Monthly Archive for May, 2009

Over the rainbow

Published on Sunday, May 31, 2009 in Leave a litte room for romance. 21 Comments

2009 … There was fresh cod at the market, so I cooked it up with lemon and capers and rice pilaf and we ate at the big table and talked about Mare’s first piano recital and how Renny wants to take Chinese lessons. The late spring night turned gray and a warm rain spatted down into the garden green. Nursing Eden after supper, I glanced out the window and saw a rainbow, and the five of us poured out of the house into the mist and Cute Husband kissed me while the girls ooh’d and ahh’d at the vividness of the colors in the slate gray sky. Moonlight the Cat followed the girls, as he always does, and he stood looking at the rainbow, too, even though he had no idea why.

2008 … We spent the night in Providence, drank champagne and played air hockey at Dave and Buster’s.

2007 … Ducky had died just four weeks prior and I couldn’t stand it. Cute Husband brought me flowers and kissed me quietly and we left it at that.

2006 … Cute Husband was back from Holland and everyone was in town for his law school graduation. We ate pizza in the living room at The House and reveled in calling him “counselor.”

2005 … I was pregnant with Ren. We left Mare with a sitter and went to dinner and he bought me turquoise sandals and we looked at diamonds and pretended we could afford them. Four days later they found the lead dust in The House.

2004 … Mary’s first ever overnight without us. She stayed with Aunt Emily and we went to the Red Lion Inn in Lenox. Emily let us take the Miata. We ate appetizers and listened to a local band at the bar and drove around the countryside with the top down.

2003 … Mary was six months old. We left her with our friends at the Coffee Shop in Beaufort and went off alone together for the first time since her birth. We played mini-golf and drank horrible rum drinks on the beach. With our last pennies, we bought a hot dog for dinner.

2002 … I was pregnant with Mare. Cute Husband came back from a mini-deployment just in time for us to eat steaks at Beaufort Grocery.

2001 … The steaks at Beaufort Grocery tradition began.

2000 … At the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters in Norfolk, Virginia. I left work in Washington, drove three hours in the convertible. When I got there, he had Our Song playing on the laptop, votive candles flickering throughout the room. Horrible pina coladas in cheap flowered glasses from the PX. And Uncle Ben’s rice bowls in the microwave. The room smelled like beach cottage and camouflage paint.

1999 … We cashed in the coupon for a free “top tier” replica of our wedding cake — chocolate covered in marzipan with fresh flowers. We ate it out of the box with two forks, on the East Lawn of the Capitol under a cloudless blue sky. The Marine Band was giving a concert, and just as Cute Husband went to kiss me, they struck up, “The Marine Hymn.”

“Sorry, hon,” he said, getting to his feet and standing at attention.

1998 … The sun has set. We clasp hands and walk down to the flowered arch under which we were married a few hours ago. The photographer follows us. I lift my dress carefully — it was Ducky’s mother’s — and we stand under the arch still as we can while the photographer adjusts the camera. This is the shot we wanted, silhouetted against the stars and the flowers and the night, all filmy lace and quietness and dreams.

“I hope it’s not the best day of our lives,” I whisper.

“What?” he asks. He was always the romantic of the two of us.

“I hope it gets better. I hope eleven years from now, we wouldn’t trade where we are for where we were.”

“Eleven? Why eleven? Why not, like, ten or fifteen?”

“Because it’s more than ten. And it’s not quite fifteen –when we’ll be really old.”

“Stand still, you two, if you want this shot to come out.”

We stand still, but the shot never really does come out, or maybe it did, I don’t know, the photograph is in a box somewhere. Best days and worst days mingle along the ribbon of time that brought us here — each in its time and space, and each gone forever in its turn.

And I wouldn’t trade now for then.

21 Comments

Vinaigrettes — In a Pea Soup Fog of Sleep Deprivation

Published on Saturday, May 30, 2009 in Our Eden. 17 Comments

Much of what the children say to me these days gets all garbled like snow on an old television screen and I have to kind of prick my ears up like antennae to get the signal through.

And sometimes, even then, it’s not getting through.

“Wah,” Eden says. I am struggling to get her skinny chicken legs into a onesie. Milk is leaking, I am uncomfortable, the phone is ringing.

“WAH,” she says.

Mare is talking to me.

“… please? Just one?”

“Um. NO,” I say. I have no idea what she’s asking me for, but I can’t deal right this second and no is safe and she leaves and that’s good and now I’m still wrangling this irritated chicken.

“WAH!” Eden says.

“Momma?” It’s Ren.

“Yeah, Babe?”

A few long seconds pass and she’s staring at me and I adjust the atenna and dig into my memory and it’s in there.

“Tootsie Rolls?” I ask. “You want some? Yes. Fine,”

“YAY!” Ren says. She skips out the door and that’s when I notice Mare standing in the doorway. They clasp hands and cackle.

“What?” I ask.

“I KNEW IT!!” Mare says.

“IT WORKED SISSY!!”

“What? What worked?” I ask.

“Ren! I sent Ren in to ask you! She always knows just how to ask so people give her stuff!”

That’s, like sixteen kindsa wrong. I need to fix that.

###

After several hours of wondering, I open the cheese drawer in the fridge and get the answer to where the freaking sponge went.

###

I can’t remember any of their names any more. It’s like, “Oh, hey, you … that one. I’ve forgotten your name, and I’m super-sorry about that. Could you grab me a diaper? And are you old enough to reach the fizzy water? No? That’s not you? Oh, whatever, hand me the diaper and be on your way. Oh, and ask the other one about the fizzy water, would you?”

###

“You parked too close!”

– The man mouthing this to me through the closed window of the mini-van is in his late sixties, standing behind his Mercedes convertible, glaring at me. It is the third time he has said it, and I have pretended not to understand.

Even though I know perfectly well what he is saying.

On a full night’s sleep, free of ache and anxiety, I would not get dragged into this. I would just stare blankly and drive away. But today, I roll the window down.

“You parked too close,” he says in a tone of deeply satisfied annoyance.

“That’s because you’re over the line,” I say.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, y’are.” I close the window. He’s mad and he starts his car and I start mine and I pull the Looser Cruiser cleanly out of the spot — because, folks, don’t mess with a chick who drives a mini-van — and he is looking over his shoulder to pull out and cut me off and BAM!! — He hits the car in front of him.

Wrong gear.

“MOMMA!!” Mare says.

“I KNOW!!” I say.

###

Eden wakes up almost every hour. I feed faithfully. At the clothing store yesterday the attendant assumed Eden was a preemie.

So I feed and I try not to worry.

She’s finally learning to nurse lying down. I stroke her hand and she squeezes mine and these gigantic eyes peer up at me and blink slowly. And that gets through the fog, like a light sweeping a beach.

17 Comments

In Which DaMomma Gets Her Groove Back

Published on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 in Child Cruelty and Little Things That Rock My World. 44 Comments

(“ARDT! ARDT, ARDT!!” — Keep this, you’re going to need it later. It is the sound a trained seal makes asking for treats after a successful task.)

On the drive to Target it occurs to me, this is not the family I signed on for.

“MAAAAAAAAAYER!!” Renny shouts. She has a gift for this — a squeal that would curdle paint.

“NoooooooooOOOOo, Renny!!” Mare answers, then cries.

“Wah,” adds Schmoop. “Wah.”

I hate them. They’re horrible. I grip the steering wheel as the noise rises to a high crescendo.

I have no idea what they are fighting over. I don’t think that they have any idea what they are fighting over. It has been like this for weeks. No one has expressed any direct hostility toward the baby so far — just toward everything else they can possibly think of.

We arrive at Target.

“Can you get us a treat?” they whine in the entryway.

“Do we have to be here long?”

“What are we getting?”

“Can you get us a treat?”

“Can we ride in the cart?”

Then they fight over who gets to get in the cart first, and who gets to sit at which end and who is taking up more room.

“Wah,” Eden says.

And then we are going up and down the aisles and despite my telling them there will be no treat if they ask again, they’re asking.

“Candy? Can we have candy? How about ice cream? Oh, Momma, how about that great big slide can we get that?”

“Wah,” Eden says.

This is it. This is my life, now. I’m wheeling a cartload of whiny kids around, begging for a shot of liquor and some really tiny straitjackets.

I’m so tired. My diet of bland carbs and mother’s milk tea isn’t cutting it, and the nights of nursing and worrying and cleaning up barf are taking their toll. I need a break and instead I got this.

And then I see myself in all my absurdity — complaining about a situation I have created. Blaming the children hanging from the shopping cart because no one is stopping them.

I stare at them, they stare at me, and then I know for sure: I didn’t come this far just to suck at it.

“Wait here,” I tell them. I find the candy aisle and grab a bag of Tootsie Rolls. I rip open a box of Ziploc baggies and slip out two — one for Mare, and one for Ren.

They hold the bags and blink at me.

“Okay,” I say. “Mare — what happened to you when Ren was born?”

“I went crazy,” she says with a wide-eyed nod. I have told her this story before — how for three months she was a brat, refusing to do anything the first time she was asked, stealing toys on playdates, pitching fits when she didn’t get what she wanted.

“And what’s happening now?” I ask.

“Oh, we’ve all gone crazy,” she says.

“Right. TOTALLY INSANE,” I say. “We’ve forgotten the rules of our family. And I don’t think our family is as much fun without those rules. So we’re going to play a little game to remind ourselves of the rules and see if we can’t make things fun again. Here’s how it goes:” I drop five Tootsie Rolls into each bag. Their eyes light up.

“You can’t eat these,” I say. “Until tonight. And you may end up with more before then. Every time I see you girls doing something unusually good — like offering to help before you are asked, or being kind to each other or someone else — you get another Tootsie Roll.”

“YAY!!” they cheer.

“What do you think happens if you break a rule of our family?” I ask.

“You’re going to take them away?” Mare shrieks.

“One. One Tootsie Roll for each rule you break. So, let’s go over the rules. Do we ever fight with sisters?”

“No.” Two slow head shakes.

“And what happens when Momma says ‘no?’”

“No means no,” Mare responds.

“Right. What else?”

“We do not ever punch our teachers!!” Ren pipes up.

“Right, yes, that’s a good one. What about whining?”

“No whining,” Mare says.

“No whining,” I say. “Let me be very clear: Anyone who whines loses a Tootsie Roll. Okay?”

“Woah,” Ren says.

They nod, and we’re off.

It takes about fifteen point two milliseconds before it begins, with Ren’s shoe slipping off.

“Here, Sissy, let me help you with your shoe. Is that better? Who’s my cute sissy? WHO’S MARE’S BEST CUTE SISSY???”

“Good job, Mare,” I toss her a Tootsie Roll. (“ARDT! ARDT, ARDT!!”)

“Thank you, Sister. Next time could you please not tie my shoe so tight? It hurts a little.”

“Good God, Ren. Here’s one for you.” (“ARDT!! ARDT ARDT ARDT!!!!”)

At the checkout, no one asks for candy. No one whines and leans against other people’s carts. I have all kind of volunteerism going on.

“Momma, let me load the paper towels, I can carry those. Ren, you better grab the napkins. I would hate for my Sister to lose a Tootsie Roll for not helping.”

They thank our checker, they smile, they hold hands and wait patiently for me to start the cart moving.

I chuck them each a Tootsie Roll. (“ARDT!! ARDT, ARDT, ARDT!!”)

The checker stares in awe.

“I so reaking rock,” I say.

“Enjoy it now,” says an old woman standing in the next checkout lane. She is lanky, bitter-faced with a stern set to her mouth. “It won’t always be this easy.”

Shut up, you old hag, I make my own destiny.

“We’re outta here, girls!” I say, motoring past her with my cart and my children and my bags of stuff.

And now here I am at last. Mother of Three, making my way in the world with my girls, doing head counts, answering questions, watching for traffic and predators, and Things They Should Not Be Touching. And it’s all okay.

Predictably, Ren is the first to lose a Tootsie Roll. It happens in the Whole Foods, at the gelato bar.

“Can you get us ice cream?” she asks.

“Not this time, Sweetheart,” I say. Her face instantly contorts into a red-faced squeal. Really, I have no idea how she does it, but she goes from sunny to squashed tomato in the merest flicker.

“Ren — remember the rules of our family. No means no, and we don’t cry to get our way.”

Her face wavers for a second, and then she does it.

“I WANT ICE CREAM!!” Without a word I walk over to her baggie, dig my hand in, fish out a Tootsie Roll.

“NO MOMMA NO I’LL STOP I’M SORRY I’LL STOP.” I drop the Tootsie into my purse and proceed past the ice cream. She weeps into her sister’s shoulder. I say nothing.

By the time we are at checkout, she has stopped weeping, and they are both offering to help with the bagging again.

“Let me help you, Sissy,” Ren says. I drop her a Tootsie and she grins.

“Momma,” Mare says. “I really do like this better. Our family is nicer like this.” We smile at each other and I think what a great woman she will be some day.

They both lost Tootsie Rolls for fighting at bed time, and again for not getting their teeth brushed the first time I asked. Ren lost another one for getting out of bed.

So I can’t say everything was suddenly perfect, but it was all much, much better. We stopped needing the Tootsie Rolls the next day, and everyone was just in a better mood.

And the moral of the story? — a kid will prostrate herself for 2.2 grams of sugar without ever considering whether it’s really worth it. (“ARDT!! ARDT ARDT!!”)

Or maybe the lesson is just the reminder of that absurdly simple rule: our own happiness depends upon how we approach the world. Positive action yields positive results. Inaction, bad behavior, negativism yield bad results.

Life is settling into a pleasant early-summer routine. I am starting to really be able to do things again. Gran’s good work holds — the laundry is going on an efficient cycle. Eden always smells sweet and fresh, no matter how many times a day she pukes. The Bigs have clean sheets and fresh nightgowns and plenty of choices before school in the morning. I finished the semester’s grading, and even planted flowers. I am sleepless and achy, but picking up speed.

Eden has gained six ounces and peers out at the world with alert eyes. Her sisters love her.

Last night I filled the clawfoot tub higher than I normally do, and I added baby wash to make bubbles. Mare and Ren piled in and when they were sitting nice and still, I brought Eden in and floated her beside them. Her little arms and legs flapped and her eyes lit up. They rubbed her belly and her downy head and kissed her and she squirmed and almost-smiled.

This is the family I signed on for.

44 Comments

Update

Published on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 in Fancy That. 19 Comments

I have a new post that should be ready tomorrow. I did not want anyone to take the delay in posting to mean that there is a serious problem with Eden.

In fact, she is slowly gaining weight and her last round of blood work looked better. She’s nursing pretty constantly which is — quite literally — sucking the life out of me. I am eating bland complex carbs and drinking tons of mother’s milk tea.

More tomorrow.

19 Comments

In which I get over my bad self

Published on Thursday, May 21, 2009 in Leave a litte room for romance. 30 Comments

We have ruled out dairy and wheat as culprits. I am down to a diet of Cheerios and bagels, and unseasoned proteins and vegetables. No fruit. I stopped taking Tylenol for post-surgical pain and headaches. I can’t take anything else.

I am not sleeping much. I am worrying lots. And then feeling bad about myself for worrying about things I can’t fix.

No coffee.

And then in a super-genius move I managed to double-pay the mortgage. That’s right, folks, I sent the payment, forgot I sent it, sent it again.

The bank, of course, cashed both.

And now we are overdrawn. And I am having a complete meltdown on the phone with Cute Husband.

“Everything hurts. I am so tired. I can’t eat anything I want and am going to get fat eating cake and bagels. And oh, lucky me, the finances are screwed up again and the house is a pit and somehow we are behind on laundry and I get to spend my whole life fixing that and it never gets better and this headache is un-freaking believable.”

“How about some tea?”

“I don’t really feel I have the energy to leave this bed to make some,” I say in the saddest, near-death, cue-the-violin voice.

“You know what I hear helps? — Ginger.”

Here streams a series of obscene invectives out of my mouth and in the general direction of the man I have professed to love for all eternity.

“Good,” he says. “Just wanted to be sure there was some fight left in ya. You were scaring me there.”

30 Comments

34

Published on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 in Conversing With the Rain and Scraping the Bowl. 36 Comments

This year, I got a birthday walk.

In past years, I’ve had a dinner or even a little party. But this year, I got a walk.

It was a good walk. Cute Husband and I found some beach, a sun set, even a warm breeze. We walked hand in hand and talked about all the beaches we had walked together — an astonishing number of them in our 15 years as friends and then partners.

We walked because no one feels much like celebrating. There are now abnormalities in Eden’s bloodwork, and despite our best selves, we’re scared.

I am astonished by the number of people who have made it a point to remind me that today is the day of my birth, that my daughters are valuable, yes, but I am here, too, a person in my own standing, who watched her own first sunrise over the city of Boston 34 years ago.

Not the least of these people is the Doodle.

“It’s my Muver’s birthday,” she told anyone who would listen. “For real! It is!”

“Happy birthday!” they all said. I laughed. Tucked into my arm, sucking her paci, Eden seemed to be laughing, too.

I planted flowers. I lost my temper more than once, felt bad about it, made pancakes for dinner. They gave me a cake, and a charger for my iPod and I got flowers from Emily.

And now we are walking, and remembering the beach in Virginia, and how the dog chased the crabs that scampered across it. And the beach in North Carolina where the wild horses ran, and the one in St. Croix where Mare got her first dip as a tiny baby.

“I woke up this morning,” I said, “and couldn’t believe I am 34.”

It’s not that I feel old. It’s not that I feel young. It’s that there is so much more than I dreamed of.

“Do you know when you make a batter, and you pour it into the pan, and the bowl seems empty, but it isn’t? If you scrape, it’s a surprise how much is in there. So much more than it looks. That’s how I feel. Like I am discovering how much more there is in things than it seems. Like making dinner and planting flowers and being called ‘Muver.’ — There’s so much more there than I ever realized. But it’s finite. When it’s gone, it’s really gone.”

This last is more of a birthday downer than I meant it to be. I am tired, the worry has taken its toll.

We sit for a while before doing what we do — turning for home, to make lunches, do laundry, plan for another day.

“She really looks good,” we say to each other. “Really good.” Cute Husband falls asleep with her wrapped in his arms, her little fuzzy head against his nose.

And I consider how all I want in the world is in this tiny house and how very very much that is.

36 Comments

I just know there’s a bunny suit in this story

Published on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 in Our Eden. 32 Comments

Dr. Button and I have a routine.

After years of seeing each other once or twice a year for checkups and chest colds, we have seen each other approximately 19 times in four weeks.

So here’s the routine: the nurse weighs Eden and logs the information into the computer, and then leaves me in the exam room to wait for Dr. Button. Dr. Button finishes with his previous patient and then swings by his desk to log in to Eden’s chart. Then he comes into the exam room grim-faced to deliver the news that I have a very sick infant.

But when he opens the door and makes eye contact, I smile. Because I am not worried. Because the baby I am holding is not sick. I am her mother and I know she’s okay, she’s just small is all.

And then we talk and he watches her closely and then he examines her and scratches his head and agrees that she sure doesn’t look sick.

She looks fantastic. Great color, alert, responsive.

And then we talk and I say that I want to ride it out, I think her weight will resolve. He agrees that it’s no fun to send a newborn for tests if they don’t need to happen. We decide to do nothing, to visit again in a few days, to get aggressive if she’s not radically better then.

This is what we do. This is what we have done for four weeks.

But this time the routine changes. When he knocks on the door and we make eye contact I don’t smile. I try not to cry.

“Yeah,” he nods. I pop the iPod ear buds out. I have spent the last twenty minutes listening to music, fighting guilt and panic.

I was just too clever. I had to get cute. I really believed I was smarter than Big Medicine and that I could just keep her home and avoid tests I knew she didn’t need. I have allowed the child to get really sick.

“So it’s time to start getting aggressive,” Dr. Button says.

“Yes,” I nod.

“A ten-ounce loss in four days is pretty serious.”

“Whatever you want to do,” I say. “You tell me what needs to happen and I’ll do it.”

“I know,” he says. But it’s my only contribution and I have to make it — No more resistance. I’ll give her formula, I’ll make her sleep in a crib, I’ll wear a freaking bunny suit and run through the streets. Just tell me what to do.

He tells me the next steps — to Boston Children’s to a GI specialist. Blood work. Urine tap.

I nod.

He puts her on the table and looks at her. She gazes up at him with curious blue eyes.

“She just looks so good,” he says. “She’s crying after every feed?”

“Yes,” I say. “Like she’s in terrible pain. All night long, too.”

He smooshes her belly, feels around in there.

“It doesn’t seem to make her uncomfortable,” he says.

“It makes me wildly uncomfortable, does that count?” I ask. While he runs his own checklist of things to look for, I am running mine. I need coverage for the Bigs. Mare has piano. Doodley needs a snack. What do we have in the fridge for someone to feed them? Who can I call? I should get an overnight bag for Edeny and me. I need the iPod and cell phone charger and better shoes.

“Okay,” Dr. Button says. “I’m going to go make some phone calls and get this started. Before we do that, let’s just weigh her again to be sure.”

He brings in the scale and I set her on it and turn away. I can’t stand to look.

“Elizabeth,” he taps my arm. “Look.” He’s laughing.

Holy God — Eden’s not down ten ounces. She’s up two.

(Why did I put you through that? Because I had to live through it, why the hell should you be spared?)

I have completely lost my composure and am repeating “Holy shit” multiple times. We’re both trying to breathe again.

“Okay, well, yeah, that’s different,” he says.

I hug Edeny and she looks all happy that I’m happy.

“I still think we should move forward with tests,” Dr. Button says.

“Oh, sure, whatever you want,” I say with a generous wave of my hand.

The day is still hard.

I have always thought that a person is who she is when she is born. Even if her lifetime will radically impact how she functions in the world, she is a complete person at birth.

When you have a sick or unhappy child, you get an insight into her character.

I nurse Eden until they have the tray prepped, everyone gloved and ready to go. Then I trade out for the pacifier, hold her close, take her hand. When the needle goes into her arm, she wimpers. There are people holding each of her limbs and she resists for only a second before closing her eyes, sucking furiously on the pacifier, squeezing my hand.

One nurse digs around that tiny arm with a needle, another squeezes blood out to fill the vials. Eden keeps sucking, eyes closed, gripping my fingers.

“She’s so good!” the nurse said.

“Hey … is she asleep?” the other nurse asks.

“I think she is,” I say. Edeny has decided she does not like her current circumstance and will just sleep through it.

At the ultrasound, she fusses only briefly on the table before passing out. I check her breathing, but no, she really is just completely asleep. It’s very odd that we are ultraounding her and it’s not going through me. Her name is on the little screen and the transducer comes down and is revealing her stomach, which to me looks like a petri dish swimming with tadpoles and meteors. To the doctor it looks like an organ that is processing food appropriately, so that’s good.

Dr. Button calls me at home late that night to tell me that the tests have come back normal. Of course.

So we’ll go for another weigh-in in a couple of days. Next time, I think I’ll dress her in the bunny suit. Just to mix things up.

Because someone has to wear a bunny suit before this is all over.

32 Comments

A little visit

Published on Sunday, May 17, 2009 in Da Posse. 13 Comments

After they trashed my house, they cleaned it.

No, seriously. There was Karin running the vacuum cleaner over my carpet while I stared, gape-mouthed.

“It’s like visiting your kid in preschool,” she said cheerily. “When you watch them diligently put all their toys back. Yes, we can do it. We prefer that you not know it.”

They told me I only get the cleaning just this one time because I have a newborn. Next time they trash it, I’m on my own.

I was bummed when they left, but awed at the simplicity of it.

Two women wandered into my life. We produced eight children between us. We became friends. They vacuumed my rug.

I still have to go to work tomorrow, my belly still aches and I’m still losing my mind waiting for Eden to gain some weight.

But my rug is clean, and when I walk by it I smile.

13 Comments

Got milk?

Published on Thursday, May 14, 2009 in She's wicked. 23 Comments

What do you get when you tell Gran her grandbaby isn’t gaining weight?

And the magic oatmeal cookies seem to be boosting Momma’s milk supply?

Why, three pounds of cookies, overnight mail from the Springs.

23 Comments

Mother’s Day

Published on Sunday, May 10, 2009 in Conversing With the Rain. 45 Comments

I am standing in the semi-dark living room, looking out the window at the blossoming spring trees silhouetted in twilight.

The iPod is running a continual loop of Gayatri Mantra by Deva Premal — recommended to me by a reader for my C-section music. I had been walking to the kitchen for tea, screaming Eden in my arms, when it came up on the player and she calmed instantly. I have not left this spot since.

The mantra has a primal beat, a chant-to-the-stars holiness. I am swaying in languid strokes, down, up back, down up, “oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ…” She fusses, her face contorts in the worst sort of unchecked grimace.

I can’t believe how afraid I am.

Eden has been throwing up every feeding for the last 24 hours. She is down more than a pound from her birth weight, has lost three of those ounces since yesterday.

“One option is to go to the emergency room,” the pediatrician on call told me at today’s weigh-in. “A sonogram, and some really aggressive testing. If you’ve hit your limit on this, that’s the next place to go.”

I’ve hit my limit. Oh my God, I’m all done. Please make my baby okay.

“But I don’t think it’s the best route to go,” she added. “I think you’re smarter to wait out the night and start tomorrow with tests here at the office.”

I rested my nose on Edeny’s downy head and sniffled at the irony — on the day I caved I got the calm doctor. For the last three weeks doctors have been trying to panic me and I have refused: she will get better. Let’s ride it out and wait and see. Now I am climbing the walls and this new doctor is the voice of reason: We’re not there, yet. Let’s not take a newborn to a county emergency room if we don’t absolutely have to. Just hold. Don’t panic. Give it a chance to work.

“Okay,” I whispered. Mare and Ren were looking at me from the exam table, eyes wide.

“Is Edeny okay?”

“Of course,” I said, in a stiff voice that I knew sounded stern. “She just has a hurty tummy, is all.”

I texted Sunbeam and she came. I considered throwing Eden in the car and driving to Boston Children’s. This reaction was the worst sort of aggression, and I knew it. I can’t step outside the exercise and make the kid okay. I can’t wave a wand and alter the course of the Universe. Testing isn’t neccessarily going to fix this and waiting might. The word is Wait, and that’s what I have to do.

Sunbeam took Big Big and Little Big out for nuggets and fries. I went home.

Now I am here in the open window, moving to the mantra, watching Little One’s face contort in pain. I watch my shadow on the wall swaying … down up, left, right, swoop low, high … it is a woman’s figure moving in the darkness. The quintessential Mother With Babe. And now I know — the calm is an act of will. The serenity Mother shines onto Child in her arms comes not from her heart but from her guts. I will make this okay for you or I will go down with you.

The trees move in a spring breeze and Eden whimpers and I think how motherhood means standing on the very precipice of the Universe — life and death mingle at our feet and we stare into the star-filled void and beg for the outcome we want.

Sunbeam brings the Bigs home and we put them to bed. I make tea and I sway and I nurse and all night I stare into the void and beg.

“She’s up two ounces,” the nurse tells me the next morning.

“Okay,” I nod.

“She really looks good,” Dr. Button says. “Alert, great muscle tone.” We talk about Mare’s reflux, how we both think Eden has it. I agree that it’s time to start blood work and other tests, I hesitate on the formula and he presses only a little. We agree to try Zantac for the weekend, to meet again on Tuesday.

“Tuesday,” he says, “if she’s not better, we start getting aggressive.”

Okay, I say.

The pharmacist hands me the little orange bottle, which manages to look — despite two states and six years’ difference — identical to the one we used with Mare.

“Hello Darkness, my old friend,” I laugh when I see it. Oh, God, those early days with Mare. How she screamed. Little droppersful of Mylanta all over the house. Six months of eating nothing but plain white foods and proteins to keep my milk good for her.

Let this be it, I begged. I’ll eat mashed potatoes and bagels for the next six months and I won’t complain.

I dose her. The result is magic. A vague smile, the wrinkles above her nose soften. I nurse. Her little back settles into my palms, her hand rests on my chest and she sighs. I rub between her shoulders, she burps, spits up only a little, and is asleep in my hands.

We sleep like that. But only for an hour before she is hungry again, and we’re through another diaper, and that’s how the night goes — dozing in the semi-dark, nursing, changing diapers. In the morning it’s inescapable: Eden looks better. She looks a lot better.

The girls and Cute Husband brought me a bagel for breakfast this morning. I do love bagels. Not as much, maybe, as strawberry-filled crepes loaded with butter and chocolate. But that’s for another year. They brought me three pink balloons and a tray full of cards and gossip magazines. And a latte. Because I’ll give up chocolate and tomatoes and salad dressing but I. Will. Not. surrender coffee.

So happy Mother’s Day to all of you who have stood at the precipice, life and death at your feet, and known that at the core of a mother’s soul is not the mini-van or the Mommy-and-me classes, or even her willingness to change diapers with a chipper expression. The core of a mother’s soul is her willingness to stare into the void and beg, and get up the next day and make breakfast and dress little ones and pretend it’s all really that simple.

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