Twenty Eight Days

I'd like to send a big
"Happy Four Week Old Birthday!!!"
shout out to my precious little Baby J---who obviously
isn't reading this blog. He probably could learn to read it
in a day and become a follower
(and boost me to 2.5 readers instead of,
you know, the faithful 1.5 of you that hang on)
if he applied the same energy to learning to read
that he applies to screaming. I've never had a baby who
loved to scream until this little guy came onto the scene.
And for the first couple of weeks, we only got samples
of the scream. A little here and there.
This weekend, he has brought it out full bore.
He's trying to develop it.
Oh my word.
I have looked and looked and there is
NO volume control on this child.

Saturday night was his big night to really try to make
something of the whole screaming thing. I don't know if
he'd heard a rumor that an agent for professional
screamers was staying in the guest room below
and he was trying to show off his abilities or what.....but he
really put a lot of effort into the screaming for
no apparent reason on Saturday night.
Which meant I didn't get a lot of sleep.
And I don't know if you know this about me or not,
but I cannot function on very little sleep. I know some
people can. I'm not one of those people who can be
remotely normal on an hour or two of sleep. If I have
had a rough night, I'm going to look like a homeless
person the next day (yes, it affects my grooming)
and have the charm of Oscar the Grouch.

Last night (Sunday night) was better....only what
was keeping me awake was a killer headache.
Did someone hit me on the left side of my head
with a shovel that I forgot about?
Because that's kind of how it felt.

So it's Monday morning (as I type this).
We've had breakfast. I've cleaned up the kitchen.
I think the kids are all dressed and their beds are made.
They are downstairs watching a movie now.
I am still in my pajamas and haven't had a shower.
I'll attempt to shower and get ready for the day
(what am I getting ready for?)
after I feed Baby J in a minute.

Oh--I almost forgot, we can go somewhere today
if we want. It's the four week mile marker.
We can go somewhere, just me and the kids and
no other adult. Today Baby J is four weeks
old and today I can start carrying him in his
carrier.....and other things that weigh more than
eight pounds. But I have to say, either the lousy night
Saturday night or the activity of going to church for the
first time yesterday (all lovely six of us) and then to
my mother's for lunch or something else entirely....
but something made me just feel like I had
done TOO MUCH yesterday.
By the time the kids went to bed,
I was just melted in a puddle on the couch.
So I don't see me darting off anywhere
with the brood today. I'm going to just chill
here at the homestead
and take it easy.

But four weeks---that's such a short
period of time. And yet it seems so very long ago
that it was December 21st and I was sitting on my
hospital bed at this time of that morning wondering when
they were going to get things started for me.
I was so hungry and they wouldn't let me eat.
And there had been a mis-communication with my doctor
and his partner so the induction that was to start
first thing
that morning was not to start until lunch time.
(More of God's orchestration though,
because it worked out for good
for the timing later that afternoon)
So I was just sitting there....not knowing
how that day was going to go so very differently
from what I had in mind.
What everyone had in mind, for that matter.
The thing we were planning to watch and almost
expecting to have trouble with was my crazy, erratic
blood pressure....not my crazy, erratic baby!

When Lloyd Dobbler's mother was here,
more than once I heard her telling the tale of
what all happened (you know, the story of the birth)
to somebody on the phone and she would say that in the past
they would have lost Baby J and probably me too in the kind
of situation that happened. I guess that's true.
Women used to die in child birth all the time
(still do occasionally).
Everything just happened so fast. We went from
laughing and me thoroughly enjoying my effective epidural
to being wheeled down the hall
while my doctor yelled at the
nursing staff and things went badly.
But even with the going badly,
it all turned out all right.
God was so gracious to us.
Baby J is okay and I am okay.
Praise the Lord for modern medicine
and that I live in a day when I didn't have to die
or lose my baby because of this situation.

So four weeks.....before you know it,
he'll be getting his driver's license....