Christmas 2006
the girl
The Search for a Pacific Baby
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
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.
She tends to do much better if one of us holds her for some time after dinner and after burping.
Not that I mind…
Enter: LMS, Part II :: Friday Evening
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
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.
Feeding and Sleepling
L eats every two hours. And then sleeps.
I’m jealous.
Acclimation
L’s been getting used to so many new things. The most obvious are the temperature changes she endures — a far cry from the constant warmth in which she spent her first nine months. Hunger is another novelty for her. She doesn’t like it one bit, and tends to get infuriated if not satiated.
Light is another.
The first times she really opened her eyes (about fourteen hours after she was born) was in total darkness. Slowly she’s been daring to open her eyes in brighter and brighter light.
And finally, after a bath, this:
More at our Flickr slide show
Three Days Old
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
“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
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
We’re off…
It’s to the hospital with us!!
Kick!
We felt L move some time ago — last week, we finally saw her move. That’s rather like saying “I saw the wind blow.” We saw the effects of L’s movement: a bump on K’s belly that grew and shrank and grew again, moving about slightly before disappearing.
Almost nightly, rubbing K’s belly, I say in amazement, “There’s a little person inside you!” Despite K’s increasingly rotund belly, the pregnancy is still so abstract. The coming responsibilities and joys are still little more than a daydream. It was like imagining being “grown up” when you’re a kid: you know it will come eventually, but it’s so nebulous that it might as well be a fairy tale.
But during those moments, when L is thumping and bumping about in K’s belly, it really settles in. The “we’re going to be parents” morphs into “we are parents.” We just haven’t met our little girl yet…
Music Box
At nine o’clock, K starts yawning. She says it’s the pregnancy, but anyone who drags themselves out of bed at five every morning needs no excuses. Since I generally get up later, I go to bed later.
L’s twenty weeks old — she can hear now. And so, on the advice of friends, K and I have begun a nightly tradition. Just before turning out the light, of putting a small music box — a gift from my oldest friend and his family — to K’s belly. The theory is that the music will later calm L, as it reminds her of her old, warm, save home. We lie there silently, K and I imagining what it will be like when she’s falling asleep in her crib to that music, barely able to keep her eyes open, yawning, and remembering how warm and cozy she was when she first heard that music.
Again, that’s the theory anyway. I’m under no illusions that it will work like a switch: wind it up to wind her down. But the hope is it will at least calm her when she’s very upset.
Teaching
The end of the school year for seniors – today was the last time they’ll all be together, and as of this afternoon, they are officially graduates, with only the matura (exit exam) awaiting them. There was of course something like a graduation ceremony, complete with a series of skits and songs performed by juniors, as per tradition. Naturally, among the songs was that school classic, “Ale to już było / I nie wróci więcej”
(“But that has already been, and won’t return again”).
I sat there, facing the seniors, watching some of the girls get teary-eyed and sing along, and I couldn’t help but smile. I wasn’t happy because of their obvious sadness, but because of the privilege I was experiencing – to be that close to so many young people that are of no relation to me at all. I see their joys and troubles, and sometimes have to put up with their troubles jointly when they come pouting to class. When I’m extremely fortunate, I’m even part of the cause some of their joy; and unfortunately, I’m certainly the cause of their troubles too often. But young skin, hearts, and bones mend quickly, I tell myself.
I’ve taught these seniors for three years – their entire high school career. I’ve seen some of them go from being complete beginners to relatively eloquent English speakers.
I’ve seen some of them come in and leave with the same level. Most have improved, as evidenced by letters that I had them write to themselves at the end of their first year in high school and then gave back this week. What a feeling, watching them read and hearing them laugh at their own silly mistakes, and what a sense of accomplishment for them that they can now see those mistakes.
But it’s not only been their English that has improved. Girls have become young ladies, in appearance and behavior. Little boys in teenagers’ bodies have become responsible young men. Nerdy outcasts have improved their social skills and have even become semi-popular. Boys learned how to comb their hair and became young men, and awkward young girls became attractive young women.
That’s the best thing about having taught in the same place for a while – you see the kids grow up. It’s like parenting, without as many of the worries.
School Christmas Show Prep
Friday: woke up to snow. I was sitting here preparing the outline for class 3b, who will be having a fairly useless test Friday1, when suddenly it started snowing — quite heavily. The sun came out, though, and the snow was gone by mid-morning. Still, it was nice while it lasted. And there’ll be more to come, certainly.
Friday night I did nothing but work on “A Christmas Carol” for the kids — rather, the girls, since no guys ever come — of the “circle of English,” something we must rename as soon as humanly possible. The plan is this: I’ll give it to them now, a couple of chapters at a time, and then we’ll discuss it during the circle, and hopefully they’ll be able to make an even more simplified version that we can put on the bulletin board in about a month. That will be great if it works out.
Friday I also talked to Mirek Smoleń about a joint circle of English/circle of music presentation during the opłotek meeting. I’m going to be teaching the girls a few Christmas carols and they’ll be teaching them in two weeks to the kids in the circle. Then we’ll perform them for the school. Not bad, I think.
1 I thought they’d done more business English stuff than they actually had. There’s in fact only about three topics, but that’s fine, I guess — the good kids will get good grades and the bad kids will get bad grades. I hope.
New School Year
I didn’t get a chance yesterday to write in here because I spent the only free time I had here in the house watching the Tour de Pologne, specifically the leg from Kołobrzeg to Szczecin. I thought it would be good for my Polish, but instead it was a bit of a waste of time because I fell asleep. Such is life.
Yesterday’s lessons were okay, except for the lesson with 4C. I wanted to kill them. Honestly, I remembered how they were my last year here and I thought they would probably be the same. I shouldn’t be so general like this — it’s not everyone, just the boys. The girls have their problems too: mainly, they won’t attempt much of anything (though I was impressed with blond Agnieszka yesterday who did utter a few sentences, and I’m not being sarcastic here). Still, I didn’t let it get me down too much. I finished the lesson quickly, then told them that the first thing we were going to do next lesson was assign some seating. The boys will certainly not be sitting anywhere near each other if I can at all help it.
I had the second half of 3B yesterday as well, and they were quite a joy. Of course I had them in a small group, and that’s always helpful. I wish they could all be small groups, but at the same time, that would triple my teaching load, and I’d have to teach the same damn lesson so many times that I’d be so sick of it.
Last night I cooked dinner for today: chicken cacciatore. I didn’t have any zucchini, but such is life. It still looks and tastes good. As I was cooking, I was thinking about all the different things I could cook while I’m here, and I came to the unfortunate realization that I should have brought a lot of spices with me, such as cumin (real cumin, not the nonsense they sell here under the name kminek), coriander, and such. But especially cumin. I’d love to be able to make piccadillo here, but I wouldn’t even consider it without cumin. I’m sure you can get it somewhere, though. Maybe even in Nowy Targ. It would also be helpful in making salsa and Indian food. If I can’t find it here, maybe I can request that as a care package. Anyway, I was thinking a big hit would be that rolled flank steak I used to fix, but I don’t know where I could get flank steak.
As I was walking to make the phone calls, I encountered Tadek as he was walking the other way. We shook hands, and he asked me if I’d been to Quattro. I said no, but that I might go after I make some phone calls. I was honestly thinking that I’d only be going if Edyta agreed to meet me there, but as I walked back toward the Mastelas’, I thought, “What harm could it do for me to drop in? If I know no one, I can sit and talk to the bartender.” I walked in and the first people I saw were Wiola (from class 4A) and Adela. I talked to Adela for about a minute, but I felt quite uncomfortable doing so. I thought for a moment that I’d made a mistake. I saw, though, that there was smoke coming from the booth around the corner, where I’d sat with Monika and Anita Saturday night, and I walked over to investigate. And there sat Beata P. I waved at her, then walked around to see whom she was sitting with. And there sat Teresa W. Beata almost immediately invited me to sit down with them, so I said, “Let me get a beer,” and thus began a very nice evening.
We talked about a lot of things, including why they were there. Beata failed a test today because she couldn’t get her computer to work. She explained it to the professor, and his response was typically Polish: “Trudno.” As was his suggestion as to how she could make it up. If she were to bring a certain amount of vodka and other spirits, as well as a little cash, she could pass. Typical.
Wreck
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Early September
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A Letter
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Confessions
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