Sleepless Nights

I really should stop Googling things

by Veronica on April 26, 2013

This morning I tried to feed Evelyn. After deciding she didn’t really want any milk, she lay there across my chest, smiling at me with her tongue out, showcasing its twitching and shaking. It’s times like these I wish I had magic video camera eyes. Then I can play these scenes for her Paediatrician, and he can see what I see.

Yesterday I spent an hour trying to video her tongue, while she spent the time trying to grab my face, eat the camera, kick me, or shout. None of these things make videoing a fine tremor easy and I can’t say with any great certainty that I managed it.

I Googled, afterwards, because it’s what you do in this world of instant information. You Google.

Then I stopped Googling, because there is nothing I can find that suggests a tongue tremor in a baby is a good thing. Sure, maybe if she was a perfectly healthy baby and it was our only symptom I wouldn’t worry, but gross motor delays, seizures AND a tongue tremor?

Step away from the Google-machine Veronica. You don’t need to know this stuff yet.

—

I am pacing the floor with Evelyn, because she’s vaguely grumpy and I have things to do that don’t involve her shouting at me. In one hand she has a square of toast, which she waves around like a trophy. I guess it is a trophy, of sorts, considering she stole it from me.

I sway and she smiles at me, before shoving the toast in my mouth, not happy until I nibble a corner off.

“Your turn,” I say, chewing my tiny bit of pre-slobbered toast. She grins and shoves half of it in her own mouth.

My heart sings, because while she missed my mouth three times and her mouth twice, the behaviour right there is age appropriate. She’s showing lovely signs of cognitive normality and it makes me happy every time I see something I don’t have to worry about.

Later, she practices her new skill by sticking a well gummed rusk up my nose, in my eye and finally in my mouth. Her hand-arm control isn’t great, but she knows what she wants to do, and she wants to share.

Happiness is sharing sticky food bits.

—

Amy is sick. So sick that when I suggest she goes back to bed she does so wordlessly, without a fight. Later, she sobs into my arms because despite panadol, this virus she has is miserable and has already knocked me down a few days previously.

I rub her back and Evelyn, who is in bed with us leans forwards to stroke her face and pull her hair, looking worried.

As a distraction, we start reading Harry Potter, something I’d been putting off because I hate reading aloud. We snuggle in and her sobs diminish as she listens to my voice. Four pages in, she is ready for sleep and so I leave her, tucked up with her kitten, her bedroom dark and quiet.

She sleeps for an hour, this child of mine who hasn’t napped since she was nineteen months old, and emerges briefly for water before bursting into tears again.

I tuck her into my bed and I read more, because that’s what you do when your child is unwell. You do things you hate because it helps them feel better. Evelyn kicks in her cot, listening to my voice and I must admit, sick or not, it’s nice being snuggled with my girls on either side of me.

I can forget what I read on Google and my fears for this baby, as we immerse ourselves into the world of Harry Potter.

It’s enough, right now.

{ 17 comments }

I am worried about this baby.

by Veronica on April 22, 2013

in Evelyn,Headfuck,Seizures

This morning, I put Evelyn down for her nap and when, five minutes later, she complained loudly about having to fall asleep, I picked her back up again. I tucked her under my chin and we paced the floor, snuggled together, while I listened to Neil Gaiman talk.

She snuffled my neck and wound her fingers into the tufts of hair behind my ears, tugging gently.

The talk finished and I put Evelyn down, patting her gently. She fell asleep and I was left looking at her. Baby soft cheeks and milky smell and I am so worried about her.

She has no depth perception, you see. She flinches when we walk in front of her, or we wave our arms, or something moves. She can’t judge where that thing she wants to grab is. Every new thing I notice is like a check mark against her; against the possibility of normality.

Last night, I rubbed her tummy while she fell asleep, feeling so lucky to have her. I watched her while she seized and seized and seized, thinking that if we end up having to go to hospital every time she seizes for longer than five minutes, I’m never going to spend any time at home.

Her tongue trembles, and she holds the tip of it arched up to the roof of her mouth. Her gross motor skills aren’t improving. She still has head lag when I pull her to sitting. Her shoulder joints slide around under my hands.

I worry about her, because no one know what is going on.

And yet – when I leave the room, she cries. She is amused by kisses. She watches her siblings avidly. She soaks everything in like a sponge. Her mouth moves in response when I talk to her. Cognitively, she seems very much like an almost nine month old baby, even if physically she can’t master anything she’s meant to be doing.

I like facts. I like to know what is going to happen. I like plans and progress and an idea in my head. I like these things because they give structure to my unbridled imagination that is always darker than my reality is likely to be. Because if someone says unequivocally “Your baby has X” then I know what X means and I can stop waking up at 3am, worried that she is dying.

This is what it means to be waiting and seeing. It means I pace the floor with my baby, listening to Neil Gaiman talk about throwing things to the wind like dandelion seeds, while I try to impress the smell of my child into my brain, just in case.

Because like he says, no one knows what will happen. No one knows where an idea will land.

And sometimes, that is the scariest thing of all.

{ 21 comments }

Kittens and babies: mix well, add seasoning.

by Veronica on April 20, 2013

in Evelyn

You’d think that Evelyn being able to catch a kitten would be a sign of her growing mobility. Actually, it’s a sign of the stupidity of kittens when it comes to small children and babies. Alley, the tabby kitten, lies underneath Evelyn’s bouncer, seemingly content in her safety. She might be right for all we know, as Evelyn rolls towards her, chubby fingers grasping for a kitten tail.

With a flick, Alley removes her tail from Evelyn’s grasp, right as Evelyn topples over in the wrong direction, to be distracted by a sock monkey.

Small moments in my day. A sleepy teasing kitten and a grappling baby who desires more than she can have.

I rescue the baby and snuggle behind her ears, breathing in soft milky smell. Babies are delicious. She clamours in my ears, simultaneously wanting all my attention, but also wanting to get down and eat the cat.

I’m an obliging mother. I put her next to the kitten, who submits to the ear grabbing and head chewing.

Before I know it, the kitten is asleep and the baby is distracted again, grumpily rolling herself in a new direction, intent upon destruction; a book abandoned upon the floor.

Baby and kitten

{ 7 comments }

Instead of reading your blogs, I’ve been stabbing out my own eyes. It’s less painful, frankly.

by Veronica on April 17, 2013

in Soapbox

seagull Kim Foale

My son has gone out with his Daddy, my big girl is at school and my baby is asleep. I’ve just written three articles for The Shake, edited some others, eaten four chocolate biscuits and made a poached egg. My kitchen is semi-tidy, the cat litter is scooped and I’ve had a cup of tea. I watered the greenhouse and strung new lines for the beans. I snipped away the dying pumpkins, infected with plague, and I’ve eaten all the red cherry tomatoes, feeling vaguely guilty that I wasn’t saving them for everyone else.

I didn’t realise how stressed I was until I spent some time in silence, without anyone shouting at me. Isaac shouts because he is FOUR and FOUR YEAR OLDS have trouble with voice modulation. Amy shouts because her classroom is loud and it turns into a habit, trying to be louder than everything else. Evelyn shouts because she is frustrated to be almost nine months old with no body control. And Nathan and I shout because we’re dramatic, and even though our shouting often ends in laughter, it’s still loud.

So. Silence.

SIIIIILENCE.

It’s nice. Not that it’s actually silent, of course. The kittens are playing and I can hear the scritch scritch scritch of kitten paws through the house. Evelyn sighs occasionally, and there is music quietly running in the background, making sure it’s not so silent that the sound of my fingers on the keys will wake her up.

I’ve been annoyed at the Internet, frankly. The list of blogs I enjoy reading is steadily shrinking, as blogs I enjoy fall off the radar and stop updating and good blogs are failing to pop up in their place. Maybe I’m a snob, but frankly, when I click on a blog and there are eight typos in the first two paragraphs, I’m going to spend the next few days shitty about it. Because REALLY? THAT’S THE STANDARD I’M MEANT TO ASPIRE TO?

Sorry Internet, but I just can’t do it. I’m aspiring to be something better than pretty and whimsical. I want to read writing, and reality, and truth-telling, not housewives with nothing better to do than post photos of themselves wearing whimsical tutus and stupid looking flowers in their hair.

I just want more from you. Is that too much to ask?

Partly, this is Zoey and Kate’s fault. They made me Editor at The Shake and now I can’t read anything without my Editor cap on, quietly picking up the run-on sentences needing commas and finding myself lying in a pool of blood when there’s a loose/lose error and someone’s fucked up there/their/they’re. I mean JESUS PEOPLE, READ YOUR SHIT BACK. It’s like you ENJOY watching me stab out my own eyes.

Their fault.

You can blame them.

Now my baby has woken up. I was stabbing my keys too hard.

I blame you.

{ 122 comments }