Bean had her first doctor's appointment a couple of days ago.
Of course, she'd been up ALL night the night before, squealing and wriggling and making what I suppose is a typical infantile commotion. Neil, who is slightly more nocturnal than I am, had taken night shift, and appeared to be comatose, so I didn't wake him. I bundled up the baby in a pajama thing about fifteen sizes too big (it SAYS newborn to six months, but this thing could fit TWO Beans in it...), and a quilt that damn near covers ME, and brought her out to the bus stop...
...Since she'd been wailing all night, and since Bean very much enjoys the sensation of being walked around, she immediately fell asleep and just barely woke up at the doctor's office. I think Bean's going to be a travelling sort of girl. Nothing gets her so serene as a stroller ride, a bus ride, or a stroll around the kitchen. Sometimes I look at her when she's sleeping and imagine her at sixteen or so, with a frame-pack and a huge canteen, swinging along through some strange town someplace... I can't decide if this daydream is sweet, or terrifying.
With one hand, I filled out Bean's paperwork in the doctor's office. It's kind of useless to fill out a medical history for somebody who's a whopping six days old. I mean, what do you really say? "Incident at two days old with an excessive amount of spit-up"? Right. I mean, the child doesn't even have a social security number yet. I gave the paperwork back to the receptionist with one eyebrow raised.
We sat back down. There were about a dozen other people in the waiting room, and all of them stared at me. And at Bean, who was still safely wrapped up in her bundle. You couldn't see her face; the other people probably thought I was a lunatic who compulsively carried a futon mattress with me everywhere. But that clinic is down the hall.
With one hand, I poked through a Parenting magazine. About half of the articles were stories about how your love life goes completely down the drain when you have children. How To Revive The Romance. Your Fading Love Life. Now That Sex Sucks. Confessions Of A Maternal Orgasm-Faker. When You Love Diapers More Than Kissing Your Husband. Shit like that...
I hate magazines. I'm not naturally a neurotic person -- really, I'm not. But I'm fairly susceptible to neuroses. I'll read an article about some tropical disease, and I don't automatically assume that I HAVE it, but I'll check for symptoms every now and again. I'll read an article about how you completely fall out of love with your significant other when you have kids, and a little bit of nervousness will linger in the back of my mind for awhile...
But I've learned, at least a little bit, to tune these things out. If I learned nothing else at Evergreen, it's that I am not a statistic. In fact, I rarely even fit into the statistics. If Parenting magazine claims that 99% of people spontaneously hate each other after the delivery of their child, I would always be the 1%. Helena Thomas IS the margin of error.
If anything, though, my love for Neil has increased a hundredfold. Of course, we have less time together doing the "Quality Time With Significant Other" thing. Instead of reading together, or watching movies, or even having little debates here and there, we end up changing diapers together (one of us manages the pacifier, one manages the other end...), warming bottles of milk together ("can you grab the spit-up rag for me?"), etc. But whenever Neil and I DO have a moment alone together, it seems so much better than ever.
"The concentrate they make concentrate from..." --Audrey Horne, "Twin Peaks
So, as soon as Bean is safely asleep, and we're futzing around the kitchen or something, I almost invariably find us in each other's arms. Or just kinda randomly making out. And it feels so right. I get that weird tingly sensation all through me, only it's warmer and more intense than ever. Sometimes I find myself just watching Neil, either tending to Bean, or doing Neil-things, and tears come to my eyes, and I can't believe how very, very much in love I am.
"Are you gonna stay in love with me?" I asked Neil the other night after having read all those dumbassed articles in the doctor's office. I knew the answer before I asked him, but I wanted to make absolutely sure this wasn't going to become one of my neuroses.
"No reason I wouldn't," he said.
I told him about the magazone articles.
""Nah. People think the romance has to die just because their sex lives change," he said. "But that's not what romance is about."
And he said some other things, too, but I had stopped listening and was just caught in the feeling of Neil's body standing next to mine.
Fuck magazines.
They called Bean's name to come in and see the doctor. They pronounced it wrong. I sat there, not paying attention, until all of the people in the waiting room were raising BOTH eyebrows at me. Great. The insane futon-girl doesn't even recognize her own name?
Whatever.
First, the nurse weighed Bean. She said, "Okay, we're just gonna take off her pajamas and her diaper and set her down on the scale..." She had gotten about half of that sentence out of her mouth when Bean grinned in her sleep, and let loose a frightening noise that seemed to come from somewhere beneath the pajamas and diaper.
"Um... You don't happen to have some baby wipes I could use, do you?" I asked the nurse.
Seven pounds, thirteen ounces. Newborns are supposed to lose up to ten percent of their birth weight in the first few days. And Bean had done so while she was in the hospital. She'd gained almost all of it back, though.
The nurse took her temperature, checked her heart rate, and told us that the doctor would be right in. She was surprisingly sweet, as nurses go -- all smiles, despite being crapped on. It takes a special kind of person to be crapped on by a person they happen to be holding, and then say something like, "oh, isn't she adorable?"
The doctor came in. Bean opened one eye, spit up all over the doctor, and promptly went back to sleep.
"So," said the doctor, expertly grabbing a couple of paper towels, "is there anything you're especially concerned about?"
"Well, actually," I said, "I forgot to tell anybody while I was in the hospital, but I was hoping you could check and make sure Bean's hips are okay? My family has this genetic hip thing, and I want to make sure she doesn't have it..."
"Oh, you mean congenital something-or-another?" asked the doctor. I like this doctor. She smiles a lot too. And kind of reminds me of the chick who played Susan on "E.R."
"I guess so. My grandmother got it, and she's got one leg that's, like, two inches shorter than the other one. And I think my mom has it too, but not as bad."
The doctor explained that they check for the congenital whatever-it-is as part of their routine now, and showed me how she was feeling along Bean's legs and pelvis for signs of deformity. "There's a lot we can actually do about that problem nowadays," she said. "She seems fine, but we check at all her baby appointments, just to make sure."
With that, Bean spit up again. And grinned.
"Um...?"
Dr. Susan, who had leaped out of the way just in time, handed me some towels to wipe up the mess on the table.
So, Bean got her legs checked, and her heart checked, and her skin checked, and her eyes checked. And once she woke up, Dr. Susan was delighted with how active and alert she was. Astonishingly, Bean was awake, but quiet -- just looking around and squirming.
"Oh yeah," I said. "Um, also, she's extremely strong, and I was wondering if that's normal? She's only six days old, and already I've seen her roll all the way over onto her side and stay there. And she can hold her head up for almost a minute. And she's got this death grip when she grabs ahold of something with her fingers."
Alas, Bean was not willing to show off her superhuman strength for Dr. Susan. Dr. Susan probably thought I was making it up. I poked at Bean and tried to get her to roll over, or hold her head up, or any of the little tricks she's learned in the past few days, but to no avail. Instead, Bean let loose another wad of spit-up, which grazed Dr. Susan's hand.
"THREE times?" I asked Bean once Dr. Susan had given her a clean bill of health. "You spit up on the doctor THREE times? You little rebel! I know I've probably sent you some mixed messages about the medical industry, but you're not supposed to spit up on the NICE doctors! And by the way, you're only supposed to crap on MEAN nurses. Weighing you does not constitute meanness."
But Bean just grinned. I think she knew she'd made trouble.
We walked to the bus stop, and Bean looked ALMOST fussy. I started singing to her:
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
Round and round
Round and round
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
All through the town..."
I remembered that verse. And I remembered the verse about the wipers on the bus going "swish, swish, swish"... But after that, my mind drew a blank. I sang: "The people on the bus are cracked-out meth-heads, cracked-out meth-heads, cracked-out-meth-heads..."
Bean didn't seem to be traumatized. Admittedly, I'm slightly concerned that I'm not nearly mommy-like enough. I mean, my kid doesn't have any Playskool toys and crap like that. She's got a jar of beans that she loves to stare at. I don't remember any kids' songs, or lullabies or anything. I'm fucken horrible with lyrics. I know a few songs by heart, but they're really somewhat unwholesome... I mean, who the fuck walks down the street singing "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam at their six-day-old infant? I remember that, when my mom ran out of kids' songs in her repertoire, she'd start singing old songs that her parents had liked, like "Blue Velvet" or "Moon River." Shit, all I can manage is Pearl Jam and the "Cracked-out meth-heads" song.
Well, in any case, she didn't start to wail. And I remembered to stop singing BEFORE I got on the bus.
We went to the grocery store that night to get groceries and stuff for the month. Bean had become a little bit fussy in her stroller and was wailing, so I picked her up and jiggled her around a little bit. Evidently, Bean doesn't so much like the stroller on smooth surfaces. She likes asphalt better. Cripes, she's SO going to end up a hitch-hiker. Or a Greyhounder. Or she's going to buy a fucking ATV with her allowance money the instant she's old enough.
Jiggling momentarily settled her down.
And I had a horrifying realization....
There I was, jiggling a tiny child in a line at a supermarket, actually buying somewhat-responsible food items (meats, soups, breads, crap like that -- instead of a cartload of chocolate and soda...). And... kind of humming along to the stupid grocery store Muzak. It was playing something awful. Hall and Oates or some crap like that.
"Oh my gahd," I said to Neil, "I'm turning into my parents. I think, like, it JUST happened, just now. I JUST became my parents. Arrrrggghhh!"
I think Neil rolled his eyes at me a little bit. I rolled my own eyes at myself, I know. But still... I mean, healthy food, little baby, Hall and Oates...? Ohhhhhh, scary...
It's almost feeding time again, I think.
Here's hoping I have time to go to the bathroom before Bean wakes up...
~Helena*