My Lady of the Lantern

In case you are not aware, I just want to say that I have a major bone with the 'Am Fine' response. Of course, it can be true. Usually, it is misleading. I am fine. I am having trouble slipping into the rhythm of my workplace. I have been a part of that system since 2007, and yet when I rejoined, it feels like number of things have changed. People have changed, the 'game' has changed, the equations have changed. Lot of new people have come in, and they are completely untested waters for me. It seems people are working on auto-pilot.  We just wrapped up a workshop recently. It seems all the committees just did what they did without much help from the coordinator of the event. It is a good thing obviously, but it signals a change in tendency, that was not present before. I am fine. People have raced ahead of me. In terms of position, salary, number of publications, weight-carrying assignments on the resume. I feel a little lost. I am fine. There is a lot of catchin...

It had been a wake up (rinse-repeat) kind of a night. I left the bed at 5:30 am. It was still little dark outside. The baby appeared asleep, and hubby was half-asleep. I made my tea and did what I do on mornings. Hubby got up, got ready for the gym and left. I sat on the balcony, had my tea, wrote Figlia's diary, and read the newspaper. She woke up finally around 7 am, and I laid beside her, and closed my eyes. She went: "Oooba Oooobay Tuuucccchi Oooba Obay Buuuuu" Her soft hand reached my face. The fingers flitted ... cheek... nose... lips ...I do not think she had some specific touch-sequence in mind. A finger went up my nostril. I opened my eyes. Perfect morning. P.S. She does not usually go up the nostril really. (I can't see Lori's PM post yet...I will link to it, when I see her post go up.) Edited: More Perfect Moments are here ! Thank you Lori for linking me up! :-)

We survived an 8 o'clock birthday party on Friday night very well. 8 o'clock is a dangerous time because we (as in the girl) are ready to hit the bed at that time. Right on cue, at 1930, she gave out her first yawn. I was sure it would turn bad. I changed her into a romper, and gave her a bottle of milk. Then we went to the venue. She slept in the car, and remained so for the next 45 minutes. She woke up fresh, and was charming there. And she danced (sort of). We came home, and she was ready to go down, but she remained fidgety the rest of the night. But I am glad for the party, and a non-meltdown time of dinner eating for mummy and papa. - - - For all the nights post August 7th, Figlia has been exhibiting a new hobby - mummy as a human pacifier. I had used that trick on the night train on August 7th (to keep her calm), but she has picked it up so nicely, that she continues to demand me frequently during the night, even though she is now actually taking milk just once withi...

When I seat her on my lap, Figlia snakes her arm out of my hold and keeps her hand on mine rather than letting me keep my hand on hers. "Mama, I will hold your hand, you don't hold mine." My hand will always be there for her to hold.

And now, twa da dee dum dee da , Figlia is a) making gagging noises or b)turning her face away or c)pursing her lips for solids. She is still not eating lumpy texture food. And well, she puts everything in her mouth, except food. And things she was eating well before are now being refused. The girl refused applesauce last night, and cereal the night before. The daycare lady has also reported the same. It was only recently that we went from solids once a day to solids twice a day, and I was planning to make it thrice in next 10 days or so. I am hoping that this is just a passing thing. She has been drooling a lot again in the last couple of days, and has been licking her upper lip since Sunday, so I am thinking that if this is teething-induced, maybe the refusal will last only as long as the teeth finally make an entrance?

I was peculiarly struck by the suggestion that my struggle must partly arise from the fact that Figlia is a girl. That maybe, it would have been easier if Figlia had been a boy. The truth is that I have never thought of this before. I am acutely conscious of how almost-colliding their birthdays (Figlia's and CBub's) are, but the gender similarity never really bleeped so high in my consciousness. And not in terms of loss, but I was relieved to have a girl when Figlia came in my life. Again, not as a replacement to who I lost before, but the fact was that I always did want a daughter. Maybe the gender is also an undercurrent to what I feel. I never explored that before, till your words came to my post. Thank you.

Went to show Figlia to an ENT specialist last night. It's not milk, it is her snot. Figlia, as I have mentioned before (maybe?)  is a cold magnet. She catches colds easily. Good news, her ears are a-ok. They looked recovered. Better news, I do not have to give up feeding her from the bottle. Now if I could only scram and whip some super cold-preventing formula, that would be the best news. And the bright light? The very bright light? As in the shining bright light? So, the bright light? She went to sleep at 8:45 pm. I went to bed at 10:15 pm. I woke up in the night a couple of times, wondering if she was about to wake up too. She stirred, but did not wake up. The bright light? She asked for milk. I thought, in my fused-eyes state, that it must be 11:45 pm or 2:00 am milk she wants. The clock said 5:15 pm. She had slept 8:45 pm to 5:15 am. I could not believe myself. She took the bottle. I burped her, and she went to sleep! I have had the most relaxed morning...

I have been thinking. And a lot of that has come from the comments I received the past couple of posts, and the FB message I received from a dear blogger. No, I have not replied to any of it. Not yet. I am not sure I will, even if I want to. What do I do when she wakes up early? Kick-in the speed mode, and I still get done most of what I usually do on a normal morning. My snail pace is compromised, there is extra whimpering, but things do get done. Right? I have not been able to grasp the magnitude of my own coping skills. There. I just simplified the whole bit. What if CBub would not have died, and I had been living ditto this life with her? Would I have taken it as a norm, not complicated by a loss and grief of a different kind? That question may seem distant, but it seems that she always remains on my horizon. Some frozen baby with whom I never hit the milestones that I am meeting with my new daughter. My fantasy for CBub, of her, and life with her will never disappear. It...

I apparently have lost the ability to finish my whole set of thoughts in one coherent post. That pushes me to a writing mojo overload, translating to publishing multiple posts in a day. Has your Ped ever asked you to stop bottle-feed for the baby? My doctors (as in Figlia's doctors) have. Apparently, there was some 'collection' in one of her ears which has caused the trouble. Superped and Dr. T both want me to stop bottle-feeding her. My contention is that the collection is most possibly from the projectile vomitathon of a couple of weeks back, and not milk having dripped any other way into her ear. I am not prepared to stop bottle-feeding. I am not prepared to give up the convenience it affords. DH has been clashing with me over this, and he wants me to follow the doctor's orders. Have you ever had to stop bottle-feeding the baby, and switch to using a bowl and spoon to feed milk to the baby? P.S. Not that it adds to the quality of the post, but I have been us...

I have been eyeing something for a while for Figlia. Eyeing means, I will keep going back to the link, see it again...look at the price, and close the window. Rinse. Repeat. Now there is a 10 percent discount on my rinse-repeat goodie. It is still expensive. No one I know has used it, so I have no real life peer input on it. And it would possibly go under the heading of 'frivolous items'. I keep opening that window and closing it. And my daughter has refused that frivolous item's predecessor with much elan. Which means that not only will the item be considered frivolous, it might actually not get used at all. Which would mean that the money I am spending on it, would be wasted. What would you do? Would you still buy the item?

I feel like I want to write more. And somehow, mentally there is this huge post in bright colours all written out, but it is not coming out in prose the way it should. Speaking and admitting my anxiety is a huge thing. That anxiety is on me all the time these days. I finally told DH that I feel better when he is around in the morning. That dear daughter sleeps better when he is there. But he has his gym, and irrespective of when he goes, there will be inconvenience for me anyhow. And taking away his joy is not really my idea. That is not what I want. I can't offer him a solution. And so, I kept thinking of how it would be to continue being the jumpy cat for a few more months. One of the pleasant things I realized was that in my mind, I continued to imagine baby girl at the age she is now. In a few months, she will be a different size, with a more definite range and competence with several activities. When will I feel better? When she starts to talk? When she gains her feet a...

- We came back yesterday. I did not go to office but sent Figlia to daycare. That allowed me time to unpack, get laundry done, run some errands and get random things organized. It still did not afford me the kind of winding-down that I would have wished. - Figlia's teething seems to have come to some sort of screeching halt. None of the stuff that seemed to be whirring and psyching the teeth to make an appearance are happening currently. - Travel on the night train? Figlia lived up to our fears when we were travelling towards the destination, but remained sweet on our return trip. However that involved her not letting go of my boo.bies all night. She just soothed herself with them. - I can't say that I have turned into a sunshine-y morning person, even though I have been waking up early morning almost every day for the past few months. I still wait for the day when it would be okay to just sleep to my old usual. - When I went to see Figlia in the NICU post-birth, my mind wa...

I want to tell you about how fried I was yesterday, watching Figlia being held still for her blood test. How fried I was looking at the needle approaching her and knowing that it was about to pierce her delicate skin. I want to tell you that I gave her to DH because I could not look at it. I looked inside the hall, just listening to her whining turn to crying to find out when they were collecting the blood. And I just kept having flashes of her sister in her incubator. I just kept having flashes of the needles on her skin. And I had flashes of Figlia's time in the NICU. Rather than that, I want to tell you that my mind is exploding because her report indicates that her hemoglobin is marginally lower (not worried about it, very correctable), raised lymphocytes (fighting cold anyone?) and well, abnormal sugar levels (she had taken her milk more than an hour before the test). She will be getting a re-test specifically for her blood sugar levels. And as of today, my father is in ...