completion

Driftwood burl, Washington, August 2011

My friend Andrea posted a cool free downloadable worksheet that's about completing 2011 and looking forward to 2012. I think it will be a perfect way to ease into what Mikhail and I have done around new year's these last few years: picking our word (or two, or three) for the year to come.

Looking back and looking forward, that's so much what this last week of the year is for me.

the 5-year-old unicorn

One month ago, Elan turned 5.

We made a sign. He wrote his name but insisted I write "Birthday Party." And those are balloons decorating the sign, in case you're not sure. Balloons being an absolute must for the celebration.

I love little kid writing. Adults can imitate it, but they can't ever quite get the adorable haphazard quality of randomly placed backwards letters and the way the whole line drifts and tilts.

After much debate, I decided to have Elan's birthday party at the Y Kindergym this year. Basically it's a big padded room, with things to climb on, jump on, and throw - and it's all cushioned. Perfect for 5-year-olds to go crazy. And let me tell you, after 4 members of my household spent hours 48-24 before the party throwing up, I was very VERY happy that the party was not at my house.

Also, after said stomach bug hit my house like a whirlwind, it was clear that I was not going to be doing the baking. So my mother-in-law and sister-in-law stepped in and delegated that task to Safeway. (Thank goodness my sister-in-law, a fabulous baker, did not decide to bake the cake, as Vicious Stomach Bug took her down the night before the party.) Elan loved his cake. It had real race cars on it. He was in little boy heaven.

I'm pretty sure that my child is actually a unicorn. Evidence: check out that horn.

And look at those eyes. Here, you can see them better in this picture.

October 2010

Humans don't have eyes that gigantic. Don't know where it came from in the gene pool, but definitely part unicorn.

There was a pinata. After the kids had made a good go at it, Mikhail slit it up with an exacto knife, but the thing was so strong that I finally just had to rip it apart. The kids ignored this little birthday party faux pas. There was candy to be had.

Even Emry got in on the action.

Now that Elan is officially 5, I realized two things:

One: That I've been thinking of him as 5 for a long time, which is weird because I'm generally such a nostalgic, stop-that-growing-up-so-fast kind of mama. He and I agreed that 5 is like a big little kid, whereas 4 is still a little little kid (and some number I can't yet imagine is a big big kid).

And two: That I've been a mother for a half-decade now. He's getting faster than me.

merry.go.round

Elan, Tilden Park, Berkeley, December 2011

We are working on creating family traditions, now that we're 5 years into this whole kids thing. One is going to the holiday carousel at Tilden Park, in the hills above Berkeley.

Mama, what's with all the pictures of me with funny expressions posted on your blog lately?

Of course, this necessitates me thinking about when we did this or that last year. Which has me think about how little Emry was at this time last year, when he went on the merry-go-round snug in the Ergo, without ever knowing that he was spinning through space.

This year, Emry picked up on Elan's excitement at the novelty of going for a ride in the dark, up windy streets lined with lit-up houses, through the blackness of the park. He was asleep when we came upon the carousel, surrounded by decorations and a 50-foot-tall tree strung with lights. But when we got out of the car, he woke up, and both boys were entranced.

Sweet Solstice. May the longest night bring you its own kind of light.

a diagnosis and a decision

Elan, nearly 5 years old, November 2011

Back in October, we took Elan to the Stanford Sleep Clinic. The doctors there examined him and then took a complete history, which translated into an hour and a half of us talking, trying to explain exactly how it is that our child doesn't sleep. That's an exaggeration. He does sleep, obviously, otherwise I would have sold him on Craigslist by now, or checked myself into a mental institution. But he sleeps fitfully, with frequent wakings, regular bouts of flinging himself around, and much screaming. I hardly even know what it's like to sleep an entire night without being jolted awake by sudden screaming. It's happened a few times in the last five years, but not much.

Shortly after our initial appointment, I took Elan back to the Sleep Clinic for an overnight sleep study, otherwise known as a "sleepover." He sat in a swivel office chair watching movies, patiently doing his best to ignore the technician covering his body and scalp with electrodes glued to his skin and attached to wires. We joked about how he was turning into a robot, and I snapped a few pictures, but truthfully, it was a little disturbing to me to see him hooked up like that, and when he looked at the pictures, he didn't like them. I think he found it disturbing too.

Drugged by slow-paced children's movies, he finally fell asleep. I slept on the "parent surfboard," mounded with blankets to soften the hard surface. He had quite a few episodes that night, screaming and carrying on in that way he does, when Mikhail and I can't figure out if he's awake or asleep. In the morning, we packed up our stuff, got the glue off him as best as we could, and went to Hobee's, a local chain restaurant I have fond memories of from my time at Stanford. But the BDBIT (Best Darn Breakfast in Town) wasn't as good as I remembered and Elan didn't touch his pancakes.

Being impish

A few days later, we got the results of the sleep study. Obstructive sleep apnea, a mild to moderate case. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard that. Breathing problems were the one sleep-related ailment we felt sure he didn't have. The classic noisy snoring and audible stop-breathing episodes that define sleep apnea -- we've never heard them in Elan. He has a much more subtle case, with more hypopnea (reduced breathing) episodes than actual apnea (stop-breathing) ones, and a very quiet snore (I learned that, at least in children, audible breathing counts as snoring - who knew?). But there it was, in black and white in front of me: an API (Apnea-Hypopnea Index) score of 12. Which means that approximately 12 times an hour, Elan's blood oxygen level drops substantially enough that his brain wakes his body up to stir, change position, and enable him to breathe better.

Today, after multiple opinions and conversations and visits to two local pediatric ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctors, I called to schedule a tonsillectomy and adenoid removal for him. Given the specifics of his case, the decision to do the surgery has not been an easy one. It might be an extremely common surgery, but it's still surgery, and Mikhail and I had to feel sure that it was the right decision. Now it's made, and I'm hoping and praying that it works. (And that the procedure goes fine, and that the recovery's not too bad.)

I keep trying to write about this - the diagnosis, the decision-making process, the entire convoluted universe that is sleep in our household. But I keep getting caught up in the details, unable to see the whole picture, and, ultimately brought down by the anger and sadness I harbor about how exhaustion has so defined both Elan's childhood and my experience of motherhood to date.

I'm really mightily pissed about it, you see. And, even as I write that, I feel the burn of tears just below the surface. So many times, I have wondered Why. Why can't he sleep? Why won't he sleep? Why doesn't he sleep? And How. How do we get him to sleep? How do we survive the ongoing struggle around sleep? How do we make sure that chronic exhaustion doesn't too negatively affect not just Elan, but also both Mikhail and me in our everyday lives, in our marriage, and in our family as a whole?

There are many reasons that lack of sleep is a form of torture. I could sure make a long list myself. But the main one, the one that's on my mind right now, is how being tired makes you unable to deal with adversity. I see that effect played out in Elan's behavior day after day, some worse than others, depending on how he did the nights before. Sometimes, I'm caught up in the symptoms of sleep deprivation right along with him, rallying against how his sleeplessness screws up my life. Other times, I can stand outside and watch with compassion as he struggles to learn how to control his own emotions, a trying process for all preschoolers, but especially those who never get a good night's sleep.

Whistling, kind of

So what I want to ask for, as we enter the holiday season, is a little hope sent our way. I'm not one to ask for prayers. I generally feel uncomfortable with the whole notion of talking about prayer, while I do sometimes do it myself, and I feel doubly uncomfortable asking others to pray on behalf of something in my life which, while difficult, is thankfully not serious in a life- or limb-threatening kind of way. But we sure could use some hope. Good vibes. Love and luck sent our way. The first surgeon we saw made sure to lower our expectations, telling us that given the particulars of Elan's case, he couldn't be sure that the T&A would fix the problem. The second surgeon was more optimistic and said she doesn't see why it wouldn't fix the problem. Today I called the second surgeon. I need some optimism around this, some hope that putting all my eggs in the tonsillectomy basket won't leave me with nothing more than hands full of broken shells and slime pooling around my feet.

I want my kiddo to know what it feels like to be well-rested. To wake up happy, ready to greet the day, not lying in bed crying and moaning in the dark morning hours because he's awake but still tired. I want him to experience the normal struggles of growing up without the dark lens of exhaustion which fogs even the simplest of tasks. I want to feel well-rested too. I want my husband and me to be able to sleep in the same bed without screaming jerking us awake, one of us sprinting down the hall, then falling asleep in Elan's bed because we know he'll just be up again. I want Emry to sleep without being woken up by his brother's yells, and then developing his own bad sleep habits because it doesn't seem fair to have him cry it out when he's startled awake like that, and because I can't let him resettle on his own with a little crying for fear he'll keep Elan up.

I want, I want.

I hope, I hope.

Let's just say good sleep would be the best darn Hanukkah (and New Year's, and birthday, and Mother's Day, and anniversary) gift I could ever hope to get.

poop or chocolate?

Emry, November 2011

Thanks for the material, kid.

(Don't worry, this time it's chocolate.)

And it took a bit of searching through my brain and the Internet, but here's that clip (from Baby Mama, Tina Fey & Maura Tierney).

on a cold and foggy morning...

Someone came and frosted the spiderwebs.

Or should I say they dewed the spiderwebs.

Except it doesn't sound as good.

Now these someones, the ones who go around frosting or dewing the spiderwebs, whichever you want to call it, depending on whether you're in a literary or literal type of mood...

Are they the same someones who put flyers on my car windshield in the middle of the night?

I don't think so. Two separate job descriptions, those.

On another note, today would have been my Popa Al's 102nd birthday.

In honor of my Popa, who was always kind, I suggest doing something kind today.

Plus, it's the holidays, and people seem to be getting just a tad bit frazzled out there.

Kindness is in order.

I suppose it always is.

Back to the spiderwebs, and the maple tree, their webby home.

When we lived in Berkeley years ago, in life B.C. (Before Children), I would walk the idyllic streets of our neighborhood and think If I ever buy a house in Berkeley, I would want it to have a Japanese maple tree.

Amazingly, when we found our little condo, it came with the most beautiful 40-year-old Japanese maple tree in the patio. We have a tiny bit of outdoor space, and this tree dominates it, which is just fine with me. It is visible from every room of the house except one, and that's just great with me. I love it at every time of year, but right now, the tree is in its full glory.

The leaves at the top, where it gets more sun, are so red it hurts my eyes.

Lower down, the leaves are yellow, and at the back, against our neighbor's house, still green. I don't have a picture to show what I mean, but I love the variation in it. The red of the tree contrasts beautifully with the green-yellow of the bamboo and dark glossy green of the camellia.

I could look at this tree all day, and in fact, I do. I catch flashes of it in the bathroom mirror as I wash my face, from my closet as I put away laundry, from the kitchen as I steam the windows up cooking pasta, from the living room as I play tickle monster with the kids on the floor.

And so this morning, when I saw the decorated spiderwebs, I grabbed my camera, stepped away from the hustle-bustle of getting ready for preschool, walked onto the wet deck in my slippers, breathed in the fog-muffled quiet. I got lost in the branches and those red, red leaves. For a few minutes, the kids did whatever they were doing without me.

We were late for preschool.

It was worth it.

no, really?

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. We had a very happy Thanksgiving. The food at my husband's aunt's house was so good, I made slightly inappropriate groany noises as I ate it. We went for the traditional walk to the park, football playing in the park, and then came back to the house for dessert. It was all lovely.

And then... (because you know there had to be an "and then")

My husband was installing Elan's carseat back into our car from his mom's car and said, "I feel like I could throw up."

Now it is nearly 24 hours later, and 4 of the 6 people currently staying in my house have been repeatedly sick. Including me, and I used to never puke, before my children ruined that track record.

Not food poisoning! Just unfortunately timing for the Vicious Stomach Bug that's been flying all about Berkeley. Plus, the baby, who thankfully has not been puking (not yet at least), has a weird rash AGAIN. And Elan, who started his puking at 6 a.m. today, has been throwing screaming fits because we won't let him gobble up toast. I'm like: I can't even look at plain white rice, and you want to eat MORE food?

I should probably wash nearly every sheet, blanket and towel in my house. I believe half are already piled in the carport by my washing machine. But I'm just so darn tired. And still nursing the baby. And drinking some flat Coke my father-in-law, the only adult not felled by Vicious Stomach Bug, scored for me.

And did I mention tomorrow is Elan's birthday?

Hello, life/parenthood/illness? Can you ease it up a bit? I'm getting pretty worn-out.

Thanks,

Mama still in her robe at 5:45 p.m.

because i know you were wondering

Elan on the pumpkin pile, October 2011

Halloween was a very big deal at our house this year. First, we went to our neighborhood's version of a pumpkin patch, which is more a pumpkin pile, a huge hill of pumpkins at Monterey Market. The kids (and brave adults) scramble all over the pumpkins, including some that must weigh 100 pounders (pumpkins, not people, well, people too, but that's nothing extraordinary).

Someone should have taken a picture of the maneuvers I had to make in order to get myself, Emry and my camera onto the pumpkin pile, not to mention position the boys and get the shot, while balancing in my clogs on pumpkins. They're not so stable, pumpkins. Kinda round and slippery.

But it was worth it.

Then, on Halloween, we had a robot.

Elan came up with the idea. This is the second year that I've been surprised by how definite he's been about his costume. Execution was carried out by Mikhail, on box duty, and Grandma, on decoration duty. My job was to admire the results.

We also had a monkey who, true to form, managed to get through this banana peel and cover himself with banana goop despite the fact that he has exactly zero teeth.

I was dressed up as a harried mother of two. I threw that costume together in about 4 seconds flat. That's how good I am.

And this picture proves that I suffer from lack of imagination when it comes to Halloween costumes:

Elan as a monkey, 11 months old, Halloween 2007

Or maybe I just like tradition.

It was Elan's first time doing official trick or treating, since last year, our Halloween block party fell on Oct 31, and Elan was so worn out after 8 hours in the jumpy house that he was asleep before the trick or treaters were out. This year, trick or treating was a huge hit. The monkey hung out in the Ergo and sampled his first 3 Musketeers bar.

My husband got into the spirit. Someone had to help Elan get up and down stairs without falling. Boxes don't have the best visibility, we learned.

Eventually he would just take his head off between houses. Which led to funny lines like:

"Dada, you have to put my head back on!"

boys in sleepers

November 2011

They might not always sleep a lot, but they always spend a lot of time in their sleepers.

sometimes it goes like this

On the hunt for stuff to get into, October 2011

Today, I am sorry to admit, my baby ate his own poop.

Need I say more?

He has become a total squirmy monkey during diaper changes, and this morning, he almost managed to kick the dirty diaper off the edge of the changing table. I caught it, but a tiny bit of poop must have fallen onto the floor, because after I had cleaned him up and re-diapered him and set him down and washed my hands, I turned back to see him putting a little light-brown, squishy thing into his mouth.

"What is that? Is that POOP?" I screamed.

This reminded me of a movie clip I saw once that often runs through my mind in these kinds of insane parenting moments, where the Experienced Mom analyzes the brown substance on her toddler's face. "Poop, or chocolate?" she asks, grabbing her child's dirty face while her childless sister looks on, horrified. "Poop, or chocolate? Poop, or chocolate?" She swipes a finger through the mystery substance and into her mouth. "Chocolate!" she proclaims.

This was like that, except there was no chocolate around.

There are two possible reactions to a moment like this: laugh or cry. And today, because Emry has an ear infection and is on antibiotics and isn't sleeping well and I don't know if these facts are related or he's just decided to stop sleeping well, and because two nights ago Elan woke up at 11 p.m. having spewed vomit all over his bed, sheets, mattress, pillows, stuffed animals, blankets, sleeper and himself, and because Elan then couldn't go to school yesterday which made his 4-day weekend into a 5-day weekend, and because that reduced the amount of time I have to do what I need to do from marginal to ridiculous, and because I'm feeling Mama-ed out right now what with someone always needing something, getting into something, crying over something, making a mess, waking me up, or sick, I cried.

Maybe next time I'll laugh. Except I'm really hoping to not have a next time. Really hoping.

ONE!

Emry's first birthday was on October 22.

The birthday boy is seriously into his thumb these days.

He is seriously into his brother too.

The birthday hat has stick-on numbers from 1-5. Elan's worn it for 3 out of his 4 birthdays. I like that it's now an official family tradition, even if I did drop the ball on Elan wearing it last year, when he turned 4.

And of course, no first birthday would be complete without baby's first cupcake, which he mostly enjoyed squishing into a cupcake pulp and then sucking out of his little chubby fist.

sick

Fall spiderweb, Berkeley, September 2011

I'm having one of those weeks when a cold turns into laryngitis, turns into a sinus infection that feels like someone's sticking knives into my cheekbones, turns into a night spent alternatively shivering and roasting with fever, turns into the nurse practitioner saying I have the flu on top of the cold/sinus infection, turns into Emry taking Tamiflu preventatively just in case I do have the flu, turns into Mikhail going away for an overnight trip I didn't know he had, turns into me calling my mom and asking her can you pretty-please come now rather than in 2 days?, turns into discovering the joys of Theraflu Nighttime and finally getting some sleep, turns into holing up with my computer attempting to not be so behind on my work while Emry is crying downstairs, turns into writing on my blog because who can manage to write grant proposals while their baby is crying downstairs, turns into nursing Emry instead of writing grant proposals or on my blog, turns into the baby crying when I hand him back over to my babysitter, turns into more knives in my cheekbones, turns into Can I please just go back to bed now?

Yes, you can. Go quickly, before someone else needs you.

one year ago

A year ago, I was pregnant.

I went to the pool a lot.

Sometimes with my pregnant friends.

Elan was already telling the baby jokes.

Did I mention? I was VERY pregnant.

But soon not to be.

At 2 a.m., I woke up. It was pouring. First I heard the rain, then I felt the sensation of the contraction. It was the baby's due date and a full moon. I couldn't believe the baby would really be so precisely punctual, but the contraction felt different than the ones I regularly got around the clock, so I got out of bed. Made cream of wheat. Read Blink on the couch. Timed the contractions. Told the baby I was really ready to not be pregnant anymore, and wasn't he/she ready to come out and meet everyone?

I promised a lot of yummy milk.

The contractions stayed about 10-15 minutes apart, so eventually I went back to bed.

Elan woke up and went to preschool.

The contractions were still 10-15 minutes apart. Between them, I'd think that maybe I run out and pick up that nursing bra I hadn't bought yet. But then, one would come, and I'd think Not a good idea.

I went for a walk to try to speed things up. I walked very slowly. I kept expecting someone to notice me, walking around my neighborhood, in labor, alone, with my cell phone in my pocket. But I only had one contraction the whole walk, leaning over the splintery railing by the path in the greenway, so I guess I wasn't that noticeable.

Mikhail brought me Thai chicken coconut milk soup, a sudden craving, and over several hours, I ate the whole container.

Elan came home from preschool. I hung out with him on the couch, reading him books. Every 10-15 minutes, I'd roll onto the floor and have a contraction. It freaked him out a lot less than I thought it might.

At 3 p.m., I told my amazing midwife that I wanted to come in to the hospital, but I was afraid I'd only be dilated to 2 centimeters. (In labor 4 years before with Elan, I got to the birth center where I delivered already dilated to 8 cm after laboring at home for 20 hours.) She assured me that she'd never had a second-time mom come in at less than 4 cm. I wanted to be in the water, and I couldn't fit in our little tub, so we decided to go for it.

Some neighbors saw me shuffling down the driveway to the car, while Mikhail loaded it up with all our stuff, and they called out Good luck! I thought - I guess I really am in labor.

The ride to the hospital was surreal. Everything looked so NORMAL outside the car window. It was Friday afternoon, and people were out doing their Friday afternoon, beautiful fall weather, thing. I only had one contraction during the 10 minute car ride. After that one contraction, I was glad I didn't have more.

My midwife Lindy was there waiting for me, at the nurse's desk. She got me a room with a big jacuzzi tub, like we had planned. She checked me. "Well, it's your worst fear," she said. "You're 2 centimeters."

Ha!

But then she was very comforting. She told me to take my time. "I've got my magazine so I'll just hang out a while," she said. She'd send me home if there was no baby by morning. It was 4:20 p.m. I was still having contractions 10-15 minutes apart.

I got in the tub. Everyone left me alone. I listened to music, rubbed my huge firm tummy, nearly weightless in the water, felt the baby move and wondered who was going to come out. Here we are kid, I thought, back in the water, where the best moments of this uncomfortable pregnancy had been spent. I had been feeling a little freaked out by the hospital, but in the tub, I got my head together. You've done this before, I told myself. You know what to do. Just relax and let your body do it.

I got out of the tub and decided to take a walk. But I never made it out the door of my room. Every time I'd head for the door, I'd have another contraction. And these were big ones, coming on every few minutes. Finally! It looked like the baby was in on the plan.

And then it hurt. More than I remembered. I've had 2 natural births now, with no meds, and I can say: there is pain. It's a whole heck of a lot of work. There's a reason they call it labor. But if you have a good situation - a great midwife and/or doula, and no complications - it's worth it. Your body makes the natural pain relief, which helps; you can stay completely active, birth in the position you want to birth in; you can feel nifty sensations like the baby's feet "walking" down your spine as he turns; and the high afterward is INCREDIBLE. I'm sure all women feel like super-stars after growing and birthing another human being, as they should. But I can say that my experience of natural birth is that, afterward, I felt like I could do anything. Which was especially helpful while recovering from my first baby's birth, which took longer and was more painful than I expected. Not to mention that whole adjustment to being responsible for a tiny, helpless human. I frequently thought back to my superhero birth powers and felt buoyed by them over the course of Elan's first few months.

But, yeah, it hurt. My mom came in the room, and I called her over to me by wailing Mommy!! I'm not sure if this alarmed or touched her, as I haven't called her "Mommy" in several decades. But that's what birth will do to you; you shed all the non-essentials; you become the most focused version of yourself, one is so intent on doing what you're doing that you don't give a damn who happens to come in the room and see your nether regions on full display.

I had an amazing team of midwife, husband and nurse all helping me. One would work on my back with each contraction, and this is not just a casual hand - this is putting some real weight into it. Though this labor was less back labor than my first, that strong counter-pressure still really helped me. The best position was standing next to the bed, leaning over it, rocking and swaying my hips. After contractions, they warmed me up. During, they cooled me off. Lindy put cold cloths on my forehead.

Sidenote: Recently, on a random Tuesday, Elan turned to me with a look of shock on his little face. "We don't have a video of when Emry was born!" he exclaimed. I had to stifle a laugh.

"That's true," I said. "But we have one of when you were born."

"I want to see it," he said.

"Actually, I don't think you do. When a baby comes out, there's a lot of blood."

"Ew, I don't wanna see that. Dis-gust-ing!"

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Anywhere, where was I? Oh, yeah, birthing a baby one year ago.

My midwife and I had come up with a little game plan of what we wanted to try for the birth, which included birthing on my side and trying to push the baby out between contractions. Amazingly, these both worked. Mikhail found the whole thing pretty interesting because he was beside me, holding my leg; when Elan was born in the tub, Mikhail was behind me, meaning he got a worse view than I did. But this time, he saw everything! Lucky guy!

Later, Mikhail told me that, as he was watching the baby's head crown, he kept picturing a 2-month-old's head size, and could not imagine that this whole birth thing was going to work. Thankfully he kept that observation to himself at the time. When Emry was actually born, he was shocked at how tiny his head actually was (it was smaller than Elan's, thank you!).

Once my water broke as I pushed, and we got through the ring of fire (that song has never been the same for me since having babies), and I did some good old fashioned screaming, Lindy told me to push again, and a hot, slippery little baby came out. I tell you, I think even if you birthed 12 babies, there would still be a part of you shocked that after all that - 9 months of nausea and insomnia and heartburn and varicose veins and backache and general slow lumbering quality of life, plus the labor itself - a BABY COMES OUT. Just amazing.

Mikhail announced It's a boy!

And there he was.

The Aforementioned Slippery, Ruddy and Oh-So-Sweet Baby Boy, aka Mr. Emry Isaiah Brams Davis, all 7 pounds, 15 ounces of him, born at 8:30 p.m. on October 22, 2010.

Everyone oohed and aahed over him. Lucky baby, he had 3 grandparents in attendance (my parents and my mother-in-law), and my sister-in-law dropped in just after he was born.

His big brother came to visit.

And took him for a ride around the hospital.

The promised yummy milk was provided, and he was a fan.

I could keep going like this all night, but I have laryngitis and a wicked cold, and my baby just turned 1 year old, so I'm feeling a little emotional and should get some sleep.

So just one more... for now.

This is what happens when you teach the big brother how to swaddle his doll before the baby arrives.

Did it make you look twice?