Most times, it felt like the prize for getting up was yet another smash in the face/groin (mostly figurative, although Judah is good for a couple literal ones a day.. mostly accidental), and I ending up putting out so many crises daily that I should hang up the insurance spikes and change careers to firefighting.
As is so often the case, a quiet voice led to a change in perspective. I was finishing putting Judah to bed when Rach walked by with Jael slung on her hip. Jael promptly threw out her arms at me as she went by, nearly giving herself a free fall in the process. Rach looked at me with compassion (maybe she could tell I was having a rough week) and said quietly, "She loves you, you know. She loves you because you put the time in with her."
"Well, not really," I argued. "I barely see her at all during the day." Which is true-- especially recently, with job training keeping me up 'til all hours of the night. Even as I disputed it, though, there was a deeper, softer voice speaking truth in my head. "It's not only during the day that the battles of life are fought," it whispered. "You're up all night with her. That's where she gets to spend her time with you."
Truthfully, I don't mind the night shift with the kids. I don't like to sleep, and with most of them, it's been a free pass to sleep a Rachel-approved four hours a night. (And if you can get a lady who would voluntarily sleep ten hours a night to do that, you've hatched a pretty ingenious plan!) It got me thinking somewhat more seriously, though, about just when I've bonded with my kids. And I realized-- it's always been in the rough times. When I remember loving my children more than anything else is in the shadow.
I remember the second night Elijah was home (that's him at maybe 6 days old) and he just stopped breathing at 2am for 25 seconds until I totally panicked and whacked him on his back and he sputtered and started breathing again (apparently, this isn't as uncommon as you would think, and he may have simply started again on his own in the next 30 seconds). I remember laying on the floor in his room under his crib for two nights after that, completely unable to sleep, convinced that if I did, I would awake to find him dead; finally, Rachel and I broke down and did one of the things we had vowed NEVER to do-- moved him into our room in a bassinet for a couple of months. Even now, I'll go into the boys' room from time to time and just make sure they're alive. I remember staying up with him from 11:30 to 1:30 every night that week and watching U2 roll out their new album on Letterman (dating myself, I know) and being so mad at him that he wouldn't stop screaming for just a little bit so I could actually hear anything.
I remember how Judah was a model baby for the first six weeks of his little life and I really resented him because I didn't know just how much of a change he was going to be to the routine I had finally settled into with Elijah. You know when I finally started liking him and rooting for him? When he smashed up our little lives and pulled a GIANT nursing strike (he essentially stopped eating for four days at 45 days old; imagine how you'd do if you stopped eating for one-tenth or you life) and converted himself to a formula baby, complete with a supplementary trip to the hospital when he spiked a really high fever at 7 weeks old, right on the end of said nursing strike. It's always fun when you're in a hospital, your child won't nurse, and no matter what kind of formula they give him, he just spits it back. Converting to formula --yet another thing that I, in my all-knowing wisdom pre-parenthood, had declared would never happen. Perhaps a better title for this column would be "Things that I was a jackass about to parents until I had kids of my own." I think I owe a giant apology to all those capable parents to whom I was a donkey pre-children.
Jael? Another story, another time. (well, you can read about it in all the other bits I've written about her dramatic entrance). We do get to spend a lot of time together at night still at 9 months old, perhaps in part because Rach and I have a soft spot for her and all that she's been through and haven't really sleep-trained her yet. It's coming, little princess, it's coming.
In every case, though, the circumstance that reared its head has actually deepened the bond between my children and I, in some cases perhaps even creating one not yet in existence. I love the fact that our knights and princess are fighters (Save when the knights turn on each other -- a (ahem!) rare occurrence I'm sure), and I love that they will fight for each other just as easily as for themselves. Tonight, I think that J.R.R. Tolkien sums up my thoughts on perilous and dark circumstances best, in the voice of Sam Gamgee:
“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
I felt that way about the nights with Bo, though my tolerance for the 4 hours a night thing is obv. way lower than yours. He and I would sit up and watch my favorite old shows. I did the same thing with P. who needed to eat around the clock longer than most thanks to her wee size. Those are some of my favorite newborn memories for whatever reason. Maybe just because it was our special time.
ReplyDeleteyeah, with tiny ones you (at least, I) ended up snuggling in tight and watching a LOT of TV. I think I made it through all five seasons of Chuck with Judah.
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