Plum Island I

We spent the last week of August in a beach house on Plum Island, about an hour north of Boston.  It was incredible.  We shared the rental with good friends who also have two children, Ella and Luca, who are the same age as Roan and Ilan.  We spent the days on beach or hiking the nature preserve, and the nights drinking wine and grilling.  Every evening, after the babies had gone to bed, Roan and I went out on the porch to have something sweet and enjoy  the last of the day.  It always turned into a tickling game.  We played out there until the street lights came on, and then I'd put my boy to bed.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip.

Summer of Injury

We have had a rough summer. Since July 1st, the day we switched to a crappier health insurance, we have been to the ER three times.

The first time was on the 4th of July. Lani was wheezing, sometimes struggling to catch his breath. They gave him a nebulizer and a steroid shot to open his airways and diagnosed him with croup.

***

The second time was August 1st. I had driven to a pharmacy on 7th Ave to pick up a prescription for Lani and ended up buying a bunch of other stuff. I put Ro in the car, then loaded the stuff. Ro climbed into the front seat. I opened the back door, to put Lani in. And there was this moment, where I felt this sort of resistance, like why wasn't the door opening all the way? And I just pushed on through it, because that's the kind of day I was having, life kept throwing these stupid little obstacles at me and I was batting them aside. I heard a soft pop. Then Roan started screaming.

One look at his thumb and I knew it was bad. I knew we were going to the ER. It was cut open in a messy jagged way, and there was so much blood. I carried Ro to his car seat and started buckling him in. But he was bleeding so much that I started worrying about blood loss, and calculating how long it would take me to drive to the hospital (2 minutes) how long it would take to find parking (10 minutes) and realizing that it wouldn't work, I couldn't parallel park a car while my son suffered like this. I looked at him and wondered if he was going into shock. The cut was through the pad of his thumb and it flapped open and the blood wouldn't stop coming.

I picked him up and held him on my hip. Lani was strapped to me in a front carrier. I got on the sidewalk and reviewed what I knew about how to stop bleeding. I knew I should wrap it in something, but the inside of Roan's thumb was so thoroughly exposed and for some reason I was scared to press a cloth to it, scared of it sticking to the inner workings of his thumb and what would happened when we took it off. I knew I should elevate it, so I raised his thumb above all our heads, so that we were all spoted in blood. Poor Ilan had blood smeared on his little baby head.

I decided to jog to the hospital, because it was the fastest way to get there without letting go of my son. Must lock the car, I thought, but I couldn't find the car keys. I realized that our parking ticket would expire in 15 minutes and we would get a ticket. I berated myself for thinking about a parking ticket at a time like this. I realized I didn't have extra diapers or a bottle for Lani. I needed to call Jay. I was momentarily paralyzed by all the small stupid things that needed to happen before I could start my sprint to the ER.

In that moment a man asked if I needed help. He was parked right behind me and offered us a ride to the hospital. All the blood was attracting attention. A woman with twins stopped and offered me a bandaid. I think I laughed. The helpful man said, "This is beyond a bandaid." but the woman kept digging through her enormous diaper bag, determined to help.

I was terrified that Roan would lose his thumb, but when they x-rayed it it wasn't even broken. It took 12 stitches to close it. They gave Roan a sedative and numbed his thumb but even so I had to lay on top of him to keep him still enough for the doctor to do his work. The whole time we were there he cried for me to take him home, yelled that his thumb was fine, to just leave the thumb alone. I hate hospitals and I hated being his jailer, hated the sound of my voice saying we had to stay here, that this was the best thing for him. I wanted to grab him and run back through time to a place where I paid closer attention, stopped opening the door when I felt that resistance, remembered all the times I've told him to get his fingers out of that hinge, got home in time to make dinner.

Once we were settled in the ER I called Jay and he got there an hour later. I was worried that as soon as I saw him I'd collapse, knowing he was there to take over. But I didn't collapse and Jay did something I'll always appreciate: he gave me a big hug and told me I'd done everything right. That I'd handled everything perfectly. That it wasn't my fault.

In the days following the thumb incident I had trouble sleeping. I had trouble concentrating. I couldn't stop replaying it in my head, imagining over and over again how it must have felt. I must have spent hours staring at my own thumb, imagining the pressure and the little pop and the broken bruised skin. Jay kept saying it wasn't my fault but I knew that it was.

***

Our third trip: Lani fell off our bed and fractured his skull. It was September 2nd, the morning of our 5th wedding anniversary. Lani woke up early, Jay sent me downstairs to get some extra sleep on the couch. Some time later I heard a thud followed by Ilan screaming. I ran upstairs. I knew it was bad when I felt the dent in the side of his head. Jay was already throwing a bag together.

Ro was still asleep when I carried him out to the car. The drive took less than 10 minutes, and the whole time I was imagining what was going on inside Ilan's head. Was blood pooling in his brain? Was he losing functions as each second ticked by? He was calm now, looking out the window, giddy about a car ride in my lap instead of his carseat. He seemed fine, but what small secret things were happening inside him, where nobody could see?

They did an x-ray and confirmed the fracture. Could I get him to fall asleep for the CT scan? It was his nap time and I rocked him to sleep in the ER. I carried him to the exam room. I had to lay him down with his head in this u-shaped cradle just so. This was by far the most high stakes nap transfer I'd ever made. If he woke up, we'd have to sedate him. If he woke up mid CT scan it was even worse, he'd have to be sedated and the procedure redone, so he'd receive twice the amount of radiation. Jay has always been better at putting our kids to sleep, but he was on a walk with Ro. Miraculously, I laid Lani down and he didn't stir. Until the the tech started Velcro-strapping his body in place. I used an insane amount of shushing (so much that it made me dizzy)  to get him back to sleep. And then the tech turned the machine on. It made a loud whirring noise and a thin red beam striped across Lani's eyelids. Nap over.

When we finally got the CT scan (with the help of sedation) it revealed no bleeding in the brain. That was good news, though there could be a slow bleed that wasn't showing up yet. It seemed like we were out of the woods in terms of brain damage and were dealing with a cosmetic issue. A neurosurgeon came by to discuss our options. 1) a common surgical procedure where they drill a small hole right next to the dent and pop it out, 2) do nothing, or 3) a less-invasive procedure that the surgeon had only done once before, where he uses the same device they use in Labor and Delivery to vacuum extract babies, to suck the skull back into place. I could tell by his rhetoric that the surgeon was angling for option 3. He gave us lots of details. But we had to act fast, this procedure wouldn't work in a few hours. It may even be too late now, he told us ruefully. 

When we seemed wary he gave us the hard sell - he was going off duty in 20 minutes, and he wouldn't come back to do this. 20 minutes, make your choice. We chose to do nothing.

Ilan was admitted into the hospital for 24 hours of observation. He had a hep lock in his hand and a board taped to his palm to hold it in place. He *hated* that board, which totally immobilized his hand. He spent half his waking hours beating the crap out of us with that board, smacking us repeatedly in the face. We didn't stop him. We felt like we deserved it.

There wasn't much to do in the hospital. Ilan couldn't crawl with the heplock, was hooked up to machines half the time, and I wouldn't let him play with any of the toys in the playroom for fear he'd catch something he hadn't been vaccinated against. After an uneventful observation period they let us go home. The best indicator of any neurological damage is behavior, so if he started acting strangely we were told to come right back. This led to a lot of hand wringing over the next week. I remember Jay saying, "he's sticking his tongue out a lot. Did he do that before?" and we were both plunged into a period of intense worry and self-doubt. What if he was sticking his tongue out more? What did it mean?!

When I really want to torture myself I imagine how it must have happened. Ilan has been trying to crawl off our bed for months. He was going for the iPod that we keep on the dresser, which plays his favorite song, P!nk's "Raise Your Glass." I imagine his face just before he fell, serious with intent, excited at having made it so far without being stopped, one arm outstretched, then how his balance must have shifted, his body pulled forward by the weight of his head. He fell on his right side because the iPod was to the left of him and his head was turned toward it. Did he keep looking at it as he fell? Did he even realize he was falling?

We are so relieved that he seems to be okay. Now we face a difficult decision. Do we  fix the dent in his head, or leave it be? My gut reaction is to leave it alone, because any surgery for a 9 month old baby is scary. But that feels selfish. Are we trading our anxiety over the surgery for years of Ilan's anxiety over his mis-shapen head? Or is the risk of surgery for a cosmetic procedure too high to justify? The hardest part of this decision is that we don't know what kind of kid Ilan is going to be. If it were Roan it would be easier, we have a handle on who he is. But Ilan is just starting to reveal himself.

I don't tend to believe that things happen for a reason, and I'm pretty clueless in the face of subtle hints. Even so, after 3 ER trips I begin to suspect that the universe is trying to tell me something.  Maybe a reminder not to take good health for granted, and of how fragile life really is.  Or maybe a reminder of what it means to be responsible for these children's lives.  And how to find peace when we hurt them.

Really?!

8 Months

Dear Ilan,

You have two bottom teeth! If you look closely at these photos you can see them.  You are drooling ferociously, but these teeth are the only ones that have come through.

Most mornings you wake up happy, rolling around, calling "eh, eh, eh, eh." Your crib is in our bedroom, and is mostly blocked off by a shoji screen, so you can't see us.  In the morning you scoot yourself to the very edge of the crib, where you can poke your head out and see around the screen, and make baby noises at me until I wake up and get you.

You love music, and get excited in this manic and uncoordinated way when I put the iPod in the speaker dock to listen to songs.  I use the same iPod to play white noise during your nap times, and when the iPod emits this white noise instead of your playlist you always look so betrayed.

When you are excited you hold your arms out and twist your wrists and make this evil genius face that I've captured here:

You are not technically crawling, but are commando pulling yourself around the room.  Now that you can move, it's fun to see what captures your attention.  So far, it's A) whatever Roan doesn't want you to touch, B) the metal shelves in the kitchen, right next to our trash cans, or C) the fringe of the rug.  Our floor is littered with toys, but you consistently seek out the metal shelves or the rug fringe.

You are still small for your age, but I don't really notice because, to be honest, you don't have a lot of friends.  This is my fault.  With Roan I was always going to baby classes and playdates, but with you, we mostly just go to the park and tag along with Ro.  Your two baby friends are Luca and Adam, who we know because they happen to have older siblings who play with Ro.

You spend a lot of time in the water.  In baths, showers, the plastic pool, the water table; after many mealtimes I take one look at you and realize that a wet washcloth is just not going to cut it, so I strip you down and plop you in the sink.  You love the water.  You don't mind that your big brother is always splashing you or dumping cups of water over your head.  You don't even mind when you fall forward and your face goes under - you just pop your head right up and look around, mildly surprised (I nearly have a heart attack every time).

Happy 8 months, Lani Lou.

New Helmet

Working Pumping Mom

I weaned Ilan at 7 months, because it got too hard to keep up my supply during my days in the office. It was hard for me to take all the breaks that pumping required, and I got irritated by the air-tight scheduling I needed to make it work.  I miss nursing Ilan, but I do not miss my breast pump.  I found this abandoned post from early June and I'm copying it below, since it depicts a bright spot in the whole working pumping mom experience.

"Last week I worked a full time schedule, attending Book Expo America, a trade show for book industry professionals. I am still breastfeeding Ilan, so I brought my breast pump along. Every 3 or 4 hours I took a break from the meetings and events to walk down a series of flights of stairs and long concrete hallways to the Nurses' Station, where I was given one of the two exam rooms to pump in.

On my first visit to the Nurses' Station I was anxious and slightly out of breath; I'd rushed there and was trying to squeeze in a pump session between meetings. Both rooms were occupied by other lactating moms. After 10 minutes they were still not finished, and I couldn't wait much longer. The nurse suggested I pump in the bathroom, which was standing room only, or the supply closet (though I could see she was hesitant to leave me alone with access to all their drugs). I finally asked if I could simply pump with one of the other moms. Which is how I found myself sitting on a foot stool in a room with another topless mom in slacks and fancy shoes, pumping milk with a breast pump / shoulder bag designed to look discreet but immediately identifiable as a breast pump by its sheer bulk and lack of style.

Hilariously, the other mom ended up being the publicist for one of my authors - someone I had wanted to meet with but couldn't fit into my schedule. So we had a meeting, there in the exam room, accompanied by the air hiss sound of our pumps working away. If you have never conducted business while topless and hooked up to a machine, well, it's strange, but both of us had long since mastered the art of e-mailing and taking phone calls while pumping, so it didn't really phase us.

Throughout the week I took the long walk to the Nurses' Station many times, and ran into  other pumping moms. There were only about 7 or 8 of us, which may not seem like a lot, but it was eye opening for me. Pumping at work is isolating. Sometimes I forget that mine is not the only life that is messy and complicated, and that the decision to pump, which feels like I'm trying to be in two places at once, is one that others are likely conflicted about too. I felt a great sense of comraderie for these working moms, hustling through dark hallways to wrestle off their tops, pump milk for their babies, and rush back to their meetings in time to pretend like everything is business as usual, bottles of warm milk buried deep in their bags like secrets, next to their catalogs and rights lists. I wanted to sit down with them and hear their stories and laugh with them. But the working pumping mom does not have any free time, especially at these fairs. The most we can afford is a knowing look, a conspiratorial smirk, before it's back to the business of passing ourselves off as regular people.

Thank you, lactating mothers of Book Expo America, for making me feel less alone."

If you're wondering how I felt about my breastpump when Roan was this age, you can read an Ode to My Breastpump.

Rules of the Road

Roan,

Last summer, when you were 2, I rode you to summer camp on the Frankenbike, and we spent half the trip on the green road, a (then) new and much disputed bike lane on Prospect Park West. This year I've mostly been walking you to camp in our new stroller, a sit and stand that you pretend is a train. But lately you have been asking to ride your bike.  I've been saying no, because the thought of running after you in my work clothes, lugging my work bag and my breast pump, in the heat, just seems terrible. But last week Ilan weaned and I put my breast pump away. The weather cooled down. I was running out of excuses. 

I pulled out your helmet and fingerless gloves and said okay.

I knew you'd want to ride in the green road. There is no fooling you, you know it is the place for bikes.

Everyday, at the start of the green road we go over two rules. #1, you must stay in your lane. The green road is a two way bike lane, and you must stay to the right of the yellow line. #2, you must stop at every crossing and look for people. The green road runs parallel to Prospect Park, so cars don't cross it. No one expects cyclists to stop, and you are such a novelty that people always stop for you. The real purpose of rule #2 is to give me a chance to catch up.

After two weeks I am still not used to seeing you zip along in an actual bike lane, hipsters on their fixies whipping by, parents commuting with empty childseats, me dodging trees and balancing on the curb to stay close and answer your incessant questions. If I step in the green road you reprimand me. "No mom, only bikes."

You are into rules. Which makes taking the green road hard. Cyclists, at least in this country, are not known for following rules. You are constantly asking why that bike did this or that or the other thing - nobody stops at crossings, everyone swerves out of their lane to pass you, and I can see how each infraction offends your sense of order. People riding scooters in the bike lane, people biking with their dogs, a man on roller skates, a woman without a helmet, the garbage truck idling in the lane all need to be explained. It's exhausting. And I worry that rules will become meaningless to you at too young an age. Any day you will ask me why nobody follows them.

My heart is always in my throat, just a little bit, watching you ride the green road. But I am also proud of you. You are becoming part of our community, inserting yourself in the world in a way that makes total sense to you, even as it baffles some of the passerby. You are so curious. You are figuring things out.

On our way to camp one day we stopped to watch a car getting towed. "Why?" You asked. "Because the car parked wrong," I said. "Oh," you said. "That car is bad." "Maybe not," I said, "maybe that car was just in a hurry." Then I explained what a hassle it is to get your car out of impound. "Oh," you said, "that tow truck is mean."

Things are mostly black and white for you now, but eventually you will see how the world is full of gray. That life, like the green road, is full of surprising things that don't quite belong. Such as, say, a three-year-old in a bike lane.