The (un)reality of death

Eliana does not like the concept of death. Never has. But as she gets older it gets more real, deeper, and the fear is greater.

Olympia, the cat I'd had since I was nine, died a couple of months ago, and this week was our first trip to my parents house since then. I'd decided to wait til she noticed Olympia was gone to tell her. She didn't react very strongly, just an "Ohhhh. Why did she die?" and seemed to accept our explanation that she was very old. (Very.)

Then yesterday as we left Modesto after Thanksgiving I parked in front of my grandma's tree for a few minutes. We planted this tree when she died 19 years ago at the age of 51. She would have turned 70 a week ago. So I sat there and Elly asked me what we were doing. I explained it to her. (She already knows about Grandma Linda.) She thought that sounded like a nice idea and asked me if I would plant a tree for her when she died. I said I hoped I would die first because I was older than her and I wanted her to be very very old before she died, and that I hoped I would also be very very old before I died.

Then tonight, I heard her crying over the baby monitor and I went to hug her. She said about 2 minutes worth of explanation that I could not make out. Finally I asked her to repeat herself and I figured out that she was saying she was sad because someday Grandma was going to die. She said, "I want grandma to live forever." I said, "Oh me too honey. It's sad that everybody dies, but grandma is not sick and she is not old and she will be here for a long long time." She said, "But I can't stop thinking about when she dies." I said, "Well, try to think about what you're going to do with Grandma tomorrow." She said, "I just told you, I can't stop thinking about when she dies." (I would've laughed if she hadn't been so pathetic.) "OK, would it help if Grandma comes to give you a cuddle now?" "Yes!"

Poor baby. It must be so overwhelming at her age to think about loss. I hope it's a long time before she has to feel a loss.

You'll poke your eye out

Eliana got a new pencil at school today, and she wanted to carry it on the walk home. I made her promise that she would only walk, and not run, skip, or gallop. (These things must be distinguished.) She asked, "why can I not run?"

Me: "Because you could fall and poke your eye out with the pencil."

Elly: "Ouchie. And then you'd have to take me to the hospital so they could make me a new eye."

Me: "Well, honey, they don't make new eyes."

5 minutes pass.

Elly: "But I know how to make a new eye. You take some jello and you make it white, and you make it into half a circle. Then you get some more jello and you make it the color of your eyes, and you put it together, and you smoosh it into your eye."

Me: "Oh. Well, you're right, they can make fake eyes that would make you look like you had an eye, but you still wouldn't be able to see."

Elly: "Oh sure, Mommy, all you have to do is put some seeing juice in the eye."

Eliana at the park, spinning

"I'm going as fast as a shooting star!"

"Mommy, was I so fast that I was just a blur?"

Reflection on the election

The morning of the election, I told Scott, "If McCain wins, I'm going to cry."

As it turns out, I cried anyway.

When the results started being posted on the news websites, I checked in. I tried to distract myself. But unlike the last election, where hid and then went to bed early, I had to keep looking. I tried not to get my hopes up when the early numbers looked good, and I couldn't quite believe the victory was sealed even when the numbers midway through looked fabulous. When the numbers were in the 300's, I finally believed it. And I cried.

I cried with relief, for the hope of a better future, and with the release of all the energy I spent over the past few months trying not to get my hopes up. And later that night, when I clicked to watch Obama's acceptance speech, I watched him and his family walk out and I cried again: with awe and pride that our country has already come this far, for his girls who can look at their father and say "My dad is president" and skin color bedamned, and for my own girls who will grow up with a president who doesn't look like us. I wanted to wake them up and hug them and tell them that the world had changed for the better, but knowing they wouldn't understand I just cried outside their door. Hopefully someday they will be able to understand how important and huge Obama's election is, while still feeling it's normal.

Bumps in the road

I've now spent 3 total years of my life nursing, and suddenly here I am with issues.

My boobs hurt.

When D latches on, everything looks good from the outside. I get him on when he's open wide, his lower lip is flanged (and I pull the top one so it's flanged, which I've had to do with all my newborns), he's got an inch of breast at least, he nurses with big jaw drawdowns and wiggly ears, and swallows every 1-3 sucks. Most importantly, milk transfer is good - he's gaining well and my supply is good. All as it has been since the beginning.

But...

When he latches off, my nipple has taken on a new shape, and looks purple on the tip. It almost never hurts to nurse on the right side, and when it does I just latch him off and we do it again and it's fine. On the left side, however, it almost always hurts, even after I've latched him off and on a few times and it looks perfect from the outside. I can feel his gums instead of his tongue, and that hurts. Sometimes I let him latch on with his mouth less open, just because he's more able to get his tongue over his gums that way, so it's more comfortable than opening wide. This also is how it has been since the beginning, I remember saying "He latches great except I don't think he's putting his tongue where it belongs." I thought he'd figure it out.

In between nursings, I often get burning sensations in the nipple and in the breast. Occasionally a shooting pain in the breast. (Both, actually.) And it hurts a lot when my milk lets down - not the mild stinging I remember from my first two babies. Again, this has been going on since the beginning. But the burning has gotten worse.

So finally when D got to 3 or 4 weeks I decided he wasn't going to figure it out and decided I needed to try harder. Then when he hit 5 weeks I decided I wasn't getting anything to change and it was time to get help.

So I've talked with my midwife and with a lactation consultant, and have an appointment for tomorrow with another lactation consultant. My midwife said that the pain in between nursings could be thrush in the breast (there are no external signs but apparently it can be only internal) or a bacterial infection that is not classic mastitis. She thought we should get the latch taken care of before resorting to medication, since that is the usual cause of pain and the first thing to rule out. (And I'm all for avoiding unnecessary medication.) She asked about tongue-tie, but he has stuck his tongue out (not far, but enough). So the LC I wanted to see is out of town, and I'm trying others. The one I talked to on the phone said it might be a mild case of tongue-tie that makes it hard for him to get his tongue out far enough with his mouth wide open, for the larger nipple on the left side. She said she doubted that coming to look at him latch on would help her assess what was going on, and that the bigger latch problems are actually easier to fix than what I was describing, and said "I don't know what to tell you."

Great. Leave it to me to have the minor, yet unusual and complicated problem.

I'm really starting to think that there IS something going on internally with me, but looking forward to the LC appt tomorrow and what she has to say about his frenums (tongue and upper lip). And if she can't help, I'm looking forward to seeing my midwife for my 6-week checkup this Friday, and if all else fails, the LC I wanted to see will be back in town on the 20th.

But I hope we can have this resolved by then.

Figuring out the basics

Kessa: "Does Donovan have a big thing like Daddy?"

This was totally random, but I knew exactly what she meant. She'd never seen me change his diaper, and it just dawned on her that since he is a boy he would have Daddy-type equipment rather than what the rest of us have got.