to being brave

 

a letter to my daughter as she turns six years old,

in some ways you are a paradox: 

since the day you were born you have been a snuggler, rooting against me in infancy not just to nurse, but to be close to me, pushing your small head against my chin, pushing to feel the resistance of another body against your own. and at 6, you are still the same. in the wee hours of the morning when it is still dark outside you will crawl into bed between daddy and me, migrating towards whatever body you can to make contact. if i am sitting at my desk or at the table, you will climb up onto my lap, wedging yourself between me and whatever i am working on. in the kitchen as i chop and mix, you drag your chair in from the diningroom and push it right in front of the cutting board to help, whether i want you to or not.

even so, you are my child who needs space. you sneak up to your room and play alone for hours. i can hear the sound of your small voice as you talk to your calico critters, your my little ponies, your dolls, your legos. you need to be alone to reset. unlike your sister, who wants to interact in all ways and all times with any human in her space, you choose your proximity to others. you know well what you need, and when it is time to escape to the backyard to swing or climb, to cuddle on the couch with books, and to sit on my studio floor drawing.

i've always felt protective of you, my sweet girl. your sister is so confident in interacting with adults, and almost to a fault desires to please those around her; of course she is rewarded with praise and affection, while you are less willing to freely hand out hugs and smiles and the words-you-are-supposed-to-say to the grownups in your life who have expectations of you. it's easy for her to get the kudos and attention from others, and for you to get overlooked. yes, i want you to be polite and kind and social, but i'm also proud of your ability to stand strong and independent. you choose carefully when and how you will show attachment, and then when you do it is real and true and an authentic expression of how you are feeling. 

as you get older, i want you to remember that i love you for all of these parts of you. 

i love that you forge your own path. you stand with your friends, and stick up for others even at a cost to you. you play with the boys and the girls, and when someone criticizes that, you smile and play on. you care so deeply about your sister, and you've learned all you can about her deafness and her cochlear implants: how to charge the batteries, how to turn on her implants for school, how to get her attention if she can't hear you, how to speak up for her, how she can read your lips most easily. i know she is good at speaking up for herself, but i think someday you will be her second best advocate in the world, and you may fight some of her battles for her that as her mom i'll never know about.

you are my little girl with big feelings. you have about 48 stuffed animals on your bed and you love each one as if they were living and breathing; if one is missing the tears come fast and furious. you do crazy flips and brave maneuvers on the monkey bars, but every single movie in the world is too scary for you to watch without covering your ears and closing your eyes. you are so deeply moved by the world around you, and sometimes you don't know where to put those feelings, or what to say about them, but hold on to them. you'll need them.

these will serve you well as you navigate this big world:

you are brave. 

you try hard and new things.

you are strong.

you are independent. resistant to others' opinions.

you don't care about what other people think about you.

you are loyal & kind. 

you love to play.

and these will be hard and might make you hurt sometimes, but make you softer and more whole:

you wear your heart on your sleeve & your feelings on your face.

you love with all you have.

you are sensitive. empathetic. 

you have a tender heart.

you love every animal you meet.

you want to be held close and loved well.

you are expressive and creative and always want to do your very best.

you are amazing my sweet ruby. 

listen to your brave heart, and ignore those who want you to do what everyone else is doing. 

it's overrated. and way less rewarding.

i love all the paradoxes that are you.

i love you,

mommy

reading time

m's latest favorite activity: to read to her baby sister. 

 she is very serious & focused, and makes up a story or summarizes the real thing from memory

 then she points to the page and asks, "can you find the window?" or "what do you see?"

savoring these sweet sister moments,

because soon ruby will be able to grab the book or be a little less compliant with her big sister's agenda.

(6 months)

well, the last 4 months of my iphoto is still in limbo somewhere (until i rope my brother aaron into spending a bit of his thanksgiving helping me track those pictures down), so this is a photo of itty bitty ruby, when she was just about 2 months old.

i remember wondering if i could possibly love another baby the way i love my first one. tonight as i sat playing with ruby i was so so happy she was a part of our little world. today she is six months old!i want to plead with her to slow down and stop getting big already! i feel like she is already outgrowing the baby stage. as much as i can't say that i love waking up at all hours and being a one woman feeding machine, i do also simultaneously love so many of the moments that make this stage exhausting. i love snuggling in the middle of the night (even if i am falling asleep), her tiny hand on me as she nurses, the way that she has to express everything through laughter and tears because she can't talk yet. such a fleeting season, and i am trying to soak it up.

this afternoon my two daughters were on nap strikes. i went in multiple times (big mistake by the way), and every time i went in to check on them, my girls were wide awake. m was facing ruby laughing and saying silly things (which of course she can't even hear because her implants are off when she naps) and ruby, all swaddled up, had turned her head to face m and was giggling. yes, giggling. every time i went in these two were a.keeping each other wide awake during naptime and b. egging each other on towards more laughter. i desperately needed them to sleep so i could reach my work deadline (which i did by the skin of my teeth and no thanks to daughters #1 and #2), but they were so cute, giggling away at each other. it made my heart melt a little.

ruby's smile is infectious, and so is her sweet spirit. she has a stubborn streak-as does her big sister. she can scream at the top of her lungs for hours (i'm not being dramatic. really. hours. middle of the night hours-which is the worst!) and oh, does she love to snuggle with her mama. she is kind of intense for being so young. she gives m a run for her money when it comes to personality, and that is saying a lot.

and so 6 months in our family is changed for the better. we laugh more. we sleep less. i grow impatient more quickly, and shower a lot less frequently. but of course, at the end of the day, we love more deeply with this new baby in the house.

oh, how the time flies

as of friday, ruby was 4 months old. first of all, her hair continues to be amazing (see above.)

she is becoming so much more interactive in her old age, and still has such a sweet temperament. i see these glimpses of the girls staying up til all hours and getting each other into trouble. oh, how full our hands will be.

it's funny - little m was forced to be flexible because we were always schlepping her to and from appointments, therapy, and deaf related stuff. (and when i say m was flexible, i mean she often screamed her little feisty heart out, but she learned to go with the flow because there really was no other choice.) ruby is forced to be flexible because we schlep her to m's school three days a week, and then since we are doing that, why not just bring her along to every other place we are off to? and so it goes. the gift has been that she is incredibly mellow - even with long car rides, multiple appointments for m, random napping locations (often the car seat) and a big sister who likes to maul her. of course, she shares two things in common with her big sister: a. they have the same exact cry face; somehow their mouths look identical when it is time to scream and b. when it is time to scream, ruby can hit some veeeery high decibels. the girl is loud and committed to letting us know that she is, indeed, displeased.

the first thing m says every morning when i go in to get her, even before we put her implants on, is "i want to go see baby ruby?" so, you see, we all like her around these parts.

in short, i think she is pretty marvelous. i am so happy she is a part of our family.

3 months of lovin

3 month old snugglebug

happy three months old today, sweet ruby!

you are snuggly, 

patient (when your big sister body slams you or wants to hold you), 

fascinated with ceiling fans, 

full of smiles, 

discovering the delight of kicking your legs, 

wide-eyed at this world, 

happy as can be to nurse at all hours-when you pause from eating to smile up at me,

good natured,

fixated on getting your entire fist into your slobbery little mouth,

my little swaddled houdini- 

you wriggle your way out of a double swaddle and yet won't sleep without it,

and a delight.

stealing kisses at the beach

we really like you around here.

thanks for putting up with all of our crazy shenanigans!

double trouble

look at these two partners in crime.

we are so in trouble.

deaf moments

part a:i knew this moment would come, but i thought it would be when m was a little older for some reason.

a few weeks ago m and i were sitting on the couch hanging out, and she was staring at my ears intently. finally she said, "mommy, why no put on ears? roro put on ears." matt and i knew that at some point she would ask why she wears implants and not everyone else does. after all, she has a set of toy cochlear implants that came with a stuffed animal when she got her implants, and she often plays with them by trying to put them on me. they look identical in scale and color to hers, so they look like the real thing. she notices when people have hearing aids. she'll point behind our ears sometimes, but when she actually asked me why she had them and i didn't, it took me off guard.

i've used the word deaf with her, and explained that she is deaf, and that's why when her ears are off she doesn't hear, but i don't think she totally understands it yet. i think she assumes we all stop heraing once we take baths or showers, or when we take naps or go to bed. i think she thinks it is normal to attach a device to one's head with wig tape, and to lose sound every so often when the implants coil falls off.

so i began a conversation that will last a very long time-throughout our lives i imagine, about what it means to be deaf, and to have implants, why she has them and we don't. it was short, and i tried to use words she would understand. for now i said her implants were special ears that helped her listen and speak, and that when she was born her ears couldn't hear, but when mommy and daddy were born our ears could hear, so we didn't have special ears. moments later she moved on to playing, and that was it.

then the other day i was changing ruby's diaper. m was laying on the bed next to her, snuggling up to her sister as she likes to do. m pointed at her head and said, "mommy, ruby no have special ears. roro, special ears."

so i guess she remembered at least a snippet of what i said.

part b:
this is how you know you have a deaf child with implants-

multiple times when i have been holding ruby i check her head to make sure her implant coils haven't fallen off. then i remember-oh wait. she doesn't have implants.

it's funny what becomes normal. every time ruby startles to a sound it startles me. i often forget that she can hear at this age. it became so normal to us that m couldn't hear (even with her hearing aids) until she had her implants that whenever ruby responds to sound it kind of surprises me.

one month

happy one month
sweet baby girl!

we love you
your big gray eyes
black hair
snugglyness
tiny hand holding onto my shirt
easy going disposition
(you really let your sister maul you)

you make our family better

ps i'm glad i'm not in labor anymore. because it hurts. but i'd do it all over again for you.

lungs

somehow i make these babies that certainly know how to scream well.

this one is far far more mellow than her big sister was as a newborn,

but when she decides she wants attention,

she knows just what to do.

welcome to the family

(sweet ruby,

all i can say is that i am doing my best to teach your sister to be gentle...

but she's a lover, just like her momma.)

my daughter likes to hug her new baby sister.

so far, no bruises, just some smashed newborn body parts here and there.

so, it all starts innocently with, "mommy, roro hold baby ruby"

she points out baby ruby's body parts...

and then goes in for the lovin'

a little closer

ruby begins to look kind of stressed

but is powerless to her big sister's 2 year old strength

finally, i intervene since ruby is completely smashed up

little m, happy as can be and oblivious to her poor sister's distress

apparently the pain isn't too bad because seconds later ruby is ready for a nap

pass/fail

in my master's program for painting, one of my favorite courses (even though it involved a lot of mental gymnastics) was introduction to critical theory. in a very brief and inadequate definition, critical theory is the examination of culture/society.

bear with me for a moment as i get to what i am thinking about:

binary systems was one of the concepts we spent a great deal of time discussing and studying in critical theory, and refers (essentially) to pairs of polar opposites within a culture: male/female, presence/absence, civilized/savage, crazy/sane, rational/emotional. it is much easier for us as humans to categorize according to binary pairs rather than deal with the grey area that lies between these two places. in other words, we like to put people, emotions, situations into boxes or categories so we can simplify and deal with them more easily.

i've been thinking about this a lot as i think about monrovia. she is deaf, but she can hear and speak. still deaf though. it sort of puts her into this weird in-between place in which she isn't totally hearing or totally deaf. i wonder what her experience of processing who she is as someone in between the identity of "deaf" and "hearing" will be as she grows older.

i thought of it again as baby ruby took her newborn hearing screening in the hospital last week.

we didn't know if she would pass or fail.

we had so many mixed emotions.

when the screener came in, she said, "i'm just here to do a little hearing screening." of course, this had been the part that we had been anticipating, knowing that for us it wasn't "a little" hearing screening at all.

ever since m took her hearing screening 2 years ago and didn't pass, it has been something we've thought and talked about: when we would visit friends' new babies in the hospital and see the hearing test checked off the list of things to do before they checked out, when we saw a pamphlet about the screening lying around at a friend's house whose brand new baby had just come home, when we discussed whether we would have a second child (i actually envisioned the moment of the 2nd baby's hearing screening & played it through in my mind more than i did about labor.)

matt told the volunteer screener, "i just want you to know that our daughter is deaf, so we just want you to be aware that this will be very emotional for us no matter what the results are." she didn't really seem to hear him, because she said, "well, if she doesn't pass it's most likely she just has fluid in her ears and we'll just retest her a few times." (i wanted to say, um, if she doesn't pass it is probably because she is deaf just like her sister is, but i didn't say anything.) then she told us how valuable and important the newborn screening was for identifying hearing loss early. (which, for the record, i totally agree with, but i don't know that she needed to be telling us that considering the information matt had just given her.)

we sat on the bed looking out the window and squeezing each others hands, not knowing what either result would feel like once we heard it out loud.

the screener checked her right ear. she passed. and then the left, and she passed again. she showed us the results across the decibels on her little machine, and then she gave us a copy of the results and left, closing the door behind her.

and matt and i both started sobbing.

there was and is so much wrapped up in that hearing screening and in the results.

we didn't tell anyone the results all day.

it seemed to be something we just needed to keep for ourselves as we processed that ruby was not deaf.

you know, when little m was diagnosed with profound hearing loss it felt as if the world was caving in on us. we were so swamped, lost, suffocated in grief. we didn't know a way forward. i remember feeling emotionally numb, and i just wanted to escape into myself. i'm not sure how to express this exactly, but we were so, so incredibly sad and at the same time, we never wanted a different daughter. it wasn't sadness because she wasn't perfect, or because we had certain expectations for who she should be; we were grieving knowing that life would inevitably be harder for our daughter. and, as you know, life can already be pretty hard as it is. we were grieving the unknown. we were grieving what we saw as losses for her- not to be able to hear us sing to her lullabies or the birds outside her window or the million other sounds we take for granted. i think i was also scared- i felt like didn't know how to be a good mom, much less a good mom to a baby who couldn't hear me. yet even in the darkest moments, when we had just learned that m was deaf, we didn't want anyone other child in our family. and having her in our family meant having a deaf child.

so, because it was so hard for us, because we grieved her deafness so deeply, because we had talked and re-talked the potential outcomes of the impending hearing test, you would think that we would have been hoping and praying that ruby would pass the hearing screening.

but that isn't what we were hoping and praying. i think we wanted to have the grace and strength to know how to parent either way: two deaf children or one hearing, one deaf. both present complexities because parenting is inherently complex, whether your child(ren) have special needs or not.

it may sound odd, but part of me hoped our second child would be deaf. really. (of course if someone else said this to me, i wouldn't like it very much-unless they, too, had a deaf kid, but it's ok for me to say it myself.) in some ways, to have another deaf child would have given little m another sibling who doesn't quite fit into a box, or a binary opposite...just like her. the two of them could have each other to work through identity issues. matt and i are both hearing, so as much as we love m, we will never completely know what it is to be deaf but also be able to speak and listen with implants.

part of me hoped he or she would be hearing - just because it is easier, in so many ways (both for us and for our child). no barrage of appointments with doctors, therapists, the school district. no hearing aids, insurance companies, surgeries, countless medical bills & paperwork. and of course because then, aside from all of those logistical reasons, our child can hear.

to be perfectly honest, on one level to celebrate ruby passing her screening without recognizing these complexities feels a little bit like a betrayal to little m and the fact that she can't hear without cochlear implants. a betrayal i guess because to celebrate ruby's ability to hear implies that little m is deficient or that we are celebrating who she is not and can never be.

she so when people asked us whether ruby passed the test, we hesitated to answer right away. because we were and are grateful that ruby can hear, but regardless of whether the results were pass or fail, each road had the potential for the loss of some things and the gifts of others.

as we have grieved m's deafness, learned to see the many gifts that have come from raising her, and don't want another child besides little m, we have moved into a place where it isn't as neat as pass/fail. hearing/deaf. celebrate/grieve.

i don't know how much this makes sense or doesn't make sense, but it is just an acknowledgement that both of our daughters are a gift, one hearing, one deaf. that having a deaf daughter has been in some ways a treasure, even in its difficulty and hardness and grief. and the emotions that came rushing at us as we learned that ruby could hear don't really fit into a box. i am so, so grateful that ruby can hear - that she doesn't need implants to listen and speak.

nonetheless it was a whole lot of different feelings sloshing together, mixed up and messy.

{welcome home}

supercute welcome home ruby sign

hanging in little m & r's room

by aunt chrissy

supercute & sleepy ruby

new life

i am sitting in our hospital room with an amazing view of san francisco across the bay, the bay bridge, the golden gate bridge...and in the foreground, our hospital parking garage.

today i celebrate new life!

first, after a very painful but very fast labor (let's just say that we decided to head to the hospital at the right time, since we got to the maternity floor at 5 :15 am and our baby was born at 6: 23 am!! yes- you read that correctly...an hour later!!!), our new daughter was born!

ruby adelia

was born yesterday morning...

may 24th...

9 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches...

a full head of thick black hair & sweet big eyes...

feisty like her big sister, she kept us up all night last night and snuggled with us all day

{ruby is in honor of ruby bridges

(you can read about her courageous story here if you aren't familiar with it);

adelia is a family name on my mother cornelia's side of the family

(& is pronounced uh-deel-ia)}

we love this little beautiful bundle of baby

& now it is matt and the girls!

second,

today

marks five years that one of my dearest friends in the whole world,

adriane,

has been cured of leukemia.

i spent a few hours with her on sunday afternoon (pausing once in a while for the contractions that i kept telling myself were no big deal), and as we hung out with our kids underfoot, thought about what a gift she has been to me. her fight against leukemia was long and brave, and i wrote about it a few months ago if you'd like to read more here.

she is an example to me of such inner and outer beauty.

i am so incredibly grateful to call her a friend -

to have walked together through some very treacherous seasons

only to emerge in grace and strength,

and to call today a day of great hope and celebration.

new life comes in all sorts of forms...

joy for this newest, wonderful little baby asleep a few feet away

joy for the rebirth and healing in adriane's body

(thank you all for your very kind comments!

i thought i brought my camera cord to the hospital to upload some photos,

but alas it looks like i didn't. pictures of little ruby to come soon!

now i am going to sleep for a few hours while i can!)

ouch

sunday.

5.24.2010.

2 am.

well, i'm writing this in the wee hours, between painful but somewhat sporadic contractions

that have been going on for quite a while now.

looks like this baby may be ready to join our family

in the immediate future,

so if you don't hear from me soon,

this post will show up first thing monday morning

and

it's likely that

things have progressed

and we are off

to see

the "docker" at the "osital" as little m says.

xoxo

p.s. i forgot how much contractions hurt. kind of a lot.

and oh, they still haven't even gone super crazy yet.

p.p.s. any last gender or name predictions?

baby bump!

...i don't know if this can really count as a bump when it is more like a mountain of baby that is extremely uncomfortable when one is trying to, say, roll over in bed or pick up a 28 pound two year old, but bump sounds so contained and cute, so i'll go with it. i figured i should take some pregnancy photos now that i am in the home stretch; i have been so delinquent this time around.

with not so much time to go, i am getting more and more curious...

little baby, are you a boy or girl?

what should we name you? (uh, yeah, a little delinquent in the naming area as well...)

will you like our crazy family? i hope so.

meanwhile, our friends nancy and keith find out today if they are having a boy or girl,

and i plan to live vicariously through their discovery!

(i really do like the surprise of finding out at birth,

but right around now i channel curious george and begin to wonder...)