Skipping Town

Dear Littlest One, Happy one-month birthday! A month ago, I was finally seeing the fruit of my labor at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt—“labor” as in “four-week internment culminating in a C-section.” Labor, indeed. All of that has faded in the weeks since then. We are deep into Infantland, conversations in bed as likely to happen at two a.m. as four or six. My shoulders are reliably dotted with baby saliva and spit-up. There are milk stains on the fronts of all my shirts. We are tired. So it is, four weeks in. But you, unlike your exhausted parents, are thriving. You gained fourteen ounces your first week home from the hospital—a good eater from the start. You are a very good little breastfeeder, though it’s wearying for me sometimes, and often I feel like I do little but nurse you. Sometimes, when you’re particularly intent on eating, you nurse with your hands splayed, as though warning anyone who comes near—“I’m eating; don’t come near me; don’t you dare interrupt.” Sometimes you nurse yoursel...

Andrew and I have celebrated Thanksgiving in a variety of ways over the past five years. In 2007, we cooked a huge meal just for the two of us in our apartment in Sacramento. In 2008, we ate a Zen vegan feast in a small, middle-of-nowhere lodge in Japan. In 2009 and 2010, we ate outside in Napa with the Clarks. And now, for the first time ever, we had Thanksgiving in Brooklyn. Molly and Ian came up for the holiday, and while Molly and I tended to Greta and Lucia, Andrew and Ian prepared our meal. Andrew ambitiously followed a Tom Colecchio turkey recipe and made an amazing dried-cherry-and-pecan stuffing from Cook’s Illustrated; he spent much of the previous evening doing something with turkey necks. This picture illustrates why Andrew, not I, was in charge of the turkey. (Raw turkey skin—ick.) We had Barbra, Chris, and Alex over for the meal as well. Lucia tried a bite or two of squash, two cranberries, half a roll, and a miniscule bite of turkey, as well as some sliced American chees...

This weekend, it took Andrew and me one and a half hours to leave the house with Lucia and Greta. First Lucia melted down after spotting some Halloween decorations in the storeroom. She wanted to take them all with her on a walk. I denied her this wish after giving her two of the pumpkin cutouts. Of course, I should have just said fine, take them, but by then we were deep into a tantrum that I simply could not reward by giving in. Then Greta needed to eat and be changed. Then everyone needed coats and slings and shoes and snacks. We did make it out eventually, and we did make it to a playground where Lucia and Andrew kicked a ball around for a while. And on the way home we even spontaneously stopped at a little pizzeria with a happy hour and had a fast—very fast—pizza while Lucia dipped her straw into my water glass and then dabbed it on the wall while murmuring “Mess. Mess.” Andrew left a large tip. Yesterday I took the girls out by myself for the first time, around the corner to the ...

Greetings. So far, I’ve survived the week alone with the girls, and they, too, have survived. We started off with a bang on Monday, when, within the space of ten minutes, both little ones had peed on the floor and/or on their clothes and/or on me. Lucia jumped up from the floor before I could get her diaper on, scream-laughing as she ran across the room and then peeing as soon as she hit the kitchen floor. Greta just decided a good time to go was as soon as I took her diaper off, soaking the changing pad and her sleeper. Fun times. It was one of many moments this week when I had to just take a deep breath and remind myself that there will come a time, sooner than it seems these days, when I will no longer have babies but children who a) are potty-trained; b) no longer breastfeed; and c) sleep through the night. When I will no longer negotiate how many bites of food must be eaten before watching Elmo. When I will no longer spend my days in a milk-damp nursing bra, leaking milk at odd mo...

Dear Little One, Together again! After our long separation, we’re finally back to Mama-and-baby, full tilt now that our post-new-baby visitors have gone home. Daddy went back to work this week (though he’ll be home with us off and on for several more months), so we’re settling back into our days together. Of course, these days look much different now that Greta has joined us, even though, for now, she does little but eat and sleep. The biggest difference is that so far we’ve spent our days inside. I’m still healing from surgery, unable to run after you or lift you, and Greta is just too little to be toted all over the place. This will all change, and one of these days I’ll be one of the mothers at the playground with a toddler in hand and an infant on her chest. Not yet, though. Not yet. In the month we spent apart, your language just took off, and we really chat now. You are saying entire sentences now, like “I dropped it” and “I can’t reach.” You make observations when we read books:...

Yikes. It says something about the state of things around here that I didn’t even realize that yesterday’s date was 11/11/11. Perhaps it’s for the best. How best to mark such a calenderic event, anyway, besides feeling vaguely panicked about not finding a meaningful, memorable way to mark it? We’re over two weeks into two-kid-hood, and all is well. I’m off painkillers completely now, though I’m still taking the occasional Motrin for annoying and persistent pain from breastfeeding (though this finally seems to be settling down). I had my two-week checkup earlier this week, and my incision is healing perfectly; I was released into the world as a regular human being, done—finally—with monitoring and checkups and daily questions about whether I’m bleeding or cramping or leaking fluids. Andrew and I had driven into Manhattan for the appointment, taking Greta with us (leaving a feverish, coughing Lucia at home with Andrew’s mom), and we even managed a stop at Zabar’s for cheese and olives be...

Greta has been home with us for a week and two days now, and things are going surprisingly well. “Surprisingly” because we’ve been remarkably free from the fatigue and chaos that generally come with an infant. Greta has proven so far to be an outstanding eater, and a stellar sleeper, with little inclination to cry. Knock wood. Knock knock. I’m fully aware that this can and probably will change, but for now we feel surprisingly…human. She’s been sleeping in three- or four-hour stretches, with a five-hour stretch thrown in now and then just to keep herself in our good graces. She’s cute, too, so I guess we’ll keep her around. In the week or so that we’ve been home, we’ve had two celebrations. November 3 was our four-year anniversary, which we actually managed to celebrate. After we put Lucia to bed, I fed Greta, passed her to my parents, and Andrew and I hurried around the corner for sushi. We’ve been going to this sushi place since I first lived in the neighborhood in 2005-2006, and it’...

My C-section was scheduled for 7:30am on Thursday, October 27. Andrew got to the hospital at 5:00am, and we sat on my hospital bed, whispering while we waited in the dark, trying not to wake my roommate. I’d gotten an IV for hydration the night before and was wearing a hospital gown for the first time since checking in on October 2. After what seemed like a long wait, I was wheeled down to triage, where I’d wait for the surgery, Andrew following behind with my suitcase. We waited in triage for a long time. I got a second IV—the worst-case-scenario IV, inserted so they’d be ready for anything in the OR. The surgery was changed to 8:00, then 8:30, as the various anesthesiologists and doctors tried to get coordinated. Finally, my doctor came in, wearing scrubs and a plastic mask over her face. “We’re walking,” she announced, and took my IV bag down from its hook. We walked down the hall to the OR. Andrew began putting on his surgical outfit while my doctor took me inside. It was a real OR...