Baby, baby
So Saturday I had pretty miserable headache. It was our gameday and since Terri is 9-months pregnant we've been playing out in the Mapes, so that Sean would not have to either miss games or drive like a maniac from Brooklyn to Jersey if she were to go into labor. I went out there Friday after work and planned to come back to NYC with the rest of the guys after the game on Saturday evening - but after toughing it out I was feeling kind of miserable so I decided to take a later train back and lay in the guest room and napped for a while, and when I woke up it was late and decided just to crash another night and leave early the next day.
Well, early the next day I awaken to Sean and Terri hurrying around the house. I wandered bleary-eyed into the kitchen and saw a suitcase. "What's going on?" I asked.
"We're going to have a baby," Sean replied, with his usual aplomb.
"What? Really? Now?" Yep. The contractions were coming pretty damn close. Sean was going by how things had been when Mackenzie was born and thought he'd have time to make breakfast and wake the kid up and explain to her what was going on - but when Terri had two contractions while talking to the mid-wife on the phone, we all realized that the baby was coming sooner, not later.
After a crash course as to where the diapers and wipes and other necessities were, they left for the hospital and left Mackenzie in my care.
"What would you have done if I weren't here?" I asked.
"Tracked down a neighbor," Terri said. "But it's a good thing you are here. . ." This baby was coming a week early, and Terri's mom was scheduled to come and stay with them starting later in the week to handle the toddler care and help out - but obviously, she wasn't there yet.
I was fixing some coffee about forty minutes later when I heard Mack's little voice from upstairs. She is nearly 2½ and climbed out of her little bed and was calling and reaching for the doorknob. As I opened the door, she opened her little arms to grab hold of her mommy or daddy, except it wasn't her mommy or daddy. And as much as she loves her Uncle O (she only sometimes calls me 'Osvaldo' and I'm trying to teach her to say 'tio'), it was the first time in her life she had gone to sleep with her parents in her house and woken up to find them gone. Heck, even when she has spent the night once at her grandma's, by all reports, it took her a while to acclimate herself to the change in routine when she woke up the next day. . . So, before her arms could clasp around me, she looked up, saw who it wasn't and she shrieked and ran back to her bed and immediately curled into a ball and started to cry - getting into that stubborn defensive posture kids get into, so when I touched her, she wailed and pushed my hand off, and while her vocabulary and ability to express herself is incredibly advanced for her age, she refused to verbalize her fears or feelings, or act like she understood what I was saying to her.
"Your mommy and daddy went to the doctor so that your baby brother can come out. Remember how we told you he's in her tummy and coming out soon?"
She cried and cried, and I just waited. It is heartbreaking, but what could I do but wait it out? If I had tried to force the issue, I would have just made it worse, I think. So, I just told her, "I am right here, when you are ready to tell me what's wrong, or that you are ready to be changed and cleaned up. I know, you know how to tell me what you want or need. . ."
After a brief episode, where she got up and walked into the bathroom and hid behind the door, she finally let me pick her up carry her back into the bedroom and change her diaper (which was soaked - I'd be wailing, too). She was still unhappy, but slowly quieting down, as I asked her to please be patient with me because I have not changed a diaper since my niece was a baby - my niece is a junior in college - Downstairs, I put on Sesame Street, and she leaned over a chair in the corner, still doing that ragged breathing of a child caught between wanting to stop crying and wanting to keep going, but Elmo and the story of the three bears began to draw her interest, and soon she was totally quiet and then she was sitting on the floor in front of the TV with her baby doll and soon enough, she was yackity-schmackity, "Uncle O, this! Uncle O, that!
Not bad, only a half-hour of crying and confusion. I made her some breakfast and got her dressed, and then we went out into the yard and wet our feet in the pool and played "Bigfoot Hunter" (she'd leave wet footprints on the cement and I would pretend I had found Bigfoot tracks and follow her around and snatch her up - "Oh my! It's a little Bigfoot!" - she'd squeal and laugh and then we'd get her feet wet and do it all over again, and then switched roles at her insistence).
She recently has learned to try to wheel and deal and make things up. For example, she tried to convince me that her mom called and told her to meet her at the doctor, so I had to take her there. When that didn't work, she asked if we could go for a walk because maybe then we'd run into mommy. I agreed to the walk.
"We're not driving there!" She said to me, when she saw the keys in my hand.
"I know we're not," I replied.
"They took my car," she said of her parents.
"Oh! I didn't know it was your car."
We walked around the block, stopping to look at bugs and worms along the way (she loves bugs and worms), and when I asked her if she was hot she said, "I got the sunblock!" Which she did, because I insisted she let me put some on her before we went out.
Back inside, I busted out the guitar and played some songs and she sang along and played her drum, and then I tuned her little student guitar (which is still way too big for her, and much too small for my fingers) and showed her how to strum as I did my best to make clumsy chords with my fat adult fingers.
It was then (around 1 pm) that her grandma and Aunt Tara arrived, and after lunch we went to the hospital - as Terri had the baby in record time. For Mack she had 18 hours of labor, for the new one, they got to the hospital at 7:51, and the boy was born at 9:02. Griffin is his name, and he is so cute - not one of them ugly swollen discolored mishapen babies you see a lot of the time, but just perfect and gorgeous. I had never held an hours-old newborn before, a few weeks yes. . . a few hours, no. . . There is something about it that fills me with love and breaks my heart simultaneously.
Mackenzie fell in love with her little brother immediately, and was very upset if anyone else held him, as she wanted to be the one to hold him - she also got very upset when the nurse took him out of the room for a test. It was also an emotionally draining day for her, and she missed her normal nap - so she was a little frayed by that time of the day, and eventually conked out on the window seat in the hospital room.
So, I spent the first part of the day unexpectedly taking care of a 2½ year old, and the next part in a maternity ward (in the most amazing hospital I have ever been in), oohing and ahing at the baby, helping out the parents when I could and watching part of the Mets game on a flat screen TV (which every room had), or I could have surfed the web since every room had free wireless - it is a crazy world we live in.
I did not get back to Brooklyn until nearly 11 pm. Sean and Terri thanked me profusely for taking care of Mack for them, but I said it was its own reward, as far as I am concerned - plus she is incredibly attentive and well-behaved. I love kids and don't mind spending time with them, as I have a strong maternal instinct. I told Sean and Terr, that as far as I was concered that was the best headache I ever had, because if it weren't for that I would not have been around to help out.
Well, early the next day I awaken to Sean and Terri hurrying around the house. I wandered bleary-eyed into the kitchen and saw a suitcase. "What's going on?" I asked.
"We're going to have a baby," Sean replied, with his usual aplomb.
"What? Really? Now?" Yep. The contractions were coming pretty damn close. Sean was going by how things had been when Mackenzie was born and thought he'd have time to make breakfast and wake the kid up and explain to her what was going on - but when Terri had two contractions while talking to the mid-wife on the phone, we all realized that the baby was coming sooner, not later.
After a crash course as to where the diapers and wipes and other necessities were, they left for the hospital and left Mackenzie in my care.
"What would you have done if I weren't here?" I asked.
"Tracked down a neighbor," Terri said. "But it's a good thing you are here. . ." This baby was coming a week early, and Terri's mom was scheduled to come and stay with them starting later in the week to handle the toddler care and help out - but obviously, she wasn't there yet.
I was fixing some coffee about forty minutes later when I heard Mack's little voice from upstairs. She is nearly 2½ and climbed out of her little bed and was calling and reaching for the doorknob. As I opened the door, she opened her little arms to grab hold of her mommy or daddy, except it wasn't her mommy or daddy. And as much as she loves her Uncle O (she only sometimes calls me 'Osvaldo' and I'm trying to teach her to say 'tio'), it was the first time in her life she had gone to sleep with her parents in her house and woken up to find them gone. Heck, even when she has spent the night once at her grandma's, by all reports, it took her a while to acclimate herself to the change in routine when she woke up the next day. . . So, before her arms could clasp around me, she looked up, saw who it wasn't and she shrieked and ran back to her bed and immediately curled into a ball and started to cry - getting into that stubborn defensive posture kids get into, so when I touched her, she wailed and pushed my hand off, and while her vocabulary and ability to express herself is incredibly advanced for her age, she refused to verbalize her fears or feelings, or act like she understood what I was saying to her.
"Your mommy and daddy went to the doctor so that your baby brother can come out. Remember how we told you he's in her tummy and coming out soon?"
She cried and cried, and I just waited. It is heartbreaking, but what could I do but wait it out? If I had tried to force the issue, I would have just made it worse, I think. So, I just told her, "I am right here, when you are ready to tell me what's wrong, or that you are ready to be changed and cleaned up. I know, you know how to tell me what you want or need. . ."
After a brief episode, where she got up and walked into the bathroom and hid behind the door, she finally let me pick her up carry her back into the bedroom and change her diaper (which was soaked - I'd be wailing, too). She was still unhappy, but slowly quieting down, as I asked her to please be patient with me because I have not changed a diaper since my niece was a baby - my niece is a junior in college - Downstairs, I put on Sesame Street, and she leaned over a chair in the corner, still doing that ragged breathing of a child caught between wanting to stop crying and wanting to keep going, but Elmo and the story of the three bears began to draw her interest, and soon she was totally quiet and then she was sitting on the floor in front of the TV with her baby doll and soon enough, she was yackity-schmackity, "Uncle O, this! Uncle O, that!
Not bad, only a half-hour of crying and confusion. I made her some breakfast and got her dressed, and then we went out into the yard and wet our feet in the pool and played "Bigfoot Hunter" (she'd leave wet footprints on the cement and I would pretend I had found Bigfoot tracks and follow her around and snatch her up - "Oh my! It's a little Bigfoot!" - she'd squeal and laugh and then we'd get her feet wet and do it all over again, and then switched roles at her insistence).
She recently has learned to try to wheel and deal and make things up. For example, she tried to convince me that her mom called and told her to meet her at the doctor, so I had to take her there. When that didn't work, she asked if we could go for a walk because maybe then we'd run into mommy. I agreed to the walk.
"We're not driving there!" She said to me, when she saw the keys in my hand.
"I know we're not," I replied.
"They took my car," she said of her parents.
"Oh! I didn't know it was your car."
We walked around the block, stopping to look at bugs and worms along the way (she loves bugs and worms), and when I asked her if she was hot she said, "I got the sunblock!" Which she did, because I insisted she let me put some on her before we went out.
Back inside, I busted out the guitar and played some songs and she sang along and played her drum, and then I tuned her little student guitar (which is still way too big for her, and much too small for my fingers) and showed her how to strum as I did my best to make clumsy chords with my fat adult fingers.
It was then (around 1 pm) that her grandma and Aunt Tara arrived, and after lunch we went to the hospital - as Terri had the baby in record time. For Mack she had 18 hours of labor, for the new one, they got to the hospital at 7:51, and the boy was born at 9:02. Griffin is his name, and he is so cute - not one of them ugly swollen discolored mishapen babies you see a lot of the time, but just perfect and gorgeous. I had never held an hours-old newborn before, a few weeks yes. . . a few hours, no. . . There is something about it that fills me with love and breaks my heart simultaneously.
Mackenzie fell in love with her little brother immediately, and was very upset if anyone else held him, as she wanted to be the one to hold him - she also got very upset when the nurse took him out of the room for a test. It was also an emotionally draining day for her, and she missed her normal nap - so she was a little frayed by that time of the day, and eventually conked out on the window seat in the hospital room.
So, I spent the first part of the day unexpectedly taking care of a 2½ year old, and the next part in a maternity ward (in the most amazing hospital I have ever been in), oohing and ahing at the baby, helping out the parents when I could and watching part of the Mets game on a flat screen TV (which every room had), or I could have surfed the web since every room had free wireless - it is a crazy world we live in.
I did not get back to Brooklyn until nearly 11 pm. Sean and Terri thanked me profusely for taking care of Mack for them, but I said it was its own reward, as far as I am concerned - plus she is incredibly attentive and well-behaved. I love kids and don't mind spending time with them, as I have a strong maternal instinct. I told Sean and Terr, that as far as I was concered that was the best headache I ever had, because if it weren't for that I would not have been around to help out.