Goodberry’s is Good Medicine
May 27, 2010
There is so much on my mind. So much to say, and so much to do, but then I look at Samuel and everything else seems so insignificant.
I’ve barely had time to seriously reflect on my first semester at Divinity School. My summer classes, and a propitious summer internship, will be starting up next week. The house is a mess, and the remnants of my last few home improvement projects still taunt me when I pass through the hallway, but Samuel doesn’t care about that. It doesn’t worry him, and I won’t let it worry me.
Parenthood is good. Already, it feels as though Samuel has been a part of our family all along. I look at him and love him. I take him in my arms, cup his head in my hands, press my belly into the bedspread, prop myself up on my elbows and just stare into his bright blue eyes. Yes. It’s true. I love him.
So many of our “first” moments are flying by faster than I can register them. We met my former boss and wonderful friend Bing Oliver at McDonald’s (his choice, by the way) this week; once the meal was done and the conversation was moving fast it suddenly hit me that this was Samuel’s first time in a restaurant. Sunday night was Samuel’s first time in church. Monday was his first doctor’s appointment. Wednesday afternoon he made it through his first cookout and Thursday morning he made it five hours without waking mom or dad up.
Today we took Samuel to the photo studio for his first big shoot. He did great. I have to give thanks to Ken Tart for having an infinite amount of patience, and diaper wipes. Ken was also kind enough to lend me a spare lens while my 50 mm f/1.4 is being repaired after conking out during Samuel’s first week at home.
Today we also had our first big scare as parents. I’m a natural worrier. I try to keep things in perspective, and I’ve been doing pretty good about letting things go, but having Samuel in our life pushes the potential for worry to a whole new level. I worry when he cries too loud. I worry when he gets too quiet. I worry that he’s too hot. I worry that he’s too cold. I worry about leaving him alone to rest, and then I worry about over stimulation. I worry. Kristen, on the other hand, is not a worrier. Whenever she begins to acknowledge the validity of my worries, then I know it’s time to get serious.
Today Samuel had us both worried. This afternoon we noticed he was breathing heavy when he was awake and wheezing when he was asleep. His doctor’s visit Monday revealed a healthier-than-normal baby (he had gained 14 oz. since he left the hospital four days earlier) so we took a little comfort in that and just kept an eye on him. Then he started crying. And crying. And crying. He was crying like I had never seen a baby cry before. Every now and then he’d take a break from crying to cough a little. Each time he’d cough, I would have an opportunity to suction a sizable chunk of mucus from his mouth. Then the crying would pick up again, and the cycle continued for about 40 minutes. Once he began to lose steam, I swaddled him up and he drifted off to sleep. I called the doctor for advice and was told to bring him in.
Samuel continued to spit up mucus in the car, but by the time we got to the doctor’s office, he was in a smiling, contented state. We described the symptoms to the nurse and got Samuel undressed so she could weigh him. The moment his diaper came off, though, he spewed a mucousy mess all over table and the nurse. It was like he had a Super Soaker 3000, loaded with slime, hidden in his pants. The nurse courageously threw herself between Samuel and her laptop; I had never seen anything like this before, but clearly she had experience dealing with such assaults. We cleaned up the mess and the doctor came in. He checked Samuel over and couldn’t find a thing wrong. Apparently, Samuel had developed a mucus plug that had given him a little trouble breathing, but he managed to expel it on his own just in time to shower the nurse and a moment too early to give the doctor anything to do.
Just in case you were wondering, this time he tipped the scales at 8 lbs. 6 oz. (that’s a post-mucus-explosion weight). It looks like he’ll be catching up to Abigail in no time.
Since we’d already made the drive to Garner, we felt obligated to go ahead and share another “first” with Samuel. For his first taste of Goodberry’s, Samuel decided to order his daddy’s favorite: a regular vanilla mint chocolate-chip concrete.
