reality

So, I was going to tell you all about my worries as we all do our best to weather life with an increasingly fussy newborn. How Gabriel seems distant and spends more time face down on the couch - or lying on his back, face up, whispering imaginary stories to a lego creation or tiny plastic knight - than can possibly be salutary for a growing boy. How Frances lashes out at me without warning. How Mike is in the midst of the most stressful and busiest time of year at the college, leaving me on my own more than usual. How I am miserably short tempered and spent the wee hours of Easter morning crying in bed, absolutely wrecked with fatigue, unable to settle Beatrice. 

But then last night, in the few moments I had with a quiet baby wrapped up on my chest, I looked at the most recent photos on our camera. The above one made me smile. Such a nice reminder that despite the 24/7 nature of baby-induced stress on this family, the kids are still their excellent selves. They still have each other in a major way. Mike took them to hunt eggs at church and snapped that picture while I recovered from my meltdown at home. One of the blessings of having a new baby with older kids is that they have so many meaningful worlds and relationships beyond our family. There are plenty of places they can go and people they can be with that are wonderfully the same. 

Oh, I do worry about Gabriel. Indulge just a little more hand-wringing, would you please? He just seems wrapped in cotton batting, blunted around the edges. I have to say things to him twice or even three times sometimes before he snaps into focus and responds, and he seems to run into things more than usual (an interesting aside: a handful of friends have shared with me that their older kids became accident-prone in the weeks after a new brother or sister was born. It's as if the emotional stress saps physical coordination). I get irritated, he gets tearful. I miss him terribly. We came back together during his spring break last week, which was like balm for my worried soul, but somehow over the weekend he slipped away again.

This too shall pass! I keep reminding myself. These early weeks with Beatrice are hard, yet peppered with the sweetest moments - with her siblings, nursing, in the bathtub, in the arms of family and friends. I know I will find a tiny set of pajamas and ache for her one month old self when she is four months old. I can't wait for her to grow just a little more and start smiling; I can't get enough of her perfect tiny hands. Long days, short years, right?

infinite

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep.  The more I give to thee, 

The more I have, for both are infinite.

That's what my mom sent in an email to my sister Rachel and me yesterday. The words were spoken originally by Juliet, yet they are so much more breathtakingly beautiful and moving in the mouth of a mother speaking to her children. At least to me, though I concede I was a particularly susceptible reader yesterday morning, with my three week old baby in my arms on the anniversary of my father's death.

My dad and Beatrice missed each other by seventeen years. How is it possible, when I know with a certitude that extends deep into the marrow of my every bone, that they - just as with Frances and Gabriel - would adore one another? That maybe, just maybe, they do adore one another, for love is infinite and stronger than death? I can't explain the mechanics but that doesn't seem like a good reason to rule out the possibility.

Now that I am a mother, my own mother's heroic love becomes more extraordinary to me with every year. My dad would like that. Here I am nursing this new one, and dear readers, the more I think about it, the more I am astonished by the boundlessness of mother love. 

two weeks

Was it really two weeks ago that Beatrice came to join us? Already the strangeness of time with children has settled in: it seems like she just got here, and yet also as if she's been here for a long, long time. In two short weeks she has been doing the usual grueling newborn work of eating, sleeping, pooping, and peeing (and growing - so reassuring to this nursing mother - some mornings it seems as if we can see the difference from the night before). She's also been the subject of Frances's science fair project (testing newborn vision), modeled countless outfits (a spitter-upper, she is), listened to Gabriel's chosen lullabies hundreds of times (Edelweiss and You Say He's Just a Friend), and been held by more than a dozen children. An auspicious beginning, don't you think?

More than anything I have been floored by the generosity of people near and far since she's been born. Well, the kindnesses were multiplying during my pregnancy, but this is an entirely new level. Longtime readers and friends probably remember when Annapolis felt like a foreign country to me, chilly and strange. How completely opposite the town that has opened up and supported us from every angle these past days! It's hard to believe I once felt so alone in this village. Dinners (so many dinners!!), fun play dates and rides for my big kids, perfect packages that come in the mail, flowers (we are awash in glorious tulips), not to mention abundant warmth, gentleness, congratulations, hugs, and beaming faces every time I venture forth back into regular life with this tiny growing babe.

One of the best gifts has been our short visits with friends. A steady trickle - mostly fellow mamas - come over and sit on the couch next to me, holding and smelling and admiring Beatrice. I love to share her and see her through others' eyes. It amplifies the sense that we have brought this baby into a loving and caring community, and that Mike and I have amazing parents all around us to provide inspiration, support, and solidarity. Plus I can't get enough of showing her off.

And now I must go. Gabriel's best pal (and Frances's first grade teaching assistant) is about to come over with dinner for tonight.

Thank you friends far and near! We are so moved by your kindnesses. How extraordinary, to be cared for by a community so broad and so deep.

beatrice

 

She came! Beatrice Helen Howell Brogan arrived on Friday, March 1st at 6:45 am, weighing a surprising 7 pounds 13 ounces and measuring a lovely, long 22 inches.

I am typing with one hand. There is so much to tell you about - the birth and our peaceful morning at the birth center, greeting the kids before they went off to school that day, the days since, the moments of realizing I have three children - but I think it can wait. For now, a few pictures of her first five days with us.