Permitted Fruit

 

This is a picture of us on the plane to Idaho.  I was eating an apple when Nolie started to grab it and gum it.  She gummed it for a good fifteen minutes before I, like a ravenous castaway, snatched it from her and finished it.  But a beautiful light went on at that moment. 

Nolie might be ready for solids.

If you do have kids and breasts, and have used those breasts as the sole means of nourishment for those kids, you understand the importance of this epiphany.  If you don't have kids and breasts, you might not see why this is a big deal.  Let me see if I can explain.

I think I've mentioned that I have a special relationship with Nolie, one that is most tender and wonderful when she's nursing.  Except, of course, for those times when she's trying to remove my nipple from my body via her ultra-strong gum-clasp.

Nursing is great for many reasons--it forces me to sit with her and just be; it releases excellent relaxing chemicals in both of us; it's a chance for us to bond, and look into each other's eyes; and yes, I'll say it, it has helped to get off some of the pregnancy weight (though the last 10 pounds are like a weasly distant relative, out of work and sleeping on our couch, here to stay).  There's also the wonderful health benefits for her--breastfed babies tend to be less prone to infections and obesity later in life.

But breastfeeding can also be a huge pain in the ass.  I was walking to work from the parking lot today, negotiating the solid sheets of ice between me and my building, carrying a bag of books, my laptop, my purse, and the behemoth known as the "Pump In Style" breast pump, which can double for an ottoman in a pinch.  I will not miss hauling that thing around come weanday.  Had I fallen, it no doubt would have cracked the six feet of ice in the parking lot, making it impassable for motor vehicles.

There are also times when I don't really want to be put to sleep by the hormones that course through my body when nursing, like at noon, when I have a toddler to interact with.  But the minute Nolie latches, I might as well just tuck in and say nighty-night.  Addie might as well be raising herself at those moments. 

And, I don't love exposing myself to strangers in malls, airplanes, or doctors offices, though I certainly think women should be allowed and even encouraged to do so in the greater society.  Maybe if I had a stomach like Cameron Diaz I'd be more into it, but for now, hiking up my shirt to expose my white, white dinner roll-stomach and sand dollar-sized nipples isn't so great.

Then there's all the small physical annoyances--the tiny stretch marks, the bras that leave lumps (hubba-dubba boobs) as my overgrown breasts spill out in all directions, the unwanted cleavage at work, the leaking, the aching, the chafing, the squirting, the insatiable appetite at all hours of the day. 

Still, a month ago, I would have refused to give up nursing; I needed the time with Nolie, and felt her need for it even more deeply.  But now?  Well, it's a month later, and visions of breasts past are dancing in my head. 

This has been precipitated by the fact that for the last week Nolie has been tucking rather nicely into solids (she seems to like apple sauce and sweet potatoes pretty well) and is also taking the bottle better from Eric and Debbie.  And, we need not understate the fact that she has POOPED THREE TIMES IN THREE DAYS.  I've never been so happy to see poop in all my life.  Because, much as we as a culture pretend to hate our poop, and it stinks, and we like to flush it away, can you imagine life without it?  When's the last time you were constipated?  Sucks, doesn't it?

So, solids and soy formula seem to be a pretty handy mix; they seem to be loosening her tubes pretty good, and she might even be sleeping better (she slept for 9 hours straight last night).  Oh, I'm not ready to totally give up breastfeeding.  It's nice when she wakes in the middle of the night, or when she's really distraught.  I'm guessing I'll still keep a few feedings every day.  But I'm feeling a lot more ready for her, and me, to make this transition now. 

Magnolia Jade

It's weird how you can feel so differently about your kids.  And, of course, we're not supposed to admit that we do feel differently about them.  As I write this, I worry about the girls reading these posts someday and searching for clues of whether I loved one more than the other, favored one over the other.  When you are a child and before you have children, this sort of arithmetic seems a simple matter of more-than and less-than.  After children, you realize such equations never hold.

After I had Addie, I asked my friend Cortney--who had two kids of her own--if she loved the second one as much as the first.

"Yes," she said.  "Absolutely."

"No way.  Tell me the truth.  You can't love the second one as much."

"You can.  I do.  It just happens."

At the time, I didn't believe her.  I couldn't imagine loving anyone as fiercely, as insanely, as protectively as I loved Addie.  The moment she was born, after so much waiting and such a long labor, I fell ridiculously in love with her.  In fact, the phrase "in love" doesn't really capture it.  It was a feeling totally different from any other love I had felt before, more consuming and overwhelming.  I still grasp at words to describe it, and still come up short.  It seemed impossible to me that I could feel that again. 

I was trying to explain this to a pregnant friend the other day who is expecting her second daughter.  She said she almost hoped she wouldn't feel that fierce, insane love a second time.  Worried that it almost undid her the first time around with its manic intensity.  Exactly.

And, in fact, that wasn't how I felt for Nolie when she was born.  For one thing, I didn't have an epidural during Nolie's birth the way I had during Addie's, so I was sort of in shock at how much the whole thing hurt.  Again, the word "hurt" doesn't really capture it, but that's fodder for another post.  Also, I badly hemorrhaged after Nolie's birth, and was pretty out of it and exhausted for several days.  Then Nolie was diagnosed with a severe case of jaundice, which necessitated her being in a bilirubin box, and...well...those days are a blur.  I mean, I knew I loved Nolie, but it was a love that was a little harder to come by.  I fretted over it, worried it into a tight little ball that I watched roll around in my peripheral vision.  I couldn't grab it, clutching it the way I had my love for Addie.

And, too, Nolie's the second.  This is the blessing and the curse, right?  The blessing of being free from the focused scrutiny that curses the firstborn; the curse of never having been the sole center of attention.  The blessing of being outside the neurotic magnifications of new parents; the curse of being familiar, sharing the slide with another child underneath the scope of older, calmer parents.

But now that Nolie is three months old, I find myself falling deeply and strangely in love with this gentle person, in ways different--but equally magical--from how I love Addie.  There is a different history between Nolie and I.  She is, in many ways, my tenacious little miracle baby, the baby who didn't show up on three different pregnancy tests (even though I knew, I KNEW, I was pregnant); the baby whom we thought we lost three months into the pregnancy when I started bleeding profusely; the baby who sent me into labor no fewer than five times before I finally coaxed her out in a castor-oil-induced bullet-train of a rush, so fast the doctor never even made it to the hospital.  She is calmer and quieter than my spirited, ebullient Addie.  She looks into my eyes for the longest time as she nurses, smiling at me and batting her caterpillar lashes.  We look into each other's faces as if sharing the magnificent secret of our connection, only with each other.

In short, we are in love.  A thousand times a day we share our little secret with each other, my Magnolia Jade and I, of this intense, quiet emotion.  Just as my love for Addie is raucous and complicated and fierce, my love for Nolie is sweet and deep and gentle. 

What gifts they give me, these girls of mine...