Abram's Debut

My slippers swished and swooshed across the checkerboard tile in a quickened pace. My breathing accelerated and office papers whooshed into a flutter as I sped past.

Seeing the closing doors up ahead, and with a finger held out in firm command, I yelled, "Hold that! ...that!...Uhhhhh-" 

Oh no. That thing was happening. You know, that thing that happens when you can't retrieve a word from your brain because your Brain Librarian -the lady living in your head who normally sifts through the chaotic folds of your cerebral cortex in order to retrieve appropriate nouns for basic speech - Yeah, that Brain Librarian - well, apparently she decided to take a little vacation to Brain Maui...again.     

"Hold that UPPY-DOWNY thing...or so help me!" I cried. 

The elevator's innocent passengers took cover as Handsome slow-motioned belly dived into the elevator, holding the doors open with his out-stretched body so I could board. Am I embellishing this story a little bit? Yes. Yes I am. But I swear to you that we were going to catch that elevator no matter what! There was too much at stake. 

Once aboard, John tapped his toe frantically while the elevator descended. I opened my phone to check the time. 

"What time is it now?" Handsome blurted out.

"8:05" I moaned. "Now we're 5 minutes late!"

As soon as the elevator opened we bolted down the hall, pushed open the doors leading to where he was staying, and surveyed our surroundings. 

A woman with thick glasses and an attitude saw us come in and marched her hips right on over to us and sassed, "He's been waiting for you. And he is not. happy. 

We started walking to his corner of the room and I practiced in my mind what I was going to say: 

"We didn't mean to be late, it's just that - There I was up in my room and I suddenly realized that I had some time to eat food. Well, one thing led to another and I was going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth, and I even thought about bathing myself, but of course I didn't because that's when I realized that it was time for me to come back down to you..."

But that's as far as I got with that pretend conversation because it was at that very moment we saw him.

Normally when we came down to feed him, he would be lying in his little bassinet, just like all the other NICU babies in their bassinets. But not this time. Instead, this is what we saw... 

Imagine a very, VERY disgruntled King of England, in all of his regal splendor, shrunken down into a 7-pound, chubby-cheeked, buttoned-nosed, devastatingly cute baby. And that baby is wearing the teeniest tiniest pair of corduroy overalls while swinging in a cuddly little cradle that's playing sweet arpeggio lullabies. And that King of England baby is staring across the room at you with his stern deep, dark blue eyes wanting to say (but, of course, unable to say because he's only 3 days old):

"Where in the DICKENS have you been?! I'm positively famished! And if that's not enough, the nurse lady whom you have placed in my charge furthered my humiliation by placing me in this swinging, singing contraption of death!! Get me out of here! And for heaven sakes! Get me some food!!!!!"

So that's what we saw. And you want to know what Handsome and I did when we saw our royal dumpling in this little vignette? We did the only natural thing parents do who are sleep deprived, energy deprived, and for all intensive purposes, traumatized by months of pregnancy, hours of labor and days of NICU living - we burst into giggles.

Handsome swooped down and picked up our little peanut. We snuggled him, and kissed him, and fed him - all while giggling uncontrollably. 

Annoyed nurses and parents kept casting glances our way, obviously questioning our sanity - with good reason. We had lost it. But it felt great!

There we were - a happy little family of three, squished together in our corner of heaven, giggling like maniacs.

First Family Photo

And that's a pretty good description of what life has been like for the past year. I very often see myself as an overworked, unworthy servant to his highness, the baby. And the baby, Abram, is very often frustrated and confused because he doesn't understand why it's taking us so long to figure out what he is so desperately trying to communicate. And Handsome and I are very often stressed and running around trying to figure out what the heck is even going on. But no matter how stressed out, or sad, or overwhelmed we all get, it somehow always ends in giggles. 

As soon as we pulled away from the hospital to take Abe home, John and I gave each other a high-five because we believed we had this parenting thing in the bag. Yeah, the week-long NICU stay had been a little chaotic, but we would soon be home and things would surely be less hectic. And how hard could it really be to take care of such a sweet cuddly little guy?  

The Day We Took Him Home

Twelve hours later at 3 AM the baby was screaming, the changing table was covered with pee after a failed diaper-changing event, I was sobbing and totally topless with milk spraying everywhere (TMI, but this story has to be told!), and Handsome was running around like a crazy man offering the baby toys, bottles, binkies, Vodka (Okay, not Vodka but it did cross his mind) and whatever else he could find in an effort to appease the child. And then the baby got the burpcups. You know burpcups, right? When hiccups and burps join forces in a bubbly unending fit of madness? Actually, let's not go into the burpcups. Let's just say that it was at that moment we both wondered if the hospital really made the right choice in releasing the baby into our custody. We had no idea what we were doing.

We didn't get a lot of sleep that first month...well...we still don't get a lot of sleep, but that first month was the worst. Abram was waking up regularly for feedings which was definitely an adjustment to our sleep schedule, but he was also doing this thing periodically throughout the night where he would just suddenly start gagging and heaving and choking on who-knows-what. In an instant Handsome and I would bolt out of bed, fly to the bassinet with Handsome prepared to perform CPR and me, prepared to call 911. And then just as suddenly Abram would let out a teeny tiny little sigh and snuggle back into a deep sleep as if nothing had happened. Hearts pounding, Handsome and I would crawl back into bed and lay wide awake for at least 20 minutes recovering from the ordeal. It was only the beginning of our late night adventures.

Two months into his little life I sat in our family room with the lights dimmed after I had fed him. My  eyes drooped as I stared down at his tiny face and wondered at the little person I held in my arms. His eyes searched the room around him. His mouth hung partially open as he peered up at my wedding portrait hanging over my head. What was he looking at? He was too little to understand the picture. Maybe he liked the black frame contrasted against the white cinder block wall? After a few moments his thoughtful gaze panned over to the sliver of moonlight poking through the white sheer curtains. The white moonlight almost sparkled against the fogged window pane and a small, white moonbeam shined into our dimmed apartment. Abram couldn't look away and, truth be told, neither could I. It was a captivating scene that would have gone unnoticed but for the curiousness of my child. I looked around the crowded family room that held two couches, a baby swing, a changing table, and a rocking chair. There was clean laundry scattered across the carpet yet to be folded, papers and books stacked on the kitchen table with dirty dishes yet to be cleaned. Disappointment and stress filled my chest as I thought about everything that needed to be done.

Abram suddenly broke his gaze from the window and pushed his little body away from me with his toes until his head hung upside down over my knees. As he examined his world upside down his little mouth opened again as if he were staring into an enchanted forest filled with pink dancing fairies and blue neon waterfalls. I was amused. He was looking at the same bit of family room I had just inspected, but I didn't see any pink fairies. I looked again through my baby's eyes, and wouldn't you know it? Soft amber light bubbled from the parchment lamp and poured over the couches like honey creating chocolaty shadows and a golden haze. It was pretty enchanting - dirty dishes and all. The little boy speaks with his eyes and I've learned to listen.

One day he started to smile and I have never been the same since.

And when he first giggled? Oh! I gasped and giggled right along with him, and then Handsome came home and we all ended up on the floor together, holding our bellies, giggling with glee. 

2

What a cutie. But sometimes I needed him to go to sleep for his sake and mine... One day, after long deliberations, the little dude finally fell asleep in his swing for a nap. 

Swish, swash, swish, swash hummed swing as I tiptoed over to Handsome for a little kiss. We were overjoyed! "We're kissing!" we laughed to ourselves, "It's a miracle!" and then I accidentally giggled out loud.

"Oh no," Handsome said.

"What?" But he didn't have to answer for me to know. I flipped around and froze because Abram's eyes were wide open and he was looking directly at us. 

Handsome started to move towards the baby since crying seemed inevitable at that point, but I held Handsome in place and whispered, "No! Don't move.....If we stay very still he won't be able to see us."

Swish, swash, swish, swash.

Like a beautiful ice sculpture, Handsome and I stood motionless in a contorted pretzel trying to not move a muscle. After a few seconds Handsome leaned over and whispered into my ear, "George, he's a baby, not a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He can see us right now." 

And with that, Abe burst into a wail and we burst into giggles.

Oh well.

Giggles didn't adorn every situation, though. No. There were tears. Lots and lots of tears. Abram's tears and my tears. I don't think I'm ready to talk about the tears. I don't know if I will ever be ready to talk about the tears. Just know, there were tears.

But while we're on the topic of the horribly tragic, let's talk about tummy time for a little bit. Or "workout time" as Handsome insists we all call it since "tummy time" is obviously for dorks and our baby is not a dork.

Forty-five minutes. That's how long your infant is supposed to spend on his tummy every day. For those who don't know, tummy time was invented after pediatricians started advising infants to sleep on their backs to avoid SIDS. SIDS statistics drastically decreased for those who followed this recommendation which was good, but then pediatricians noticed that babies who didn't spend regular time on their tummies had slower physical development. So tummy time became a thing.

"Piece of cake," I thought while reading through my parenting books BEFORE Abram was born. "I'll just roll Abe onto to his tummy for 15 minutes three times a day. It'll be cinchy."

My child started screaming as if I had laid him down face first into a fiery pit of burning coal and poisonous scorpions, which, to be clear, I had not. All I had done was roll him over onto his stomach for tummy time, ahem, workout time. After two minutes and fifty two seconds I rolled him back over. "Okay," I thought, "We're going to do 15 three-minute increments of tummy time until he gets used to it. He never got used to it. We tried all kinds of things. We laid him on our chests, we laid him on our knees, Handsome would count out reps every time Abram would lift his head off the ground, but to no avail. The kid hated tummy time. Until one day he discovered a glorious trick.

Okay, I know he looks happy here, but I'm
telling you, he hated tummy time.

While pushing his upper body off the carpet, Abe suddenly rolled over. He blinked in surprise when he realized he was no longer on his stomach and then he smiled. From that point on, workout time lasted about 1 second - the amount of time it took Abram to flip over to his back. I would sit on the ground next to Abe for 15 minutes rolling him onto his stomach over and over again while he would subsequently roll himself back over onto his back over and over again. Good times.

After a few months Abram realized that rolling wasn't just good for getting out of workout time - it was good for chasing toys! He started rolling across the room to get balls and books and scissors...oh shoot! Handsome and I suddenly realized we had to baby proof the floor. Rolling was pretty awesome, but it had its limitations.

And then one day Abram's life changed. He realized he could use his arms to drag his body to whatever destination he pleased! Folks, the kid mastered the army crawl! I sent footage to the Inspector General at West Point for top military officer training. So, yeah, he was good. And after a broken glass canister, we baby proofed the lower shelves.

It was at this point we started noticing how much he liked to move around. Like, he liked it a lot. He was always a super wiggly little guy, but when he started moving around on the ground...man, the kid was fast. Like a little snake! It was super cute, but as his 24-hour-a-day caretaker, it was also a little unnerving. And then he started to normal crawl and his speed drastically increased. And then he decided he liked to find little pieces of plastic hidden somewhere deep in the carpet that only he could see and stick them in his mouth like candy. And then he decided he liked to Kamikaze himself head first down flights of stairs, and then he decided that his wet fingers fit perfectly into light sockets, then he decided swimming face down in the bathtub was super fun, and then he decided he loved dogs and tried to rip their faces off every time he met one. Basically Abram decided that the most dangerous things that he could possibly do, those were the things he wanted to do. And his speed and abnormal amount of energy gave him a clear advantage.

I had a lot of goals as a parent when Abram was first born. I wanted to teach him sign language before his first birthday and help him count to five, feed him the healthiest food in the world and keep him away from all that processed gunk. I was going to strum him a hand picked collection of guitar lullabies every night before bed, and teach him Spanish. I don't even know Spanish, but somehow I was going to teach it to him. Great goals, great intentions, but when Abram was about 7 months old I threw all those goals out the window and replaced them with one simple goal: Keep the baby alive. I still tried to do the other stuff as best as I could, but my top priority was to keep the boy alive.

Abe and his body guard.

This method of parenting has worked out pretty well, and miraculously, Abram is still with us.

Anyways, now it's time for a picture recap of Abram's First Year:

An hour old

I don't think I got dressed for the first three months...

Tough guy.

First bath at home. He didn't like this one, but
now he cries anytime we take him out of the tub.

So little. 

At the Pumpkin Patch

Blessing Day.

Abram and the lights.

Christmas elf.

Swinging

April Fools' Day

Playing with the water.

Month by month...

Notice how they stop at 7 months...
"keep the baby alive" is all we cared about
during months 8-12. 

Some stuff about Abram...

He likes dogs. A lot. This is him crying because the
dog he just met had to go home. This happens a lot. 

Abram has great hair

He likes to go for walks.

He's a little obsessed with water.

He makes friends where ever he goes.

He's got a dad that loves him. 

And a mom that loves him, too. 

The boy grew and today he is one-year-old.

I thought I would be excited about it. I've been looking forward to being done with the infant stage for a long time. The spit up was disgusting. The late nights and early mornings almost pushed me over the edge. The breastfeeding and then pumping was pretty awful. The daily near-death experiences have aged me 10 years. I'm not really a baby person.

But as I sit here on my couch thinking about Abram blowing out the candle on his cupcake and the epic chocolate beard that followed, I'm a little heartsick. It's the end of an era. The end of my first year as a mother and the end of Abram's first year of life. 

His squishy little newborn face, his little army crawl, his smile with only two little teeth - all of those experiences are now memories. He'll never be that tiny baby again. I thought this realization would cause me to start singing "Hallelujah!" or to dance through the house with glee, but no. Instead here I am, sobbing on my couch. Sobbing tears of relief - we made it! We got through that first year! But there are also tears of sorrow. Even after all the hardships of caring for an infant, I realize I am sincerely going to miss that chubby-cheeked little King of England snuggled up in a ball fast asleep on my chest. That first year is over. What a shame. 

But what a debut!

--------------------------
Pregnant with Abram
Abe's Birth Story
He's a Sky Full of Stars (1 year old)