2.5 & .33

Here is an unfinished draft of a blog post I was composing a year and a half ago:

Okay, so the reason I was reminiscing about what it used to be like with Zuzu is because now that she's 9 months old, she's so fun, so fun fun fun, that I can't believe I didn't think the early months were boring.  And I really didn't.  I have continually been delighted and fascinated by her.  At every moment I have wanted her growing-up to slow down, not speed up.

But seriously.  She used to just lie there.

Now: she crawls! She stands! She laughs! She claps! She plays!

I wish I'd kept writing, so I could relive more of the 9-month-old version of Zuzu. So here are a very few bits and pieces of what the kids are like right now, more for my sake than anyone else's.

Zuzu is now two and a half. There is a poem that has been written about her:
          There was a little girl,
                 Who had a little curl,
          Right in the middle of her forehead.
                 When she was good,
                 She was very very good,
          But when she was bad she was horrid.

I don’t like the word horrid applied to Zuzu, but it’s all true, even the curly hair, and especially the fact that she’s everything rolled up in one person—the very very good, and the very very naughty.

She likes to do things on her own, and I love letting her do things on her own. It makes life easier for me when she can get a cheese stick by herself, instead of waiting for me to finish nursing Bear so I can open the fridge for her. She can dress herself, and definitely has strong opinions about what to wear, but the results are not always fit for public.

She chatters fluently, and likes to be understood. She will often repeat a statement until we have correctly interpreted it and repeated it back to her. (This can get a little nerve-wracking if we have no idea what she’s saying, but usually we can figure it out quickly.)

Right now it is very interesting to her to categorize things. Wet and dry, bright and dark, girl and boy.



Bear is four months old, and still at the just-lying-there stage, but just-lying-there is obviously a matter of perspective. He:

• kicks his legs like he's trying to break down a door
• stares intently at people and objects. One of his favorite objects to stare at is a two-tone blanket my sister gave me that has words written on it in big capital letters. This blanket, when not in use, is usually folded up and draped over the couch in the place where I sit holding him all the time. Therefore, when he's on my shoulder getting burped or whatever, he's facing the blanket. And when I crane my head to look at his face while he's in this position, I find him in deep, wide-eyed concentration. Besides the blanket, he loves looking at many objects, but I think he likes people best
• coos in the most beautiful sing-songy voice, gentle and sweet and happy
• gives big open-mouthed smiles
• laughs! Not long laughs, short bursts of laughs
• wraps his fingers around anything they touch with a vice-like grip

And much more than this, like drooling and chewing on his hands, etc. He still has some of his newborn hair, but it’s light brown now, and new hair is coming in that seems to be dirty-blondish like Zuzu’s. He’s a big, solid, heavy, sweet, wonderful little baby boy.

Minutiae

Every so often I read a little article or blog about how hard moms work, describing in detail the stains on clothes, Cheerios in couch cushions, LEGOS on the floor, etc. Before I had kids, I think these articles made me subconsciously uneasy at the prospect of motherhood. Since kids, it’s strange to say that I’ve caught myself thinking, “Oh, quit griping—mothers aren’t the only ones who work hard.” In fact, everyone I know works hard, parents or not. It is an understatement to say they work hard.
    But I do it too. I chronicle the minutiae of child-rearing—the clothing stains, Cheerios, LEGOS, and so very much more. And I know it sounds like I’m griping, and on one level I am, but that isn’t really the reason for it. And it isn’t even about bragging, although I’m doing a little of that too. It’s that there’s no other way to convey to you what I did all day.
    Other jobs have quantifiable tasks associated with them. You’re a student? You can say: “I wrote a 40-page paper.” A sales rep: “I made 30 calls today.” An artist: “Look, I painted that.” And we’re duly impressed. We understand the time-consuming nature of these activities.
    The fact is, when I’m home with the kids all day, I feel suspicious that no one will ever know how busy I was. Anders does know, but it’s easy to believe that he won’t unless I tell him, and telling him involves chronicling the minutiae. If I say “today we baked cookies,” that doesn’t come anywhere close to explaining why it took three hours or why he should be so, so impressed that the kitchen at this moment is relatively clean.
    Being with kids is about minutiae—minutiae on top of minutiae. It’s putting a pacifier into a baby’s mouth, over, and over, and over. Wiping a runny nose a thousand times, repeating the same phrases, singing the same songs, cleaning the same messes.
    These words seem like complaining, but they’re not. At the end of the day, my ears are full of the sound of my children’s voices; I close my eyes and see their pink plump cheeks; I smell the fragrance of my baby’s wonderful milky breath, and I feel as rich and blessed as any woman that ever walked the earth.
    I’m just telling you that sometimes the house is messy, and the art project we started two weeks ago is still sitting on the table, and there’s so much that hasn’t been done, that it may look like nothing was done at all. So let me chronicle the minutiae now and then. It adds up to a very full day.

Easter means church and nice clothes

I realized as I was washing and folding Bear’s preppy little Easter outfit that I should have bought two Easter outfits at minimum. The chances of a diaper blowout are pretty high, and I don’t have a backup. So here at least is a picture of the outfit, and if I have time before church on Sunday, which I won’t, I’ll take a picture of him in it, since I might be changing him out of it again immediately. Maybe I’ll put him in a onesie, and then saran-wrap the onesie, and then put the Easter outfit over that. (I'm joking. There must be a reason they don't sell plastic onesies, right? Overheating issues or something?)

I got it secondhand at Once Upon a Child—the best savings there are on dressy clothes. 

Zuzu’s dress was a gift from my Aunt Ofelia, so of course it is perfect and classy. I’m picturing braiding Zuzu’s hair and putting flowers in it. Wouldn’t that be darling? Aww … that won’t happen. I’m sure I’ll yank her curls up into a ponytail with two minutes to go before the service begins like usual.

Our trip to the Good Friday service was sort of a drill. Anders was planning to go, but he got called to work, and when Zuzu & Bear & I left our house we were already 15 minutes late. We found out when we arrived that there was no childcare provided, so we went to the empty nursery and just hung out until the service ended. I wouldn’t have bothered to go because of how late we were, except I thought it would be confusing for Zuzu to not go to church after I had told her like 19 times that we were going to church, as I rushed her around the house getting ready. It was probably still confusing for her to play in the quiet nursery for a few minutes and then go home again. As we pulled into the church parking lot, I prayed, “God, please let this somehow not be embarrassing.” And I guess He answered my prayer. It was a tenebrae service which means it was dark and solemn, and there was no way I was going to walk into the sanctuary 20+ minutes late with a chatty toddler and a very awake infant, find a seat and strip off our coats and shush the kids and finally get settled in about the time the service ended. As it was, we came in unnoticed, as far as I know, and walking out no one knew the difference. The audio from the service comes into the nursery, so I still got to hear a lot of it.

I feel like even excursions like this pay off somehow. It’s practice. It warmed us up for the Easter service, maybe.

We talk to Zuzu about God a lot, but I haven’t talked about Jesus dying on the cross much. In honor of Good Friday I thought it was time to start explaining it to her. It’s such a familiar story to me that it was strange to try to find the right words for a two-year-old. She listened sweetly and then brightly exclaimed that her lion didn’t want to drink any tea, and that was the end of it.

But I’m pretty sure even conversations like this pay off, too. It’s amazing what she hears and remembers when you don’t think she’s paying attention.

One to Two

Going from one to two kids was way easier than going from none to one. I don’t remember exactly how I was picturing maternity leave while I was pregnant with Zuzu, but I’m sure I thought I would do things, like cook and bake and exercise and maybe even get to know the neighbors or volunteer somewhere. Then the baby came, and my only personal goal was to take a shower every day. That’s it—just make sure I shower. If I did a load of laundry, I was triumphant. If I did a load of laundry and took Zuzu out for a walk, I bragged about it to Anders. If I did anything at all before noon, I felt like superwoman.
    That was when Anders started cooking. My lunches were consisting of peanut M’n’Ms and Cheez-Its, because it seemed like every time I pulled out turkey for a sandwich or starting slicing an apple, Zuzu was crying. And I was hungry. So I reached for whatever would get calories into my body the fastest. And dinner, if left to me, was going to be more of the same. So Anders quietly began reading food blogs and experimenting in the kitchen, and then suddenly he was a gourmet, and now he’s serving things like turkey milanese and crab legs and paella and I am not complaining.
    The house got gradually messier. Specifically, the two catch-all places in the house, our bedroom and the workshop in the basement, became close-the-door-and-pretend-it-doesn’t-exist zones. We were stacking up mess faster than I was putting it away. I didn’t understand when I was supposed to be doing things like cleaning.
    Slowly we figured out how to do life with a kid. It was different, messier (the basement has never recovered), but it was a natural, us-plus-baby rhythm.
    Then Bear came along, and life pretty much continued like normal. There was the brief physical recovery after his birth, and my family was here for that, first my sister, then my parents, cooking dinner, washing all the dishes, doing all the laundry, putting away the Christmas decorations. When they left, I resumed doing three loads of laundry in a day without needing to shout this fact from the rooftops.
    It helps that Bear is such a good baby. Know what also helps? A bouncy seat. I didn’t have a bouncy seat with Zuzu. I plop Bear in there all the time and he stares at the frog that dangles down from the handle, and I can pump it up and down with my foot while doing dishes or whatever.
    And to be honest, I’m also much more lackadaisical about letting Baby #2 cry while I finish slicing that apple than I was with Baby #1.
    But mostly I think it’s because the mental adjustment has already been made. My daily plans are kid-oriented now anyway. They’ve been kid-oriented for two years. And I love it. I go to bed at night thinking about play dough recipes. I have no idea what I thought about before kids, but play dough is better. Life with kids is great.
    I don’t know if it would work this way if I kept having kids, but I do know that Bear entered a family with a mom and dad, whereas Zuzu entered a family with just a girl and guy—an untrained, untried girl and guy whom she transformed into parents. I don’t mean we aren’t still naive and learning as we go, I just mean that pre-parenthood and parenthood are different worlds, and I live in the messier, wonderful world of parenthood now.

Nostalgia

I wrote last week about the wonderful new family dynamic we have with a second child. But there’s a flip side.
    One of the things I wasn’t prepared for when Bear was born was the nostalgia I’d feel for the days when Zuzu was the center of our universe. I was alarmed by this nostalgia, because it seemed akin to regret at having another baby, which I was absolutely not willing to allow. My heart was brimming with love for Bear, so I tried to banish the nostalgia. After all—when Zuzu was born, I never wanted to go back to the time before she was born. It should be the same with Bear.
    One night when Bear was about a week old, I was putting Zuzu to bed and was about to sing the bedtime lullaby I had made up for her, and started crying instead. The nostalgic feeling finally washed over me. I’d made up that bedtime lullaby when Zuzu was a small baby, while I held her, swaying back and forth, the child who had opened up that deep place in my heart and let the mommy love gush forth. And I’d sung it to her almost every night since then, my only child, the most special child on the planet. It used to be just us, and now it wasn’t, and never would be again.
    Because Bear fits in so well to our family, the nostalgia faded quickly. It is still there, but it is sweet and gentle now, and it only comes when I reminisce. So I wish I had let myself feel the stronger version before that night. It was both legitimate and short-lived.
    I’ve always known I wanted more than one child, because I grew up with a big sister and it was great. She was my best friend. So I knew that siblings are good. Before and during my pregnancy with Bear, I would look at Ginny playing by herself and think how glad I was going to be when she had a companion.
    It didn’t occur to me that the addition of that companion would mean the loss of something else. Zuzu’s days of being our only child had ended, and I had to say goodbye to them, with a heartache I didn’t anticipate.
    When Zuzu grows up she probably won’t remember the pre-Bear days of her life. But I will remember the joy and wonder of those two years, Anders and me looking at each other and saying “What did we do with ourselves before Zuzu came along?” and shaking our heads, because before Zuzu came along we didn’t understand how much richer our lives would be when she did, and now we couldn’t imagine life without her, our happy, chatty, curly-haired little girl bouncing as she runs through the house, and me singing to her at bedtime: “There’s a mommy and a daddy who love you very much …”
    Siblings are good. So we welcomed Bear with thankfulness and joy, and said goodbye to the Zuzu-only days. But I think it’s okay if we miss them a little bit.

A Family of Four

Before Zuzu, I didn’t understand the way parents love their children, though I probably thought I did. I knew I’d love Zuzu, but my excitement for her arrival didn’t always outweigh my dread of sleepless nights and poopy diapers. Then I had her, and her baby smell and her soft skin and her smallness and her dependence on me made my heart swell until it burst, and torrents of mommy love gushed from a reservoir I didn’t know existed. Mommy love is joyous and awe-filled and unconditional and fun …
    So when I was pregnant with Bear I was more excited than when I was pregnant with Zuzu. The mommy love was already flowing before I met him.
    But Bear brought his own surprises. What I hadn’t expected was the sense of completeness he brings to our family. I didn’t know how much I would love saying “the kids.” I didn’t know how much I would love being a family of four.
    I love being a family of four. I’m looking forward to Zuzu and Bear being playmates, sharing memories and inside jokes, teasing and heckling and comforting and learning from each other. That’s why the words “sister” and “brother” are special—cuz they’re always full of stories. Before Bear was born, sister wasn’t part of who Zuzu was. And it’s more than that: it’s big sister. And because of Zuzu, Bear isn’t just baby—he’s baby brother. I love the family dynamic we have now.
    This time, I knew about the euphoria of holding my newborn baby in the hospital. I knew how satisfying it would be when he latched to nurse. How much I’d adore his little sucking noises, and the smell of his head (oh the smell of his head!). I knew the inordinate pride I’d feel about everything, his cheeks, his chubby thighs, his neck strength, his powers of observation.
    I just didn’t know how he’d round us out and fill a void I hadn’t been aware of. We aren’t sure if we’ll have more kids or not, but now that we have Bear, we feel whole. Mom, dad, big sister, little brother. The Helquist family.

Andersson's Birth Story

Introducing: Andersson Kiefer Helquist

Here is the birth story ...

My labor with Andersson was wonderful. It started in the morning and ended before bedtime. My water didn’t break until the very end, so the contractions were cushioned and the pain was manageable. For most of the day I was relaxed and having fun.
    With Ginny’s labor, I felt nary a contraction until labor began. This time, I had two false labors. Both lasted for hours and the contractions were regular and decently strong. Knowing that second babies can come fast, we were afraid to wait too long to call Anders’ mom, who lives 90 miles away and was slotted as the babysitter.
    As soon as we called, she came. She drove an hour and a half in the snow, in the middle of the night, twice. The second time she stayed. She was here for days, right before Christmas, giving up her time at the busiest season of the year so she could be with Ginny when we needed to go to the hospital.
    And then I kept not needing to go to the hospital. I hadn’t reached my due date yet, but I was going bonkers. Those two nights of false labor tricked me into thinking the real thing was going to happen any moment. I lay in bed each night, hoping and praying that labor would start again before morning. And day after day, I got up and went to work and came home and nothing happened, and if you’ve been there you know exactly what it’s like, the waiting, and how tough it is.
    Andersson was due on December 29. The day after Christmas, my sister Elisa flew into town from Arizona. She came alone for a week-long trip, leaving behind her three boys, the youngest of which was just over a year old. That’s a long time to be away from one’s family, but I’m so glad she made the sacrifice, because it was fabulous having her here, and her timing turned out to be perfect.
    My mother-in-law passed the baton to Elisa and went home, after being with us for nearly a week. The next day was Friday. I went to work. By this point I was bored at work. A few days earlier I was scrambling, worried about leaving a mess for my coworkers, but I’d finally done the best I could to wrap things up, and it was killing me to stick around. What is the point of leaving instructions if you’re going to be there to do it anyway?
    Friday night we went out. We ate dinner at the food court at the mall, and there was some odd confusion at checkout over whether it was possible for me to get a smaller plate of spaghetti or if it only came in large. In one shop, a friendly one-armed carpenter was selling a beautiful, child-sized, handmade wooden rocking chair, and Elisa bought it for Ginny. We went to Best Buy to exchange my brand-new touchscreen laptop because it was being finicky, and the customer service associate was grumpy and told me there was nothing wrong with it, so we returned it for money and walked out computer-less.
    And that’s the end, almost, of the story of my life before Andersson, because Saturday morning labor began for real. I noticed the first contraction around 7:00. I knew we were in business this time, because standing up and moving around made the contractions increase, rather than go away, like they did before.
    As I said, my labor was wonderful. We opened Christmas presents while I timed contractions using an app on my phone. I kept looking at sweet Ginny, happily playing like everything was normal. Anders went to the grocery store and came home with big yummy muffins. It was weirdly warm outside, so Elisa and I took a walk, pausing mid-stride every time a contraction hit.
    After the walk it was apparent to everyone that the time had come to head to the hospital. The pain was getting worse and the contractions were close enough together that we sensed the end was near. So we left in the mid-afternoon. I think we got to the hospital around 4:00. Elisa stayed home with Ginny.
    And then things happened fast. I was five centimeters dilated when I arrived, but the contractions from that point on were awful. Things became a blur while I focused on getting through the pain. A nurse was in the room when suddenly I started pushing with contractions. The pushing part for me is involuntary; my body just does it.
    The doctor who was on call had already been called elsewhere, so they had to call up another one. While we waited for the second doctor they brought in a midwife. Her name was Annie and she was just what I needed. She spoke firmly, gently, reassuringly. She told me what to do and what was happening. My water hadn’t broken yet. She said it would break soon and the baby was right behind it. Moments after I felt a pop and a warm gush. The baby, however, took some time to complete the journey. Annie told me how to breathe, how to push, how to hold my legs, and she reported on the baby’s progress after each push. Anders’ voice was in my ear the whole time—I am pretty sure he repeated the line “you’re doing great, you’re doing so great” about two thousand times.  The contractions were two or three minutes apart and I went limp between them, trying to rest, to save up my strength for the pushes, because I put everything into each push and for the longest time it felt like nothing was happening, and here’s the thing: I knew Andersson was gonna be a big baby. He was measuring big at my prenatal appointments and he felt big. I’d gone into the labor experience half expecting that he wouldn’t fit and I’d have to get another C-section. But if that happened, first there would be a long period of fruitless pushing.
    The period of pushing lasted about an hour and a half, but it wasn’t fruitless! Halfway through, the doctor came in and took over for Annie, but I think she stayed in the room. The doctor barely spoke until the end, but when I heard him say “that’s how you push out a baby” I knew it was going to work. And then I knew for sure, because the baby’s head began to emerge, but he wasn’t out yet, and merciful heavens those couple minutes were uncomfortable to say the least.
    Then out he slipped, so fast I don’t know how the doctor and nurses caught him. I was so happy he was out, so happy that I’d done it, and so happy to have my baby, that I could have sung the Hallelujah Chorus, exhausted though I was.
    They put him on my chest for what felt like all of ten seconds before whisking him away again to get cleaned up. He was purple and he was huge and he had bountiful dark hair, and I was fiercely, fiercely proud of him. He was born at 8:22 p.m. on December 28. He was nine pounds, six ounces.
    They gave him back to me, bundled in a blanket with that little nightcap on his head, and I told him how happy we were to have him. But our special bonding time was impeded by the tormenting process of getting stitched up, combined with my uterus being relentlessly pushed on by a nurse.  This part seriously hurts. Mothers out there, can I get an amen.
    The doctor said I bled a lot, and he had to carefully find and stitch all the tearing. At one point I caught a glimpse of an enormous metal instrument that I can only assume was then inserted inside me. There was also a flashlight involved. It felt like it took forever—45 minutes according to Anders. I wanted so badly to be left alone to gaze adoringly at Andersson.
    Finally, finally, we were in the recovery room, and our big baby boy was in my arms instead of in my belly! The VBAC was successful! I’d delivered a baby with no meds! And Andersson was so snugly!
    Anders and I had picked out our boy name before we were even married, but it wasn’t until I was pregnant that we began to discuss the spelling. Even when we wrote it down in the hospital that night, we were sort of shrugging at each other like, “two S’s? Are we going with two S’s?” and we did, because there are two S’s in “Anders’ son,” and because it looks cool and Swedish, but we still felt insecure about the decision, like maybe he would grow up disliking it.
    We pronounce it with a short A, like the last name Anderson. And that’s confusing for everyone who knows Anders, and assumes it ought to be pronounced like his name, beginning with an “Ah” sound. Nope, it’s a short A. But honestly it strikes me as a kind gesture when people pronounce it “Ah.” I feel a little bad, because first everyone had to learn how to say Anders’ name, and now we’re making them relearn it for Andersson. The short-A version just sounds better, and will give him less grief in the long run.
    I love being in the hospital. Our hospital, anyway. I love having sweet nurses at my beck and call, having food brought to me and dirty dishes taken away, doing nothing besides sleeping and holding a baby. For some reason I want to eat lemon meringue pie when I am in the hospital. I ordered lemon meringue pie with lunch and dinner the whole time we stayed. And I also get excited about the jello. I’m not kidding.
    Elisa came with Ginny the next day. Anders snapped photos as fast as he could while Ginny held baby Andersson and kissed him. The ease with which she accepted him made me think that she understood more than I realized when we were talking about her soon-to-come baby brother while I was pregnant.
    And the third day, we came home! It felt nothing like coming home with brand-new Ginny, when we sat there wondering what to do with the extra little person in the house, not sure at all how we would keep from breaking her, and what life was going to look like from then on. It felt normal to have Andersson. He just belongs here!
   
In many ways, labor with Andersson and labor with Ginny were quite similar. The at-home part for both was fun, exciting, relaxing, and somewhat lengthy. It seems my body dilates from zero to five centimeters pretty slowly, and from five to ten centimeters pretty quickly. We went to the hospital for both at the exact right time … and that’s where the stories become quite different. With Ginny, multiple nurses checked me for dilation and couldn’t find my cervix. Finally one said I was only dilated a centimeter, and they recommended I go home since I might not have the baby for a few days. I’m certain now that I was around the five-centimeter mark or so, and the nurse was measuring the dilation of poor Ginny’s bum, not my cervix. The end of that story of course is that I got home right around the time transition started, which was completely awful, and two hours later we were in the car rushing back to the hospital because I was pushing with each contraction and they were coming hard and fast. When we got there, a nurse checked me for dilation and said “Hang on, I think I’m feeling a baby butt”—which meant a breeched baby (surprise!) and an emergency C-section.
    Now that I feel like I’ve got the labor process all figured out, we will probably have a third child and things will probably be radically different.
    Nope, we're not talking about more kids yet … two is absolutely great!