Pink-Eyed Toddler, Wild-Eyed Mama

The next time you’re looking for a good way to express the concept of ‘nearly impossible’ you can say, “Why it’s just like giving a toddler eye drops!”

And for ‘utterly impossible’ tack onto that, “When you’ve only had 4 1/2 hours of sleep the night before!”

And for extra credit you can also say, “And the kid’s in a shopping cart in the Target parking lot because it’s there that you realize you should’ve given her the eye drops an hour ago!”

Fun! [She says while rifling through the medicine cabinet for any leftover C-section meds that might have mind-altering effects.]

What makes this ordeal truly Orwellian for me, is that with pink eye being as turbo-contagious as it is, I’m in solitary confinement with the Tasmanian Devil Patient. Well, me and wee Paigey, who I’ve been trying to keep out of Kate’s germ-infested “I-wanna-hug-my-sista” reach.

I mean, Paigey is already afflicted with a variety of her own wretched skin maladies. Despite all my dairy denial everything has flared up again in extremis. The last thing she needs is to add pink eye to the mix. Right now going cheek to cheek with Paige feels like cuddling up with a burlap sack. One that flakes on you. Hopefully the dermatologist tomorrow can proffer an easy, instant, non-steroidal cure.

See? Even when the going gets tough I’m a die-hard optimist.

That said, is it too late to get my old job back?

Turns out, we have a baby

It was bound to happen. Four months into her existence with us, it finally feels like we have a baby. Which is to say, we’re incredibly sleep deprived.

Today I took off Paige’s socks and put them in the diaper pail. (God knows where the dirty diaper will turn up.) And in the car this morning I had to do a panicked check to make sure both girls were there and strapped in, not forgotten on the sidewalk. I’m not sure, but I think I brushed my teeth.

This afternoon when Kate cruelly refused to nap, I had her play the “Mama is your baby who you have to put to sleep in your bed” game. Hey, it wasn’t what I’d call a legitimate nap, but it did afford me a few horizontal minutes, even if the blankets were wrenched off repeatedly to rearrange the teddy bear that Mama-Kate wedged under my arm.

I’m amazed that Mark is functioning intelligently at his office. I can only hope that he’s locked himself in a bathroom stall to catch a few Zs.

Speaking of which, I hereby award the Co-Parenting Merit Badge to my charming and sleepy husband. In some dumb show we were watching last night a woman said. “Marry someone who loves you a little more than you love them.” Poppycock. Marry someone who is willing to do his share of middle-of-the-night baby soothing when he could be tucked in complaining that he needs his sleep for work, and pointing out that he’s not lactating anyway. (Don’t get any big ideas, sweetheart.)

Of course, I brought this all upon myself when I was in the midst of one of my Hallmark Moments of Parental Gratitude yesterday. Something or other made me express to Mark how thankful I am that the girls are happy and healthy. And I think I might have foolishly tacked onto that something about “I’ll take all the sleep deprivation in the world as long as yadda yadda yadda…” I don’t even want to type the sentiment for fear it will reinforce it.

Who knew I could be so powerful that by mere mention I could bring something on?

I intend to spend the remainer of the day–assuming I’m coherent enough to do so–chanting incantations that pair “healthy happy children” with “good sleepers.”

Wish me luck. Or at least a good long stretch of sleep tonight.

Sleep Walking at Target

So Paigey is starting to laugh! I discovered this the other day when I was doing the old baby routine of big inhale followed by lunge for the cheek or neck and kiss kiss kiss. That one evidently just slays her.

Her laugh is this kind of slow staccato haaa-haaa-haaa. Hopefully it’ll soften and lighten up a bit over time so she doesn’t suffer some horrible Seinfeldian fate. (“So I was out with this really attractive woman the other night. We’re having this great conversation over dinner, but then I said something funny and…”)

Anyway, yesterday while peppering her with a skillion Obsessive Maternal Cheek Kisses and trying to elicit more laughs from her I realized that her cheeks were as sweet and soft as–as normal baby cheeks! No dry leathery skin! No stinky yeast funk rising up from her neck! No scratch scabs criss-crossing her face! All this and no zits too!

Woo hoo! The I-can’t-eat-anything-I-want-to diet seems to be paying off. Even tonight as we were sitting on the couch in the sweet post-kid-bedtime lull, Mark said, “So it’s kind of like Paige is finally our soft sweet baby.”

I’m thrilled. And of course, now I want to eat her.

Though Miss Sweet Cheeks did get me up a couple times last night. Enough to leave me feeling somewhat zombie-like this morning as I showered, dressed and fed her, and bustled Kate off to school (usually Mark’s gig, but he had his every-decade-or-so dentist appointment today).

Usually when Kate goes to school it’s like I’m playing Beat the Clock to see how much I can cram into five toddler-free hours. Achiever that I am, what I can accomplish is generally quite impressive. Though not today.

Every American mother worth her weight in Merona clothing certainly starts most errand outings at Target. Of course half the fun of Targe-ay has historically been my latte stop at the embedded Starbucks. Alas, this morning I tried to satisfy myself with one of their fairly crummy blueberry muffins, with hopes that they aren’t made with any butter. Somehow it didn’t give me the kick I was needing.

At one point after I’d ticked all the things I needed off my list, and after Paige had fallen asleep in the shopping cart, I realized that for some Godforsaken amount of time I’d just been kind of sleepwalking around the store–leaning into the shopping cart like it was some kind of walker and mindlessly making my way up and down the aisles. I have no idea how long I’d been doing this, but when it dawned on my that I should “wake up” and get out of the store I could barely shake myself into action. Getting to the check-out area seemed an epic moon walk away. But as I looked around at the other shopping Mamas I realized I wasn’t alone.

How many other women find themselves wandering the aisles aimlessly at Target, basking in the upbeat merchandising, browsing anonymously in a low-impact with slight feeling-of-accomplishment way? It’s like airplane sleeping–you’re kinda asleep but you can still hear the flight attendants walking through the plane asking everyone, “Pasta or chicken? Pasta or chicken?” 

I’m telling you women like me are EVERYWHERE. Targets around the country are packed with us, haplessly sleep walking until the older kid needs to get picked up from school, and racking up couple-hundred-dollar tabs for non-essential items. If we all didn’t come by our exhaustion honestly and I didn’t love the company as ardently as I do, I’d think Target was pumping some kinda mind-control chemical out through the air ducts.

Outside the store–once I finally swam through a Jello-like haze to get there–I stopped at the nursery to look for a plant for the great one-dollar plant stand I got at a yard sale this weekend. (Plant stand = $1, Fern = $20. Bargain? You decide.)

A woman around my age and her mother walked past me. Glancing down at my cart I heard the older woman say, “Oh look at that fern. Do you remember when I was trying to grow those?”

For some reason it totally reminded me of my mother. She was an avid gardener and I don’t remember if she went through a fern-growing phase, but it’s the kind of thing I could just picture her saying. “Oh those gerananiums. I tried and tried to grow them in that side garden we had.”

The thought came at me in that gut-punching kind of way that you never expect. It’s like when Mother’s Day approaches and you gear yourself up for being all sad that your mother’s not alive and then a few days later you realize that you never even had a Big Sad Moment that day. Then you hear some mom talking to her daughter about her fern-growin’ and you want to sit on the floor at the Target nursery and cry.

There must be something in the air around here–or maybe it’s my mother herself–but Kate has gotten on this kick of saying “I’m calling your Mama,” whenever I unwittingly leave one of the phones in her reach. “What you Mama’s name again?” she’ll ask. “Vicki? I’m calling Vicki. Hello Kristen’s Mama! This is Kate! How are you? Okay, you talk to my Mama now.” Then she hands the phone to me.

The first time this happened Mark was listening from the kitchen and walked into Paige’s room where Kate and I were. His face was all red and covered with tears. Oddly, I wasn’t crying. I was too busy thinking about what I’d say if I really could talk to my mother on the phone. In Kate’s game I’ve said something like, “Hi Mom. I’m here with Kate and Paige and we’re thinking about you!” Then Kate is off busying herself with another toy, or grabs the phone back and starts dialing Tokyo.

The whole thing also has me wondering why Kate asks me about my mother, but hasn’t ever thought to ask where she is, or why she hasn’t met her. Of course I’m avoiding telling her about death until she’s at least 25.

Yesterday when we were in the park having a PB&J picnic, a mother was coercing her kids to get in their stroller. “Come on, Lucy, we have to go home! Grandma’s coming over for lunch.” How jealous-making is that? First off their grandma is alive, secondly she lives close enough to come over for lunch.

It’s not fair. I miss my Mama.

Hi Mom. I have two beautiful daughters now, Kate and Paige. I know you would just love them. Paigey’s had a skin thing but it’s so much better now. And Kate loves school and is such a good big sister. And even though we’re sometimes tired or impatient I think Mark and I are doing a pretty good job with them. And I really really really wish you could come over for lunch some day.

Diary of a Dairy Addict

Criminy. Paigey’s skin is still miserable. Or possibly even miserabler than it was.

Given the apocalyptic heat wave we’re having it’s no surprise that she’s got a heat rash on her yeast infection on her eczema. She’s scratched the shit out of all of the above. Oh, and let’s no forget the cradle cap. The poor girl’s just a mess.

Oddly, she’s devoid of a diaper rash, but as I write this I’m sure the most unimaginably vile one is starting to fester in her diaper.

Of course I’d just be undone about the whole dermal nightmare if it weren’t for the fact that coming off of dairy has been my own personal torture. It makes the scene in Train Spotting when the guy gets off heroine look like mild discomfort.

You might think I’m being a bit dramatic. Actually, like any good addict I think I’ve managed the problem well by throwing myself head over heels into another compulsion–stuffing myself silly with soy. I’ve got the vanilla soy milk, the soy ice cream, and the little Tofutti ‘ice cream’ sandwiches. I was also poised to buy some soy cheese, but when Sacha pointed out that the package said “American cheese flavor” I had to toss it back onto the shelf. (Even I have my limits.) It’s neither delicious nor convenient eating this way, but better a shoddy stand-in than none at all.

So today, in the throes of this heat wave as I’m happily packing the beach bag to meet the Friday Mamas at the lake and thinking ruefully of all the poor saps sitting in their cubicles, I look down at the poor red blotchy baby and have a stunning moment of maternal maturity. This baby, thought I, needs to go to the doctor before the heat wave rages on through the weekend, exacerbating her dermal woes and leaving her indistinguishable from Rosemary’s baby. (Or why I imagine Rosemary’s baby to have looked like. Did they ever actually show it in the movie?)

And so, in our squeezed-us-in-appointment, before even taking off her clothes to show him the really awful parts, Dr. Robbins, (a.k.a. our friend Dan) takes one look at smiley crusty Paige and says, “Oh yeah. Wow. So we need to really deal with this.”

And by we, guess who he means? Me.

Like some John Hughes movie I’m sure it’s easy to see where this story line is going. No, the popular boy at school isn’t going to suddenly see past Paige’s pustules and ask her to the prom. The treatment is I’m being told to stop eating soy too. Apparently one-third of the people who have dairy issues eventually develop soy ones too. And it’s looking like Paige is in that unlucky third.

Dan asked me to be exceptionally strict and vigilant about it too. No soy or dairy at all, not even a little butter used for cooking. I’ve got to totally cut it out of my diet altogether, and in ten days take hopefully-improved Paige to a dermatologist, and we’ll take it from there.

The fabulous week-old espresso machine that I got for my birthday will now need to be squirreled away in the basement so I’m not taunted by it. I mean, I don’t want to pull some kind of Kitty Dukakis move by making myself a latte using nail polish remover instead of milk or something. That’d just bring shame upon the whole family.

I know, I know what you’re thinking. The poor baby is suffering a horrible bodily pestilence and all I can think about is myself. But really, I do feel sorry for both of us.

Now poor Paigey now has a second prescription funk-fighter that’s steroidal. Three times a day I’m coating her with two different stinky creams that are probably one-part nuclear waste.  You try to be all healthy and groovy and organic, then you have to use something like that on your sweet little infant. Steroids! She’ll be in a ‘roid rage throwing punches at innocents in a bar before you know it. (Hopefully she won’t develop that ridge across her eyebrows that looks all Cro-Magnon.)

Okay, Kate’s awake and we’re off to run through the sprinkler. Hopefully I’ll wash away my bad attitude while I’m at it. 

Sweet Solitude

When I was an editorial slave at a health magazine in New York ages and ages ago probably long before you were even born, I got to go on a couple amazing press junkets. One was a cruise through the Caribbean.

Cunard was trying to appeal to a younger demographic by billing the typical cruise–gambling, midnight gut-busting all-you-can-hork buffets, and oldsters bobbing in the pool like some scene from Cocoon–as some sporty excursion-based boat trip with a healthy menu and lots of other young active folks who can stay up late without having to modulate their pacemakers.

So here we were–about a dozen health writers in our twenties, mostly from New York–all feeling very cynical that the cruise would offer anything than overcooked food drowned in cream sauces (it didn’t) and all very smug that, starving journalists that we were, we were able to cruise around the Caribbean eating overcooked food drowned in cream sauces for free.

We flew from New York to Florida and then to Peurto Rico where the cruise ship was docked. Rather where she was docked. (I love any excuse to call a boat “she,” don’t you?) In Puerto Rico we had some time to kill so the turbo-chipper PR gal who was chaperoning us in a desperate attempt to ensure we were ga-ga over all things Cunard, took us to a little outdoor bar on the beach.

It was warm. It was sunny. There was no traffic, towering concrete buildings, burnt peanut smells from sidewalk vendors, or homeless men sleeping in the gutter. It was quiet, except for some tropically music playing on some crappy stereo. Manhattan and all its smells, sounds and stresses was worlds away.

But as they say, you can take the New Yorker out of New York, but you can’t–well, you know the saying.

Let’s just say that the service at this little cantina wasn’t exactly snappy. And although everything about this setting would have any other mortal content–happy even–our group was collectively busting a neck vein with stress. “Where the hell are our drinks?” one guy groused. “What in fuck’s name happened to our waiter?” someone else demanded. “This is totally unacceptable. They’ve got to be kidding if they expect a tip after this.” (I happen to have committed these actual comments to memory…)

I was right along there with everyone. Well, I think I was probably willing to give the waiter a tip, but anyway it was the first time I realized that it takes at least a few days for a vacationing New Yorker to decompress enough to even realize they aren’t in their office any more. I think for some people it takes longer. (Those men you see lying on the beach screaming, “Buy! Sell!” into the waves? New Yorkers.)

Once they do relax, let’s just say how one defines “relax” certainly varies. The state of relaxation some New Yorkers eventually attain sipping umbrella drinks under a palapa, may well put, say, a Californian, into cardiac arrest.

I have a friend whose family lives in Bermuda. You’d piss your pants laughing to hear him talk about what it’s like getting off a plane from New York and into a car there, where the speed limit is 25 MPH. For him it was the cruelest form of torture.

At any rate, I’m thinking about all this as I sit on our front porch with an iced tea and a baggy full of homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. It’s in the high 70′s today and there’s a slight breeze causing my new hanging plants to waft gracefully and send out a hit of jasmine-smell every once and a while. And aside from the intermittent crackling of the baby monitor, it’s pretty quiet here. Especially because both the girls are asleep.

I should put that in italics: Both the girls are asleep.

Yes, without having to invest in the Pottery Barn Kids monogrammed kelly green leather restraint straps, it appears that Kate is actually taking a nap. (This, if you can tell, hasn’t been happening very consistently despite all my desperate entreaties to The Man Upstairs.)

This lovely calm and aloneness is strange. I’m so unaccustomed to it I need some time to settle into it. I spend the first few minutes walking around in circles like a dog trying to find the right place to lie down. Something so rare, so special, must be appreciated and savored to the fullest extent.

But how?

After wracking my brain to determine what I need to do–no wait, what I want to do with this time–the realization washes over me like a warm gulp of bourbon.

I’m going to sit here with my feet propped up on the wicker chair, stare out across the porch, and do absolutely nothing.

And….begin!

Day 10 Off Dairy

This morning the cleaning lady didn’t cluck sympathetically when looking at Paige–or more specifically Paige’s skin–then cast me an askance look as if to say she’s not above handing me over to Child Protective Services.

It makes me think my abstinence from dairy may be starting to pay off.

Despite whatever progress we’re making it’s still a constant struggle to keep off the stuff. I feel like I should be in some church basement getting a pin for my 10 days “clean.”

Bras and Mamas

Kate came out of my room today wearing one of my nursing bras.

“You have a bra on!,” I said, stating what seemed to be the obvious.

“No, it’s a Moby Wrap,” she clarified. In other words, a baby carrier.

One of the bra cups was centered across her chest and she had a wooden toy orange juice bottle snapped into it. Or rather, a “baby,” as it were.

It was actually quite clever how she could snap in and remove the baby with the drop-down bra cup. Kate’s mothering skills and childcare innovation are on the rise every day. Nothing like being lapped at your job by your two-year-old.

In other news, Paige is talking. Well, only one word really–Mama.

Now, you might think that at three months she isn’t really saying Mama, and I’m just hearing what I want to hear. But Mark’s heard it too. A bunch of times! She only says it when she’s crying, and when she does say it, it sounds quite distinct.

Since I am willing to accept other explanations of what it is that she’s saying (if anything), I’ve considered the possibility that the word Mama was derived long ago from a sound that babies often make while crying. (Granted, I never heard Kate say it when she cried as a baby, nor have I heard this from any other babies I know. I prefer to believe Paige is a linguistic wunderkind.)

At any rate, if my theory is right–that the name Mama came from a common sound babies make–I guess us mothers should just be happy that what our children call us doesn’t approximate a fart.

Doctor’s Orders

Today Kate and I took Paige for her three-month well-baby appointment. Aside from her weighing 14 pounds and 7 ounces–putting her in the 90th percentile for baby weight–the biggest take-away was Dan’s directive for us to focus on Paige’s “skin management.”

Well won’t my cleaning lady be happy.

We got some tips on wrangling the cradle cap. No mention about the acne, actually. Then Dan mentioned that I should cut down on my milk intake. (Okay, so he might have said cut “out” the milk.)

Evidently my drinking milk is triggering the light rash on Paigey’s arms and shoulders. I can’t remember how he described the exact effect it has. He also said something about eczema–either that it is eczema now, or maybe that it could develop into it. I was a bit stunned and preoccupied. Cutting off my milk supply he might as well have asked me to disconnect an artery.

Mind you, I’m hardly the type to pour myself a tall glass of cold milk. That kinda grosses me out actually. But decaf lattes, cocoa with mini-marshmallows, and Dove Bars make up my primary food groups. If it weren’t for the fact that my Midwestern husband cooks a well-balanced dinner for us every night, I’d likely subsist on this holy trinity. They’re convenient comfort foods that also fill me up when I don’t have time to make something more substantial. And thus far at least, there’s no evidence of pitted fingernails, hair loss, or dementia to indicate I have scurvy or any other form of malnutrition.

In case for some reason the milk in my lattes wouldn’t count as “milk” per se, I needed to double-check on this directive with the good doctor.

Me: “So, no milk, as in, no lattes?”

He: (casually, as if he’s not dropping a bomb on me) “Yep!”

Ah well, I guess from now on out I’ll be getting my daily dose of comfort from admiring Paigey’s sweet skin.

Yo, Pizza Face!

In your elementary school, did your local version of Les Dunbar and Danny Palumbo run around the playground one day stirring up a frenzy of confusion and embarrassment by cattily informing each kid that their “epidermis is showing?”

Oh, well maybe it was just a Rockwell School thing.

At any rate, without knowing what your epidermis is, this can instill in a young’un a fair amount of insecurity and shame.

Well, it’s all I can do to not whisper into Paige’s ear that’s hers is showing. In fact, since her second day of life her epidermis seems to have been doing absolutely everything it could to make its existence known. Well, short of spelling out “bitch” on her stomach.

The poor lass has been plagued with baby acne the likes of which has caused a woman in the Safeway parking lot to exclaim, “That baby has hives!” and our house cleaner to ask, “Have you taken her to the doctor for that?”

Her cradle cap is like some Zen life challenge that has been presented to Mark and I. We scour, scrub, pick and peel at her head. We apply salves, ointments, oils and tinctures. And yet every morning it’s returned without fail. Sometimes it evens doubles its strength.

And then, though it’s hard to notice when you’re taking in all the other maladies, I recently discovered that her shoulders and arms are covered with a thin scaly rough rash. Nothing that jumps out at you with the look-at-me drama of the whiteheads or head crust, mind you. But it’s there. Just something lurking there un-seen by most–another secret dermatological war that’s raging.

A few days ago when the acne outbreak was taking a temporary break in intensity, I got her from her crib after a nap and saw she’d gouged a small hole out of the corner of her nose with a hand she freed from her swaddle. Despite the sea of vitamin E I’ve applied to it, the dark red scab is still there today, doing its part to mar whatever Gerber-like baby qualities she might ever dream of possessing.

But really, all this is superficial. The fact is, I did talk to her pediatrician about it and he promises it’s normal, it’ll be short-lived, and won’t affect her chances of getting into Yale. But still, my inner pageant mom wants my sweet baby to look better. 

My dearest friends peek in at her in the Moby Wrap and encourage me with strength-seeking sayings like, “This too shall pass” and “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” Some even look past the scales and coo over Paige’s cuteness. God bless them.

I can only hope that Paige is paying out a lifetime of dermatological penance right now, and that in her teen years, when all these other peaches and cream babies are considering derm-abrasion, she’ll glow with a perfect, radiant complexion. She’ll be able to walk around the dance floor on prom night kindly informing everyone that their epidermis is showing.

Baby Paige is Two Months Old

Easy babies breed guilt. Miss Paige is just such a sweetie–so docile and obliging (at least thus far!) that when I do bestow attention upon her it’s a deep genuine adoration. But it’s quick.

The problem is, with a two-and-a-half year old running around the house and making valiant efforts to rule the McClusky roost, I feel sad that there aren’t enough opportunities to gaze adoringly at Miss Paige.

When Kate was two months old, staring at her–even while she slept–was a sport that could easily consume hours of Mark and my time at a stretch. These days with double duty diaper changing, feeding one kid balanced meals and another Mama’s milk, while compulsively tidying the house, visiting an endless slew of friends and keeping up my hardcore Target habit–there just ain’t the time for baby gazing.

So, like some  do-’em-at-your-desk exercises, I try to sneak in head caresses, neck nuzzles and impromptu smiles–or possibly gaseous releases. It’s not the all-out love fest that I wish it could be, but Paige and I are happy with what time we’ve got together. It’s like I’m having an affair with my baby.

So then, what happens when you have three kids? Four? Or like my brother-in-law’s staggering family–15 children? I mean, when you get to the double digits do you ever have a chance to high-five each of the kids every day? “Dear Diary: Today Mom not only said good morning to me, but also asked how I was!”

Well Miss Paigey Waigey, today you are two months old and I want to send you a huge special love note right straight on through the Internets. I’m sorry if you aren’t getting as many raspberries on your belly during diaper changes as your sister once did, and if we’ve already fallen down on photographically documenting your every expression and outfit, along with the ‘Paige’s Second Thursday Ever!’ type pics. Maybe the time we make up for this is in the couple years that Kate moves our of the house for college or something. You get the special 2.5 years of undivided attention on the back-end of your youth.

Suffice it to say that even though it may seem to you (or maybe me?) that Kate is usurping some of your Mom time, I assure you she feels the same way about you. Funny how that is, hey? At any rate, be assured that when I’m dealing with a tantrum Kate is having because she doesn’t want to get dressed–and you are lying patiently in your crib looking at your mobile–I’d really rather be lying there with you gazing up at those black and white pictures of smiling faces and geometric shapes. (Okay, either doing that, or taking that chance to pee.)

Okay, your Dad is making you smile a bunch right now, so enough of this blog. Here I come to love you up.