mirror images.

pj +jp

the wright sisters sit in the living room, each with her firstborn son on her lap.

cheeky monkey.

here's looking at you, kid.

Apparently, the family and friends who were waiting patiently at the hospital on the day that Jack was born had a betting pool to see who could guess his birth weight. Since the babies in my family are historically...ahem...larger (the first John Phillip weighed a reported thirteen pounds at birth), it didn't surprise me that the English side won the bet. Granddad Clive guessed 7lbs 8oz.

He invested his winnings in a bottle of champagne and we all toasted to Jack's good health on Christmas night. We celebrated his first Christmas and in my heart, I hope for one hundred more.

the whole truth.

At our house, Santa Claus always left his presents unwrapped in front of the hearth. For that reason, my parents insisted that Lizzie and I come and wake them up and wait for them to be ready before going into the living room for the big reveal. Every year we promised. And every year, we crept into there together before getting my parents up and then after sharing our geniune oohs and ahhs with each other we would wake our parents up. Then we would pantomine our surprise, but no matter how good the performance, there was always a tinge of the fake.

We were pleased with our gifts, but we had kept that first, most wide-eyed wonder for ourselves. It just seemed to take my parents too long to get ready.

My point is this...when it comes to appreciation, it is tough to be a parent.

This year, Richard and I woke up with our best gift snuggled between us. It was a beautiful bright morning and as we looked at Jack--all seven pounds of perfect little human--I marvelled aloud at how we never expected to be here this year.

Richard smiled and hugged us both closer.

"Jack," I said, "what do you think of your family, huh?"

There was a momentary pause and then on cue, Jack went f-art. Ffffaaart. f-art. f-art. f-art.

Like I said...

the tiniest santa claus ever.

first family christmas photo.

(rein)deer caught in the headlights.

the greats.

Somewhere I have a photo of me, my dad, my grandmother (Mimi) and my great-grandmother (Mammaw Alexander). We are standing on the porch at Mammaw's house. I am two and clearly tentative, clinging to Mimi's hand, unsure about this whole scene, even though Mammaw--never a large woman--was shrunken and wisened so that I am sure I could have knocked her over with a single chubby push.

As far as I know, that is the only time I met a great-grandparent.

Jack has three living great-grandmothers, two in England and one in Dallas. I don't think I have to tell you that the one with the gigantic earrings is the one from Big D. (Incidentally, she wants to be called Big Nanny--from Big D?--and since she is now all of 5'1'' I just can't do it. I told her we could call her Nanny-cita or "little Nanny" in spanglish.)

I think he benefits from longer life expectancy and younger great-grandmothers on Richard's side of the family. I am anxious for him to meet Olive and Doris. He is the latest in a brood of boys that they have been loving for more than thirty years. It is my hope that they will have plenty of time to love on this boy too.

When my grandmother came to visit us in the hospital, we had a conversation that we've had many times over the last fifteen years. She said she wished that my grandfather (who is one of Jack's namesakes) could be here to see this new J.P. I agreed.

I told her that I felt he had a connection to all the "greats" on my side of the family as he is named John Phillip Stafford after her husband who was John Phillip Ruth. His nickname is Jack, just like my other grandfather. And he happened to be born on the day that my Mimi died. I suppose that should be sort of morbid, but I like to think that it shows that all things--even sorrow--really can be made new. Somehow these tenuous connections, these things that may mean nothing to him, they are everything to me. They help him to share a story that began long before he was born. They remind him that he is connected to these people who flew planes and fought Hitler, who danced to big bands and who had big dreams. They were the greatest generation. Now they are the greats.

So I said to my grandmother, "And of course, you get to meet him in real life."

My Aunt Judy said, "Aren't you the lucky one."

"Yes I am," said Nanny-cita.

Yes we are.

It does a body good.

first milk mustache.

Someday, when Jack is 6'3'' like Richie (or even bigger) and I find myself spending more on groceries than I ever did on daycare, I may have to remind myself of the first week. Sure those hands and feet make us think that Jack really will be 6'3.'' But when we went for his first doctor's appointment and found out that he had lost nearly a pound and were hovering at 6lbs and 10 ounces...we got scared.

Bibi and I took Jack because Richard was back at work for the first time. We were not surprised to find out that his bilirubin as he was starting to get a little bit...orange. But the boy who seemed to have gained an ounce on his first night was losing ground fast. For a couple of days we had been commenting on how cute his wrinkled brow was...how much he looked like a little old man or a puppy whose skin was just a little bit big for his body. The night before we went to see the pedi, I noticed something like powder in his diapers. It turned out that these were both symptoms of fairly serious dehydration.

When the nurse came in and drew blood, little buddy didn't make a peep. We thought he was good natured. The pedi called it lethargy.

The more we talked with Jack's doctor, the more I felt I had been noticing some symptoms for a couple of days. (Both Richard and I had been concerned about dehydration on the last day we were in the hospital. Our nurse said there was nothing to worry about. It isn't in my nature to push further.) I cried. And then I got a plan.

We followed Dr. B's advice and started supplimenting with an ounce of formula at every feeding. Richard got me an emergency appointment with a lactation consultant so that Jack and I could work on our longterm technique. Aunt Lizzie and I spent 48 hours waking Jack every two hours on the hour. We pumped his little arm, laid him on the hard floor, sang and jiggled--all to keep him awake and feeding. Without Biz, I seriously would have thrown in the towel on the nursing. I so wanted to get calories in this boy as fast as I could.

After the first twenty-four hours, Jack had done his part and gained eight ounces. And I felt myself able to breath again.

I learned a couple of Mommy lessons.
1. I am Jack's advocate. Even at three days old, I knew him better than the hospital nurses. I'd known him exactly three days longer. I can trust myself--at least a little--to ask questions on his behalf when it seems like he isn't himself. And I have the right to keep pushing when I think I'm getting the run around.

2. No matter how much I have thought out my parenting philosophy (no bottles, no formula, no exceptions), when it comes down to it, I will throw that plan out the window in a heartbeat to help my son. No doubt. No arguments. No exceptions.

3. Jack is still a mystery. This boy that we were laughing about, the boy we thought would never wear newborn clothes, who had a 99th percentile tummy, who weighed six and a half pounds a month before he was born--well he turned out to be a little bit smaller, a little bit blonder, a little bit more fragile than we imagined. Still, he is exactly who he always was.

And finally...milk. It really does do a body good.

light and lighter, part one...

Dear Jack,

Sometime in the summer, I wrote you a letter about the day you would be born. I wanted some things on the record. So many people told me that once you were here, I would barely be able to remember life without you. They are right. And they are wrong.

I do remember my fears about your safety. I remember obsessing over each of your little kicks, but I don't remember what those kicks felt like. Not exactly anyway. I remember that I loved you but I don't remember what it felt like not to know your face, your cry, your little (big) fingers wrapped around my own. Not exactly anyway.

Then you were a beautiful mystery, a boy wonder (as in wonder how we're going to do this, wonder who this boy will look like, wonder what his dreams will be).

When I think about telling you about the day you were born, I know that all the thoughts I had about it before are a part of it, a little (big) footnote.

So here it is, an echo from a time when you were real and present and at the same time still a shadow, a movement in the dark, a slow and steady train of a heartbeat.

---

Yesterday we got a call that we've been waiting for. We finally found out that we'll meet you via C-section. I told everyone that it didn't matter to me one way or another. Actually, I let people believe that it might even be my preference. Scheduled. Medicated. Quick.

When it came down to it, I cried when Daddy told me the news. (I didn't want other people--other mothers--to say how silly it was to want the pain, the uncertainty, the hours of breathing in and out, the swearing or screaming, the pleading and praying.)

All the same, lots of people have already told me how lucky I am, how much easier this is going to be, and maybe I cried because it makes me angry to be treated like this way--our way--is the way out. As if you and I are going to get a pass on this right of passage.


More than that, though, it broke my heart to think that I won't have a story to give you. After all, I love stories. I believe in their power--to change you, to inspire you, to make you fall in love. What story is more important than the one about how you came to be in the world. I so wanted you to have this: a collection of funny details, a sense of the drama, a glorious moment of resolution and revelation. I thought that you and I were being robbed of our birthright.

But tonight I realized that your story doesn't start some day in December. It began a long time ago. Some part of it started ninety years ago with another baby boy by the same name. Some part of it reverberates to the tune of old pub songs. Some part began with a question, with "where have you been?"

For my part and Daddy's, there were beers in Berlin and a sad, squeaky confession. There were tears in London and sodden, shoeless proposal. Your father and I have laughted and cried and walked down an aisle together. We danced our way to the dotted line and sometimes, we had to fight and plead and pray. We spent some days just breathing in and out to get to this place. To be here for you. To be here with you.


Baby boy, your birth isn't the beginning of your story. Far from it. The story of you is already in full swing. There are plenty of funny asides and when you are older, I'm sure we'll tell you some of them. And believe me when I tell you that there will be moments--so many moments--of glorious revelation.

I, for one, can't wait to see what happens next.

---

You are still a beautiful mystery. But you are also a wriggling Houdini of a boy, with bluish eyes and reddish hair and rosebud lips. I think you're going to be a bit of a character and I maintain that you have a story, a story that stretches way back before you were two cells together and one that I can only hope will stretch way beyond my own lifetime.

I'm going to try to hold as much of that story here for you. I promise that the next post will be that birth story that I was so worried about. As it turns out...you had your own kind of drama, your own special beginning.

Like I said, I can't wait to see what happens next.

birthday boy

John Phillip Stafford
"Jack"

7 lbs 8.5 oz, 19.25 inches
1:17 PM