The Beviad–musings, mutterings and myths

After she got on the bus, I went up to see Pasley and Tallis. I showed P. the two necklaces I had bought at my friend Pat’s house at her annual Christmas jewelry sale. As I had predicted, she picked the gorgeous Venetian trade bead necklace from Africa, which has many different beads of every color imaginable. Then we chatted and I got acquainted with baby Tallis.

She has gained back all her birth weight, and now looks like a baby instead of an alien. Plump little cheeks and hands, beautifully shaped head, and eyes so dark blue that you can’t see the pupils. I was able to hold her, rock her and talk to her. I even sang to her. And all the while, she either made small animal noises while slowly waving her little arms around, or regarded me with a very serious look, as if studying my face and wondering who on earth I was.

P. told me that apparently babies have only REM sleep, which means that they are dreaming all the time. I wonder what they dream about. Also, they apparently can only see black and white, rather than color at first. So, dreams of black and white shapes, perhaps? Of looming, half distinguished faces?

All in all, it was a lovely morning. Tallis seems a bit more still than Devon was, but noisier. Funny, isn’t it, how even the smallest babies can have distinctive personalities.

Last night, John and I went to Pasley and Jeff’s house to see our newest grand-daughter.

Tallis Audrey Greenwood LeBlanc is a week old and very tiny, but even though she was born 5 weeks early, she is no smaller than Devon was at that age. She now weighs 5 pounds 8 ounces, having lost some weight since her birth, as apparently all newborns do (she was originally 6lbs. 4oz.); babies lose weiglht after birth because of the energy it takes to nurse, which strangely enough seems to outweigh the actual caloric intake of the milk they’re injesting. Even so, her tiny feet are the size of my littlest finger. Her hands, in contrast, seem larger, and are very delicate and eloquent in their gestures. She is also very pink. Having been born via a C-section, she has no marks or blemishes on her face.

When naked in a diaper (as when Pasley puts her in a sitting position on her knee and holds her around the jawline, while rubbing her back, in order to burp her), Tallis looks like a tiny pink (rather than grey) alien, with hollow little chest, bald head, wizened face, skinny little chicken legs. With dark, squinted eyes that seem to be all pupil, she turns her little face to look at each of us in turn as we come near to her, as hesitant and stilled and filled with wonder as we would if we really were approaching an alien from another galaxy. Like that wonderful scene in “Close Encounters” where the tiny aliens and the humans approach each other gingerly, wonderingly. What does she see, I wonder? Probably blurry colors, certainly not faces. 

When nursing at P’s breast, she keeps pausing to squint up at P, as if asking herself, “Who or what is this, anyway???” She has more to comprehend than an alien might, however, being unfamiliar with any life on any planet. How new everything must be to her, since she had only warm fluid, soft motions,  darkness and muted sound about her in the womb! All of which she was used to but didn’t understand the way an alien would understand his own planet’s elements. 

When swaddled up, or in a little footed onesie, plus her pink wool tuque, she is much more recognizeable as a baby, and is very sweet. That’s when you notice her little rosebud lips, and the Preston upper lip with its distinctive M shape. She makes tiny noises, like a baby animal, as she moves about, dreaming of who knows what. When she nurses, she often falls asleep at the breast, but her nuzzling noises are those of a puppy. 

I once read of someone who, having phoned a girlfriend in the Ozarks and asked what was going on, was told that her whole family were  gathered to see her sister and newborn, and were all “worshipping at the baby”. That’s what we were all like last night, as we sat around the living room, faint smiles on our faces, riveted to the scene of mother and child, full of wonder at the thought that a week ago she wasn’t even born. 

Pasley was serene. She says that when she’s feeling tired and in pain from her incision, she has only to nurse Tallis to feel strength and serenity come into her, since hormones are released with the nursing that do just that. She was cheerful and confident, which was lovely to see. She has been wonderful throughout this week, starting with her remarkable presence of mind last Friday when, having got up from her nap, she suddenly saw that she was bleeding heavily and yet was able to dial 911 and talk to the people there intelligently (’with great calmness’, she says, in some wonder). And in the hospital later, as she lay there in labor, she was in another zone, somehow, breathing with great concentration, under control completely. In the hospital, afterwards, she was strong and calm despite the fact that she couldn’t have Tallis with her, but had to go down to the I.C.U. to see her and nurse her.  Now, she finally has her baby with her, and is in her element.

Jeff was jovial and tender, hovering over her helpfully, coming to sit next to her and gaze in wonder and affection at both of them. He got things for her, when that was required, and came to burp the baby with his magic touch. Seeing him do that reminded me so much of John burping Pasley, way back when.

As for Devon, she was the best big sister one could imagine, holding the baby carefully and gently,  then, after giving her back to Pasley, spending some time arranging receiving blankets so that they hung like curtains over the Ambi-Bed, the hammock-like bassinette that they are using for a baby bed. 

It will be fascinating to watch Tallis grow up. And grow up she will. Within a year, if she is anything like Devon was, she will be walking. This will be, then, the biggest, most developmental year of her life.

Welcome little Tallis! We all love you very much and look forward to getting to know you.

What was apparently hard for Pasley was that she spent the night having not even seen her baby. She said she heard many babies being born all night long in the rooms around her, but she lay there alone, having to take on faith the fact that she had had a baby and feeling in a kind of limbo. Today, however, she was taken into the I.C.U. to see her new daughter and hold her, skin against skin, which was wonderful to see (for me), and no doubt for her to experience. Since she didn’t have to squeeze through a birth canal or get hauled out by forceps, the baby looks flawlessly beautiful; her color is softly rosy, like a new pale pink rose. (Names of the rose-type come to mind as you look at her, but she won’t be named Rose or Roselyn,  I’m sure; her parents have something special in the way of a name prepared for her, but haven’t quite decided, and it’s a big decision, one not to take rashly.)

She has the very distinctive Preston upper lip, which both Paze and Devon have, and her long fingers are, as theirs were, very delicate as they brush against her face in a casual gesture. She was mainly sleeping when I saw her, with a little pink tuque on. Very cute. Devon was able to touch her leg today through the incubator; then she came back to the room to color a picture of a baby on her back with a little pink tuque and very colorful bedding. The hospital encourages siblings to draw something that can then be taped to the incubator; I’m not sure whose benefit this is for—probably the sibling, who is in a way claiming the baby as a sibling by doing that. 

That’s one thing I really noticed about the Jewish General, where Paze is this time round, as compared to the Royal Victoria Hospital where she was for the last one. At the Jewish, guests are welcomed and included in procedure, not discouraged and seen as problems or interference for the staff. Although a posted notice says that there should be no more than 2 guests at a time in the room, they obviously don’t enforce the rule (perhaps unless someone gets rowdy). Whole families—and Orthodox Jewish families can be very large–were gathered around mothers all down the hall today during visiting hours. For example, five little girls in long skirts with long hair were sitting in the room across the hall with the menfolk of their family, all of whom had the dangling side curls and full beards of the Hassidim. Everyone looked very jolly, so the new baby was probably, at last, a boy. Not that that would mean that the mother could catch her breath and give up breeding, of course.

P’s nurse, Deena, is a wonderfully vivacious, tender, sympathetic soul who  acted like Pasley’s family retainer, encouraging her, sympathizing, helping, hovering, but never acting judgmental or annoyed at getting called. And of course, Jeff, John and I were there to fetch for her; patients really need relatives around, even in the best of hospitals, if only to ease things up on the nurses. 

So, everyone is very happy and very tired tonight. Can’t wait till tomorrow when P. might be able to finally nurse her new daughter. 

The kids came over around 5, and we had our first course—pumpkin-chicken soup, served in hollowed-out pumpkins–so that Paze and Jeff would have something in their stomaches while they were taking Devon around trick or treating in our neighborhood. There were many pumpkins present. They had carved four of them, each with Jeff-drawn-and-cut faces (the littlest one was supposed to represent Pasley’s unborn little girl expected Dec. 8).  I had carved a pumpkin face too. As well, there were 5 little plastic jack o lanterns lit by batteries, two soft cotton, stuffed ones, and a ceramic one. Plus, after Devon was in bed, we lit four candles as part of the ritual.

I had downloaded a ritual from the internet, then had trimmed it, ridding it of extraneous material, so that it was mainly a ceremony for honoring the ancestors. I imagined myself proclaiming the invocations and spells like a mighty witch, but was so tired by the time we sat down for our meal that all I could do was croak; it didn’t help that I was coming down with a bad cold. Still, with everyone’s help reading things, we did the ritual, invoking our ancestors, plus the Crone of Winter (Hecate) and the Lord of the Dead (Hades) to join us. 

The meal consisted of roast pork rubbed with rosemary and mint, plus a casserole with potatoes, apples, cider vinegar and bread crumbs in it, plus salad with a mandarin orange-pomegranate seed dressing. For dessert, home made ginger cake with pears and whipped cream.

I had hoped that we could each talk about a dead member of our family, but when I asked Jeff to tell us about his mother, Pasley stopped me and said that was too much to expect. As it turned out, I told them about my dad, then John talked briefly about his dad. Then the conversation went off into matters about music, since John had been talking about how his dad had played classical music so much that it had influenced his (John’s) tastes. And Jeff spoke about his dad’s musical ability and how he was trying to learn to play the guitar.

After eating, we watched A Stir of Echoes, a spooky video that I was glad I had company with me while watching.  All in all, it was a nice evening. 

Devon looked so beautiful in her princess dress, and she got a lot of loot even in one hour of trick or treating. She was, as usual, very cute this morning in her flannel PJs, when she came into bed with me. (As usual, John fetched us breakfast in bed.) She is always cute and charming, but morning, esp. early morning, is her best time, when she is bright and cheery but a wee bit subdued (for her, anyway), and is just adorable. 

Today the house is a mess and I am too worn out and sniffly with cold germs to want to tackle it. Which isn’t a problem; I’ll just wait until tomorrow, when I’ve got more energy. Can’t quite get rid of that feeling, ever, that some invisible snob is looking at my house thinking “What a slob she is! Look at her house!” My inner bully at it again, I guess.