kiwords

In which Kira overuses caps and is unrepentant.

Sophia was looking...ehm...better. But not better enough. And I was just. so. sick. of talking over her symptoms with Clay. I swear, the amount of time we have spent discussing that child's skin, the different shades it has morphed through, the textures and changes...and then for fun we move onto a comprehensive review of her diapers and the contents therein, followed by a temperament analysis that would make you weep with longing for the fast-paced excitement of tax forms.

And despite unremitting conversations between two people who are not medical professionals, we still did not have her figured out. So I called the doctor and whined at the nurse and scored myself an appointment in the much-coveted "we'll get you out JUST in time for rush hour" spot.

This time we saw Sophia's actual doctor, a man who has been our pediatrician since Max was born. I trust him, and he didn't let me down. He came in and peered at her, looked in her ears, nose, mouth. Studied her skin from head to toe. Asked me thoughtful questions. Listened to her lungs and heart and stomach and whatever else they're listening to.

Then he said, "Well, it's probably a virus, nothing we can do."

Aaaaargggh, I was thinking, why am I here again?

"But," he went on, "just in case, I'd like to take a culture of her nose, just to be sure we don't have any strep or anything growing in there. We'll have the rapid screen results tomorrow, and the longer test done by Friday, okay?"

It was okay with ME, but Sophia had other opinions about having a cotton swab stuck up her nose. She wailed, and I swear if angry baby eyes could kill, that man would be DEAD AS A DOORNAIL.

I didn't expect to hear anything from the office after that, assuming it was, after all, a virus. So how thrilled do you think I was to see their number on my caller ID this morning? HUH? GUESS.

Hey, guess what? My baby has a freaking STAPH INFECTION.

So the treatment protocol for that is thrice-daily doses of serious antibiotics, and a full and complete moratorium on Google. For the love of all that is good and right, NO GOOGLE.

And can you just imagine how much I am LOVING that first doctor who barely glanced at her on Sunday? CAN YOU? If you're thinking, I bet Kira would like to start sending Christmas cards JUST so she can pointedly NOT send that doctor one, well, I would suggest you adjust your estimation of my esteem somewhat lower. What? you say, would you like to start sending Christmas cards just so you can send him one that is MEAN and SNOTTY and not nice at all? OH NO, I say, GO SOUTH. Like, more in the range of I refuse to respond on the grounds I might incriminate myself.

But the truth is that I'm just mad at him because it's distracting from the reality of being scared for my baby. I'm tired, emotionally and physically, and I just want her to be well.

And that's about all I have to say about that.

Even if it IS a brand-new virus, I don't want it named after her.

Sophia has been sick. Brace yourself, because now I'm about to describe the course of her illness, which is totally annoying and boring to anyone who isn't her parents, but please bear with me.

This is why people hate mommybloggers, isn't it?

Nonetheless, it started last week. She got punky and had a little diarrhea, and ran a tiny wee fever. 99.5-ish. Nothing impressive. So fine, I settled in for lots of holding the baby and figured it was some baby bug that would run its course in a few days. I mean, it's what babies do, right? Suffer randomly from fleeting ailments?

Well, that seemed to be what was happening, but as it turns out she was closely watching the time on her dainty invisible baby wristwatch, because as soon as the pediatrician's office closed on Friday, she started getting worse.

I guess I should say she started LOOKING worse.

Her cheeks went chalk white, and around her eyes and mouth, the skin turned bright red, like a sunburn. By Saturday the redness had spread to her whole body, and when we picked her up, she recoiled and wailed like she'd been slapped.

Ever tried to comfort a baby that MUST be held but HATES to be touched? It's a ginger proposition.

So since she looked so awful and seemed to be in pain, I actually called the pediatrician's office Sunday morning and asked to have her seen by the doctor on call. During a snow storm. Oh yes, I did. I even played the "look, this is my fourth child and I've NEVER seen anything like this" card.

The doctor was EXTREMELY helpful, the way he scowled into the room, barely looked at her, and proclaimed her to be suffering from "some virus." Charming. THAT was worth the drive through the snow and the co-pay.

Now, for a fabulous part 2, wherever the redness was? The skin is PEELING AWAY, like after a blistering sunburn. And this, here, is what's making me insane tonight: when she was red all over and crying all the time and the doctor glanced at her and advised us not to bother with Tylenol because she didn't have a fever? She was IN PAIN because her skin was being SCORCHED.

So I polled some of my mom friends about this virus, to see if any of them have seen such a thing in their parenting careers, and the response was a resounding NO. No one has seen a baby who looks like my baby looks right now. And you know what the plural of anecdote is, right? INCONTROVERTIBLE PROOF. Therefore, I have CLEARLY PROVEN that Sophia is the first baby ever to suffer from this brand-new and horrible virus.

I suggest we call it the "Zombie Baby Virus" because - well, look. Here's Sophia BEFORE the ZBV.

Awwww, can we agree?

Now here (although it doesn't really show the WORST of the ZBV) is her when she was sick:

Hurts my heart.

So let me ask YOU, dear friends inside the computer - have you ever seen anything like this? Feel free to tell me ANYTHING you know about it, as long as what you know is OH, THE WORST IS OVER AND SHE WILL BE FINE FINE FINE!
 

A-Day Blessings

Today, as I'm sure it is marked on all your calendars, is A-Day. What? You DON'T have the day Clay adopted my boys, two years ago, marked on your calendar? Huh. And I thought I knew you so well.

Well, WE observed A-Day with fanfare and joy. Okay, what we actually did was skip church so we could drive through some nasty snow to take Sophia to the doctor's office. She's okay, but it's a testimony to how bad she looked that I wanted to take her in. Eleven years we've been with this pediatrician and until this week I didn't even know they HAD Sunday office hours. Bah. More about that tomorrow.

But today, despite its various complications, was A-Day. We had lunch at my parents' house (which was more of a Sunday event than an A-Day event, because we let them feed us Sunday dinner every week because we are givers), and to commemorate this day, we shared a blessing cup.

The blessing cup is a tradition from my childhood, and it's a good one. I hereby give you permission to steal it, because it's simply lovely. We usually do it on someone's birthday, and what you do is fill a pretty glass with something fancy everyone can drink (we usually go with sparkling cider, although I swear there was a Pepsi blessing cup once). Then you pass it around, and everyone says something to or about the honored person. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's touching. Kids generally grab the cup when it's their turn, look stricken, and choke out something like, "Happy Birthday - I'm glad you were born." Then *gulp* they take their sip, and pass it on.

When Mom poured the sparkling cider in the glass, Raphael was bouncing in his seat.

"ME FIRST! I want to GO FIRST!" He waved his hand and grinned. Hard to argue with that kind of passion, so Mom handed the glass to him. He took it, straightened in his chair, and looked right at Clay.

"Dad, I'm glad you adopted us," he said, "and I hope you don't leave like my other dad."

I think everyone around the table exhaled, like being kicked in the stomach. Later, Raphael told me he'd been planning what he'd say for the blessing cup for days.

And this is the best reason to do a blessing cup - because sometimes, when the question is too scary to ask, you can say it instead, and then, when it's your dad's turn, he can look right at you over the glass, lock eyes with you, and say, "Thank you for being my sons. I. Will. Not. Leave. You."

And on A-Day and every day, that's a good thing to hear.

Tweet me this

The other day I was on Twitter, poking around and trying to figure things out. Y'all, I am too old for Twitter, I swan. Facebook is still sort of bewildering to me. It's LOUD up in there. But I have a Big Exciting Project coming up soon, and for that I have been instructed to learn to tweet like the happiest of birds.

So there I was, poking Twitter, trying to keep Sophia from fulfilling her life's goal of eating the keyboard, and I muttered something aloud about how UnTwitterable I am.

"Mom?" Tre called from the kitchen (where he was preparing lunch for him and his brothers DO NOT JUDGE ME, HIS WIFE WILL LOVE ME SOMEDAY), "do YOU have a Twitter account?"

He said it sort of like I had just announced I'd just received my high school ID card - a mix of disbelief and oh, that's sort of sad and delusional.

"YES. I DO. Sort of. I mean, I have this account with these other women. So there."

"Oh. So it's not like YOU have an account." He returned to the meal, no longer interested in me and my feeble tweetage. I left my efforts and wandered into the kitchen to poke instead at the lunch he'd made.

"What's Twitter?" Max asked, filling water glasses.

"It's microblogging. You can only post 140 characters at a time."

"AAAAAAHHHGHH!" screeched Raphael as his plate and food somehow FLIPPED off the table and ONTO the floor.

"Clean it up," I said, as I am wont to say to Raphael SEVEN TRILLION TIMES A DAY. He started scooping food onto his plate. "And wash the mess off the floor," I added, as I am wont, etc.

"Don't you blog ENOUGH?" Max asked.

"Eh. Not according to Amma." I replied.

"It's not like she has her OWN account," Tre pointed out.

"I have to SCRUB THE FLOOR like some sort of SERVANT," Raphael moaned somewhat cheerfully from his position under the table.

From her perch on my hip, Sophia screeched and yanked a fistful of my hair. HARD.

I dunno. I may be a little slow to find my way around Twitter, but something tells me the that my life is tailor-made for this nonsense.

In Which We All Nearly DIE.

I was standing at the sink, scrubbing potatoes. I remember like it was...four hours ago.

Because it was.

Anyhow, there I was, scrubbing potatoes, talking to Clay as he walked a grumpy Sophia. The oven was pre-heating, waiting for the potatoes. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a GLOW from within the oven. I dropped my potato.

"OH!" I said helpfully, "OH OH OH! It's ON FIRE IN THERE!"

AND IT WAS. Specifically, the heating element on the floor of the oven seemed to be burning like the wick of a cartoon character's bomb. It sizzled and smoked and flamed. I, being a cool-headed mother of many, jumped up and down and squeaked and pointed at it.

"Huh," said Clay, "that's not good."

I opened and closed and open and closed the door of the oven and jumped up and down some more. Clay went outside and turned the power off to the oven. So between the two of us we got it taken care of.

Then I called my parents and generously offered to let them feed us dinner. I knew they'd be happy to, since we had just been SNATCHED FROM THE JAWS OF A FIERY DEATH and plus our oven was non-functioning.

And they were. They brought over many pizzas, and we huddled around the kitchen table and ate, GRATEFUL to have survived.

Clay seems to think I am overstating the danger somewhat. I say he's in denial.

"Thank you for saving all our lives," I told him.

"Your parents saved our lives," he replied. "They brought us food."

See what I mean? Denial.

But I know. I understand the reality of it all. I know tonight is a night to hold my dear ones closer, to CHERISH all I have, and to ponder the important questions.

Like - how do I get out of making dinner TOMORROW night?

This is why there is too much stuff in my house.

"Hey," Clay said, holding up the worn, limp, blue Boppy, "Sophia doesn't need this anymore, does she? She doesn't really tip over backwards now."

"Nope, she's done with it," I said.

"So I can throw it away?"

"Uh..."

"Because you said that's what you wanted to do. That it's old and sort of stinky now that Sophia is done spitting up all over it?"

"I know I did."

"So...?"

I looked at it there, in his hand. It is old. And now it smells faintly of spit up. I also discovered, thanks to Sophia's efforts, that when it gets wet, the dark blue dye in the fabric transfers to whatever rubs against it. This is, as you can imagine, lovely on pastel baby clothes. And floors.

Oh, but the Boppy. Fourteen years I've had that thing. It cradled each of my children when they were barely sitting up infants. Each one of them fell back onto its cushioning. Their legs curled inside its curves.

"It's just...all four of them were babies on that Boppy," I said, at last. "I can still see them there, propped up inside it."

He looked down at the pillow in his hand, ratty and old and sour smelling, and he sighed. Without further comment, he found a corner to leave it in. And there it sits, holding my memories of my pre-crawling babies.

It's hard to let it go, because I don't have any pre-crawling babies anymore.

 

Man, it happens fast, this being left behind.

Me and the Boppy, we'll hold the memories, though.

So...not EXACTLY Love Thursday.

Oh. Em. Gee, y'all.

Raphael was just biting into a Nik-L-Nip and he somehow managed to turn it into an indoor sprinkler system, thereby doing the ONE AND ONLY thing I can imagine to make a Nik-L-Nip a worse candy than it already is.

"I don't know what's WRONG with this thing," he shouted, "every time I bite into it, it just...SQUIRTS EVERYWHERE!"

Get that? EVERY time. Because after the FIRST time it squirted everywhere, clearly further experimentation was required.

Max just read me his history lesson, and he started out using a goofy voice. Like, could there be anything more annoying? Why don't you just POKE POKEY THINGS in my EARS?

Two days ago Sophia's sippy cup had an inaccurately assembled valve, post-washing, and instead of her having to SUCK on the thing to get liquid out, it would gently dribble into her mouth, over her rosebud lips, and down her front. She thought that was awesome. Ever since then, when I put the PROPERLY ASSEMBLED sippy cup to her lips, she sits perfectly still, waiting for the dribbly joy and looking at me with "you can't make me suck" eyes.

Also? Don't get me started on sippy cup designs.

Speaking of Sophia, she is practically crawling, and I've gone on a mighty campaign to keep the floors clean since she's all mobile and fascinated by the small and the filthy (Actual conversation the other day during a diaper change - "Oh, hey, here's the leaf she was gagging on last night." "Oh, good."). I sweep every day, MULTIPLE TIMES. Yesterday I mobilized an enormous floor clean up, with the moving of furniture and sweeping and mopping with vinegar-and-water goodness. Today? The floor feels like the entryway of a Wal-Mart under my feet, and when I pick the baby up as she tumbles past, she is sort of...frosted with bits of leaves and dog hair and grit.

Oh! And the DOG! The dog is confused by the warm weather and she keeps going in and out and in and out AND. IN. AND. OUT. Every three and a half minutes she suddenly realizes that she needs to be on the OTHER side of the kitchen door, and she immediately trots over to it and starts to whine.

Clay left the sandwich bags on the counter this morning when he was making his lunch. Usually I wouldn't even notice this, but today I'm pretty sure he did it because he wants me to just LIE DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND PERISH. Obviously. The FILTHY floor.

My point (YES, I HAVE A POINT, JUDGE-Y JUDGE-ER) was supposed to be that I am clearly dying of a brain tumor. Seriously, that is exactly what I came here to tell you, then what do I find? That blog has already been written, by a much better writer than me.

I'm going back to bed. And I'm taking the leftover Halloween candy with me.

Kira's magical cure

Do you know what Sophia did last night? DO YOU KNOW?

She slept.

From 10 PM to 8 AM, she slept. And slept. And flopped over on her rubbery belly and slept some more.

Good God, I love that kid.

This morning I awoke to Raphael's shiny face. When he saw I wasn't curled around a sleeping-ish baby, trying desperately to eek out a few more minutes of rest, he promptly crawled in bed next to me. And instead of growling my usual morning tune, I wrapped my arms around him and listened to him chatter and chatter and chatter his welcome to the day.

It was lovely.

The whole day was like that, suffused in a golden glow of happiness. Nothing could get me down. Max started complaining mid-day of scratchy throat, queasy tummy, and headache. OH, I thought, H1N1. Clearly. HOW NICE that we will get that over with and not have to worry about it anymore!

By late afternoon I was pretty sure he was actually suffering from the I-don't-want-to-go-to-piano-lesson-virus, and I chuckled. Oh, what a scamp! You got me! Haha! Four weeks until the recital! Silly guy!

I've decided the whole medical marijuana thing is way off base. I know how to REALLY help. What I'm going to do is set up a clinic, and I'll call it the Get a Solid Eight Hours of Sleep Clinic. And what I'll do is wake my patients up all night, every hour, hour and a half. RELENTLESSLY. And then? After a week or two? I'LL STOP. And LET THEM SLEEP.

Because MAN. There is just simply NO HIGH QUITE LIKE THAT.

Tonight Sophia was grumpy and demanding. She whined all evening, like someone had punctured an enormous balloon filled with ire and it slowly leaked all over her for about three hours straight. I'm almost sure tonight is going to be brutal, but I DON'T CARE.

Because do you know what I did last night?

I SLEPT.

And now I can handle anything.

Halloween report

Or "Two days later is not too late for kids this cute."

This was the first year the boys all made their own costumes. No pre-packaged plastic monstrosities for us this year, OH NO.

Does it tell you a little about how pitiful I am that it gave me a pang, knowing that not one of the boys wanted a superhero costume to play dress up with later in the year? Pitiful.

Anyhow, here they are, in all their inventive glory!

Can you tell what Tre is here? Can you?

He's a STICK FIGURE! HAHAHAHA.

Love that.

Max, bless his soul, is a homeless kid. I realized, too late, that his shirt was actually filthy, with remnants of some long-ago meal on the front. He claimed it only added to the authenticity, because he wouldn't be able to wash his only clothes, MOM. If he were HOMELESS.

I don't know why the hat.

Raphael is Dr. Pepper! GET IT? With the doctor's coat, the stethoscope, and the PEPPERS? Oh man. That kid kills me with his cute. 

And okay, Sophia did not design her own costume.

 

But she did make it her own. Can you tell she's supposed to be a penguin chick?

Yes, well, but can you tell HOW BIG she is?

She is SOOOO BIIIIG!

In other news, I was in Target today, and I passed a HUGE display of Halloween candy on clearance. My shopping cart made a Pavlovian sort of wobble in its direction before I realized, OH LORD, NO. If Target PAYED ME to take candy home, it would still be a grievous burden.

Enough candy, is what I'm saying. There's so much candy in the house that it will take Clay and I DAYS to finish it all while the boys sleep. 
(How big is Kira? SHUUUUUT UUUUUP!)

Halloween hauntings

It started with a request, one I've heard before, from Raphael.

"I want a picture of my biological dad," he said, "I don't know what he looks like."

Max tried to help him.

"Here's what I remember about him," he said, evenly, as though he were explaining mixed fractions, "he was sort of pudgy, with a round face, and lots of dark dark hair. And he was usually scruffy, here," he rubbed his chin, "like he was growing a beard."

"I want a picture."

And so Clay brought down two boxes of pictures that I had exiled to the garage, and eventually I opened them up and let them spill out. I hid in the only place I can go to get away (a little) from the family, the floor between Sophia's crib and Jennie's bed. It is not enough room for the mess from my former life, but it is all the space I could find.

He liked taking pictures, my ex, so there are hundreds of them. Envelope after envelope, many with descriptions written in his cartoonish lettering to describe what is inside - "Tre turns one. Playing in the pool." I rifled through them all. Our wedding, pregnancies, my babies sleeping on his chest.

It has been eight years since we have been a family. He left eight years today. And most of the time I willfully forget the life I lived before. But there it is, now strewn on the carpet in a space too small to make sense of it.

Of course it is hard to look at him, to see the pictures of us in love, and worse, of my sons and him in love. But what struck me this time was me. How young I was. I look like a child, and not in the vital and glowing way either. I am soft and unformed and unguarded around the eyes. I had no idea what this story we were spinning was going to become. Good Lord, I was inadequate. No wonder he...

Let's not go there.

It also bears mentioning that it was five years ago yesterday that Clay and I went on our first date. On that day he told me that he loved me and that he intended to marry me. On our first date! I looked at him and thought, either this man is a scary stalker...or the love of my life.

He turns out not to be a scary stalker.

"Does it bother you?" I asked him, "Raphael's fascination with his biological dad?" He shakes his head, which is always his answer when I ask him if something bothers him. But his voice is calm and sure.

"It makes sense that he would wonder. And..." he picks his words carefully, "...I'm not threatened by him."

And of course. How could he be?

I found a picture for Raphael today. Not only a picture of his biological dad, but one of newborn Raphael, one day old, in his arms.

"That's me?" He stared at it, delighted. "And that's my dad."

I prefer "biological dad", because it is an accurate description, but also because it is a snub, should he ever hear it. But I did not correct him. I sat there, surrounded by the archaeological remains of that life, while Raphael stared at a picture of a man he hasn't seen for eight years, and called him dad. Tre and Max hovered, picked up pictures here and there.

"It's hard for me, guys," I said, tears threatening, "we were happy once. You need to know that. Your biological dad and I were happy once. And then it all...broke. And it was so awful at the end, and everyone was hurt."

"I wasn't hurt," Raphael said. He was four months old, after all.

"But it hurts now, doesn't it? Trying to figure it out." He nodded. "And I'm so glad to have the life I have now, to be married to your dad...but it's hard to look at these pictures and remember."

"Maybe," Max pushed a stack of pictures away from him, "it would have been better if you had just never married him. If you had married our dad the first time, and never had to get a divorce."

I am struck dumb by this, because he doesn't seem to understand that I couldn't have had them without him.

It seems I still can't have them without him.

I gave Raphael a frame for his picture, and he set it on the ledge in the living room. Clay came home from work and saw it.

"Oh, you found one for Raphi, huh?"

And I crumpled, just folded into his chest and wept.