"I like you. Stay here with me."

Last week as I was driving in our car with its broken radio, I reached a minor epiphany. I've been so busy since Colin was born that there hasn't been much time for reflecting. I'm always caring for somebody and in the moments that I'm not, I'm taking care of myself. Jared and I are eating together and unwinding after putting the kids to bed. I'm watching that movie I wanted to see 2 years ago. The laundry is running, the vacuum cleaner is on, the oven is cooking our dinner. Company's coming over. Everything is constant motion and noise. I've been living in the eye of the hurricane for so long that I forgot that if I were to look out, I'd see the world spinning around me. It's thrilling. It's dizzying.

When I found myself flying down the highway in silence on a beautiful sunny day, everything slammed into me at once. I almost wanted to cry at all of the things that came bubbling up out of my subconscious. All I could think was, wow, this is so amazing. My life is so amazing. How did I ever find myself here? How can my menial life be so fulfilling?

Trust me. I know this sounds ridiculous. Younger-me would slap present-me in the face for saying things so saccharine and gushing. Truly. I know that this sounds cliche but I can't think of any other way to express this feeling of joy in this ordinary life that I've got.

Sometime this past year I started to truly see Oliver as a person. I never appreciated how smart and how perceptive he is until he started being able to communicate with me so well.  I can drive the familiar routes to Grandma's house, to Chuck E Cheese's, to Target and he knows where we're going. If I take a detour or make a wrong turn he will speak up from the backseat, "Mom, you're going the wrong way!"

He interacts so lovingly with Colin. I take such pleasure in watching the two of them when they think they're alone.  I came out of the shower one afternoon to find Oliver nose to nose with Colin. He was whispering,

"Don't go back in Mom's belly again, Colin. I like you. Stay here with me."

Colin is here is because of Oliver. We didn't want Oliver to be alone. We wanted Oliver to have somebody to love and share life with, somebody who is on his level who's got a similar perspective.  Now he's got that. It sounds silly but they're already friends. I can see how they respond to each other in such an organic, easy way. It is amazing to watch  how naturally they take to each other. Nothing is forced. They just somehow know that they're together and that they belong that way. Colin smiles if Oliver even glances in his direction. Oliver comes running if he hears Colin beginning to cry. "It's okay, Colin. Are you hungry? Do you want to see my trucks? Here, here's your blanket."

Having raised Oliver through infancy and babydom, I can now see and appreciate more intelligence in Colin. He still can't do much but I notice the way he is always watching us. I speak to him and he stares so intensely at me that I can feel his thoughts. I know he's trying to process what I'm saying. I know that the coos and the smiles are just the tiniest tip of the iceberg of what will come from him, because I've seen it once before. I know what's coming. I know there's  that spark inside of him somewhere that will one day explode and knock me flat on my back in sudden realization one ordinary Thursday afternoon. Maybe in another couple of years I will be driving in a car with a broken radio and it will be Colin who breaks the silence to say, "Mom, you're going the wrong way!"


To think that I created these people and constructed this life for them is amazing. That I'm even a small part responsible for who those people are and who they will become is mind-blowing. I always thought that the "one person can make a difference" line was a bunch of kumbayah fed to children. But it isn't. I am making the world better by putting my kids into it and I can see that now. I'm doing my best at helping them to become the best people they can be and I feel so proud of myself. A family is such a plain, ordinary gift to the world, but I'm giving it. I know the world will be better for it.

Last month Jared & I celebrated our one year anniversary. We've been a family for longer than a year but it's been one year of our legal union. That morning when I woke up next to Jared, and the words "Happy Anniversary" stuck to the roof of my mouth like peanut butter. It was so bizarre to think about. It went so fast. The date snuck up on me and jumped out from behind the door frame to shout, "SURPRISE! Remember your wedding? Yeah. That was over a year ago."

My hand still forgets to sign my new name. My tongue forgets the word "husband" and slips back to the familiar "boyfriend." Yet somehow there is a permanent indentation around my ring finger. There's a smiling baby boy who wasn't there before. There is a roof above my head that we bought and turned into our home.  The evidence is there if I look, but it's still hard to believe.

Old people were always spouting platitudes about how fast life goes by. As a kid you never want to believe it. You don't want to think that the old timers know better than you. You feel like time lasts for forever because it seems that school will never let out for the summer, that you'll never get your driver's license, and you'll never turn 21. But then you stop looking ahead to the future and start noticing the things happening around you in the present and suddenly time washes over you and sweeps you away.

I never thought I'd be this way, but here I am, and I'm so glad. This lifestyle is so intoxicating.

Say "Cheese!"

 Today we had an impromptu photo shoot in the middle of folding laundry. Sometimes babies just demand attention.

"Look at me, Colin!"

"Smile!"

"SMILE!"

The smiles just keep coming.

Two children.

Colin is a month old. His favorite activities are still umm.. eating. Sleeping. Pooping. He sleeps through the night, 7 or so hours at a stretch. He's a social baby. He doesn't like it when no one is paying attention to him. He loves to stare at people's faces as they talk to him. He's even starting to make some  (non-crying) noises himself, sometimes.


His gross peely skin, greasy acne, cradle cap days are coming to an end. Unfortunately, things are deteriorating in the balding & receding hairline departments, but...  they make baby toupees, right?

The best part about him being a month old is that.. he can smile! He smiles mostly for me but also sometimes for Jared and Oliver. You can tell he's still working on it and that smiling must be pretty difficult because he has to screw up his whole face before the smile turns on. It's the littlest bit ridiculous.

He has the same love for his crib mobile that Oliver did when he was a baby. Colin smiles at the mobile without fail. Sometimes when I can't comfort him with holding and rocking and bouncing, the mobile is the only thing that works. And I'm okay with him choosing the mobile over me. Because you know what? I leave him in his crib and I can take a shower. Eat lunch. Make a phone call.

It's not a bad deal, being second favorite to the mobile.

Colin also really enjoys watching Oliver. It may have something to do with Oliver's constant noise and motion. What really surprises me, though, is that Oliver likes Colin too. Oliver likes to soothe him and asks to hold him and hug him. Oliver tries to help me dress and diaper Colin. Oliver is usually very patient when Colin cries. I expected some huge battle for attention, but aside from a few rough days, it's blessedly absent.

MY CHILDREN ACTUALLY GET ALONG, YOU GUYS.

(For now. Today. At this second. For all I know, tomorrow I might walk in and find Oliver trying to smother the baby but I'll take what I can get.)

Suburbia.

This afternoon as we were out eating lunch on our deck, I had the realization that our life suddenly became very Norman Rockwellian.

We have a nice four bedroom home in a safe family-oriented neighborhood. I stay at home and cook dinner for my husband so that we can eat together as a family when he's done with work. We have two young, healthy children. We have a deck with patio furniture and a grill and a lazy family dog.

Deck with patio furniture.

Lazy family dog.

I am able to sit out on my deck and eat chunks of watermelon and look out at this on a beautiful day:

Landscaped suburbia.

It isn't lost on me that I have a good life. We're healthy, we're not in debt, and we're dealing very well with the cards we've been dealt. We went from "be-shamed-young-unwed-college-parents" to a normal, "legitimate" middle class family in the blink of an eye. I am grateful, really I am.

BUT. Yesterday I was terribly missing my sister who lives (literally) halfway around the world. I miss being able to call her up and talk to her. I miss being able to take a two day road trip to go stay with her. I've been waiting for her to return to the US, but that isn't going to happen for some time. As a compromise, I wanted to go see her in Australia while she is on leave from work. I looked into buying tickets and realized it'd cost us $3,000 to make it there. And $3,000...? Well, that's a lot of money to us.


Jared and I have always wanted to see Australia. I miss my sister and I want to go spend time with her. A trip like that would more than likely be a once in a lifetime experience. I believe in spending money on experiences and memories vs material things that just clutter up the house over time...

But.

With all of that being said, that's still a lot of money. That's a few mortgage payments. Months of groceries. A down payment on a family-sized vehicle we'll soon be needing. Furniture for our largely-empty new house. Payment in full on the hospital bills from Colin's birth.

Pre-children, I wouldn't have hesitated a moment to buy those plane tickets. I was the kind of person who spent money on what I wanted, when I wanted and I had a good time. When I didn't have money? Well, that's just how it was. I sought out free entertainment and lived on the cheap until more money came my way. I didn't particularly mind being broke. The repercussions for running out of money weren't such a big deal. If I had money? Great. I had fun spending it. If I didn't have money? That's okay, I found my fun anyway.

Now I can't really do that. I'm careful not to run out of money and eat into our savings. The repercussions for being broke are too great now. We have to pay the mortgage, the utilities, the phone. We have to make sure we can feed ourselves and two kids with healthy food. There is a family pet to take care of. We have to make sure the kids have clothes and toys and that we can pay for all of their doctor visits. We have to plan for a rainy day when we're responsible not only for ourselves, but two completely dependent human beings. Being broke wouldn't be so easy now.

Having a family meant that I gave up a lot. Or maybe that's not quite the right way to phrase it. It's not that I gave up a lot, but that I chose to take different things. I chose our awesome family over a life of parties and jetsetting and glamorous youth. Two very different lifestyles were put in front of me and I chose this one. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not unhappy with that. I hardly ever even think about it because I'm content with my decision and I'm enjoying my life as it is now. The last thing I'm doing is complaining.

But every once in a while something comes up that makes me wonder about the grass on the other side. This time, what made me wonder was the price of an Australia-bound flight. How different would things be without our kids?

Kid.

Kid.

Kids.

I don't know what we'll do about the trip to Australia. Maybe we'll go and maybe we won't. It really made me think, though.

Two weeks old.

As of yesterday, Colin's two weeks old. He's a pretty good baby as far as babies go. (I mean, he still looks like an old man and, you know, he doesn't really do much.) He sleeps most of the time.  At night he gives us 4-5 hour stretches of sleep so we're doing alright on that front. He's different from Oliver in that he wants to be talked to and held more. Oliver didn't seem to care either way as long as he was fed and changed. Colin demands to be held up so he can stare at your face. He also likes people to talk and sing to him way more than I think is normal.

Oliver likes Colin. He is very quick to make sure that I take care of him the second he cries, BUT. Oliver is a huge pain. He is embarrassing to take in public. The fits he throws are epic. He is completely happy and fun to be around - until you ask him to do anything. Then he throws fits.

This past week he has thrown fits when I've asked him to:

-Step on the scale at the doctor's office
-Go potty (more times than I can count.)
-Pick out a shirt to wear
-Climb into his car seat
-Brush his teeth
-Eat anything at all, regardless of how much he likes it

All of these things are things he used to do without complaining. Now he argues. With everything. Even things he wants to do.  He plays a game of saying the opposite of what we say - something taught to him by others in cuteness that is now just obnoxious and rude. He thinks he can joke and play around all the time and get away with it, but he can't.

On top of all of that, Oliver got a rash on his leg while we were in the hospital. We couldn't clear it up on our own so we took him in to the doctor yesterday. It's either shingles or impetigo. I bet it's impetigo as Oliver has never had chicken pox or the chicken pox vaccine, but the doctor didn't seem to pay attention to that. They did a skin scrape and they'll culture it to figure out what it is, but in the meantime we have to keep Oliver from spreading it to the baby.




This means that we have to rub ointment on his leg three times a day. It means that we have to give him medicine three times a day. It means we have to wipe down the toilet seat with rubbing alcohol after he uses it. It means we have to bathe him and dry him with new, fresh towels every day. It means we have to wash his hands many, many times throughout the day. It means he has to wear long pants at all times to keep his crusty, oozing lesions covered up.

Of course, he wants to do none of this. It is a constant battle.



Now I have a small spot on my side that looks exactly like how Oliver's rash started out, so I fear that I am contaminated, too. The doctor disagreed, but she seems to know nothing. It's just too big of a coincidence that I, too, have a big red blister on my side that itches like mad. I'm waiting for it to pop open and crust over like Oliver's did.

I just hope that the baby doesn't get this because although it's an annoyance for me and for Oliver, it'd be a big deal for Colin. And I REALLY do not want to spend time at Children's Hospital again. Especially because it'd make Oliver's temper problems even worse, I bet.

It's not that I didn't expect Oliver's disobedience. I did. I expected Oliver to have a hard time adjusting. But expecting problems and dealing with those problems are two different things. Today I have been trying to relax and only request the absolute minimal of him to see if that makes him feel better. In an exercise of good faith, I let him take a nap without his diaper on. Miraculously, he did exactly as I said and came up from the basement to go potty instead of peeing in his bed. There may be hope for him, yet.

Oliver tickling Colin.

Being a baby.

Fat baby.

Grumpy baby, happy boy.

The dog likes the smaller one a lot better than the bigger one.

Pictures.

I know this is what you really care about. Here are some pictures.

Colin James
10 lbs 9 oz

Minutes after being born. Notice the lack of conehead. I am so proud.

Hanging out with big brother Oliver, a couple hours old.

Sleeping on Dad during first hospital stay.

Enjoying his first trip home.

Hanging during his second hospital stay in the NICU.

NICU can't keep this baby down.

Being held by Dad during second hospital stay.

Yawn.

Bright lights.

More yawn.

Proud big brother Oliver with baby brother Colin.

"It's okay, Colin." (Seconds before accidentally bopping him in the head.)

Seconds after Oliver fell off the bed. Note the feet in the background.

"Pose like your baby brother!" Judging by the double chin, it's a pretty good impersonation.

As always, if you're viewing on my blog page you can click on the images to see them larger.

Welcome home, Colin. Again.

Friday was an eventful day. I went in to the clinic for a follow up to a less-than-stellar ultrasound. If the results were good, I was going to go home. If they weren't? I was going to be admitted to the hospital to induce labor right away.

They induced me.

Six hours later, Colin James slid into the world. After a normal, uneventful stay in the hospital we brought him home on Sunday. We were starting to settle into our first night home when we noticed that Colin seemed pretty hot, so we took his temperature.

Fever.

We were all hot, so we stripped him down and waited to take his temperature again. Still fever. A lower fever, but still a borderline fever. We called the nurse line at 2AM and they sent us to the ER at Children's Hospital. We were seen immediately and a doctor came in to tell us the news: get comfy, you're being admitted for a few days.

I understand that fever in newborn babies is a serious thing, but I didn't expect that we'd have to stay. I especially didn't expect to have to watch my 2 day old baby get IVs put into his hands, a spinal tap drawn, and sensors attached all over his body. We were admitted to the NICU with nothing but a half-packed diaper bag.

The staff were very nice and they gave us the option to leave the room for Colin's procedures, but I felt like that would have been worse. Even though Colin couldn't see to know if we were there or not, I didn't want to abandon him to a crowd of medical strangers. So, I watched. He screamed. I cried. They blew a vein in his hand and had to try again on his other hand. They put a catheter in to collect a urine sample. The first lumbar puncture hit a vein and contaminated the sample with too much blood. The second lumbar puncture was a complete miss. The third puncture finally worked and we watched clear spinal fluid drip into a little specimen jar. Jared and I took turns saying comforting things to each other about how it would be over soon, he won't remember this, it's better to be safe than sorry. We needed to say that because we needed to convince ourselves that we'd done the right thing. We needed to assure each other that all of this was what was best for him.

Because, the thing is, we never thought there was anything wrong with him. I felt like I would have known if something were wrong. I thought he looked happy, he acted normal... there was just no way he could be sick. I figured he just got a little overheated like the rest of us sitting in the hot house. But still, we wanted to make sure, so we took him to the ER. If I had known they would do all of that to my tiny baby, I would have waited another hour and retaken his temperature.

I wish I had done that. I really do. Because by the time we got up to our hospital room, the fever was gone. If I had waited, we would have seen that he was okay. We could have stayed at home and continued to learn how to function at home as a family.

Instead, I took him in and once the doctor saw a fever we were stuck there for good. Jared & I slept in his room the first night, cramped together on a semi pull-out couch. I woke up a lot with every medical beep and machine whirring. I tried to ignore the other, gravely sick, premature babies' crying. It was a nightmare.

The social worker came by to talk to me the next morning, but as nice as she was, I felt stupid complaining to her. I knew there were truly sick babies in the NICU with us. I knew that we didn't really belong there, I knew my baby would be okay. But. I was still having a hard time. I can't really explain why it was so hard to see my baby forced to sleep in the plastic box typically reserved for little 2 and 3 pound babies. I don't know why I hated all of the sensors taped onto his body so much. I was nervous while I nursed him, afraid that I would to tangle his wires or pull out his IV. Every poke for blood and obnoxious alarm and unnecessary dose of antibiotics that he was given made me feel incredibly guilty for what I'd done by bringing him there.

I'd felt in my gut that he wasn't sick, but I'd brought him in anyway. I made all of those terrible things happen to him when he was just 3 days old.

The social worker recommended that we stay in the Ronald McDonald House down the hall for the night. She could (rightly) see that I was exhausted and I needed a break away from the machines and the sick babies. We checked into the House for the night and I got some sleep. The night nurses called us every couple of hours when Colin woke up so I could come and nurse him. I felt silly taking a room there, but I am so glad that I did. The rooms were beautiful, dark, and quiet. There was a real, queen-sized bed for Jared & I to share in comfort. Nothing remained to make it feel like we were in the hospital. I woke up feeling a million times better the next day, but I still felt guilty.

By our second day there, we had received preliminary test results back showing that Colin did not have an infection. But still he was hooked up. Still they poked him. Still they pumped him with antibiotics. Jared and I were still feeling guilty. We started talking about just taking Colin home, where he belongs, against medical advice if we had to.

We both felt like taking him home was right, but it was terrifying to say anything against the doctors. It is hard for me to go against rules, to resist doing what people who "know better" tell me. It was scary to say anything because I knew they would judge us. They would think we didn't care. They would think we were worried more about hospital bills than our baby. They would think we were too lazy to give up a few days of our lives to stay in the hospital.

Really, none of that was true. We just felt like the hospital was wrong for him. We felt like the drugs he was receiving could be hurting him more than helping to fight against the small possibility that he was sick. We felt like we should be holding him as he slept instead of leaving him in that plastic coffin-shaped box. We thought all of the blood draws and the weight checks and temperature takings during the middle of his sleep were not good for him.

To make a long story short, we felt like he just belonged at home. We felt like he would be better served by being with his family instead of rotating shifts of nurses. In my head I had this feeling that he shouldn't have to listen to other sick babies' cries. We felt like we had everything at home that we needed to better care for him - a normal, healthy looking newborn.

That afternoon, I finally mustered the courage to speak up to the nurse to ask about taking Colin home, even if it was against medical advice. I needed to ask if there was any way we could take him off of his monitors and stop poking him for blood all the time. The nurse was very kind to us, and she said she would send for the doctor and have the doctor discuss different plans with us. I felt relieved. I felt weight come off of me for trying to say what I thought was best for my baby.

But when the doctor came in, he crushed us. Before we could even place our arguments before him, he told us there was no way Colin could go home.  He was so cold and distant from us, standing in the far corner of the room like he was offended by my breastfeeding in front of him. He was not considerate of our feelings. He didn't even pretend to consider our side. When I started crying, he said nothing to comfort us.  Instead, he explained to us in the most condescending terms that he knew infinitely more about babies than we did. He tried to scare us by telling us how many babies he has seen die. He tried to bring up the tiniest details from Colin's chart as  possible indicators of how potentially sick Colin could be. We later looked up his "evidence" and saw that it was pretty much meaningless.

I held Colin, who had fallen asleep while nursing, and dripped tears all over him as the doctor tore us down and made us feel like we were horrible parents. Anything we tried to say was either interrupted or just dismissed as wrong. Wrong, because. Because he was a doctor and we weren't and that's it. Never mind that he had never even seen Colin before 4 minutes ago. Never mind that he only knew Colin from a chart before he came in with his mind already made up. Never mind that we are intelligent, loving parents who completely understood the situation.

He forgot his hippocratic oath. He harmed us. He bullied us and made us to feel like child-endangering, uncaring parents.

After all of his berating, when he saw that I wasn't going to back down about wanting to take Colin home, he said he would call Child Protective Services on us because we we did not care about the well-being of our baby.

We explained that we could take his temperature at home just as well as they could. We explained that if (on the off chance) the final cultures came back positive, we wouldn't hesitate to bring him in for further treatment.

But the doctor didn't care. He was set in his ways. He reiterated that he would call CPS on us if we tried to take Colin home, then made a point of saying that there were extremely ill infants who needed his care at the moment and that he had no more time for us. Then he left.

The nurse was there watching us with pity while we were being bullied. She tried to comfort us when the doctor left but it was hard to take her seriously. She could have said something kind to us while the doctor was there. She could have tried to soften the doctor's blows. But she didn't.

We spent another night at the Ronald McDonald House. I cried in the shower and licked my wounds, trying to forget about what the doctor implied about me as a parent.  Aside from waking up to feed Colin throughout the night, I slept well and woke up accepting that we'd just have to stay in the hospital for another day.

Our day nurse, Gail, was back on shift when I woke up for the day. She made us feel better. She advocated for Colin, suggesting that he be taken off of monitors. She fought to get him off of unnecessary IV fluids. She picked out cute clothes and blankets for Colin to wear that disguised some of his monitor wires. She didn't discourage us from holding Colin whenever we wanted. She was patient when we tangled up his cords and took twice as long to get things done. She counted down the time to when we could take Colin home. She sat with me and talked with me about her family, about my family, about good places to eat. She let us take his temperature, change his diapers, untangle his wires. She let us be parents to him and she treated him like a normal baby instead of a patient. Gail was the best.

On our last day, Gail was there to see us off. She said such kind words to us as we left. She told us we were good parents. She helped me give Colin a bath to wash off all of the residue from the monitors stuck onto him. When Colin was clean, fed, dressed, and wire-free she asked to hold him. I was happy to hand him over to her and she just held him and talked to him like she really, truly cared about him. And I think she did. It's amazing what a big difference one kind person can make.

We took a detour on the way home from the hospital and met Oliver and my parents at a restaurant for brunch. On the drive home with Colin and Oliver filling the backseat of our car, I felt 100% better.  We got home and took naps. We took a family walk to the park. We drove as a family to eat dinner out and pick up Mya from my sister's house. We came home and we all got ready for bed. We all slept well. I'm starting to forget some of the poking and crying from the hospital. Colin looks healthy, Oliver is proud of being a big brother, we're pretty well rested with all things considered.

It was long delayed, but it was a good first day as a family of four. Welcome home again, Colin.