Monday I took my children to the dentist. Why? Well, because Franklin’s camps are over and I wanted to show him what a good time with Mom means!
Come look at Mom’s gingivitis!
Guess what you’ll look like in a dentist chair if you only floss for the two weeks prior to your appointment. Yes! That crappy!
Woooohooooooooo!
But wait! Don’t run!
Dentists are fun! Don’t be scared!
I swear, I didn’t think the cleaning was really going to happen. Nevertheless, I showed up bright and early. I was totally game. The receptionist told me that she lurved babies and that my son was oh so cute the last time he was in and really it was allgoingtobeokaysoseeyouonMondaybye!!!
So, of course, I wanted to test her.
I figure that when people tell me to bring their kids to the dentist, cocktail party, café, poetry reading, jam session, sex toy/Tupperware evening I try to take them up on it as often as possible because if I can’t have fun, I might as well act as a strong form of birth control.
So there I was, laying back in the chair while answering Star Wars questions and breastfeeding as a very talkative dental hygienist tried to scrap my teeth.
To be fair, the receptionist read Franklin Scooby-Do at the top of her lungs for about half of the visit and Eliza either sat on my stomach or did the vertical breastfeeding manoeuvre. Both kids were adequately entertained – read: they were silent. All in all, it was a good visit. I think the young lady was exhausted by the time we left but she’s a lot more knowledgeable not only about Star Wars Lego but also about our friends in Japan, how to swim in a lifejacket, and what happens with you place your bird feeder too close to your patio windows.
For our next trip, I promised to take Franklin to a more exciting place. So far, my record of outings has included opening a bank account and watching his mother get her teeth cleaned so I’m totally going to make up for it tomorrow. We’re going to Blood and Guts at Beaver Lake Regional Park.
They’ve got pointy teeth and sharp claws, and they don’t eat tofu! The predators of the forest are fascinating and beautiful. Drop by to learn more about animals that make their living by eating meat. Cougars and owls and bears – oh my
Yeah, there are about three things in that little snippet that make me cringe. It’s a horrible write up. Do people get paid to write that? Seriously?
Also, before I bugger off to sleep I just want to mention one last thing.
I bet you thought after that little three-day stretch last week that I was going to posting regular again.
HA! Fooled you.
What me? Write on a regular basis when I have proposals for money to write that I have NO IDEA how to write? When I have children to drop off at sports camps parent all day? When I have nipples that won’t cooperate no matter what kind of herbal hippie concoction I dream up to prevent mastitis?
Ah yes.
If you were to venture back in my archives to a time when I was breastfeeding Franklin you would find that I was plagued with Mastitis about 4 or 5 times during his infancy. It all stopped by the time he was 4 months old though.
Eliza is 5 months old.
I totally thought I was in the clear. I have got it once quite badly when my mother-in-law was here (awful timing as I’m sure she thought she was the cause of it AND SHE WASN’T – in cause your reading this, you-know-who).
Since then? Twice
Plugged Ducts are the culprit
I’ve had Mastitis a total of about 7 times. To be completely accurate, I’m not sure how many times I got it with Franklin. In fact, it could have plausibly been one large and long case of mastitis torture. My breasts are my badges of courage. My breasts are symbols of what I believe in and my breasts show how incredibly stubborn I am.
My breasts are haggard and tired and totally not erotic.
At least, that’s how I’m feeling.
But then I wake up at 6am and Eliza’s hungry. The house is quiet and I sit in the rocking chair that my mother used to breastfeed all 5 of her children and that I breastfed Franklin in. I nurse Eliza while I look out the window and watch the sun rise…
The Act of Opening
Yourself Up
So that Another Being Can
Pass Down the Channel
And out of You
Takes a Woman All the Way
Down
To the Very Deep of Living
The fourth trimester is finished. Eliza is becoming a responsive, smiling, gurgling baby with a personality and a definite presence in our home. Franklin told me the other day that he loves her more than he loves me or Dickson. There are many ways to take that but aside from the curious need to place people in a hierarchy, I’m overwhelmed by his love for her.
My sadness over of the the end of an important stage of her life is shocking. These emotions coming from a person who wanted to adopt children (read: not babies), if have any at all? I suppose I can conclude that the birth of Eliza has made a deep impression on me. Perhaps I have less anxiety and more confidence? I’m not sure. From the moment she was born, I have felt a strong connection – something I didn’t feel with Franklin until he was at least 6 months old.
There could be so many reasons for this – breastfeeding, second child experience, help from relatives, a partner who isn’t freaked out either, a beautiful son to remind us that we can be confident parents. It could be all of these combined. All I know is that the first three months, while hard, are now done and they cannot be re-done. I can’t press rewind. I know there will be more and more wonderful things to come but the newborn experience is over.
I’m sad. I do truly wish we could have more children. I wish it were a responsible thing for us to do but it is not. I’m sad about this. I find it hard to believe that this is how I feel but there it is.
If you are going up there, be quiet. No, not like that.
Rustling plastic bags s-l-o-w-l-y doesn’t make you quiet. It makes you annoying and it makes you WAKE UP THE BABY!
How many times do you need to walk into our room before you realize that the centre passage way creaks? For Pete’s sake, walk along the side of the room, like this, see? Otherwise you’ll WAKE UP THE BABY!
Of course you can brush your teeth. What do you think I am, a sleep tyrant?
Umm, don’t leave the water running it’s ummm, bad for the environment and, um, don’t flush the toilet it’s yellow, let it mellow… all for the environment, right? Besides, all that commotion on the other side of the hall will WAKE UP THE BABY!
Have you ever noticed that your “whisper” isn’t as much a “whisper” as just low talking? Do you want to practise how to whisper? I know you wouldn’t want your current pathetic excuse of a whisper to WAKE UP THE BABY!
Why are you clearing your throat like that?
Stop it.
When Franklin was born, we lived in a very large house by the ocean. We had tons of space, but very little storage. We had one amazing roommate and very large windows. It was a wonderful place to live. Steps to the ocean, 15 minute walk to downtown. The neighbours were owners of one of the best bookstores in the city and the lady who lived downstairs came up to visit me and take care of Franklin if I needed to sleep off the bazillion bouts of mastitis that I contracted.
We are living what seems to be the opposite. The home we have now is small (North American standard of small anyway), we are several kilometres from the ocean, we have very little space (tons of storage), no roommate and windows that are pretty big but that don't open upstairs and which has caused me a few sleepless nights going over fire drill scenarios.
The lack of space means we don't have a change table set up for Eliza. Big deal, right? Sure, but now that I have another child, I constantly compare experiences. I think it will be something I do until Eliza becomes more than a milk drinking blob and I quit thinking she's actually baby Franklin all over again. Those wee hours of the morning can do wonders for your mind, but that's an entirely different post.
Franklin's change table had everything an over-achieving mother is supposed to display for her child - the black and white stimulation mobile as well as a variety of fish and a stash of rattles at the ready. It's not that he was incredibly fussy and needed all of this, we just wanted him to be a genius in order to placate our own insecurities regarding our own precarious intelligence...
Eliza, however is getting a raw deal in comparison - at least until we move to the new place next month. She gets changed on the floor, the bed or the couch. Her stimulation? Well... Franklin's silhouette? The frame of my glasses? My soothing rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?
When they say you are more relaxed about the second child, I hope I don't actually fall into placing her in front of a window and letting my five year old babysit while he simultaneously cooks dinner so that I can have my beauty sleep (wow, that sounds nice...).
Actually, there is one pattern she is attracted to and it is right above the rocking chair where I feed her. A big Marimekko fabric stretched on a canvas that Dickson bought at a garage sale and is our favourite possession. I love these patterns. The one on our wall is a classic and I hope to be able to afford a few more designs in the future.
Recently, I found this clip on you tube (a slight addiction of mine, that you tube).
