While I was gathering together the poems that would eventually make Calenday, I found an old composition notebook, replete with scraggly notes and strange stains, from the first few months of E's life. Things were crazy then! Crazy and heavily embarrassing. So I am typing them up online, of course. Here's one now.
July 3rd, 2010 -- 2 weeks old
"You have been here for two weeks now. At first I was terrified to have you in the house -- it seemed like nothing would be the same. I wasn't alone, but I felt alone. Each night was weird. The first night, I was really arrogant about being able to breastfeed you. I put a little dry-erase board up on the wall to keep track of the feedings & I thought everything would be fine. I mean, I had a DRY ERASE BOARD! Nothing could go wrong.
I think I fed you five times that night. Five different times. With no sleeping (on my part) between each session.
At one point during that night, around 2 am (probably the 3rd feeding), the tornado warning siren went off in town. You had just latched on and were starting to eat, when the siren began blaring. I was sitting in the big old chair that Ben had brought up from the basement; I was so unbelievably desperate for you to eat, for you to finally just EAT like other living things do and -- maybe? possibly? -- then go to sleep, that I just sat there. I sat there and thought "If a tornado hits this house, so be it. I am NOT interrupting this feeding." It was highly irresponsible. But I didn't know what else to do.
Getting you to eat was a mystery. Half the time, you would eat for five minutes and then stop -- seeming to forget what you were doing. And the internet (the INTERNET!) said you should be eating for 20 minutes, on each side. So what gives?"
"Meanwhile, all day my crotch hurt. It was hard to walk, impossible to sit up, and it was very VERY scary to cough, laugh or poop. I've never been kicked in the balls, because I don't have balls, but I imagine maybe this is what that feels like? But over and over again?
On the third day home, I was feeding you -- (it seemed like I was always feeding you) -- when the obsessive amount of prune juice that I had been consuming (as suggested by medical professionals) finally started to 'come through'. My whole face went cold and tickly. There was that chilly feeling like pins & needles in my lower organs. I started to yell for Ben to help, but there was no time. I had to set you down on the floor (the floor!) and run to the bathroom. But I didn't make it. I didn't make it there in time, my friend. Things got rough. Ben came upstairs and found us both crying. We were all babies at that point, I think. A house full of babies, with no idea what to do."
So there you go. If there isn't too much backlash, I hope to type up the whole disgusting, embarrassing book! So, you know, check back.