deviant, part II

If you think this story is unfolding at a glacial pace, I cannot tell you how long it is taking to write it. (The first part is here.) Without further ado:

The spring following my discovery that there could possibly be nose-breathing in my future, when Isla was barely six weeks old, I went to the ENT doc that my friend recommended. She peered up my nose with a little light and what looked like a tiny speculum, and, easy as you please, proclaimed that I had a deviated septum and overgrown turbinates. Would I like to schedule a septoplasty and turbinate reduction for next week?

Before I could even consider that I had something called turbinates inside my nose (I mean, my nose is big, but surely not big enough to support something that sounds like it could generate electrical power), I was in the scheduler's office going over the details of what to do before and after surgery, ie, don't eat, eat, don't blow, blow.

It was such a fast consultation and, well, such a whimsical decision to be operated upon, that I retained absolutely none of the finer points. They'll straighten the septum and then, um, something about turbines? And then I'll take some ibuprofen?

So of course I googled it when I got home, and foolishly followed a link to a youtube video of a similar surgery. It involved a hammer.

(Also, do not expect the internet to take you through recovery gently, either.)

I got nervous the night before surgery, and prayed that the doctor (and her hammer) would be deft and delicate and done quickly. And then, to be honest, I was actually kind of looking forward to being away from the children for a few hours.

The next morning, besides feeling completely out of place at the hospital -- look, these awful blue polyester slip-proof socks, on MY feet! -- and besides much checking of nurses to make sure I was the right patient getting the right surgery, and some bizarrely personal banter from the anesthesiologist, everything was unremarkable and then it was over. I awoke in a thick fog, feeling nauseous, trying to process the doctor's summary: surgery went fine, after-care instructions are mhrruupphh hlllggnnn urrrnngghhh. Blurrhghhhpphh. Mmmkay?

Then my gracious friend Anne brought me a smoothie and took me home.

Then there was THE PAIN.

Oh ho ho, the pain. And puking. And Jason calling the clinic at 9pm because should my wife be this sick? Still? And then Zofran to go with my Percocet. And frozen peas on my face. And changing of gauze masks, and trying not to sneeze, and breastfeeding a newborn while seriously compromised. For days. Until I figured out it was the Percocet making me so sick, and finally I could get by just on Tylenol. But I think the doctor seriously underestimated how much IT WOULD HURT.

I had to remove the packing myself, the day after the surgery, a event that made me feel like a grotesque clown, pulling out the handkerchiefs, you know? Because wow, that was a LOT of cotton up there.

After a week or so, I went back to the doctor for a follow-up visit. She used a little suction hose to remove the stalactites that had formed, and then deemed me fit and cured. By that time I had caught a whiff or two through my left nostril, but nothing through the right. She told me it was still healing, but it looked fine and should probably clear up.

It did not clear up.

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One more installment, here.

bones

I'm not sure why, but November is always a good month for me, creatively speaking. In the last couple of weeks I've been spending more time at the art table, even if it's only for 10 minutes at a time.

I worked some more on the B500 bone piece:



Covered up the weird green color that I didn't like on this double lumbar bone piece:



And dabbed some more muted colors on these bones pieces that were already in the works:




I feel insane sometimes trying to make time for this in the midst of non-stop baby wrangling -- Auden's yapping at my heels as I type, cementing my authenticity -- but I just can't NOT make art.

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9 months

Isla, sweetness.

Okay, I guess technically you're closer to ten months, but I'm too busy (with you) to write (about you) in a timely way.

But I'm saying nine months because you really did start walking at 9 months, and no one can believe it because you are so tiny. You clear the dining room table as you gleefully stagger through the room. Your preference is to be holding something in your hand while you walk, especially if it makes noise. You love to be chased, which is hilarious because you can't run, and you can't even walk faster, so you just flail your arms out in front of you and giggle madly when I'm on your heels. You show the same utter delight in climbing the stairs.

You have discovered that the adults keep anything worth having up on high shelves, so you demand to be picked up, and then you point with your tiny finger at everything up there that you like, huffing excitedly with your mouth in a perfect "O".

You love to tumble. We have to have at least one good wrestling session per day, and it's preferable if we also do some contact improv on the bed. You love it when I push you with my head; you laugh so hard you give yourself the hiccups, every time.

You love reading books. I feel guilty now that I waited so long to sit down & read with you, because it's face-meltingly adorable how you growl at every picture of a lion that you see. Auden never had the patience you have; you like to read them again and again and again.

You love eating, too! You would probably subsist entirely on Goldfish Crackers if I let you. But you like vegetables, too. And I'm not sure, but I think you deliberately signed 'milk' today.

The sleep issues are marginally improved -- now you're only waking once or twice a night. I am no longer tearing my hair out, determined to DO SOMETHING about it. It helps that I don't mind letting you cry a little. I have reached the Grim Acceptance phase of this struggle, and am just counting my blessings that you nap well. I can put you in your crib, sing a song, and then walk out of the room. Compared to the excruciating rocking-strolling-singing routine required to get Auden to sleep, and the expert ninja moves I had to do to avoid creaking floorboards that could disturb him when he finally was asleep, well, I still feel like I've won the baby-sleep jackpot.

It's weird to feel already like your baby-ness is slipping away. Today I saw a new-born at the library, and felt momentarily wistful for that time. You're so feisty now, so busy and so determined. It's pure joy to watch you learn and show me what you know. Just don't lose those yummy squishy thighs anytime soon, they are like desert to me.




What's next, cartwheels?

I love you, baby girl.

love,
mama

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deviant, part I

I may have passed the statute of limitations on this story, but unless I tell it you're not going to appreciate what I mean when I say I haven't stopped blowing my nose since April.

Besides, April in baby-time is, like, yesterday.

So. Because I am totally changed and recovered, I can tell you my Confessions of a Mouth Breather:

I have never been able to breathe properly through my nose. Every so often, like on a cold day or, weirdly, on an airplane, both pathways would clear and I'd get a few minutes of uninhibited nasal breathing. But most of the time it was like sucking air through a straw that's been chewed and flattened. And knotted.

I thought maybe I just wasn't trying hard enough, like my nose was a lazy muscle and needed a stricter regimen of exercise. Before bed, lying flat on my back, I'd concentrate on long slow breaths through my nose. Inevitably I'd get that panicky feeling of NOT ENOUGH AIR in my lungs and would give up entirely, resigned to another night of dry mouth.

I was extremely self-conscious about it: ashamed of sounding perpetually nasal, chewing with my mouth slightly open, snoring. But I didn't think there was anything I could do about it, so it just got added to the list of Things That Make Me Different (below "hate onions" and "cry in front of the mirror").

Oh, the things you normal people take for granted! Keeping your lips gently pressed together at all times while you breathe!

And I probably would have gone on like this all my life, not knowing it was only structural and could be changed.

Then one day the lovely woman who facilitated the mama's group I went to in Milwaukee told us she'd be out for surgery & recovery the following week. When she got back she told us all about it: she had never been able to breathe through her nose, she said. She'd had sinus surgery; now it was fixed.

I tell you what, I know I'm prone to exaggerating, but damn. A light positively dawned on my head. Aimed at my nose.

Of course, right at that moment, I was very newly pregnant with Isla, so surgery for me would not be an option for another 81/2 months. BUT. Just knowing that there was the option of one day breathing through my nose, and not to mention the fact that we had health insurance through Jason's post-doc that would cover the procedure, was a light at the end of a very long nasal tunnel.

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(keep reading here)

not a belated Halloween picture

Just photographic proof of my costuming skillz:


And I made that kid, too! I AM creative!

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art hour

Last week I had an abbreviated "art day." It was "art hour." I managed to do a couple of swabs of gesso in a collage journal I'm keeping. I unpacked some canvases. I looked at the notebook of ideas I've been collecting for a year or more. I "showed up," as they say. I tried not to expect too much.

But I thought I'd post some pictures of the progress I made on the bone pieces last time I worked on them, and then at least to you guys it will seem like I'm still an artist!

When we left off, I was enamored of my new overhead projector, and starting to get the contour drawing situated on the canvas. One piece looked like this:



I wanted to rough it up a little, but still keep the paint strokes looking dynamic.



Then I realized I had to bring the bone form forward a little more, so it didn't get lost in the scumbled-up background.


It's hard for me to be at a standstill at this stage. Based on the pictures, I like the first layer the best. It's like watching your sweet innocent newborn turn into a wily unpredictable toddler. On one hand you're like, my kid's grown so much and he's so smart and complicated and learning so much about the world; and on the other hand you're like, why can't I go back to the simplicity and ignorance and bliss of pure baby-dom? But then later you'll be like, ahhh the toddler years were SO EASY compared to this hooligan teenager! Enough of that metaphor.

The other painting looked like this:



I got it looking nice and safe, which I can't stand, so then I went all botched skin-tone miasma* on it. Not in a good way:

*credit to Jason for that official art term

I think I follow a fairly predictable arc, don't you? Tip the scales one way, then the other, then whooooaaaaaaa, back the other way, quick! Damn. Crazy artists.


So, it's got some more interesting wash-y layers, which I like a lot, but no real focus. I'm hoping to do a little more texture in the background, and then bring the bones to the foreground again.

I do this thing to myself where I want all kinds of haphazard layers and pieces of things all jumbled together, but then I find some area I like and try to protect it. That causes the whole composition to seize up, and then I stall out, forcing things to fit where they don't. Then I sit and contemplate for a while.

Just kidding, who has time for that!

Stay tuned for the next layer!

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mmrrpjhhhhgg

And it turns out I do keep functioning after two months of the worst sleep deprivation of my life -- even after days of getting up at 5am, even after nights of waking up EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR, even after weeks and weeks of not more than two hours at a stretch -- which is really kind of a shame because I want to make good on my threats to Go Off the Deep End. I think Jason won't take me seriously until I stop combing my hair and go a little twitchy-eyed.

But I was going to write a bunch of stuff and now I forgot what it was, so "functioning" is to be interpreted liberally, I guess.

Isla is nearly walking. WALKING. She's not even nine months old yet. She doesn't even have any teeth yet. The other day she was jamming on the "demo" buttons of Auden's keyboard (which is her favorite toy EVAR), and she raised herself to standing and then started doing a little booty-shake to the music. Of course the minute we whipped out the flip camera to document, she went all Warner Brother's Frog on us.

Auden decided to start calling me mamblah today.

...?

Oh! And I finished making Auden's costume for Halloween. I accomplished this in five-minute increments over the past six weeks. You, too, can ralize your dremz!

And, zzzzzmmppphhhhtttt.

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