlement from Fossil Inc. after
they banned her from breastfeeding on their New York showroom
floor. They offered the woman $3,600 to avoid a lawsuit they would
most certainly have lost, since New York laws protect a
woman’s right to breastfeed “in any location, public or
private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be."
Apparently they’d removed her from the showroom where she was
meeting with a salesperson when she began to nurse, refused to
allow her to return to the showroom, and cautioned her when she
scheduled a later return trip that breastfeeding was forbidden.

What’s that, you say? You mean
there’s more to simply praying to God that the screaming
beast falls asleep, or waiting her out for four hours until she
falls into an exhausted doze?


Well, yes and no.

If there’s any benefit to having a
husband who’s unemployed and a new baby at the same time,
it’s that I’ve been able to ease into the job of having
two kids instead of one. Brian’s almost always around and
it’s rare that I’ve been the sole caregiver for both
girls at once; he’s usually there to lend a hand or to play
tag team, with both of us taking one kid. Sure he’s had
interviews and meetings, but in general it’s been a
two-parent baby-raising experience.

The day started off completely ordinary,
with no hint of the extraordinary event that would indelibly mark
my child’s memories, scar her psyche, for the rest of her
life. Here on out, my daughter’s life will be split –
the Pre and Post-Apocalypse clearly delineated in her mind.

When you’re in the midst of
babyhood, you become an expert on whatever situation is most
present in your life. For example, if your child’s about to
start crawling, you’re a walking Consumer Reports issue of
all the best babyproofing gear. When you introduce solid foods, you
can reel off the list of high-allergy foods and when to introduce
them in your sleep. And during baby’s first bout with
constipation? You’re a virtual medical encyclopedia of home
remedies.

Cora is now seven weeks old, and according
to the sleep “experts”, she’s slept through the
night several times.


According to the people in the trenches (a.k.a. Mommy and Daddy),
those experts are not so well acquainted with the English language,
and what “sleeping through the night” means.

At the park recently, Maddie and I were
waiting for our turn at the water fountain – also known as
the water balloon-maker. Maddie always wants to make several water
balloons, then simply carry them around in her hands for the sheer
delight of the way they feel. On days when the water
fountain’s in high demand, I’ll make one water balloon,
then have Maddie step to the back of the line and let others have
their turn. This keeps the other kids from becoming antsy, teaches
Maddie patience and makes her be sure she really needs six
balloons.


On this particular day, we were waiting behind one little girl who
made a battalion of balloons. Maddie was patient and had just begun
to step up for her turn when a little boy ran up, cutting her off.
“Excuse me,” I said to him politely, “But
we’ve been waiting and I think we’re next.”

As Madeleine grows up she becomes more and
more adept at seeing a person’s face and figuring out what
they’re feeling. Whenever we sit down and read books we spend
almost as much time talking about the pictures as we do reading the
text. No longer content to simply have a story spun for her, she
wants to understand what she’s seeing, and asks copious
questions to that end.

With Cora safely across the six-week
threshold, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ve
seen the worst of the newborn behavior, though of course
she’s cried for several hours today. But setting today aside,
she’s been doing pretty well and I’ve been enjoying my
“refresher course” in Newborns 101. Here are just a few
interesting tidbits I forgot (sometimes as a survival mechanism, I
think!) about newborn babies:

So Ingrid and I were in the park last week
watching our girls play, as we do every day. We noticed a small
film crew in the corner but didn’t think much of it.
Ingrid’s daughter Naomi wandered over to the rainbow
fountain, which was turned off due to cool weather, and began
happily banging on it with her Dora doll while Maddie ran around
collecting rocks for her stroller (don’t ask).


Ingrid and I were busily gabbing –er, exchanging mothering
tips – and had half an eye on what the girls were doing. When
Naomi began banging Ingrid’s back was to her, but I saw a
production assistant from the film crew run over, grab Naomi by the
arm, and start hissing, “No no no, little girl. You
can’t do that right now.” And without thinking of the
consequences, I blurted out, “Oh, no she DIDN’T just do
that to Naomi!”