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Oscar moved into his big crib tonight. my big boy. sniff.

the mini co-sleeper that he came home from the hospital to, and which has migrated from our bedside to his own bright green room over the past month, has been retired. we spent the weekend in Halifax, and since travelling means it’ll take a night or two for O to readjust to his usual routine anyway, we figured he might as well make the leap to the big crib at the same time. i don’t really know what kind of milestone the move to the crib is, or how to categorize it – congratulations, you’re officially a full-grown baby now?

whatever he is, he’s sleeping soundly, curled up with his bunny in the seemingly vast expanse of his full size sleeping quarters.

and i guess it’s fitting. we realized this weekend, seeing him next to his new cousin Angus, that Oscar’s well past the newborn stage. not only does he dwarf Angus in size, but the two of them are almost different species in terms of interaction. Oscar can laugh now. Oscar can coo, and sit up in a borrowed bumbo seat. and Angus’ older brother Isaac, the two-year-old who benevolently allowed Oscar to use his bumbo seat (briefly), was so much fun to play with and talk to and read with that i realized how much i’m looking forward to Oscar’s continued development: to watching him discover the world, and himself.

bring it on, big baby boy. sleep soundly, and congrats on your graduation.

Oscar is four months old today.

he hasn’t had the easiest four months of it – rather a rough welcome to the world, really. but just this past week or so, he seems to have turned a corner and left much of his gas pain and the accompanying screaming sessions in the dust. suddenly, he’s sleeping until at least 5 am every morning, bless his little soul. and he cries, but not in that heart-wrenching, ear-splitting, hours on end marathon fashion that’s been his hallmark since he turned four weeks old.

i used to sing him John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery,” when he’d wake up in the morning already howling, seemingly just plain outraged by the world. after all, if someone’s wailing at the top of his lungs, what further harm can my singing do? and the line “to believe in this livin’ is just a hard way to go” seemed poignantly fitting for a new little life riddled with pain and discomfort. and for his sainted mother, but of course.

i haven’t sung it all week this week…no need. Oscar seems happy, so long as he’s fed and has someone or something to gaze at. he’s smiling and laughing up a storm. and i am too…though with a slightly shell-shocked look on my face, like i can’t believe my good fortune. the sweet-tempered boy we had for those first four weeks is back in my arms, fatter and funnier and with a bit of a routine under his belt. this time, i mean it – nobody pinch me. :)

or rather, nobody pinch him…or any of his nerves. two friends, one a chiropractor and one an osteopath, both took a little time with Oscar last weekend and gave him a treatment or two – to the naked eye, nothing more than a gentle massage. both asked interesting and salient questions about his birth and his habits…was he born quickly? how does he hold his head? from touching his neck and belly and spine, both were able to offer accurate insights into some of his pain patterns and behaviors, even though neither has ever seen him in full wail. really, neither had ever even seen him before at all, since both of them live in Halifax and were only here on PEI for short visits. neither of them knows the other, nor has either of them talked to me about him since the gas onslaught began at the end of May. yet, within forty-eight hours of each other, they independently offered very similar assessments of what might be bothering him. and within forty-eight hours of their treatments and his digestive nerves getting de-constricted, the boy had tooted out an entire gas tank’s worth of offending air, and was burbling with delight. amazing. yay alternative medicine. both of them are getting Christmas presents this year.

i’ll get shopping for those just as soon as i get the rest of the baby-gift thankyou cards sent. it’s funny…having Oscar suddenly turn into a “normal” baby has jolted into perspective how many things have just slipped by the wayside over these past long months. too many of the aforementioned thankyou cards, dutifully written when he was only weeks old, are still sitting on my desk, half-addressed and gradually forgotten. most of the people they’re written to have been to the house and gone again in the duration…oopsie. this morning i noticed how filthy my shower really is, showing all the grimy, scummy signs of serious neglect over the summer. it was only this past weekend that i finally printed pictures of Oscar, and got a few hung around the house. i meant to ages ago…i feel more real when i can see my life reflected back at me in photos, truth be told, but there seemed to be no time.

now, with him taking quite reasonable naps, there are bits of time for me to steal throughout the day. this midday post is a luxury..when i finish, i shall shower. then, he’ll wake and we’ll smile at each other and struggle through another nursing session…the milk is still inching its way back in pretty stingy quantities. but that’s okay. he’s okay. he feels good. my god, the difference…in both of us.

thank you, world, for the reprieve. please excuse the absent thankyou cards…and stay out of my shower.

happy four-month birthday, little one. i hope this living isn’t such a hard way to go from here on in.

babies don’t seem to like hot weather.

at least not thirty-degree-plus hot weather, with the kind of humidity that makes fruitflies propagate with reckless abandon in my kitchen, and plasters my hair to my head in soft, wet strings. poor O spent most of the past week stripped down to diapers and onesies, and still he was sweaty – sweatier than i’d really imagined babies could get. apparently, he takes after his pa.

he was fussy in the heat, and obviously uncomfortable, and we spent a lot of time cooling him down in the tub. Oscar loves the tub. or doesn’t hate it, at least. until recently, it was hard to tell the difference between indifference and pleasure on his part – if a thing or activity didn’t cause him to pout or scream, we assumed he adored it. he wasn’t really smiling, except with gas, so we were left to attribute his happier emotions haphazardly.

but in the last couple of weeks, the smiles have been coming on. a little late, by the development charts, but he was an early arrival…and now that he is smiling, he’s making up for lost time. throughout the humid weekend, whenever he was cool enough, he beamed. he beamed at me, at his dad, at the cat, at his tub toys. a few times, when he was busy smiling and cooing and i was busy beetling around the room near him, i caught him staring off into space, beaming at the wall. then he seemed to realize that there was nothing there to smile back, and that he was hot, and he broke out in a wail. but as soon as my face reappeared in front of his, there was the smile again.

he has this giant, toothless grin that lights up his whole face, and mine. it makes me feel like the sun in the sky, and even makes the humidity tolerable.

this was worth waiting for. :)

i’ve never been an easy child.

as an infant, i had colic. as a kid, i always wanted to be the centre of attention. as a teenager, my mother and i suffered from a near-terminal case of misunderstanding each other, and went head to head on a regular basis. even as an adult, despite a deep and genuine closeness and years and years of detente, we still have very different sensibilities. and i am seldom anywhere near as patient with her – her suggestions, her ideas, her stories, her “little reminders” – as i mean to be.

but last night i felt closer to my mother – from across town – than i have in years. it was the middle of one of Oscar’s screaming sessions, and i was walking back and forth across the bedroom for the fiftieth time, swinging him gently, hoping the pain wracking him would let up long enough for him – and me – to fall asleep for a little while. i was tired, and sad – near tears myself from the stress and the frustration of not being able to help him, soothe him. and as i shifted his weight into the cradle of my left arm, shifting my feet in the rhythm of Brahms’ Lullaby, i looked down into his little outraged, howling face and realized that we were part of a dance that is probably truly old as time.

there is a rare intimacy in being awake together, mother and child, in the middle of the night. it is an intimacy deeper than words, one of touch and almost-toneless singing, a private little song and dance evolving all the time. and for a moment, last night, as i rocked Oscar in my arms, i remembered the rhythm of being the one who was rocked like that. and i remembered that my mother did this alone: woke with me through the colic, through the tonsilitis and the earaches that plagued me as a toddler, through the night terrors and the loneliness and melancholy that enveloped me sometimes as i grew. and i realized, though i do not remember, that she too must have held me in weary arms as she paced the floor and looked down into my face desperate for me to shut up. and that she must have loved me like this, too, to keep going, to keep getting up, to keep being there all those nights i cried for her.

i was humbled, and grateful. and it comforted me, that visceral memory of being held close, and the feel of a rough, warm hand on mine.  it reminded me that what i’m doing these nights as i walk the floors is important.  from this, he is learning: trust, patience, how to take comfort from others.  somewhere beneath the consciousness of the adult Oscar will someday become, remnants of our night dance will stay with him…even if he never remembers.  i think i need to tell my mother that i do.  and say thanks.

today was supposed to be Oscar’s birthday…but the early bird is almost four weeks old.

and he’s becoming more and more a little person every day. he’s awake more, and he peers about blearily, taking in the world. he’s a content, watchful little creature, round, downy-fuzz head on a sausage roll of swaddling. when he breaks free from his blankets, he flaps his arms like a wild thing, but always seems surprised when the appendages whack him in the face. he peeps when he first wakes up, and he snorts a little when he feeds. he weighs almost seven-and-a-half pounds, and has the beginnings of little baby fat rolls – already i can see his newborn face disappearing, giving way to the round babyface visage he’ll have in the coming months. i grieve and delight in this growth, this changing Oscar. i keep meaning to footprint him now, before his tiny baby feet outgrow the preemie-sized sleepers that get smaller every day. now, i understand all those people who said “it goes by so fast.”

in Antoine St. Exupery’s “The Little Prince,” a fox entreats the little prince to tame him. he instructs him to come at the same time each afternoon, and sit a little closer every day. “to me you are just a little boy, like all other little boys,” says the fox. “but if you tame me, you will be unique in all the world.” my boy has been taming me for four weeks now, batting his little blond eyelashes, distinguishing himself from all the other babies he might have been – teaching me to love him for who he is and is becoming.

but there are other, less Hallmark-worthy revelations in this wonder of new parenthood. the baby’s growing fast and charming me with his small self, but the 3am vigils still seem to last like timeless torture some nights, as i slump in the chair by the bed, struggling to keep the gnawing little mouth latched properly on an aching nipple and the small squirmy body balanced on the breastfeeding pillow. i look at my child, in these moments, and i don’t always see the individual Oscar, but just a baby, a needy baby like a thousand other babies. and i wonder at the survival of the human race.

in the middle of the night, it becomes blatantly, overwhelmingly apparent that this squalling hungry infant is entirely dependent on the adult who happens to be awake with him…which is usually me, though his father is a star at middle-of-the-night diaper changes. but we could ignore him, if we chose. i could sleep (maybe with earplugs). i could leave him lying in his own waste. i could scream at him to shut up already. or, at the end of a rope i hope i never run out of, i could do worse. and he, small mewling thing, could do nothing at all. he is totally, entirely vulnerable to the whims of the adults he’s been entrusted to. this realization – that we are those adults for Oscar – is bald and frightening, and amazing. i have never, ever had such power. or such responsibility.

“The Little Prince” closes the chapter on the fox and the prince with the caution, “you are responsible forever, for what you have tamed.” as a parent, i think the reverse is also true. you are responsible, forever, for the little life that tames you. and sometimes, that responsibility is immense, and exhausting. but Oscar, he of the pointy chin and grasping hands, has become unique to me in all the world. and that – only that – will keep me semi-conscious at 3 in the morning, feeding my little prince.

it has been an amazing four weeks.

thirty-six hours ago, as the sun was coming up on yesterday and Oscar was burbling on my shoulder, i started a post. i have just now found time to return to the computer – me, who has for years considered herself congenitally unable to go more than three waking hours without checking email. apparently, in embarking on this journey together, both Oscar and i have umbilical cords to disentangle ourselves from. his – which is clinging by a thread at this point – seems to be less traumatic for him to shed. :)

i am, however, enjoying myself, in these early days of carting the wee bundle about the house and town. and i am noticing things. sleep deprivation enhances certain powers of observation.

observation one: the personage the child resembles most is neither me nor Dave, but the Buddha. right down to the oversized earlobes and the smugly peaceful smile. in Oscar, the latter is merely infant gas, i’m told. but it’s a look so few of us ever achieve in adulthood…i find it kinda meditative just to be in its presence.

observation two: nursing bras deserve the “world’s most unflattering piece of lingerie” award, hands down. even in competition with the rest of the ancient, nondescript cotton skivvies in my closet, these peekaboo wonders – already lanolin-stained and stretched out of shape – are nasty ugly. no wonder breastfeeding is a moderately reliable form of birth control during the first few months after delivery – i suspect the bras just scare folks off sex entirely.

observation three: Oscar’s stroller has big bike wheels and bouncy suspension, but it’s no match for Charlottetown’s sidewalks – the child is threatened with shaken baby syndrome just getting to the corner. i’m stunned that i never noticed the broken-down state of our civic walkways before. or how fast small-town traffic can seem when one has to push one’s offspring through it.

observation four: there appears to be an inverse relationship between the size of one’s baby and the number of hands required to do anything. Oscar is lighter than a bag of groceries. and yet, despite how easy he is to heft, his wee floppiness makes me, newbie mother, profoundly handicapped in accomplishing said hefting while trying to do absolutely anything else. his still-slow sucking means it takes three hands just to breastfeed. i can sit myself down with the nursing pillow and a nice glass of water and a book, and then spend the next hour pumping a breast with one hand while trying to hold the slippery baby on my lap and keep a nipple in his mouth with the other, ten yards of my displaced shirt bunched bizarrely under my chin, all the while staring longingly at the water and the cover of the book. i memorized the back cover of a magazine the other day during one nursing session, but still have no idea what might have lurked inside.

i hear all this gets easier. rumour has it that one day soon i’ll have him slung under one arm, feeding happily, while i type my great novel with one hand, drink (virgin) margaritas with the other, and entertain the kitten with a cat toy clenched between my teeth. sounds great. maybe i’ll even learn to nurse effectively without having to strip flat down to the nursing bra – the popularity of public breastfeeding leads me to believe this is possible. but the learning will have to be gradual.

and if my boy grows out of his Buddha-gas-smile in the process, i’m in no rush.

Oscar is five days old.

and this is the first time i’ve gotten online – the withdrawal has been almost more painful than…um…bits of me. i ache in the places where i used to play, indeed, but am joyful – if sleepy – in spirit. he’s here. he’s lovely. he’s mine…er…ours. and he will be okay.

he is also, like his mama, a big ol’ sleepy lump. the main complications of his prematurity are jaundice, which he’s making a good recovery from, and a complete inability to wake up for more than five minutes at a time. this makes feeding rather difficult, even now that he’s off IV and out of the little “tanning bed” they had him in for the jaundice – he opens his little mouth fiercely, latches onto the nipple, and promptly falls dead asleep. when he does open his eyes (such beautiful, blurry little eyes, i preen to myself), he looks very much like his father after far too many beer.

so…we’ll be here, in the NICU, for a little while yet. yesterday he graduated from Intensive Care to Intermediate Care, a milestone celebrated with much yawning on his part. he eats by tube or finger-feeding mostly, and i pump for him like a faithful, diligent bovine. i am a little overwhelmed by all of this…but patience is a virtue i need to work on, in any case. :)

thanks to everybody for the love sent our way from all over…when we can get Oscar to a computer we will read him all the kind messages aloud, letting him know how very welcomed he is.