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Humidifier Parts
Enjoy your visit and come again soon...
Yesterday I got my new baby carrier in the mail: a Packababy. I bought it used from a friend online, after deciding that I needed something easy to put on and off that goes over both shoulders. So after dinner I put Paula in it so I could nurse her to sleep while walking around or rocking her. I often use my Maya Wrap for this, but last night I figured I would try the new thing and see how it worked.
I got her to sleep just fine and got to watch some TV while she slept on my chest. That was around 5 or 5:30, but for some reason she woke up around 7. No problem. This happens a lot: she wakes up needing to pee, she pees, then goes back to sleep. The key is just to keep her environment quiet and dark, and keep her moving and nursing. No problem. Just keep moving, keep it quiet, no stimulation. Sleep is around the corner. Just keep moving, no noise, no light. No problem. No problem.
In my mind it's like the mantra that Dory sang in Finding Nemo: "Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming." Don't think about how tired you are, don't think about wanting a snack, don't think about wanting a little time to yourself, don't think about it, don't think about it, just keep rocking, just keep walking, just keep swimming.
Yet she remained awake.
At one point I found myself pacing in the darkened bedroom, the Packababy still tied around my waist but the shoulder straps dragging on the floor as I held Paula horizontal and bounce-walked back and forth. Four steps to the dresser, turn, four steps to the closet. It was step, bounce, step, bounce, like I've seen in some of the less exuberant Native American circle dances. I had draped a blanket around my shoulders and it covered Paula's legs, though she regularly kicked it off, flung out her top arm and looked around for something more interesting to do.
I remembered this Baha'i song from Lesotho my mom still sings. "We are walking in the light of Baha'u'llah / we are walking in the light of Baha'u'llah / we are walking in the light, we are walking in the light / we are walking in the light of Baha'u'llah."
She told me she was so excited to learn an authentically African and Baha'i song until she heard the congregants at a local church singing, "We are walking in the light of Jesus Christ." Oh well. It's still a nice song, if you could hear it.
So I sang that to myself as I walk-bounced back and forth, the straps of the carrier tangling in my feet, my wide-eyed baby squirming in my arms. Don't think about wanting a break, don't think about wishing for a little control over my time, we are walking in the light, we are walking in the light, we are step-bounce-step with Baha'u'llah.
Paula didn't end up going to sleep until after 10. She remained wide-eyed when at 9:00, after two hours of trying to get her back to sleep, I threw in the towel, turned on the light, got myself a snack and called my friend Shawn to vent.
Yesterday was day two of our new carless existence and it's going great!
Monday we took the bus to Sam's Club (and brought home our haul with the old lady cart), yesterday we went to Chinatown to have lunch with my dear friend Elin (say AY-lin).
I have discovered something. Paula loves loves loves the bus.
She sits in the wrap, facing me, but spends long stretches of time gazing at the people on the bus. She singles out one person at a time. This person might try to observe correct bus etiquette by avoiding eye contact, but Paula just wears him down. It's awesome. She looks and looks, and the object of her gaze flicks a glance in her direction. She keeps looking. Another glance. Then another. Finally she reels him in: the shy smile. No one can resist it.
Then the passenger cannot look away. He seems embarrassed to be making eyes at a baby - it's murder on his tough guy image - but she just keeps upping the ante. Soon she breaks out the nose-wrinkling grin and other passengers wonder when they'll get a turn. I've never been shy about talking to strangers on public transportation, but if I were I would have to get over it because people love to talk about such an adorable baby - yes, she's adorable, and you'd have to be dead inside not to agree.
Whatever your state of inner vitality, she's a lot of fun to watch, and it's even better because there's a soundtrack. Well, it's Paula's unique brand of improvisational, avant-garde tone poem, but it is surprisingly accessibly to her audience. She sings, gazes and grins, and I'm wondering why on earth I haven't done this sooner.
The only drawback to the bus is that she doesn't like to pee in public restrooms or anywhere outside anymore, as far as I can tell, so accidents are very likely on the bus. Yesterday I could tell she was holding it for way too long - in spite of repeated opportunities to pee - so I put the plastic pants on over her undies. This, well, kept me dry, at least. Poor thing was quite wet when we got home. She can hold it for a long while, but you can't overcome basic physiology by will alone. The bladder, once full, must be emptied.
Paula and I went out to my sister's house Friday morning. I needed the great feeling of love and support I get when I'm there, so I dared to dream that we could survive the 30-mile drive to Mundelein without major incident.
I guess we did, if you don't count numerous stops, Paula crying so hard she threw up, and me calling my sister in tears "major incidents." She strained against the straps of what I now see is the devil in hard plastic form. It was truly awful.
But when we got to my sister's house it was all worth it. My niece and nephew made Paula laugh and my sister lavished attention on her - and on me by extension. I got to shower alone, pee alone, sit and do nothing. We went shopping for a new car seat, hoping that would help matters, and my sister and niece also got Paula some cute new outfits. My niece and nephew insisted we go to "Build-a-Bear" so they could build Paula a stuffed frog named Sweet Pea. We had so much fun and I wished it would never end.
But it had to. I had decided I couldn't handle another awful drive back, so Joel came out to drive us all home Saturday night. The idea was to get Paula to sleep, then transfer her to the car seat and she could sleep on the way home. Great plan, as long as she would stay asleep, so of course she woke up. From then on it was nothing less than a screaming, crying, arching, miserable hell ride. Now I know what they mean when they say "hell on wheels." It was brutal. I cried, Joel almost cried. I sat next to Paula attempting to comfort her, I tried nursing her in the car seat, but she wasn't interested in comfort - she wanted relief. We turned the cushy new car seat to face forward, thinking maybe she was carsick - nothing.
I think she just really hates to be restrained. She has always been so active, even in the womb, when her constant cardio kick-boxing was what reassured me she was making the most of her shallow little swimming pool. She stretched and strained against the limits of that enclosure, and now she protests vocally, too.
By the time we got home we were all so shell shocked that I, for one, couldn't even muster a response to the fact that our refrigerator had up and died while we were out. Food had to be thrown out or frozen (thankfully we have a freezer in the basement) and a large puddle cleaned off the floor. Joel took care of it while I took Paula into the bedroom and called an old friend.
I had to tell someone all the awful things that were going through my head. I was angry at Paula for the screaming and crying. I felt like a failure since I couldn't make it better, then blamed her for making me feel so terrible about myself. There on the bed, after midnight and still awake, I played with her, held her, nursed her, but felt so very distant from her.
The feeling persisted in the morning. I left Paula with Joel and went to Wal-Mart to buy what Joel and I affectionately call an "old lady cart," since I have decided to boycott the car altogether and will now be doing our shopping on foot. After I got back Paula and I took a long and much needed nap, then got ready for an early evening walk.
We went to the park and sat on the swings, her in the wrap, both of us covered by a big poncho. We started to swing, and I leaned way back as we went forward, way forward as we went back. My arm muscles actually protested a little as I pulled Paula's and my weight up at the top of the arc. The air was brisk and cold on our cheeks and the early dark sky looked like velvet. Paula started to laugh, then I laughed, too.
This week has been taxing. Paula hasn't been napping much, if at all; Joel has been working a lot, and last weekend was so busy that I didn't get much chance to recharge. In spite of the fish oil and vitamins I'm taking, the protein I'm eating, the walks in the fresh air, I'm a little burned out.
Make that a lot burned out. This morning as Paula had her usual 3:30 - 5:30 breastmilk bender, I just kept wishing I could sleep. I don't sleep while she nurses, usually, but when it's just a few minutes and back to sleep, no problem. But this was like 20 minutes on, 10 minutes off. Then there was the wiggling. Every time her bladder was full she would squirm around and wake me up. I pick her up to put her on the potty and she falls back into a very deep sleep. Over and over again.
I tried putting a diaper on her (numerous times), but she wouldn't lie on her back. I'd roll her onto her back and she would roll onto her side, expecting me to be there next to her to cuddle into. It's hard to diaper a baby like that.
Around 5:45 I started to lose it. I was so tired, and I'll admit that my own thoughts were my enemy here. "Why can't she just freaking PEE and go to sleep?" "I know she can't be hungry. She's just nursing for the hell of it and I want to SLEEP!"
These thoughts make it harder to feel calm. I felt less and less calm.
I finally sat on the edge of the bed and started dialing numbers. Nobody was up. Paula, still sleeping, kept trying to cuddle into me and ended up curled around my butt on the bed. She woke up for a moment, looked at me with those big eyes, and I picked her up. Predictably, she fell back to sleep.
I went to the back room, where Joel was sleeping so he wouldn't wake me up when he came to bed, and woke him up. I talked, cried, raved. Jacqueline called me back and I talked, cried, raved to her for a while.
Then Joel and I had another of our many recent arguments about how maxed out we both feel. It's funny. We agree, but feel the need to argue anyway. I think we're just over committed. Joel's got teaching, including after-school classes Tuesdays and Thursdays, rehearsal Monday nights, his high school students Wednesday nights, and sometimes gigs or other commitments on weekends. It's too much.
Paula and I are hanging out watching Roseanne. Okay, I'm watching, she's crawling around the living room seeing what I'll let her put in her mouth. I keep wondering if she has to pee.
For the last week or two we've had rather uneven luck in the pee department. I figured she just got so wrapped up learning new skills and exploring her environment that communicating with me about "going" dropped to the end of her To Do list. Still, I was getting pretty stressed out. I mean, I don't normally have to throw every pair of pants she owns into the laundry in a single day. I don't normally wipe pee off the floor a dozen times or more.
As a matter of fact, before this little lapse I had gotten very comfortable with Paula's lack of diapers. It was so easy: just pee her, forget about it for a while, pee her again. Sure we had the occasional miss, but mostly I felt like we had it down cold. I felt like what we had was this great synergy based on trust. I trusted her to let me know when she had to pee and hold it till she got to the potty; she trusted me to pay enough attention and take her to the potty often enough that she didn't have to pee on herself.
It just shows how limited my understanding is. Not that the trust thing wasn't there, but obviously there's more to it than that. Unfortunately it's taken me a while to figure out something about what that might be.
See, I generally explain pee accidents in one of a few ways. One, I am to blame for not paying attention. Two, my incomplete respect for Paula's basic human dignity is to blame. Three, I am obviously not cut out for motherhood.
I realize these might seem like a little bit of a leap to you if you're not a recovering Type A personality raising a stunningly endearing child who is also particularly well-rooted in her sense of need. But to me, at least at first, they seem obvious.
So on top of the whole is-my-daughter-having-seizures thing, it was a rough week. On the way back from the doctor's office Wednesday, with Paula mercifully asleep in her car seat, I sobbed it all out over the phone with Joel. Yes, on the phone, while driving - I'm the devil. Anyway, I just kept wondering why I take things so damn hard all the time.
Well I didn't figure it out. But I really needed that release and afterward I felt like I'd had some sort of mental high colonic. Okay, I don't really know how one feels after a high colonic, but from what I hear it's quite invigorating. (And while we're on the topic, there's Joel's comic gem, "If you like pina colonics... getting caught in the rain...") The point is that I felt much better.
After that I stopped worrying so much about pee and what it says about my parenting skills. I decided to make things a little easier on myself by wearing Paula in the sling more, since it's easier to tell when she has to pee that way, and get her to the potty in time. That and let her pee in what appears to be a preferred place and position: standing at the bathroom mirror. Well, the sling really does seem to be helping. We're catching more pees and I'm less pressed in the laundry and self-recrimination. She even seems happier and more relaxed.
We saw the doctor yesterday and he said what I knew he would say: Paula appears for all the world to be an incredibly healthy, alert and vibrant baby.
I knew he would say this because it's obvious. But he did also give me an opinion on her shaking. He agreed that we need to have her assessed by a pediatric neurologist, but he said the worst case scenario, in his opinion, was that she might have a seizure disorder. This would be treatable, and neither life-threatening nor debilitating. This reassures me for the time being. I still need to know what's going on. Because of some dumb insurance issues, we won't be able to see the ped. neurologist until December, but I think that will be okay.
Thou art He, O my God, through Whose names the sick are healed and the ailing are restored, and the thirsty are given drink, and the sore-vexed are tranquillized, and the wayward are guided, and the abased are exalted, and the poor are enriched, and the ignorant are enlightened, and the gloomy are illumined, and the sorrowful are cheered, and the chilled are warmed, and the downtrodden are raised up.
Remember in June when Paula had that little shaking thing while she was sleeping? We took her to the ER and ended up staying a couple of days while they ran tests on her? They didn't find anything wrong, and in my heart I felt she was okay.
Since then the little shaking thing has happened a few more times, maybe five total, always in her sleep. But after the clean EEG and CT scan Paula got in June, the doc always said it seemed benign and not to worry. At her last well-baby checkup I told the doc about it, just to make sure it was in Paula's file, and she said, "Just let us know if something changes."
Well, something has changed.
Through Thy name, O my God, all created things were stirred up, and the heavens were spread, and the earth was established, and the clouds were raised and made to rain upon the earth. This, verily, is a token of Thy grace unto all Thy creatures.
Today when she was waking up from her nap she lifted her head, opened her eyes half way, and a tremor overtook her body. She was upright because she had been asleep sitting up in the sling. Her head wobbled as her body shook, as though she was overcome by a tremendous weakness. It lasted less than 10 seconds. When it was over she dropped her head to my chest briefly, closed her eyes again, then looked up as though nothing had happened.
I called the doctor. Nothing I've seen in my experience with babies or children bears any resemblance to what happened to Paula today, and I'm worried.
I have an appointment now to see our primary doctor tomorrow afternoon, and I'm hoping for a referral (read: command) to see a pediatric neurologist as soon as humanly possible. I feel in my heart that something is not right. I don't know what's going to happen from here, but I've got to follow up on this and try to find out what is causing it.
I implore Thee, therefore, by Thy name through which Thou didst manifest Thy Godhead, and didst exalt Thy Cause above all creation, and by each of Thy most excellent titles and most august attributes, and by all the virtues wherewith Thy transcendent and most exalted Being is extolled, to send down this night from the clouds of Thy mercy the rains of Thy healing upon this suckling, whom Thou hast related unto Thine all-glorious Self in the kingdom of Thy creation.
Clothe him, then, O my God, by Thy grace, with the robe of well-being and health, and guard him, O my Beloved, from every affliction and disorder, and from whatever is obnoxious unto Thee. Thy might, verily, is equal to all things. Thou, in truth, art the Most Powerful, the Self-Subsisting. Send down, moreover, upon him, O my God, the good of this world and of the next, and the good of the former and latter generations. Thy might and Thy wisdom are, verily, equal unto this."
(Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah, p. 235)
Dining options in Joel's and my new neighborhood just don't compare to our old neighborhood. In Bridgeport we could choose from a variety of Italian, Mexican or old school Chicago Irish restaurants. Unfamiliar with the last? Think huge, buttery mounds of hash browns, melt-in-your-mouth prime rib, fried everything, smoking encouraged, and the vegetable is pickled beets or macaroni salad. Or we could make the 5-minute drive to Chinatown for Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai or boba, the drink you can chew.
Here in, uh, Garfield Ridge, which nobody really calls it, we can choose from a couple of Mexican restaurants, one kind of pricey, one take-out only; one really great ribs place; a decent Polish buffet (Bobaks; you have to say it with a South Side Chicago accent: Bow-byax) and a bunch of bars, pizzerias and iffy-looking holes-in-the-wall. Deciding where to go out to eat is kind of a downer.
"We can go to Cocula."
"Kind of pricey."
"Bobaks?"
"Eh. I want food that tastes like something."
"Ribs?"
"Subway?"
We lapse into dejected silence.
"How about you go get a movie and I'll do a couple of chicken breasts and some pasta?"
"Deal."
Given these paltry options, I've been daring to hope we would find a hidden treasure within a 5-minute drive from home. Just SOMETHING that we could actually get excited about eating. Well, maybe we have.
It's called Czech Kitchens, and it's not even a restaurant, more of a deli. But this place specializes in something truly wonderful: dumplings! The basic dumpling is the bread dumpling, which looks like a short and underbaked roll of French bread. Slices of this dumpling can be subject to anything normally done to comfort foods: Fry them in butter! Fry them in bacon fat! Steam and eat with gravy! Fry in butter and top with meat sauce! I'm sure many more wonderful things can be done to these delectable bundles of fat and refined starch, but I haven't had time to discover them. Patience, young Jedi.
Czech Kitchens also offers sweet dumplings, potato dumplings, and wildest of all, liver dumplings. I know, you're thinking, "eew, liver!" But I tried them and they are really, really good. But then, I've always been adventurous.
Now you would think that anyone permanently associated with such an enterprise would tend toward the, well, zaftig, the way I will if I continue to eat them. But the owner of Czech Kitchens, is just medium. She's the single mom of a 9-year-old girl, and 18 months after buying the place, she says she's gained a few pounds, but nothing serious. But then, she also had gastric bypass two years ago and has to really watch how much she eats.
I, on the other hand, have no such restriction. Hence the thrill of danger I feel when I think about these phenomenal dumplings. I fantasize about a Thanksgiving table piled high with their buttery goodness, a Christmas feast in which all other starches are supplanted by dumplings, dumplings and more dumplings!
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Paula loves to be whistled to. More than being sung to, more than being talked to, she loves loves loves to be whistled to. Whistling to her will get you a huge, nose-wringling grin replete with her six pearly whites.
So lately when she started making a new face, with her upper lip pulled down over her top teeth and her lips making a little "o" it didn't take us long to realize she was trying to whistle. Okay, it didn't take Joel long. I was totally in the dark.
For some reason about 80 percent of the time when one of us starts to whistle to her, it's "Danny Boy." I suppose I could say we're trying to expose her to the minor-key, down-at-the-mouth musical influences of my Irish ancestry. But honestly it's just the first thing that pops into my mind to whistle.
And since I've been doing so much whistling lately, I've had to come to grips with a little quirk that I've been aware of for years, but hoped no one else was. I grunt when I whistle. I don't mean to, but when I want to make a clean jump between one note and the next, a little diaphragmatic burst of air pops out. Imagine the melody of Danny Boy, and insert little grunts. "Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling," sounds like a very soft "grunt, grunt-grunt, grunt-grunt, grunt grunt grunt gruh-uh-unt."
In the spirit of a little lighthearted unburdening, I asked Joel if he had ever noticed my little grunts when whistling. He paused before answering, which is never good. He tried to keep a straight face. All he said was yes, but it came out sounding a little strangled.
He knew! All this time I've been whistling "Grunty Boy" to our beautiful daughter and he said nothing. I don't know, I probably would have gotten offended, knowing me, but I wish someone would have stopped me.
Do you know where your polling place is?
Do you know when you are going to vote?
Do you have your voter registration card (if you've moved or otherwise changed your registration)?
Do you know how to get to your polling place?
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