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Bajka iskierki

Friday 29 December 2006

I’ve put together a new video. For the music, I chose one of the most widely known Polish lullabies: “Bajka iskierka” (“An Ember’s Bedtime Story”). It’s a modern-ish version by Polish pop stars Grzegorz Turnau and Magda Umer.

An Ember’s Bedtime Story
Traditional Melody, Words by Janina Porazińska

From the fire’s ashes
an ember is winking at WojtuÅ›.
“Come! I’ll tell you a bedtime story,
A long fairy tale.

“There once was a princess
who fell in love with a minstrel
The king gave them a wedding,
And that’s the end of the story.

“Long ago lived Baba Jaga.
She lived in a hut made of butter.
And in this house all was enchantment.”
Psst! The ember’s died.

From the fire’s ashes
an ember is winking at WojtuÅ›.
“Come! I’ll tell you a bedtime story,
A long fairy tale.”

Hush! WojtuÅ› won’t believe you anymore,
little ember.
You flicker but for a moment,
then you die.

And that’s the whole fairy tale.

Z popielnika na Wojtusia
iskiereczka mruga:
Chod?, opowiem ci bajeczk?,
bajka b?dzie d?uga.

By?a sobie raz kr�lewna,
pokocha?a grajka,
Kr�l wyprawi? im wesele
i sko?czona bajka.

By?a sobie Baba Jaga
mia?a chatk? z mas?a,
a w tej chatce same dziwy!
Psst� Iskierka zgas?a.

Z popielnika na Wojtusia
iskiereczka mruga:
Chod?, opowiem ci bajeczk?,
bajka b?dzie d?uga.

Ju? ci Wojtu? nie uwierzy,
iskiereczko ma?a.
Chwilk? b?y?niesz,
potem zga?niesz.

Ot i bajka ca?a.

Enter: LMS, Part III :: 4 a.m., Saturday

Tuesday 26 December 2006

K awakens me with the news: “I think my water broke.”

Again, from birthing classes, we know that this is not a sign to rush to the hospital immediately. There are still no contractions, and the trick for knowing when to go to the hospital is 4-1-1 — contractions which are four minutes apart, last for one minute each, and continue like this for one hour.

“All this is part of early labor,” the birthing instructor informed us weeks ago. “This could last for hours, and it’s important for mothers to be as relaxed as possible. Go for a walk. Take a hot bath. Watch your favorite movie,” her advice continued.

We’d decided we’d watch My Big, Fat Greek Wedding — a movie about an amusing clash of cultures not entirely unlike what my family experienced at our own, Polish wedding.

But who wants to watch a movie at four in the morning?

K decides to call the midwife, just to make sure everything is fine. She learns that we need to meet at the hospital by eight if nothing has happened. “If contractions do not begin within four hours of water breaking, we’ll need to induce labor,” she explains.

We begin last minute preparations for our big adventure.

Once everything is packed, I come back to the computer and publish the pre-prepared post about going to the hospital. I set the time for eight, figuring that no matter what, we’d be on our way by then.

As I’m finishing up, K informs me that her first contraction has hit. It’s 4:15 a.m., and the contraction lasts about fifteen seconds, and about four minutes later, the second hits, also fifteen seconds.

Four minutes later, the third: about thirty-five seconds.

Four minutes later, the fourth: about forty-five seconds.

K tells me we’re going to the hospital within a few minutes. I’m still skeptical.

A little over an hour later, at 5:30, we leave for the hospital.

The Search for a Pacific Baby

Saturday 23 December 2006

The pacifier is an innocuous looking little bit of plastic and rubber, but the British English term seems more indicative of its less-than-ideal nature: the dummy.

The pacifier is a substitute — no one denies that. When an infant is whinny, colicky, unable to sleep, there’s nothing like the instinctual sucking motions of all infants to calm them down. Yet a baby cannot feed indefinitely, hence the pacifier — the dummy nipple.

It’s an easy, logical answer: all the comforting sucking without the overeating. Yet, it seems akin to using the television as a babysitter. It’s an easy answer. And so, as parents, we all have to make the decision as to whether or not we’ll use one with our child.

With L, we experimented with one briefly when she was upset, rooting, and yet definitely fed. To our relief, L would suck on it for a moment, then either spit it out or allow it to be taken out.

“So a pacifier works,” we thought. A bit of a relief when you have a colicky baby.

Then I did a little reading and found that it’s not a good idea to use a pacifier with a baby who’s breastfeeding, at least until the baby is a month old and has mastered nursing (a skill both mother and daughter have had to learn, but that’s an entirely different story). The sucking motions are completely different, and using a pacifier sucking motion on while feeding results in underfeeding — not a good idea when the baby hasn’t even returned to her birth weight yet.

And so, we put the pacifier away for good. Yet that leaves the question, how do you calm a panicky, colicky baby? We’ve found a few things that work with L — any suggestions?

After Dinner

Friday 22 December 2006

Lately, I’ve been the one finishing up the dinner process: the burping and, more importantly with L, the twenty or so minutes of cuddling afterwards.

After Eating, After Burping

She tends to do much better if one of us holds her for some time after dinner and after burping.

After Dinner

Not that I mind…

Mom

Friday 22 December 2006

K’s first couple of days after L’s birth.

Enter: LMS, Part II :: Friday Evening

Friday 22 December 2006

K arrives home exhausted. “I just want to relax,” she says. “I have a feeling I’m going to need my strength.”

I make a quick pizza and salad for dinner, and after eating, K goes to the bedroom, not to emerge until it’s time to go to the hospital.

Worried, I set up the baby monitor we got at one of the many showers held in L’s honor and set it up. Throughout the night, K is moaning in her sleep, and often going to the bathroom. I bring her tea with lemon and honey. She sleeps a little more. I bring her more tea. She sleeps still a little more, but it’s a fitful sleep.

There’s no doubt in my mind that sometime Saturday we’ll be going to the hospital. Still no contractions, but it seems inevitable.

From birthing class, I know that it won’t be a question of Boom! and here comes the baby. Such things only occur in Hollywood. Labor takes time. Hours. Even days.

A story was told early in the class of a woman who was in labor for two weeks. Two weeks of contractions, hours apart, and slowly, probably almost imperceptibly for her, growing closer and stronger.

K’s friend spent sixteen hours in labor at the hospital. That’s not counting the time at home.

“We’ll be going to the hospital sometime in the late morning or early afternoon,” I say to myself, and sit down to prepare a short post making the announcement.

Enter: LMS, Part I :: Friday Afternoon

Thursday 21 December 2006

Three o’clock, Friday — my phone rings. As always, I jump when I see it’s K calling. “Is she having contractions? Is she?”

She always reassures me that that’s not why she’s calling, and this time is no different. She does, however, also inform me this time that her afternoon visit at the midwife’s clinic revealed that she’s one centimeter dilated and ninety percent effaced.

“Ninety percent?” I say. “Our daughter could pop out any minute!” I joke.

“Ninety percent,” I mutter to myself after I hang up the phone. Saturday night’s plans are probably for naught; I probably won’t be coming to work next week; we’re going to have a daughter by weekend’s conclusion.

Nothing’s certain; everything’s certain. I rush back inside to flesh out my lesson plans for Monday and Tuesday. My skeletal outlines will never do if someone else is leading class.

“Ninety percent,” I say again.

It seems certain we’ll be meeting our daughter this weekend.

Dear Thud

Thursday 21 December 2006

Dear Thud,

I know you are waiting in great expectation for the birth of your and Elf’s child. Having experienced this recently myself, I thought I’d tell you to cherish something that you will lose forever once your child is born.

Sleep.

Who needs sleep?
Well, you’re never gonna get it.
Who needs sleep?
Tell me what’s that for?
Who needs sleep?
be happy with
what you’re getting–
There’s a guy who’s been awake
since the Second World War

Bare Naked Ladies

It will disappear like a wisp of smoke, and you’ll find yourself longing for one more chance at that last night before your child was born

It will disappear and the memory of it will instantly be so faint that you’ll think you’re hallucinating, that you never actually did sleep more two hours at a time.

It will disappear and be replaced at times with a roaring headache accompanied by the cause of that headache: a cry that is so piercingly shrill that it seems incapable of being produced by a human larynx.

You’ll find yourself jealous of your child, sleeping at all hours, throughout the day–of course, only to wake up when any civilized person would be going to bed.

Substitute

But there are advantages to being awake all the time. You see things like this.

So cheer up — sleep deprivation is actually a blessing. True, it distills the first days into one, long, blur. But it’s the most beautiful blur you’ll experience.

In the meantime, get sleep. Sleep when you’re not sleepy. Sleep just because you can. Sleep in the middle of the day. Set your alarm clock for 3 AM just so you can experience the wonder of turning it off and instantly going back to sleep. Sleep in chairs, on beds, in the middle of the living room floor. Wallow in sleep. Because take it from me — the End is near!

But more importantly, so is the Beginning.

Droopily,
g

Three Days Old

Tuesday 19 December 2006

Covered in cheese, she came into the world in a mix of blood, water, and mystery. That is to say, she is elemental, and sublime.

She poops dark chocolate, chokes herself with spit, and shivers violently when she’s cold, which doesn’t take much.

Her cry when she’s hungry is different than her cry when she’s mad, which is different from her cry when she’s cold.

Her language is rich with grunts, squeaks, moans, trills, howls, and a thousand thousand variations of all those things.

She wakes easily and falls asleep easily.

It often takes little to get her crying, and sometimes even less to get her to stop. But crying stretches her lungs and provides definitive proof that she is still breathing.

She smells of pinkness and warmth and contentedness, a fragrance more stunning than the most expensive perfumes. Her face is more perfect than anything Vermeer conceived and her cry makes Bach seem juvenile. Her eyes, still mostly closed, offer mystery and promise when a slit appears and a flash of iris shows itself.

She is most content when bundled tightly and free movement only makes her feel lost and cold. A tight swaddle stops crying instantly, and a loosening of her protective wraps brings a screech.

She is as light as a bundle of rags and heavier than all the world.

A gift, a responsibility, a privilege, a promise, a thesaurus of all the warm and wondrous words in all languages.

Pink Thing

Monday 18 December 2006

“You make me want to laugh, you make me want to cry.” Granted, Andy was singing about a baby boy, but for the most part, it works.

Lena Maria

Sunday 17 December 2006

Born Saturday, December 16 at 8:05 am


Seven pounds, fifteen ounces


The most beautiful creature K and I have seen

More details later in the week

Crib

Sunday 5 November 2006

In the corner of our bedroom now sits a new bed: L’s crib. Two months to go, and our home is slowly beginning to look like the floor of Babies R Us.

DSC_0667

Assembly was a quick enough process, but for once, Dad read the instructions carefully to make sure we did nothing wrong.

DSC_0549

And of course, there was the requisite crawling about on the floor. No project is complete without it.

DSC_0595

Last night I woke up and looked over at the silhouette of the crib, and imagining a little girl asleep in it was so soothing that I fell back asleep almost immediately.

Reading and Walls

Tuesday 12 September 2006

Wirth CoverIn my “Currently Reading” pile of books lies Prenatal Parenting by Frederick Wirth, M.D. Most interesting so far have been the sections on fetal sensory development, particularly the development and growth of the auditory system. Wirth writes that at “twenty-two weeks of gestation the developing infant will respond to sounds from outside the womb. By twenty-eight weeks the infant responds to sound in very consistent ways.” (28) And so K talks to her walk driving to work, and I press my cheek to K’s belly nightly and tell our daughter how much we’re looking forward to meeting her.

K and I have been playing a little music box for our daughter nightly for some weeks now, but recently, we’ve added reading to the ritual.

It should have a noticeable effect:

I can always tell which of my full-term newborn infants have been read to. They have more mature orienting behavior to auditory stiumli. I can even tell which fathers have been active in reading to their unborn child. I do this by holding the infant between me and his father while we compete for the infant’s attention by calling the child’s name. If the dad has been actively involved in the reading and singing, his child will turn his head toward him, looking for the source of the sound. Invariably, when their eyes meet they both react positively. (Wirth, 29)

SidewalkOften, it’s selections from Where the Sidewalk Ends, not so much because L will like it more — obviously, fetal brain development at this point is not that advanced — but because K likes Silverstein’s playful language.

Tonight, Robert Frost, concluding with one of his best, one of the best, period: “Mending Wall.” It has one of the truest passages ever written:Wall

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’

Such concerns seem largely forgotten these days.

General Entry

Sunday 10 September 2000

I was reading a little from Luci Shaw’s Life Path and if course I’m thinking, “I should be writing in my journal every single day. Every morning.” I write more in my journal these days about the fact that I never write than anything else. What all could I write about? My job — dealing with the nonsense that goes on there. My continuing frustration with Kali’s “I don’t get it” juxtaposed to her increasing “confidence.” There we go — I’ll write about that for a while.

Kali seems to be almost arrogant with her confidence at times. It’s very strange because on the one hand she complains about “not getting it” with certain things that I have written that I think are crystal clear, and then she seems to say that she can do anything she wants, that she’s the greatest asset our whole company has. I’ve just learned to deal with her on a case-by-case basis and realize that almost everything I give her will be declared completely incomprehensible at some point — one passage, one sentence, one silly word even.

I’m listening to BNL’s “When You Dream,” and it’s making me think about what it would be like to have a child. Originally I wrote “what it will be like,” then changed it to “will/would,” then dropped the definitive verb altogether and just stuck with the conditional. Second conditional in fact — used for things that aren’t the case and probably won’t be the case. Like saying, “If Bolek were a king,” I might have explained in class with last year’s IVB. So it’s almost the middle of September and I still haven’t talked to Chhavi. I still haven’t asked her a short (but not simple) question: Do you really think you’ll ever want to have a child?

And I guess I really need to ask myself beforehand: how much do I really want a child? Would I want one right now? No — certainly not. There’s no certainty in our life right now. We don’t know how long we’ll be living here or there or anywhere. And why would that stop me? Because it goes against everything I’ve always imagined my life would be like as a parent: having someplace that we stay for several years. A place to settle down, to put roots down — all those stupid cliches for which there are no other words, or for which I don’t want to search for replacements. So that’s the situation. I have this preconceived notion of how my life would be — probably an image I’ve had since I first took an interest in girls — once I fell in love and all that jazz. And yet nothing else has turned out as I would have thought when I was 15 or 16, so why should this be any different?

What are my alternatives? If C were to say she didn’t really think she would ever want children, and if — and that’s a huge “if” — I were to decide that because of this I should go my own way, what are my alternatives? Not many as I can tell.

I’ll finish this later today I hope.