Instant Mom (12 page)

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Move That Cot

For these first two
months, every day there is progress. Ilaria is waking up about every two or three hours and upon seeing one of us on that cot near her, goes back to sleep.

More and more, we can see how secure Ilaria feels: a cookie handed to her is immediately broken up and shared. Before you think it’s all a Hallmark moment, she’s still throwing toys at our faces. We respond with reason. We show her where the toy hurt us. We see her thoughtfully take this information in. Sometimes she wants to make it better by rubbing the bruise (ow).

When we go for walks, she stops doing that toddler thing—running away—because we make it a game. We practice—she gets to run down the sidewalk until we yell “stop.” When she hears that word, she gets to run back and tag me. Yes, it’s usually a shin-punch, but it counts.

I’m trying to accept that for now, while we’re in this transition, our house is a mess. I really like a clean and tidy house. I’m very organized to the point where I get overheated at those stores that sell boxes you can store stuff in. That’s porn to me. But now my house looks like Dr. Seuss closed his eyes while he made green eggs and ham. Some of it is necessary: books and clothes. There’s just so much stuff a toddler needs.

I haven’t figured out how to shop and watch her, but really I don’t need anything because gifts keep pouring in. Our friends bring so many toys over that I have to beg them to stop. The couch is buried in an avalanche of delivered presents. I am so touched by the generosity and spend many mornings just writing thank-you notes. One day I sit down to attack the thank-you notes again and the Leaning Tower of gift cards has gone missing. In our sleep-deprived haze somebody must have chucked the big pile. If I have any regrets about this whole situation, this would be the only one. I only sent out half the thank-you cards. I have no idea who the rest of the gifts are from. The polite Winnipegger in me is wholly discomfited by this. I worry people will think my mom raised a heathen. If you’re reading this and I never sent you a thank-you card, um . . . thank you for the dress/socks/boots/quilt/books/shorts/jacket/pillow/lamp/shirt/tea set/fruit basket/hat/peaches/barrettes/guitar.

On their next visit, the social workers bring parenting books (I have a thank-you card written before they can get out the door) and ask me how I am doing with the angst that something will go wrong. I know Ilaria will do better if I am steady in my conviction this is a permanent situation. I am trying. The social workers had offered the good advice: to be sure we never refer to this as her “new life.” The best thing they say today is “don’t treat her like she’s adopted.” This makes a lot of sense. Maybe she isn’t conversing in formed words because she isn’t ready. Maybe it has nothing to do with her parenting situation at all. I find this an enormous relief. Before the social workers leave, they give Ilaria a tiny pink T-shirt to wear. On it is printed: Worth The Wait.

We take their advice and continue to ask Ilaria questions about her other living situations to help keep her memories alive. We ask her if she had a bedroom and toys, just to keep reminding her that her past is still a part of her. This is not her new life. She’s the same person, in a new situation. Simple questions like “Did you have a dog before?” can get a happy stream of the
ha-ka-bakakakabah
gibberish. Ilaria is a good communicator, willing to talk about anything, and has many opinions. We are starting to understand the babble language.

She is smiling, laughing, and making eye contact. The guarded eyes-downcast stance is gone. She is still a bit rough and tends to hit or scratch when she is frustrated. We’re working on it.

If she is angry, we allow her to express herself as long as she doesn’t hurt herself or anyone. She takes every pillow off the couch in the TV room and chucks them, checking to see if she’s in trouble. I remember something Kathy Greenwood had told me she did in the middle of her youngest’s tantrum and I try it. As Ilaria is screaming today, I hand her a juice box and say, “You must be thirsty.” That stops her cold. She takes the juice and drinks it. Within ten minutes, she helps me put the cushions back and we move on from the incident. It’s good advice: don’t make everything a teachable moment.

Often, she still won’t let us kiss her. We don’t want to force it. We try to figure out ways to get close to her just to establish body contact that won’t scare her. When she’s watching TV, we try to hold her and kiss the back of her neck, but she mostly squirms away.

One morning, we’re all lying in bed languidly deciding what to do today, but Ilaria won’t let us hold her. Manny jumps on the bed and Ilaria pets him and rubs her cheek against his furry back. I remember that since most kids comprehend that frosting is legal heroin, Ilaria enjoys helping me bake cupcakes. We put them in our hands and shove our whole faces into their warm deliciousness. So I blurt, “Let’s bake a Manny cake!” I pass her pretend cups of sugar and she “pours” it on him. Then, she “cracks” an egg onto his furry back. Ian passes her the flour. As we add each ingredient, we are all lightly touching and massaging Manny’s furry body. Then I yell “Mix it up, mix it up” and with gusto now, we all knead his tummy and back. We pretend to pour him into a pan and then push him under the quilt, which is the “oven.” I yell “ding” and we pull him out and descend on him, “eating” up the Manny cake, really just nibbling or nuzzling his face and body, which he loves.

Ilaria goes nuts for this game. Now we do me. We make a Mommy cake. They all descend on me, “eating” me all over. And then . . . we do Ilaria. As Ian and I are pretend-chewing her, we lightly nuzzle her hands, tummy, and neck, which is ticklish and fun for her. After a few days of this game, we gently shift into kissing her neck. And her face. We do just a little bit. Then more. And after a week . . . she’s letting us kiss her. And she’s kissing us back. Within a few more weeks, on a whim she is grabbing our faces and kissing us. Yes, her soft kisses are amazing; they melt us. “Baking” each other is working. We now see her “baking” her stuffed animals and dolls and eating/kissing them.

It’s been almost three
months now and we’re getting ready to go to a friend’s house. I ask Ilaria where a stuffed toy is and she explains it’s in the garage behind the big boxes.

Ian and I stare at her. Because it wasn’t the gibberish plus five words we’ve come to expect and understand. It was a full sentence. Of many words. Followed by more. She’s now telling us that she put her toy there for a nap because he was grouchy but she’ll go get him right now.

Just like that, Ilaria is talking. And just like me, she never shuts up again. Poor Ian.

This is a good lesson for me to just trust and wait for my daughter’s own readiness on her development. On the next visit, when the pediatrician hears her talking in actual words, she simply nods to me, as in
See, all good
. The doctor had never been worried and didn’t attach labels. Ilaria just needed a bit more time. She quickly advances with words past her age, and, seriously, has not stopped speaking since she started.

She tells us things about her prior living situation. Some may be real memories, some may be dreams. For example, she tells us she had “Twenty-nine brothers and sisters” (her favorite number). Sometimes it’s “Twenty-nine dogs.” We listen and ask questions as if everything she tells us is a real recollection. She is infinitely assured by this validation and in time we notice the stories become more ingenuous and factual.

But there still is a trust issue. She trusts us, but not the situation. Even though she’s more affectionate and seems to be relaxing, Ilaria has started saying she thinks she has to go and doesn’t want to leave. When we reassure her that this home is not temporary, that she is our daughter forever, she has anxiety still and says this heartbreaking sentence: “I don’t want to leave my big yellow house.”

No matter how often we soothe her fears, she’s not sure this placement is permanent. I understand her anxiety because of my own worry—it’s hard to let go of unease when it’s been with you for so long. I reason with myself that, for Ilaria, I have to put aside my own concerns and be stoically steadfast.

One evening in her room, I take two of her dolls and pretend-play that one is the mom putting the girl doll to bed. As the mom doll I whisper, “I am your mommy forever. I love you and I will never leave you; you are staying here forever.” I repeat the same with another doll as the dad. The dad doll tells the girl doll he is her “daddy forever and we are your family forever.” I don’t look at Ilaria to check if the message is getting through. I just start to read her a book, then tuck her in and lie in the cot beside her, holding her hand as usual. The next night I do the same thing, saying the same words. Ilaria’s big eyes take it all in. One week later, we’re in her room, I duck out to hang up her wet bath towel and when I come back, I see Ilaria holding the mom and dad dolls and whispering to the girl doll, “You are staying here forever.” Then she has the parent dolls gently kiss the little girl doll.

I just pick up Ilaria, gently rock her, and whisper into her ear: “I am your mommy forever. I love you so much and I will never leave you.”

Then . . . she slowly pats my hair and says, “ . . . okay.”

I tell myself: if this little creature can relax and trust the system, so can I.

We’re all pretty exhausted
. Like most people with a new baby, there isn’t much sleep. But we have a toddler who doesn’t sleep and knows how to punch you while you’re passed out. It’s going better though. Ilaria is now sleeping just over three hours at a time. She still wakes up for the bottles of milk. She still needs six bottles a night, often reaching out for one in her sleep. I’m lying in the cot now, looking at her sleeping. She’s actually sleeping. The peacefulness on her face was hard-won. I think about how her sleeping was achieved by giving her control—she wakes up, see us in the cot, feels in control of the situation, and goes back to sleep.

Suddenly, something clicks. In those first days, when I’d see Ilaria just looking at us with her hands on hips, I’d think,
Wow, she’s defiant, stubborn, and focused. Huh. She’s me
.

Is this why Ilaria was so familiar to me when I met her? We are alike. Consequently, this is what I realize now—I knew how I felt when control of my body was not exactly mine during those fertility treatments. Now I realize everything that has worked with Ilaria is because we gave her the control. From sleeping in the cot, to baking each other for kisses—she was in charge and let us know when she felt it was safe to proceed.

So we make it her decision to gain control over the six-bottles-a-night situation. Ilaria had told us she was annoyed that she kept wetting herself through the night and didn’t want to wear a diaper. She also didn’t like getting woken up when we changed her. Ian and I explain that the milk or water in the bottles turns into pee. She seems fascinated by this simple fact. We make it a game: on the first night, we line up the six full bottles and say, “Let’s see if you can drink only five bottles instead of six; let’s see if you will wet a diaper.”

She loves the game. Of course she wets many diapers with five bottles. So we all then propose to try to see if four bottles would do it. Of course, four bottles yields wet diapers. Ilaria loves the challenge of this game and slowly, through impressive willpower, gives up a bottle at a time so she can stop wetting that diaper. Soon she is not waking up so often to ask for a bottle. She’ll still wake up, but often can be comforted with just hand-holding. For every night she gets through the night without a bottle at all, she gets a star sticker to put on a chart. Soon she no longer needs to wear a diaper to bed. Plus she’s sleeping four hours at a time.

I report all to the sleep therapist, and she advises we now remove the afternoon nap. She says Ilaria’s little body will get used to being awake for longer periods, as opposed to four-hour increments. She says she will fall asleep more easily at night and her body will naturally go into REM sleep, which we all need to be truly rested. But she says when we remove the nap, we should get ready for an explosion of anger again.

Actually, it goes okay. Because we make it her choice, and Ilaria decides she would rather not nap. She also likes the control of choosing what we do instead of the nap. We spend the afternoons in the park, or swimming, or playing her favorite game—kitty-cat. She still loves, like many three-year-olds, to be a little cat, purring up against us, and lapping up milk from her own saucer on the floor (which we hide when the social workers visit). Now without that nap, she does fall asleep more easily in the evening. As she sleeps, there is movement under her eyelids, which we find out means she’s probably in REM. After just a few months without a nap, she is sleeping around six hours a night. During the transition, Ian and I shake our heads in awe when something works. It’s all trial and error and trying again. I am amazed at how alike we all are. Ilaria is coolly laidback like Ian, and goal-oriented like me. Ian and I often remark if there was a child we wished we would have made—it’s Ilaria.

Our daughter is easing into a feeling of belonging. One day, we visit our friend Ann to play with her two daughters, both a few years older than Ilaria. Watching Ann parent is a lesson in composure. She laughs, she enjoys herself, even when a toy is chucked or cupcakes are not shared. Inwardly, I call it nonjudgmental parenting. Ann never goes silent or locks eyes with me when Ilaria or her daughters do anything that might show a lack of manners or development. She just laughs. Sometimes our girls are model citizens, sometimes not. Ann’s lack of attitude makes me feel at ease. This does not mean I felt judged on other playdates. All the moms were welcoming and warm. The nervousness I felt came from me. I’d enjoy anything outrageously funny Ilaria did in the privacy of our own home, but for the first few playdates, I worried she might kick their dog or push a baby under a wagon and be banned for life from further visitations.