*kendraspondence*

The insomnia has returned and since I am not a counter of the sheep nor a committed nighttime reader, I suppose I’ll ride out the Sandman by making another list.

I always notice:

- dimples. (Uggh, I love those retarded muscles!)

- gaps in teeth. (I adore people with gaps in their teeth! Oh those enviable gappy teeth!)

- shoulder tattoos. (I am way too conservative to get one, but I’ll confess I really think shoulders are such a beautiful body part, and tattooed? I think they’re pretty.)

- your name’s spelling. (Whether you’re an Alyson or an Alison or an Allison is important to me.)

- the books on your shelves.

- eye make-up. (I may even ask you for some tips.)

- whether you used the correct subject or object pronouns (who/whom, I/me, he/him, she/her, etc.).

- the tone and octave and rhythm of your laugh (I remember laughs of people I haven’t seen in 15 years.)

- whether or not I’m given a receipt. (I always ask for one if I’m not.)

- Asians. (What can I say? I’ve got yellow fever.)

- when you don’t finish your sentence.

- in sitcoms, when they don’t shut a door or close the cereal box or leave something unfinished. (Annoying!)

- when “Forrest Gump” is on TV. (And I watch and sob every.single.time.)

- symbolism and object lessons. (Well, not always, but often.)

- interior improvements to your home.

- when peeps use the word “irregardless.” (Ew.)

- Dairy Queen and whether it’s a Brazier franchise or not.

- whether someone is a radio listener whilst driving a car, or not. (I definitely am.)

- Ann Taylor clothes, particularly items that I sold when I worked there from 2004-2006

***

I never notice

- architecture. (Until my husband points it out.)

- handbags. (I’m not a handbag kind of gal, shocking even to myself.)

- where I put my glasses last. (Even though I only put them in 2 places in my house.)

- panty lines. (I think thongs are dumb.)

- that you like me. (I generally assume you are humoring me.)

- when bands are in town that I’ve always wanted to see until it’s too late. (Gah!)

- when my kid is about to whiz on the couch (until it is too late)!

Hey, September, how yoo dooin’?

September, here’s what: I’m happy you’re here. You always bring with you the smell of U-Hauls and giddy college students, the sounds of wonky high school trombone players, “Haa-yaaang on, Sloopeh, Slooopeh, Hang Onnnn!”, freshly cut football fields. Your days start to slope, the sun waning, 7:30, 7:15, on on on down to 6:30 p.m. and by the time your turn is almost up, there is a coziness to the night and an acquaintedness with new school textbooks, while still a hopefulness that there are big things still to accomplish this year.

But let me tell you about this past summer, September, the one you’re sweeping up for me in your wake. I’ll be frank. I thought this summer 2010 was going to suck. I thought I was going to be all soaking bedsheets with milk and wandering zombie-like around my creeky home at 3 a.m. But this past summer was awesome in its unremarkableness. It was just lovely, and smooth. We didn’t go anywhere spectacular (Newport? Cleveland, anyone?). I don’t even think we went out to brunch somewhere splendid. We just ate a thousand popsicles on our cruddy patio, watched the airplanes overhead, and wasted a lot of sprinkler water on ourselves, which, if you ask me, wasn’t a waste at all.

Sure, it was no party when Loverpants got pneumonia. And the hematoma thing I could have done without. But I’ll always remember Fourth of July, sitting with Brother Greg watching the “Boston Pops” on our couch and talking about how his blanket and law textbook were waiting for him on the Common, but instead he was sitting watching the performance with us on TV.

I’ll remember chicken parm night with my old man and Julie, defining bummerooski with my mom and Goobs, and just being so grateful and shmoopy to come home from OH and come back to my life with my hubby.

I’ll remember getting to know the girl that Baby Girl is now at an articulate 2.5 years-old, how she used “I’m sulking” totally appropriately, how her sapphire eyes, framed by her pixie cut, look out at a world and see not a complicated planet but only the ripe cherry tomatoes in the box garden, the sequined pink slippers on sale at Target, the travesty that is the removal of the “Shrek 3″ billboard on Gallivan Blvd.

Most obviously, though, I’ll remember the ease and wonder I felt for 104 days of meeting this new Little Man in my life. I don’t know what angel interceded in Heaven so that I could have this little boy with a halo all summer long, but I am grateful. He is so marvelously adaptable that holding him – which I try to do as many seconds of the day as I can – is a tranquilizer, it’s possibly the best drug a hospital lets you leave with, no prescription necessary. Just hold Little Man for a minute, ohhhh those soft little cheeks and fluttery eyelashes! And you will know.

So all that is to say that life until now has been wonderful, and welcome to you, September 2010. 30 more days in this month of turning 30. Yahoo.

***
Some snaps that our new friend, the talented Dr. Paul Yoo took at Boston Temple in the Fenway.

This past sabbath, we had to bid a fond farewell to our friends of the past four years. The Kims moved here from Korea so that Peter could complete a smartypants master’s residency program thing for dentists at BU, and so Helen could come and be my friend and have two babies (who are American-born U.S. citizens, huzzah!) and throw parties with killer kim-bap.

On Saturday, I just kept telling Helen how much she inspired me, and I think she probably thought I was just bidding my best American Hallmark adieu, but seriously. She is good people. Peter is good people. Their kids are sweet little muffin-faced muncharoos that always share their snack packs in church. Good people, Kim family.

Peter and Helen really have It when it comes to being those super successful people who immigrate to a foreign land where the primary language spoken is not their own. They just have What It All Takes. They are incredibly positive, and such students of culture and geography and nuance. Helen especially is my hero. I would constantly see her at the most random corners of the city, just hoofing around kicking up dirt with her stroller. Of course, I am also a bit of a gypsy (or I wouldn’t also be at those random street corners), but when I, for instance, find myself at Harvard Square without my wallet and zero dollars left on my MBTA pass and no frigging clue how I am going to get home in the rain with a babe in a stroller…I can call people who work at Harvard Square who will come downstairs from their office perch and spot me $5 (thank you, Josh Poupore). Helen, on the other hand, did not have it so easy. But girlfriend was still a total intrepid. And she probably had some killer kim-bap in her back pocket to boot.

Oh and did I mention that Peter and Helen had a baby last year whose heart valves were not connected properly and totally watched a miracle named Olivia go through open-heart surgery at 2 days-old? Because they did. In a country that is not their homeland. Speaking with doctors who do not speak a lick of Korean. Operating on their daughter whom they had only just met. Today Olivia outweighs my 2.5 year-old and that is just riiiiidiculous. God’s hand has truly been at work in their lives. Their faith, their mettle has been tested so much over the past four years, but they have emerged and they have taught me so much in the process.

I think the only thing I ever taught Helen was the concept of “monster-in-law.” So naughty. You’re welcome!

***
Sweet Olivia and Papa Peter

Baby Girl making lovey eyes at Justin

I got on the scale this afternoon and I saw a number that I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

I thought about what that number represented, and how it had less to do with pounds and ounces and more with the gravity that is pulling me toward earth.

***

In May, I had a baby. Whenever I say that out loud, it sounds like such a clumsy little summary. Like, I woke up and had a donut. And then I had a baby. The verb “to have” doesn’t quite capture it…

I woke up and had…maybe cereal?

I left before my Baby Girl had awoken. I made my mother promise not to say good-bye. Good-byes make me nervous.

Loverpants and I brought Scrabble to the hospital. Like we were going to have all this time to finagle Triple Word Scores while transitioning from 7 to 10 cm.

It was sunny. I liked my birthing room. I wore pigtails. I arrived 4cm dilated, already contracting. They gave me pitocin.

They gave me too much pitocin.

***

My contractions and the pitocin were like the sound and the fury. The baby’s heart rate kept dropping. They put me on my side. His heart rate dropped even more. Suddenly, there was a whole team of nurses putting me in child’s pose on the bed. They shot me with something to make the contractions slow. I got an oxygen mask.

The midwife suggested I get an epidural so that I could relax which might make the baby’s heart rate relax.

The anesthesiologists arrived but as they started prepping, I started sweating so hard, they couldn’t keep the area clean. I started screaming. I couldn’t stay on the bed. The baby was coming.

THE BABY WAS COMING.

Needle in.

On my side.

Lift leg, push push push push push push push.

Baby’s heart keeps dropping, I’m sorry, the opening is small, we can’t use the vacuum, the baby’s heart rate keeps dropping…

***
I wasn’t scared this time, not like my first c-section. I had the same anesthesiologist, and she is amazing.

The surgeon said she is glad I didn’t try to go for a vaginal birth. Something about my bladder being in the way, something might have burst?

She leaned over the curtain and said, Don’t you EVER labor on this uterus again.

“John, can you see what it is?”

“Boy. Hahah, Kenny, you were right. Boy!”

I cannot believe I am 2 for 2. 2 healthy, perfect babies. Thank you. Thank you.

***

The hematocrit level expresses the proportion of red blood cells in the blood. Adult females hover around 38-46. After surgery, I was at 26.

I had lost some blood.

But then I dropped to 24. And then to 18. I was at the hospital alone now. I was pushing to feed my baby, but I couldn’t make a phone call. I was so weak. I saw myself in the mirror when I went to use the bathroom. I could barely see my freckles.

So I got a blood transfusion. Some plasma, too.

And then I dropped on down to 16. I just kept losing blood. Where was it going?

After an MRI, we saw that the blood had pooled into a hematoma around my liver.

More blood transfusion. The next day, my levels stabilized.

***

For the next 6 weeks, I was in the most pain I have ever, ever experienced in my life. Getting up was a struggle, sitting down was a struggle. You can’t take pain killers for irritants like blood. You can, but it won’t do any good. There’s no swollen tissue, no torn muscle. It’s just ounces and ounces of blood irritating your insides while your body does what it’s supposed to as it reabsorbs the blood you lost during surgery.

Meanwhile, Baby Girl was going through the violent throes of sibling adjustment. Meanwhile, I had a newborn. Meanwhile, my in-laws visited. Meanwhile, my husband was working himself into the tizzy that socked him with peumonia a month later.

***
This morning I ran with my strollercize class that I’ve been attending for the last 2 months. I ran and sprinted, and I didn’t die. I sweated and smiled, I did leg lifts with my exer-band while holding a pacifier in place for a robust 3 month-old baby. I handed snack bags through stroller portals to spunky toddlers.

I thought about the miracle of life that has unfolded a thousand times this past summer. I praised God for His amazing handiwork in all of creation, in this short, stumpy, strong body of mine that is privileged to care for this family, to enjoy the perfection that was this late August weather, to live this sweet sweet life.

***

…But those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. – Isaiah 40: 31

Peace, man

I think I am the only girl in the history of high school that took seriously the summer reading.  And by that I mean that I not only was STRESSIN’ that I hadn’t completed a novel (probably some pastoral romance like Julie because you know those nuns would have been finding The Thornbirds wayyy tooooo racy) by the 4th of July, but I was taking copious notes, chewing my pen as I considered whether Mr. Darcy was really a protagonist or villain, and slapping those post-it notes between chapter pages –

Again. Reason 32934802582 why I got my first kiss at the painfully late of 17.  And I kid!

I was 18!

When late August came and we pleated skirt-rocking bun-haired lasses found ourselves stuffing books into a different locker in some hall that totally felt promoted from the dank corner of the unlit hall we were formerly occupying in locker land, there was much buzz about how little of the summer reading everyone had done.

Girls are good at this, aren’t they?  “Ohmygawsh, I am going to fail this!  I didn’t study at all!”  This means, “I will probably nail this.”

Why do women do this? Fake like everything is very hard, fake like we are very fat, fake like we are broke, when none of those things we know to be true.

Anyway. Summer reading. I remember it, and I remember what a chore it was. What was the best assigned book you read once upon a summer? I think Dead Man Walking by Sr Helen Prejean was one of my favorites. Definitely gave me a new set of lenses for the death penalty.

***

My girl lovin’ her some story hour at the BPL with her mate….

Our good pals Maddy, Claire and their mama school our Madi in Berensteins….