Some people like to measure life by milestones, and by some,
I include myself. Though I wasn't a
militant milestone tracker, I was more than an interested observer. Milestones were the means to determine how
our family would move forward. We always
had to make sure we had what we needed to do that. With both girls it was whether or not they
were nursing or bottle feeding. Madison
would do both. This was convenient
because she could be left with a babysitter and I could go deliver her sister
in relative peace...although there is no peace in a delivery room. Sydney
gave me Mastitis, which meant she had to nurse only for week 6 of her life and
ever after refused a bottle...a bit more difficult, especially when Eric had
his Heart Failure over Thanksgiving when she was only sixteen weeks old. So we three hung out at the hospital until
the last day, then they kicked her out and me with her. Politics....so it is.
I've read articles informing me that the first five years of a child's
life are the most fragile. I knew this
with the girls and tried to maintain a vigilance to ensure that we hit this
symbolic, magical age. By the time the girls hit the magic number five I was feeling pretty confident. Over all, I thought we had done fairly well. Madison had outgrown her acid reflux, and we
had survived her medical challenges. We
did not do this with any kind of grace, mostly a knee jerk reaction akin to
tying a knot in the rope and holding on for dear life. She had an ambulance ride when she choked and
stopped breathing in Needles, CA while we were having dinner to break up our
drive to Missouri for Eric's school. We
made it through that. When they came and
attached her to a heavy Apnea Monitor she had to wear all the time to let us
know whenever she stopped breathing; we picked through our terror and got
through that. And when they took her
back for her Barium x-ray, I overcame my fear of all things medical because I couldn't
stand not being with her where she could at least see me. Did my then, two month old daughter see
me? Yeah, no...that was all for me.
By the time Sydney came along, Madison's reflux was a
memory, and a week after her sister's arrival, her voice was being heard. I know now that she didn't talk all that much
until she was healed up from all the pain of her reflux. Just like I also know now she was basically
bald in comparison to her new sister...who knew? Once Madison started talking, she didn't
stop. Once Sydney started talking, she
still hasn't taken a breath. We may have
back sliding in behavior...but not in skills.
Never in skills. They both have
very strong personalities and that serves us for good and for bad when
learning. I took a bit to figure it out,
but it turns out that Sydney and I were in our first battle of wills over potty
training. I was feeling the pressure of
having a three year old not potty trained, and rather than let it go and accept
it would be what it would be... After a
truly difficult episode, I remember I sat back on my heels and just hugged her
tight, realizing that somehow we had started a battle I had never intended we
fight. From that moment on, I asked, but
never forced. Her next accident, I
cleaned her up and sent her on her way without a word. The
next day, the same thing. The next day,
she was completely trained. Go
figure.
Sydney has never been in an ambulance. And for some reason, that feels like a huge
accomplishment to me. I have at least
one kid that doesn't know the feeling, though Madison was only six weeks...odds
are, she doesn't remember it, I know I sure do though. ;-) And
they have both passed the magical year five.
Such relief. They are walking,
talking, healthy little beings that are growing into young ladies.
With the girls I get as many clear steps to follow as murky ones. With Bradley, these milestones are all
fluid. His accomplishments are always
big because they have a tendency to repeat... his occur, then disappear and
then if we're lucky they come back. He
fought to nurse, or maybe I fought and he was willing to work so incredibly
hard for me. But then he couldn't do it anymore,
his Acid Reflux was stronger than he was.
But in spite of it, maybe to spite it...he still fought to learn to eat,
moving to a bottle, to a spoon, to a straw cup.
We got close to drinking from a cup, but then that slipped away...we'll
try that later. He learned to walk, and
then stumbled a bit, but then he got there anyway. Now he's on his way to running, he's stiff
legged, but determined. And he learned
how to kick...but that got lost too. One
of his first words was "kick," and he'd say it, then he'd do it. But we lost that somewhere on our journey. It took some time, and some work on all our
parts, but now he's saying it and doing it again. But it's just how time flows around Bradley,
from one moment to the next.
He's four now...In January he'll turn five. The magic five. He has been in an ambulance three times, too
many ER visits and doctors to count. As
far as milestones go, it wasn't what I was hoping to achieve for him; but I guess
we can just cross it off the anti-bucket list and keep right on truckin'. He's going to hit his milestones, and slip
away from them, then return. I am
hopeful that the idea of potty training will do this for him. He was willing but now he is resistant. I wonder when, but I don't push him - Sydney
taught me that. For now I just have to
wait and see. A little Divine
Intervention would be okay too, just sayin'.
Turns out, there is some really beautiful scenery along this
journey, and that's a really good thing for when we repeat our steps. Right now, Bradley is working on giving
close-mouthed kisses, reading books over and over, and blowing out candles.
And in the grand scheme of things, practicing kisses over and over again
with one of my most favorite guys is truly not a hardship; I believe it is
actually called a Blessing. We walk a
path through roses: all the beauty of
the roses and all the pain of the thorns.
We try to see each moment, and be open to the possibility we might be
coming around again with the potential to enjoy the sights more than once. And that's just the way it is, it's not like we don't pick some of the roses to take with us on our journey. As for the thorns, well they do tend to leave scars but we all know that chicks...er, dudes, dig scars! :-)
