For ages, I was always the one with the camera in hand. Since Sammy’s been born, Jay’s taken over – who knew he was such an amazing photographer?
And I might be biased, but that is just one gorgeous baby.
The last of the scab on his incision fell off this week, so Sammy had his first “real” bath today. He didn’t scream up a storm – instead, he only sniffled and let out a few whines. Mama thinks that with some practice, he’ll be just like her and want to spend all day in the warm water.
That’s about all for now. It’s spring and Sammy slept well last night, which means mama and daddy are somewhat refreshed and feeling somewhat normal. We’re all getting cleaned up for a walk along the river, some grilling – and since Grandma & Grandpa are here, mama gets to play in the garden for a little while. All is quiet and well (knock on wood – mama’s favorite pasttime these days since she’s so superstitious) in the Sammy-monkey household.

Apparently, the infants of the world have a secret signal they send out to one another at 5:30 at night. This is the message: now is the time to completely LOSE YOUR SHIT.
The past few evenings, around 5:30, Sammy began screeching and wailing. I mean, make mama cry because she can’t make it any better screeching and wailing. All the parents we know shake their heads at us. Yup, they say. It’s the witching hour. Their kids collectively lost it in the evenings as well. Welcome to parenthood, their shaking heads seem to say.
Our doctor calls it colic. We call it, Oh my god, please stop crying, you’re going to make us cry and oh my god, WHY ARE YOU CRYING??
We’ve tried bouncing on the pilates ball. We’ve tried the bottle. Changing him. The boob. Skin-to-skin. Walking around. Assorted holds and snuggles. Leaning him on our shoulder and humming to him. Everything works for a whopping five minutes, and then we start all over again.
I’m a subscriber to the belief that it’s not a gas issue (something different we’re working on), but rather an issue of overstimulation. So, right now the kid’s swaddled in a Miracle Blanket (THANK YOU ALYE!), rocking in his swing, the lights are off and we’ve got static playing over the surround-sound. Sure, his arms are strapped to his sides and I’m having flashbacks to the TV scene in Poltergeist, but he’s calm and quiet. For now.
It’s like the weather in New England. Don’t like it? Wait five minutes.
Poor baby.
(Edited at 7:35 – he’s STILL ASLEEP and we’re tiptoeing around, begging the cats not to meow too loudly. Yay for baby straightjackets & creepy white noise!)
(Edited at 8:35 – STILL ASLEEP! While we made it through the 3-hour screamfest window with a snoring baby, this likely means less sleep for us tonight. Hmph.)

I’ve always loved that picture. It’s fairly old – 2003? – from when I was working at the teen center. We were celebrating “Happy Day” and I had made t-shirts for all the staff with smiley faces reflecting each person’s personality. Of course, mine was all about the pigtails and daisies. It makes me giggle to think about the girl I was then – young, silly, flighty, hopeful, idealistic.
It’s been a rough couple of months for that girl.
I made it to the women’s group meeting last night, after much coaxing from Jay. I never feel right leaving Sammy, but I’m glad Jay made me go. It was two hours with a group of really awesome women. There were lots of words like empowerment, nurturing, healing, activism, safety, goddess and feminine divine tossed around. I ate it up – I mean, anytime I get to hang out with cool powerful chicks who genuinely care about growing as individuals and creating a healthy community as part of that growth – hell, count me in!
I came home all excited about “nurturing the divine goddess within”. I’m such a cheeseball. Still, I do feel somewhat more focused and calmer than I did before. I’ve felt a bit spinning out of control the past few months, losing touch with who I am and more importantly, what I’m capable of handling. I’m a strong woman. I always have been. I need to reconnect with that. Being a mama – and possibly, a stay-at-home mama – doesn’t take away from who I am. Instead, it adds a new level, a new role, a new piece of me, something amazing that I need to embrace. I shouldn’t be afraid of it and the changes it brings. And even though the group only meets once a month for now, I’m hoping to carry enough with me the rest of the time to help keep me a little more grounded -
- and maybe – just maybe – a little more silly, hopeful and flighty inside.

One of my favorite movies is Fools Rush In. Sure, it’s a cheesy chick flick, but one of the things I quote all the time: There are signs everywhere.
That said, I had a very strange encounter today.
I was in the local organic whole-food, whole-spirit cafe. While she was making up our lunches, I was wandering around, looking at some candles – particularly those for healing and calm. I’m still struggling with the fears and anxieties you’d expect of a mother of a child with a heart condition, plus what I imagine is your standard “switch” into mother mode – I had had it all together before Sammy. I was good at what I did. Now? I just hope to end the day with all of us intact and Sammy somehow better off than he had been when he woke up that morning.
Anyway, I had previously made eye contact with an older gentleman who was sitting at a table, reading a book. He had acknowledged me with a smile, and I thought that he looked Native American. He seemed to be keeping an eye on me as I walked around the small store, and finally, as I had amassed four candles in my arms, he said, “The answer is in the teas.” He nodded over to glass jars of locally grown teas.
Great, I thought. Those are his teas, and he’s trying to sell me on them. I’m all about supporting local farmers, but don’t be coy about it, you know?
So I asked him why. Turns out, he’s an elder from a tribe in Texas (Iroquois? So many of the details ensuing conversation was lost in place of the overall feeling), here to see his 91-year old mother. He had been having some health problems, and the Medicine Woman back home told him to try a specific tea. Sure enough, problem solved. Same with his mother. And same with his friends. Our environment is polluting us, he said. We need to go back to nature.
The conversation turned towards the growing movement looking to nature for healing. He then started talking about the 12 levels of consciousness (?) and how the patriarchy can only achieve 5 levels, and that we need to look to the mother again to move beyond. He was really emphasizing the importance of the matriarchy – how the stories of the past are carried through the mother to the child and how the future is in the children. The path to peace – spiritually and world-wide – is through the mother.
Then he whipped out a small Bible. (This threw me off.) He proceeded to tell me how Jesus’ story from ages 12 to 31 would only be told through his mother. (?) He seemed to see a merging between Christianity and his own spiritual beliefs, and he commented about how the patriarchy had taken the religion and limited what it was meant to be. He emphasized that the role of the mother, Mary, had been diminished from the greatness it embodied.
At one point he mentioned that in his tribe, the elders don’t speak the stories. Words don’t translate well, he said. Instead, they hold the stories in stones, (?) and he quoted the Bible: ” I tell you, men, if these should hold their peace the very stones would cry aloud.”
He went on to explain the peace-stone connection, but I was starting to get confused. Then he said this: “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected peace,” and told me that in order to find peace again, we must look to the children. (He claimed had been changed from the original words from Mary’s version of “peace” to the King James’ “praise”.)
Are you still hanging in there, or did you give up reading paragraphs ago?
I’ll admit, much of it was lost on me – except that last part: “In order to find peace again, we must look to the children.”
I started crying and mentioned, for the first time, that I was a mother to a newborn boy with a CHD. He just looked at me and told me that crying is only good if we find calm on the other side of it. I smiled, we laughed, and he said it again: “The answer is in the teas.”
The answer, I understood, was actually in my child. The peace I’ve been seeking is in him.
I paid for my selection, whereupon the owner of the cafe asked me to join a women’s group that was starting tonight. Much in need of some support and some me time, I told her I’d try my best to make it.
As I walked out the door, he waved his hand and said, “Peace.” I smiled and responded with the same. As I got into the car (with two minutes left on the meter) and turned on the radio, I caught these lyrics, right at this point: “Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride, everything everything will be just fine, everything everything will be all right.”
And yes, I did buy some tea. And yes, there are signs everywhere.

As we’re changing Sammy’s diaper, Jay says to me, “His poop was so bad last night I had to wrap that diaper in another diaper for fear that it would come after us in the middle of the night.”
We’re talking all sorts of fourth of July fireworks from his bum – Sammy’s, not Jay’s – when the day’s (or two day’s) worth of milk decides to make its reappearance. He just had another explosive blowout that could be smelled two rooms down the hall. And he’s got this knack for pulling up his knees to his chest – again, Sammy, not Jay – right as I pull open the diaper, dragging his sweet white socks through the liquid yellow goopy poo.
Yuck, yuck, yuck.
It’s pretty bad – so bad, that Jay just asked me (as I left the room to throw the diaper outside in the garbage) if I was leaving to boil my hands. I think I need to snort some pepper or something, too, to work the smell out of my nose.
Good lord.
(And there you have it – my blog has turned into a mommy blog about poop. And if the last post is any indication – my child can poop better than yours. Prodigy pooper, that kid.
I need to get out more.)

We have the smelliest baby ever. I kid you not – he’s chock full of gas. And it’s not like we get any warning – he’s definitely the “silent but deadly” type. Occasionally, even he’ll get a whiff and make a face like, “Whoa! Who did that?” But he’s still too little to try to blame it on the cats or on dad or the elephant that ran under the chair (name THAT reference!), so we all know it was him. Still, you just don’t expect something that awful to seep out of something so sweet and small.
He smiles, laughs and coos now. I don’t care that the books all say he shouldn’t be doing half of these things for another month or two. OUR child is a prodigy. And yes, I know every parent says that, but ours really is. And yes, I know every parent says that too. But did THEIR kid mimic sound at 7 weeks? I doubt it! See? Prodigy.
Gassy, but a prodigy. We’re two lucky parents, let me tell you.
(On a more serious note: he’s surpassed the 8lb mark, our little Chunkmonkey. He’s put on almost two pounds in the month that we’ve been home! We’re allowed to go out in public now – so we took him out to lunch today, during which he decided he needed to wake up wide, join in the fun and EAT RIGHT NOW. He loves Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good”, insisting on playing at 5:30 in the morning, watching Sports Center with Daddy and when Mama makes an ooo-ing sound at him. He does not like, however, the snot-sucky thing, the camera flash, tummy time, a wet diaper or having to wait for food. All clearly signs of a prodigy, if you ask me.)

I haven’t been sure how to address this, but I didn’t want to let it go any longer – it’s too important to me. A friend we made online, Erin, had a little boy – a really precious little man named Donovan – nicknamed Nova. Nova was born in December with Pulmonary Atresia with VSD.
Sadly, he left us Thursday after a long and heroic battle.
I’ve never dealt well with death – and especially not now, when every day I have to cope with severe anxiety and fear about what Sammy’s future holds. I haven’t written – or spoken, really – much about the anger and fear I fight each day. I don’t want to write or talk about it, so please – don’t ask. For all the cheeriness in my posts, I’ve had my share of exhausting breakdowns in the past few weeks. I know I can’t let it consume me – I don’t want to risk wasting a single moment. I would hate to look back on these early days with Sammy and have them darkened by hours lost in crying.
Nova’s taught me this – to truly appreciate the little man I have in my arms. I can’t imagine the pain Erin’s experiencing right now, but my heart goes out to them in deeper ways than I’ve ever really sympathized with anyone before. I wish I could be a little more eloquent and really find the words to express everything swirling in me right now, to find something poetic and meaningful to say – but I can’t do any of it justice. Another heart parent said it best:

In astronomy, a nova is defined as a star which suddenly flares up to many times its original brightness before fading again.
This is a definition one can apply without much effort to this tiny hero whom I have followed via the blog his mother has dedicated to him. Though this incredible brightness has faded from life, the compassion and inspiration it awakened in all of us who cared to open ourselves to him, is boundless and eternal.
We so often hide from death in our culture. It is difficult to imagine things like this can happen to such innocents. But, impermanence is an essentially integral part of the experience of living. Without accepting death, we are unable to experience life.
The same way light goes unnoticed outside the context of darkness.
The strength and will little Nova showed was a lesson to each of us to face the things we find difficult. To show love and compassion when we are scared. To shine with great brightness before we fade is the challenge we all face in this difficult existence.
I personally have learned these lessons and will practice with as much virtue as I am able as a testimonial to Nova’s strength and courage.

I’m going to go hug Sammy now, and try to find it in me to let go of him long enough to let him sleep on his own tonight.

Sure, it was taken with my phone, but this picture is now my favorite picture ever.
Once upon a time, I would have thought that a Dr. Brown’s bottle was some great new ale my husband was enjoying. Now I know it’s a wonderful invention that helps my poor little monkey suck down tasty boob juice without going into gas-induced spasms. Oh, how our world has changed. This is our entertainment now: betting on how many ounces will he take this time around. People – this is HUGE! We’ve moved from the world of hospital bottles and measuring cc’s of milk to REAL BABY BOTTLES! Sammy’s now decided to make a routine of sucking down massive amounts like he hasn’t eaten in days, either getting this spacy drunk look if it’s been a reasonable amount or a completely stunned look if he’s approaching four ounces – and then passing out cold. Nevermind that he’s gained almost a pound in a week and a half. He’s becoming a chubmeister!
Once upon a time, I read great novels. Now, the BEST BOOK EVER is, without question,
The Happiest Baby on the Block. We’ve rediscovered the wonder that is the swaddle (teamed with the side, shush, swing, and suck that round out the “Cuddle Cure”) – so we’ve actually gotten something that resembles sleep. Some, of course, is relative. I have vague 2am recollections of standing in the bathroom with the water running, rocking Sammy, hoping the shoooshing sound of the faucet might calm him down. (Which it did, and frankly, for all the eco-friendliness of this house, I’d do it all over again every night if it meant getting some sleep.)
Once upon a time, I wrote about things other than baby. I have become one of those moms – you know, the kind that spends all her time with other moms comparing sleep methods and baby strollers. Maybe it’s because of all we’ve been through with him and because we know how delicate life is – but even when he’s screaming his head off at four am – I remind myself of what a pure miracle it is that he’s in my arms, and if it means I can only write about how many ounces he ate or the best way to get rid of that evil gas bubble in his belly, bring on the “mommy blog” title. Bring it on.

Hands up, baby, hands up! Give me your love, gimme gimme your love, gimme all your love… all your looooooooooooove -
or alternately, and less embarrassingly,
I came to get down, so get out your seats and jump around.
Jump around, Jump up Jump up and get down!
By the way, did you know you can turn just about anything into a song to the tune of Frere Jacques?
Stinky Sammy, stinky Sammy, how are you? How are you? Are there poopies, are there poopies, in your pants? In your pants?
Yes, this is how I spend my days.
We’re here. Exhausted, but here. Doodle’s been going through a growth spurt, which means he’s eating every hour to 1 1/2 hours, which translates into no sleep for mama and daddy. And he’s getting his voice back (the ventilator went right through his vocal chords), which means that adorable little peep is now a full-fledged wail when he wakes up starving (which is hard to believe, seeing as that he had just pounded a good ounce or two just seemingly moments before). He’s discovered that his hands are, in fact, his, and he can make mama feel awfully guilty when he shoves his fist in his mouth because mama apparently just can’t get the food fast enough.
So I’m sure we’ll update more when we come through the other side of this and he goes back to a normal routine where we have more than 15 minutes to gather our thoughts – and make another bottle.
Otherwise, yup, he’s still so amazingly cute it almost hurts.