Category — Little Solo

(In Photos- by Chinua)

I knit Solo’s birthday crown with this pattern. I loved the idea of a birthday crown, but couldn’t find the right fabric anywhere (which left me despondent for an afternoon, I hate seeing beautiful craft ideas and realizing that there’s no way I can pull them together because I can’t get the materials in India) and then realized I had a basket full of yarn and lots of needles.

How does one properly demonstrate to a one-year-old the fine art of blowing out a candle?

When I encouraged him to dig in, he made the tiniest of pats.  He was far too polite to get cake everywhere.

We had the party at our favorite, well, not favorite, but closest and most family friendly restaurant.  Ever since we first arrived in this village and started looking for a place to live, the Nepali brothers who own this restaurant have been great friends to us. And the restaurant is on Tripta’s rooftop, so I figured we should have it there, since Sagar and Milan (the Nepali guys) and Tripta and her daughter are some of Solo’s best buds.

When I was making a mess of cutting the cake, Sagar stepped in.  And then an Israeli girl at the next table finished serving everyone, and I thought, where else would someone just jump in from the next table when they see you are having trouble cutting your cake? Nowhere else, is where.

Solo’s first unwrapping job went well. (I helped a little.)

This is my pride and joy- a wood toy that I managed to find while I was in Delhi.  Here my stance against crap toys has been strengthened, simply because if I am not diligent, we will really end up with toys that will break the very next day.  I can’t STAND IT.

It was a good party.  Simple, small.  Just enough to let me catch my breath for Kid A’s, which is coming up.

Happy first birthday, my dear, dear Solo.

Last night I turned to Chinua and said, “We survived a year of Solo.” That is your personality my love.  Your little force has lighted up our whole world.  We don’t know what we did without you with us, yelling in all of our faces and giving us those forceful kisses of yours.

Sometimes when I look at you I think my heart will bust wide open.  That day, a year ago, you made all of our hearts a little wider. We love you.

Photo by Chinua

I thought there might be nothing better than a couple of photos to show that although Solo is recovering from amoebas, he is certainly all right.

Better than alright, even.  Thriving, crawling, wrestling alligators, trying to steal bread from my plate, learning how to use his teeth and not to use his teeth, smashing me in the face with his mouth when I ask for a kiss, drooling on all of us, making friends everywhere he goes.

Yelling “No!” Attempting escapes out the front door. Wriggling and shrieking if he catches sight of one of his siblings. Cuddling up in bed. Dancing.

And laughing.

I have my hands FULL for the next year.  (Because obviously, my life has been too boring up till now.)

Ugh.

It happens, I knew it did.  In fact, I expected it more than it’s happened.  We haven’t really been sick.  Everyone’s been growing and twitching and leaping from high objects to demonstrate their caped superhero abilities.  Everyone eats mangos and papayas with gusto, waits for the apples to be ripe patiently, starts fiddling with tape and paper and crayons practically before the day begins.

And then my littlest guy started having yucky poos, but more than yucky.   Yucky with (mucus) and (blood).

Scary!

I took him to the doctor a few days ago, and it was one of those experiences where the doctor barely listens to you, and you want to shake him and say, I could diagnose better than this!  But you don’t, because you didn’t go to medical school and he has the medicines.  He told me that the yucky poos were caused by his cough, a slight bronchial infection which wasn’t concerning me.  IT WAS NOT THE REASON I WENT TO THE DOCTOR.  He prescribed antibiotics for the cough. (Again, not the reason I brought Solo to the doctor.)

So, today, when the poos were still yucky and scary, I took him to the Tibetan Delek hospital (remember the place with the sample fiasco?) with a poo sample with me, and they:

1. listened

2. did lab work

3. diagnosed

Turns out my baby has amoebic dysentery.  Amoebic dysentery!!! My BABY.  (Wrings hands.) (Shakes head.) (Runs over to sleeping Solo’s bed to kiss him again.)

The only way I can even imagine that he got amoebas is from the bath water, which he’s been splashing rather enthusiastically lately.  They gave us the stuff to take care of it, and we left with Solo singing in my ear and flirting with the doctors over my shoulder.  He has been so active, so happy, so easy-going.  It’s crazy that he’s been sick with amoebas.  Most adults would have been staying in bed sure that they were dying.

Now I’m wondering about everyone else.  I think that in the next few days, I’m going to go down to the hospital with a whole lot of poo, from all the different members of my family.    Labeled, of course.  Amoebas can be asymptomatic, so it would be good to get us all checked out.

Stool samples for everyone!  Just me and my bags of poo and the rickshaw driver, vs. dirty rotten amoebas up in my family’s business.

Now that I am able to pull myself to a standing position, I will do so at any and every opportunity!  No one will be able to stop me!  I will be a STANDING BABY!

Mama would like me to go to sleep, I can tell, and though I am tired, there is simply nothing better than standing.  I will pull myself to STANDING!

She has just come in for a little bout of singing, I see.  Little does she know that singing is no use against the mighty STAND.  It doesn’t matter what you sing, Mama: Twinkle twinkle, You are my Solo (to the tune of You are my Sunshine- Mama is witty), Jesus Loves Me… None will work.  For no matter how tired I am, I will continue to pull myself to my feet, and then cry because I can’t get back down.  This is my superpower.

She is sighing and complaining about her back for some reason, but still standing with my little red mouth open, I can sense a victory!  I will stand, I will stand, I will stand.  I wonder… if I butt my head against her shirt with my mouth open will I get numnums?  Yes, yes I will!

She has laid me back down again, and I will not put up with this.  In another minute I’ll stand again, and that’ll show her!  In just another minute.  Perhaps if I just put my thumb in my mouth…  perhaps… zzzzzzzz

Logically I know that we don’t usually remember our lives at three and four and five months.

But I still wonder, little one, whether you will remember.  When I am walking with you under the deep black of the night, singing softly along with the sea and your eyes close and then open, close and then open, I wonder whether this will stay humming inside you.  When you are a man and you journey to the water, will you feel as though it catches you up and rocks you to sleep?

You have never felt grass on the bottoms of your feet.  But you stand in the shallow surf, and I hold your hands so you can lurch around on the sand.

I love you.  This goes without saying, but I’m sure I love you now more than I did before, and not only because you cry less now, or because sometimes you co-operate now, and when it is time for bed you are reasonable and understand that screaming doesn’t help you get to sleepy land.   We are not as often trapped in a sweaty circle of insomnia, staring each other to tears.

This is good progress, my boy, but I love you because I see more of you every day.  Like the the way you were hitting yourself on the forehead with your hand today because it had just occurred to you.  My hand!  My head!  My hand!  My head!  A circular motion and they connect!  My hand! And so on and so forth with the mildest expression of surprise and experimentation on your face. This is you!

Or when you are tired, and you forget that you are far too old and dignified now to root; to mistake a cheek for a breast, and you turn your mouth to my face patiently.  It is not the grunty frantic rooting of a newborn, but more of a step of faith.  You are confident that if you form your lips into that perfect little kissable oval, the numnums will somehow be there to meet you.

Sometimes these days there are real kisses, though, not only the search for milk.  Real open mouthed baby kisses.  You kiss me and then look at me saying, I got that right?  This is the way we do it? with the most heartbreaking question in your eyes.

I kiss you back to say you got it perfectly right, and what I say out loud is a little sing song, “Oh, thank you,” which is reserved for kisses.  I said it to your brother, and your sister before him, and your oldest brother before her.

What so often occurs to me, King Solo, is how “same” this all is- all my babies of the past and present melding together in one plump heap.

But then you are different, too.  You are you.  It is enough reason to love you more, every day.

All my love,

Mama

(Photos are by Chinua)

You turned four months old a while ago, and ever since, I’ve been thinking about what I want to write to you.

First of all, Hello! Slow Down! Four months already. Jeez.

But that said, oh oh oh, I love four months.

Four months is I like it here. I think I’ll hang out a bit, check things out, open my hands instead of gripping them closed.

Four months is Trying to grab that… if I could just get a… little… closer… missed it again… must try… harder…

Four months is kick kick kick SMILE kick kick kick SMILE! And Hey! Where’d everybody go?

And Oh I love you I love you I love you.

Your eyes are eyes of healing, son. You look at us, and not one of us can keep from melting. Especially the women in the family. Of course I stare at you for hours on end, and my greatest moments are the ones where you smile at me, but I’m not the only female drawn into your deep eyes. YaYa runs to you as soon as she wakes up in the morning. She lies beside you and the two of you speak fathoms of sibling love to each other. Then Kid A comes over and gets mad. “YaYa’s attracting him away from me,” he says. We all want your smiles and your attention.

Leafy loves you too. He has nothing but goodness for you. I’m always amazed by his gentleness towards you, this rough and tumble brother of yours. But there seems to be no end to the good a baby brings to a family, the comfort of a sleeping baby in our arms, the fun of seeing you watching us more and more every day.

You’ve been talking, a lot lately. Often when you cry you vocalize frantically. You’re saying baby words, the kind that demand a reply. You communicate with utter gravity. There is an exchange in the world, of heart and response and already you know it, already you are diving in.

Here’s a secret. Don’t tell anyone. You are a drooler, just like your older brother Leafy. The Leafy boy had wet shirts for the first two and a half years of his life, but something your Daddy and I have just realized now is that a drooly baby can be used as a weapon. Forgive me son, but I often move your little face close to Daddy’s face and say, “Here, give Daddy a kiss,” and then he says ARGGGHHHH, as his entire face is covered in drool. Heh heh. It’s really funny. Maybe one day you’ll try it with children of your own?

I just love you at four months, little one. I can’t wait to know you more and more.

(After I published this I looked up Leafy’s four month post. Note that he has the SAME FACE as Solo.  Also that drool is a big factor in that post also.)

All in one piece, too. Actually, let me check. (Counting my fingers and toes…)

Okay, yes, all in one piece. But tired, oh so tired.

Oh, Baba.  Solo.

You are the best thing that has happened to our family since the Leaf Baby was born.  And although many things in my days are driving me to the brink lately, whether it be Kid A’s absentminded melancholy, the YaYa sister’s will of sharp steel and endless arguments, Leafy’s perpetual eating and drinking of things which are not meant for him to eat and drink (cooking oil, raw oats, and raw onions), or even your own gassy crying jags during which you instruct me to keep on moving if I ever try to stop walking you across the floor…

Well, it only takes a few minutes of sitting and talking with you to bring me back.  You are like a small star in our dark galaxy.  While the rest of us are behaving like beasts, galloping and complaining, nagging and slouching around in our underwear, you catch our eyes and make contact and you make us better people.

Leafy will stop pouring out the bottle of tea tree oil all over the couch cushion just to sit by you and stroke your hair, so, so softly.  YaYa tells you that she loves you in her softest, sweetest voice.  And Kid A holds you and his heart swells when you recognize him.  Your dad and I are just smitten.

I’ve never been so challenged or so blessed.  I want to say your name over and over, just to hear the sound of it, because there was a time before you were here, and I’m so glad I don’t have to go back.

Bear with me kid, I’m a mess of a mother, but I do love you so,

Love,

me.

When Kid A was just six weeks old, my grandparents drove down from Alberta to California to meet him. I think they were visiting friends as well, but I’m pretty sure a yummy six-week-old baby was a big draw.

I was floundering, a little. I was doing okay. Just okay. I had hemorrhaged after Kid A was born, so I was very anemic and weak, tired and overwhelmed. I thought, though, that this was just how parenting felt. I was also working and was back in the bank making deposits just five days after Kid A was born, not realizing that this was just plain dumb.

Sometimes I look back at myself and think, “You poor girl.”

Anyways. My grandparents.

They came and they saw our precious first baby (my Grandma was big on the word precious, and since she just passed away in April, it still hurts me to write ‘was’) and Grandma cuddled him close, just like I’ve seen that she did to us, when we were born, in photos in our old photo album. She always had this fierce, possessive look on her face when she was holding us. I feel that face glomming onto my own face, at times, when I look at my kids.

She was holding Kid A out, away from her a little, with his head in her hands, looking into his wee face. (”Oh the laddie,” she would say.) He started to coo to her.

“Oh yes, tell me a story,” she told him. “Tell Grandma Great a story.”

And this is what I’ve thought of, every time my kids get to this absolutely incredible stage. The telling stories stage.

Because can’t you just see the story begging to be told?

“It was big! No it was REALLY BIG!”

“It was a big, beautiful light, and I started to sing to it, like this!”

“That’s all. Now you tell me something.”

“I love it! I love YOU! I’m so happy!”

“You have really beautiful eyes, did you know that?”

“So beautiful that I will sing to them!”

The littlest things can be missed. I may never have realized that my babies were telling me stories, if it wasn’t for my Grandma.

There’s nothing like the lessons of someone in your life who already had grown up children when YOU were born.

(Chinua took these photos.  I love them.)

1.  What kind of chubbiness is this?  I’ve never had such a deliciously plump baby before.  Very reassuring, since I’ve lost so much weight myself.  I would worry about the baby if he was not obviously a GIANT.  You know, a giant baby.

When my milk came in on the second day, my German midwife turned to my Israeli midwife and said, “Now we have make sure to feed RAE.”  (I had been steadily losing weight through the last few months of my pregnancy.)

2. How can I keep Renee from threatening to eat my baby’s nose?

3.  And, is this baby GOING TO HAVE RED HAIR?

Also:

4. Who let the dogs out?

5. Why can I not have the fraud reversed on my bank account, just because I am overseas?

6. Why can I not drive with my headlight on during the day here without several men shouting, Light! Light! at me as I drive by?  I appreciate the helpfulness, but Canadians like to have their lights on during the day.

7. Why did Jaya say that when I was pregnant I looked very old?

8. What is your very favorite book of all time?

9. And, how is it that I am scolded for my baby not having a hat on when we are out, when it is a hundred million degrees out, with humidity at 150% ?!!?