To Eleanor On Her First Birthday

Our second baby was a badly-timed baby. I was ready for our second child from the time Margot turned two. 

“It’s time for a new baby.”

“But I just started this electrician thing. I make no money. We can’t afford a new baby. This is a dangerous job. I’ll probably zap myself, and you’ll have to raise two kids by yourself.”

“It’ll be all right. We have a little savings. We were feeling poor when we were expecting Margot. And then your income shot up and we were fine.”

I brushed off Ian’s worries, but it certainly was a bad time for a new baby. When I was ten weeks pregnant, Ian’s income shot up. And we were fine.

The pregnancy was healthy but I did not feel fine. I had slept through Margot’s pregnancy. Two year old Margot would not let me sleep through this one. I ached from exhaustion. 

The fetus never had a name. It stressed me out.

“Everyone says we’re having a boy.”

“Well, when it’s a girl, what are we going to name her?”

We assumed from the beginning we would have two girls. Everyone else thought our second was a boy. 

Ian always wanted girls. He wanted them so badly that during both pregnancies, he pretended we were having a boy in the early months as a defense against gender disappointment (or more accurately, sex disappointment. Yee haw).

“The pressure is off with this one since we already have a girl.”

That dude was polite but lying. He wanted another girl. 

The confirmation of a second girl was a relief, confirming our deepest instincts. Ian felt so lucky he figured he should buy lottery tickets. 

I assumed I would have a quick labor since I had experienced rapid active labor with Margot. I was correct. 

Early labor began around 10:30pm. Three hours later, I checked into the hospital. Within minutes I began to feel the urge to push. The nurses were decidedly not ready for the baby to arrive. For one, there was no doctor. They called his cell phone frantically. 

Suddenly my body involuntarily pushed so hard I lurched forward.

“Shit!” said one nurse.

“Don’t push!” said another.

I’ve read enough horrific stories to know that when you feel the urge to push, you push. I ignored the nurses and pushed the baby out in three or four pushes. 

Eleanor Xanthe arrived a mere thirty minutes after checking into the hospital, a med-free and doctor-free birth. It was stunningly simple. That entry into the world defines Eleanor to her bones. 

Eleanor, from the moment she arrived, was an easy baby. Having a newborn the first time around stressed me out, but the second one? She was enchanting. Captivating. 

She started sleeping through the night early in her infancy. Where Margot had been perpetually fussy and over-stimulated, Eleanor was cool and calm. 

Eleanor was born with eyes so enormous, she looked alien. Her birth weight was heavier than Margot’s: a big, fat, happy baby. 

She arrived with thick brown hair on the back of her head, an oddity on my side of the family which tends to birth bald babies. Her hair has since lightened to blonde, but still sits thick on the back of her head. She appears to have inherited my dense hair. 

She has always been a physically strong baby. She held her head up early and she rolled early. As a small baby, she took sinister glee in scratching Ian’s face and chest. Every time I handed Eleanor to Ian, he would howl in pain as she raked her sharp nails into his skin.

Newborn Eleanor also yanked my hair with surprising strength. Ian often had to pry a fistful of hair out of her tightened fist, and she’d still be clutching a strand or two that he had been unable to fully wrench from her grasp.

Her devilish hair-pulling has extended to her sister. When Margot blocks her from toys or attempts a painful hug, Eleanor jerks on Margot’s hair while Margot screams.

Eleanor has grown into an exuberant baby, throwing herself headlong into climbing and shimmying. 

She has bashed up her head and lip several times at daycare climbing the toy shelves and using bouncy seats as make-shift trampolines.

While Margot was gentle and nurturing with the younger babies in her infant class, Eleanor regularly yanks toys from their hands and attempts to climb on the infants in their baby seats. 

All the moms and dads in the infant room are besieged by Eleanor when they drop off or pick up their babies. 

She crawls manically over to root through their bags, play with their car seats, jangle their keys, and attempt to steal the toys clipped to the bags or seats. She has been successful a few times, keeping a stolen toy all day until the parent returns.

“We all know Eleanor!” a mother told me with a smile. 

Margot destroys me with sweetness towards her baby sister.

“Eleanor is my best friend. She’s the best baby ever. Someday she'll talk to me!”

At Thanksgiving, she gave all her thanks for Eleanor. Of course, when Eleanor is plowing through Margot’s carefully arranged dinosaurs, it’s difficult for Margot to feel the love. 

I do think they are on the path towards a meaningful and loving relationship though: “Like Roseanne and Jackie!”

The first signs of toddlerhood are upon: the fits, her shaky first steps, her attempts at talking. Eleanor’s babble of choice is “gidden gidden.” (For the curious, Margot’s babble of choice was “deedle dee”). 

Her first word is “kitty.” She calls both the cats and the dog “kitty.”

“She’s growing out of babyhood too fast,” I grumble. 

I cling to her infancy so hard that I scheduled a haircut before her 1 year old pictures, a desperate attempt to keep her looking like a baby. The hair dresser cut off the tiniest start of a mullet, sheering off the bit of toddlerhood that had crept onto Eleanor’s head. 

I want the baby months back, desperately.

I missed a lot of her infancy. I witnessed only 12 weeks in any real detail. I shuffled her off to daycare as soon as my 3 months of “maternity leave” were over. 

If I think about it too hard, I grow despondent so I try not to think about it. The first several weeks away from my infant were viscerally harsh. No amount of repressing could take away that particular pain. 

“You were mean,” Ian says.

I know I was. I remember picking fights just for the hell of it.

Repressing those feelings eventually worked, but I do worry about what repressing that level of rage does to one’s psyche. 

Meanwhile Eleanor has thrived in every aspect of life. She forms strong bonds with the people in her life. Her daycare teachers adore her and tell me how much they dread Eleanor moving up to the toddler room.

“I don’t know what I’ll do. Eleanor is so attached to me, and I’m so attached to Eleanor,” one teacher tells us. 

On the day Eleanor turned 11 months, she sadly pointed out, “Only one more month until Eleanor is old enough to move up.”

We’re 2 for 2 at having babies whose first word is “Mama” and who scream until they are plopped into said Mama’s arms.

It’s a nice feeling to be needed so badly, even when it has screeching overtones of American Psycho: The Baby Edition. 

She has an obsessive need for me, particularly at the end of a long day at daycare in which she has only seen me two hours tops the entire day. 

I really, really get it. I try to respect her instincts by letting her cling to me in the morning before daycare and in the evenings until bedtime.

Eleanor has been a total joy: a charmer, a basher, and cool little cucumber. She smiles easily and laughs quickly.

Ultimately, Eleanor has brought us a sense of peace and completeness. She was our missing puzzle piece, a person who made our family whole. As happy as I felt meeting Eleanor the baby, I'm even more excited about knowing Eleanor the person.

Happy first birthday, Eleanor. You’re exactly who we needed.

My Teddy Bear

"This teddy bear song is horrible. It's awful."

"Margot loves it."

"Yeah."

"Margot also loves eating vaseline."

"Yeah. Heh."

And then Pop Culture Arrived

I was, to be fair, aware of the toddler phenomenon that often sweeps, unabated, through people’s homes. 

But then, these are usually homes where parents happily plant the seed, encouraging, urging, and cheering their tots to take such an interest, as unnerving and unsettling as it might be. 

I’m talking, of course, about Elmo.

With apologies to Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a young tot in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a Sesame Street character obsession. 

In modern speak, kid loves Elmo. 

It certainly didn’t spring from us. We make Margot watch these super lame educational videos featuring zero licensed characters. 

It was all Delmore the Dancing Donkey and other D-List children’s celebrities doing the entertaining at our house, mainly because those videos feature the only children’s songs Ian and I can tolerate. 

I caught a whiff of what was to come one evening when Margot’s daycare report exclaimed that Margot “watched an Elmo video!” I felt an involuntary shiver run down my spine reading those words, but I shrugged it off.

Because some things you just can’t control. Drugs, alcohol, and Elmo are all going to be offered to your child at some point. You just have to have faith that you’re doing your best as a parent, and that your child will find her way through the winding road of youthful temptations. 

A little D.A.R.E. and a little Delmore can go a long way to combating these temptations. Except, they didn’t. 

Ian next caught wind of the dangerous rumblings. Every morning while he and Margot played, he swore he heard her say the name, “Elmo.”  

Soon afterwards, Margot spotted a tiny plastic Elmo toy at my Mom’s house and flipped out. My mother ran upstairs and grabbed a larger stuffed Elmo. 

Maybe it was the logic behind forcing a child to smoke an entire carton of cigarettes after catching him sneaking his first puff of the poison sticks. That’s all I can figure.

Because after Margot met stuffed Elmo, it was all over. Margot scurried down the rabbit hole of Elmo obsession and we’ve been lodged in it ever since. She now toddles around the house calling, “Elmo! Elmo!”

Stuffed Elmo has a prized spot next to Boo, although Boo still reigns supreme as top dog of the stuffed animals. We also allow her a little Elmo screen time now. 

It’s the Elmo screen time that I find most unnerving because I look into his bulging eyes and can only see the demonic come –hither looks of Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers or whoever will take hold of the prepubescent population in 2023. 

When we’re not watching Elmo, I continue to live in my idealized world where Margot will never succumb to trendy muck, instead choosing to build forts, ride bikes, and read classic literature every day. 

Now leave me alone and get out of my delusion; it’s safe and warm in here.

Margot Loves Boo

The weekend Margot began walking coincided with the weekend Margot fell head-over-heels in deep, deep love with her stuffed Boo dog. 

Boo is the miniature Pomeranian with the cropped puppy cut who currently earns about five billion dollars a year because he is so astronomically cute. 

His shrewd owners created a website and licensed his sugary sweet face out to greedy toy execs to create the world’s most adorable stuffed animal. And so, capitalization and corporatization led to the creation of Margot’s first real love in life. 

Boo is Romeo to Margot’s Juliet, the Milli to her Vanilli, the Sonny to her Cher, the wind beneath her wings.  

One day, Margot took only a passing interest in Boo and two days later, she was sobbing into my neck while I hastily washed her hair. For you see, stuffed Boos aren’t water-proof. 

It’s interesting to see Margot undergo that sacred right-of-passage when a young tot latches onto a toy or blanket. Ian and I had assumed she’d attach to a blanket due to the individual blankie lust of our youths. 

Ian called his blankie “Wee” and carried a piece of Wee in his pocket from kindergarten to fourth grade. Wee was finally abandoned in sixth grade or so. 

I, being an all-together more intelligent child, called my blankie “Blankie” and hung on to it for far longer than sixth grade. How long? Well, Ian has not clue where Wee is, but Blankie now resides in my sock drawer. 

Because, what, am I supposed to throw away my tattered rag? The horror. 

Margot’s attachment to a lovie is cute, but Ian and I also feel gripped with terror at the thought of losing Boo, or Boo taking an impromptu trip into the toilet. 

On Sunday, Ian hopped on Amazon and ordered a second Boo to be rotated with first Boo. 

Margot won’t know that we’re rotating an heir and spare from week to week, but we consider this to be as important a form of coverage as our health care plan or car insurance. 

So in conclusion, if you’re ever pondering what to get Margot for a birthday or Christmas gift, SEND BOOS. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SEND BOOS.

The Daycare Diaries: The Election

"There’s something crazy going down at Margot’s daycare."

"Really? What?"

"Margot’s running for class president in the one year old room. Her slogan is, 'Babies are People Too!'"

"I always think you’re being serious…"

"It’s a tough campaign. Margot appeared at her first rally and promised an extra five minutes of recess. The kids went nuts for that."

"Isn’t their entire day comprised of recess?"

"It’s starting to get ugly. Some of the babies have begun smear campaigns."

"I saw a commercial the other day. It showed Margot crying for crack. They edited it, though. She was really crying for crackers."

"Colin’s running a pretty successful campaign. He promises to legalize baby weed. Or at least decriminalize it."

"What’s baby weed? Does it have extracts of meth?"

"I don’t really know the ins and outs of it. But Margot said she’s never inhaled."

"Good."

"Madison and Jayden are the two republican candidates. I hear they're both backed by the Tea Party."

"They use actual tea cups."  

With great power comes great responsibility

When We Nearly Got Consumption

I’m not sure, but I think I may have referenced being sick at least a couple times on this blog. Clearly I was brain addled because I should have referenced it eighty-seven more times than that. 

I have no idea what sort of hazmat industrial waste is being pumped into Margot’s daycare, but our entire family was/is constantly sick. 

Starting in November, when Margot started full time daycare, we each caught a new viral infection at least every two weeks. 

Considering a viral infection typically lasts one week, you can imagine why we thought we would have to check into Dr. Ulysses C. Sander-Hopper’s Sanatorium for Hopeless Cases, where we would be fed a steady diet of Flintstones’ Chewable Morphine™. 

It was steady, never-ending cases of sore throats, stomach viruses, fevers, and strangely colored mucus. 

The AAP claims that breastfeeding prevents ear infections and boost infant’s immunity. Someone really should have sent Margot the AAP literature because that kid wiped out more people with her daycare germs than the English did with smallpox. 

We all had RSV at Christmas, a stomach virus on her birthday, and I caught the flu during my first week at my new job. 

RSV at Christmas 

Margot had about ninety-five ear infections and got tubes. Spring came. I dreamed of summer’s golden promise of no more snot bulbs. 

We kept getting sick every two to three weeks. I got the worst upper respiratory infection of my life in June. It lasted over a month. I went from Zithromycin to Suprax to the stuff they prescribe to people who have been exposed to anthrax.

 

I had clearly lost the war against daycare but, by all means; send in the terrorists, for I can handle it. My body couldn’t handle simple germs, but damn it, I was temporarily impervious to the evil-doers’™ poison of choice.

Before we sent Margot to daycare, Ian and I generally believed we had good immune systems. Or at least functioning immune systems. Eight months of daycare has crippled us, frightened us, and profoundly altered us. 

It’s a lot like when you’re a little kid and you suddenly realize you’re going to die someday. Except we suddenly realized we were going to die that winter.

Ian: “I don’t want to be dramatic, but we’re all going to die.”

Laura: “I know.”

Ian: “Probably next week.”

Laura: “I know.”

I made jokes about catching consumption. Jokes. And then we got word we had possibly been exposed to tuberculosis because of course we were. 

It was like a goddamn episode of Dr Quinn. Hey, come to our house! For we bring tidings of great joy! And cholera!

For one week, we contemplated having to tell folks at work we hadn’t just exposed them to influenza and norovirus, but also Black Death. 

For thy pox spreads rapidly and will taint all in thy good graces, a black lung that will surely smite thee. It was foretold by Edgar Allen Poe in yesteryear. 

Ultimately, it looks like we were not exposed to tuberculosis, But, lo, what a grand tale it did make. 

Now I'm off to the traveling medicine show to buy a bag of leeches and a tin can of rattle snake oil for the next bout of rheumatoid congestion that comes our way. 'Tis good for what ails ya.

To Margot, Age One

You were born during the coldest Spring for more than 50 years. A record-breaking cold-front swept through the city the night you were born, but we had no clue. We were shut away in a hospital room, completely isolated from the outside world, only caring about ourselves: you, me, and your pops.

We had arrived at the hospital shortly after noon that day, after my contractions had amped up to the every-three-minutes my doctor had told me to watch for. They were dull contractions that had begun the night before, too uncomfortable for sleep but too weak for the hospital.

I managed three hours of sleep that night. The next morning Ian called in to work. We knew you were coming soon.

That morning I squirreled away graham crackers and gatorade to sneak into the hospital bathroom and anxiously watched the hours tick past.

We timed contractions and by 11am, I could feel them coming closer together, still dull. Shortly after noon, we motored off to the hospital.

"They don't hurt at all even though they're close together. We're going too early."

"You wanna get Bubble Tea? Or go to the thrift store?"

"Nah. We're almost there; just keep going."

Sometime after 1:00pm the nurse checked me for the first time: "Three centimeters."

After she walked away, I wailed, "Three centimeters!? We're going to be here for hours! We're going to be here all afternoon and all night and into the morning. They'll give me pitocin. This is horrible."

Five hours later, you came screeching into the world, pitocin-free.

Immediately after you came into the world, the nurse whisked you away to your baby station next to me. You were born with a fever. The nurses nudged your dad towards you, reminding him to take pictures.

He snapped some photos and then sheepishly walked back to me, where he clutched my hand and quietly watched the chaos. The nurses chuckled at him, but the doctor kindly remarked, "I stayed with my wife, too."

When we finally held you, we stared at you, a stranger. We were confidants, lovers, introverts, and now, parents, who were going to let you, a strange little interloper, into our lives to share our home and our secrets.

It felt vaguely terrifying.

Your infancy has flown by. I spent six glorious months at home with you on maternity leave, and I loved every moment of it despite your clinginess.

Daycare has been the hardest part of your babyhood because my heart breaks every time I leave you at your little school.

I talk wistfully about the days I stayed home and wonder aloud whether I could stay home again, even while you're shrieking angrily and your dad is pulling a face because my god, woman, the screaming. Are you nuts?  

You always hated baby food. You demanded table food as soon as we started you on solids. You eat everything.

I snuck you some white cheddar Cheetos once and have paid for it dearly ever since because you screech when you see me eating them, begging for a bite. And, well, they're the organic Cheetos, so why not?

When you eat, you rub food onto your head for reasons we shall never understand. You drag grease and sauce through your hair until it's standing on end. After every meal I must scrub your head with a dishcloth, lest you attract ants.

I have hauled my breast pump to work everyday for the past six months and dutifully locked myself away, fielding awkward questions and ill-timed knocks so you can feast on breast milk rather than formula.

Studies have recently scandalized our Breast is Best world because they show that breast milk doesn't really make a difference in the long run, and, hell, I've been saying that since you were born.

And I'm so tired of pumping that I declare you are starting on formula tomorrow, first thing, bright and early. But then morning arrives and I doggedly pack my pump and bottles like always, lest one drop of evil formula passes your precious lips because I am clearly an insane hypocrite.

You are so adorable that your dad and I can hardly stand it, and we sappily declare you the cutest baby in the world. Your dad acknowledges that every parent thinks this but goes on to decide that maybe, just maybe, you really are the cutest baby in the world.

You say "Mama", "Dada", and "Kee Cat." You call every animal you see a "Kee Cat", including the horse who lives next door.

We were constantly sick from the daycare viruses this winter. You dad and I have never been so sick in all our adult lives. I briefly considered hanging a sign upon our front door that reads "Abandon all Hope, Ye Who Live Here."

But your dad gazes fondly at photos of you grocery shopping just before a winter storm hit and remarks, "This winter was the greatest. I usually feel down during the winter but having Margot in those little outfits made it happy."

Your hair is slowly growing in, blonde fuzz that sticks up wildly. You have your father's features but your mother's face shape. Your skins is as sensitive as your father's, and we have to rub you down with a trifecta of lotion, diaper cream, and lanolin every evening.

You love electronics: iPhones, iPads, remote controls, and electrical cords. You pay little attention to your toys and no attention to your stuffed animals. You'd rather have the wires from your dad's latest project.

You like to pet the dog but get annoyed when she licks you, screeching in frenzied protest. You adore beating on the cats like they're oddly-shaped drums, but only the fat one allows you close for any length of time.

You love the other babies in your daycare class. You crawl over to crying babies and pat their backs. Your teacher calls you "a big help."

You've been the oldest baby in the class since you were 8 months old, and you know it. Your other teacher calls you "Queen Bee" because you go from baby to baby, patting their arms and bouncing their seats.

"Margot's very motherly," she tells me.

The baby in you is slowly disappearing. We take you to some gardens to snap photos just before your first birthday, and I'm shocked by the sudden appearance of relatively spindly legs.

That same weekend, you suddenly explode into a non-stop babbler, earnestly trying to impart your wisdom using your bizarre alien language.

You love "reading". You flip through your books and babble about each page. When I ask you to read me a story, you fetch your books and earnestly chirp through each one. I can't wait for you to talk with real words.

I have snapped a million photos of you as a baby, desperate to remember everything, knowing how fast it's going, and knowing the days of you needing me so terribly will rapidly vanish. But I'm so excited to see you grow and change.

Happy birthday, Margot. I'm so glad you're ours.