Levedy

2 Months

Bean, yesterday you turned two months old. You earned the name The Bean because of your inherited small stature and strange, legume-like resting poses. Your father and I have spent the past sixty days trying to figure out how to keep a baby alive for twenty-four hours as well as trying to keep a marriage alive for at least twelve of them.

You are an ineffable source of joy. It’s really miraculous that I would be willing to throw myself in front of a hungry grizzly to save a creature that made me throw up every day for six months and gave me heartburn that could burn holes through steel. My first memory of you is when the nurse that delivered you flung you up onto my belly. While I was focusing very intently on hanging on to this slimy, cream-cheese-covered grub on me, you looked at me with one eye. At first, I thought you looked like Popeye. Now, I’ve decided you were winking at me, as if to say “psst…let’s get the hairy guy with the beard to give me a pony.”

Your father is totally smitten with you. I’ve never seen a man be manlier than when he holds his new daughter in his hands. He says that he won’t play tea party with you, but I think he’s lying. I thing he’s secretly learning the difference between dessert and demitasse spoons just for the occasion. He’s totally, completely, over-the-moon in love with you, and I’d be jealous if I didn’t feel the same way, too.

You started smiling a few weeks ago in a manner that isn’t just to say “Whoa! Did you catch that fart I just had? P.U.!” I can forgive you for the hours of sleep I have lost when I stagger into your room in the morning and you flash me the sweetest gummy smile I’ve ever seen. You recognize mom, dad, and both grandmothers. I must admit, though, that at this point you’re often WAY more interested in your mobile than in any of us.

Feeding you has been an ordeal, to say the least. My mysteriously masochistic desire to breastfeed you is matched by your sadistic desire to change my nipples into the consistency of a dog’s rawhide chew bone. Ask me a year ago if I would feel comfortable showing someone my boob and saying “Please, do show me how to flop this thing onto an anvil and hammer horseshoe nails into it.” It’s amazing the pain that I’m willing to put up with for you and not think twice about it. Case in point: I was feeding you last night when your father left the room with “Welcome to Mooseport” stuck on the television. The remote was three millimeters away from where my pinkie toe could reach. Bean, I watched a Ray Romano movie for you. That should speak volumes.

You taught me that I am capable of handling just about anything. I left the delivery room feeling like I could conquer the world. Hell, I just shot a child out of my hoo-hah. Anything else should be a cake walk. (Of course, by that time, I hadn’t yet tried nursing you.) You taught me that I am capable of superlative emotion: I’m the most in love with you, I’m the most fatigued woman on the planet, and I’m both the best and worst mom on the planet.

I love you Bean. Welcome to the family.

Don't Want to Jinx it by Sharing

But estfeeding-bray is taking a turn for the etter-bay.

With a shocking, out-of-the-blue rejuvinated interest in sucking the life out of me via my titties, the baby is back on the breastfeeding track. I have serious milk supply issues, but I consulted with an actation-Lay onsultant-Cay who came to the house, and I have a battle plan to bring Sophie to the land of milk and honey, sans the honey.

The consultant says she's never seen a case as weird as mine. (Um, thanks? I'm happy to be unique?) She says my situation is more like an adoptive mom forcing her body to lactate than a mom of a newborn. Take THAT, Angelina Jolie. My baby is cuter, but our tits are in the same boat.

While I still need to supplement with formula, I'm on the right track to tough out breastfeeding for at least another few months.

Wish me luck.

Warning

40 Days

Last night we took the babies to church fr their 40-day churching. The Orthodox honor the Jewish tradition of waiting for 40 days to present the baby to the church. The Orthodox do it for a different reason than the Jewish faith.

We don't believe that the woman is "unclean" for 40 days after birth. It's more of a practical point: I'm friggin' exhausted, and the baby is likely to catch something from having a thousand soggy Greek lips kissing her. So women wait for 40 days to take the baby to church. The priest offers a blessing that recognizes the hard work that the mother has been slogging through. He takes the baby to the altar and formally presents the baby to the church.

It's a Greek quirk to spit when you compliment children. I suppose it's to chase away any ego that might set in if a one-month old hears you calling it cute. Yes, the Greeks there at the Ascension service complimented Sophie on her good looks and then fake-spat at her. They say ptou! ptou! or ptou sou! ptou sou! which means "ptou on you."

Pictures are here