inklingfair Drive-by update: Like Schroedinger’s cat, I’m both okay and not okay. Daniel is gaining weight well, but we’ve been thrown the curveball of rashes and a gassier-than-usual baby who screams bloody murder and spits up every diaper change. My pothos and snake plants are putting out new shoots, but my watermelon peperomia and selloum have died. I don’t have excruciating milk blebs this time, thank God for that, but I do have explosive temper outbursts at Amy’s cooped-up-and-bored shenanigans (she forgives easily when I say sorry, bless her generous little heart).
I didn’t want to let grace pass by unnoticed, though, so I’m listing here the things I want to remember instead of the niggling little nuisances that conspire to ruin my vineyard:
Evening primrose bringing about gradually increasing contractions instead of the rollercoaster labor pain via pitocin, oxygen through nasal cannula when I felt smothered by my N95 mask, neatly healing perineal tissue after two weeks. The delight of reliving little details of the newborn phase: curled toes, knees drawn up, pursed lips, blissed-out milk drunkeness, swaddling away the startle reflex, random involuntary smiles, coos, and sighs. Tiny oases: napping kids on a cool afternoon, appeasing Amy for a moment with a Goblin plush doll and a 3D printed moon, Josh coming in with a kiss and some water. Wondering in the quiet wee hours when he’ll unfurl himself from his memory of my womb like Amy now recklessly splays out her limbs in slumber. Lovely sunrises on the rooftop and through the south window.
Now for another nappy change. Wish me luck. (Edited later to add: He cried in the warm sitz bum bath, peed on me, and pooped on the changing mat, but otherwise, mission accomplished.)
Header/thumbnail photo by Luca Florio on Unsplash
