 | Diary Navigation:
|
June 7, 2004
Scarlet Poppy’s Three-Month Review…
6th July, 2004
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of Glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!”
(William Wordsworth)
Who is this little soul that is my earthly daughter Scarlet Poppy? I cannot remember my life before Scarlet was in it; it feels like she has always been with me, somewhere in my heart, waiting in the wings to burst forth, blossom and shine. Who she is, I cannot be exactly sure, but I have waited my whole life to be reunited with her, my dear beloved daughter. It has only been thirteen short weeks of time, but it feels like a lifetime in the language of the heart. I cannot believe I waited so long to open my arms to her, to welcome her shining soul into the folds of the family!! She fits into our family like a hand-in-glove, and I am so incredibly happy that she is now here with us, where she belongs. I remember waking up from a dream on the morning I tested and discovered I was pregnant with Scarlet. In the dream I knew I was pregnant and I felt this most amazing feeling of happiness. It was happiness unlike anything I had ever felt before… a deep feeling of joy in my soul. I am quite convinced that my soul recognized her incoming spirit, and the happiness I felt was profound!
Does anyone else out there believe that Angels hover around babies? I am convinced there is an Angel living in our house at the moment, and when I’m in a flap over something, worried that Scarlet may get the flu that I’ve just had or whatever, I often call on her Angel to protect her and keep her safe. It’s a lovely feeling, and even though I don’t have the ability to ‘see’ angels or spirits or elementals, I am happy to entertain the idea that they are moving around me, making things happen. I encourage Pixie to believe in all things magical. I have a beautiful ethereal painting of an Angel pinned above Scarlet’s change table; I find it very nourishing to look upon while my hands are deep in shitty nappies, and little Miss Scarlet often babbles to it!
Can you believe how much love and trust shines back at you from a 12-week old baby’s eyes? Sometimes it astounds me when Scarlet looks at me with such love and openness, and I wonder how I could be so deserving. Doesn’t my wrinkly bloodshot eyes, graying hair (who has time for hairdressing appointments?), and yellowing teeth (sorry, but I’m an ex-smoking tea-drinker with a serious dentist phobia!) quell her love and turn her off? Nope, not in the least, babies are not judgmental and fussy like adults. I suspect that babies start life as true spiritual beings – unspoiled, open, nonjudgmental, appreciative, loving and trusting. It’s like they are born pure and open, ready with a natural abundance of love and trust, only to be sullied and disillusioned as they grow up. It’s rather sad when you think of it, and positively devastating when you think about innocent little babies somehow growing into mass murderers, terrorists, rapists or serial killers. How In God’s name does that happen when they come into the world so open and trusting? It makes me very aware just what a profound spiritual responsibility it is to parent a child.
Our Beauty Queens…
Both Jay and I are deeply in love with our newest daughter. She is not difficult to love; she is easy-going, a happy bright cherub, with an infectious smile and a peaceful disposition. We are probably insanely biased new parents, and Scarlet probably looks to the rest of the world like a dark-haired little monkey, but we find her to be supremely beautiful. In our quiet moments we marvel over the fact that she may be even more beautiful than Pixie Bella.
I don’t mean to have all my trumpets blazing, but Jay and I are simply astounded at how beautiful our girls are. Poke me in the eyes if you want to, because I’m sure I sound like a pain-in-the-butt bragging ‘stage’ mother who thinks her daughters should win beauty pageants! Ugh!~ But I really think my daughters are wildly beautiful, and I really didn’t expect it at all! Pixie is unusual, and her features are not classically beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but she is gorgeous nonetheless and often people will stop us in the street to comment on how beautiful she (or her hair!) is! And now we have a second daughter, who we suspect may be even more beautiful, and entirely different from our Pixie! They have completely different features: Scarlet still has deep blue eyes, Pixie’s are hazel with green rims; Pixie has a short upturned nose, Scarlet’s seems long and straight; Pixie has a large Julia-Roberts smile, Scarlet’s mouth is a little rosebud; Pixie has scruffy eyebrows that appear to meet in the middle, Scarlet’s are long and finely shaped; and yet you would know them as sisters. They have exactly the same tousle of dark silky hair (as babies), and the same square forehead and little chins. Scarlet’s features are probably more classically beautiful than Pixie’s. And if she keeps her blue eyes and her hair grows into wild brown ringlets like her sisters, then I suspect my girls are going to stop traffic! Ha! I really don’t know how this happened because I will be the first to tell you I have a witches hooked nose, a receding chin (well, a number of receding chins actually), ordinary eyes, lank, limp hair, and freckles! I am no beauty queen I can tell you!!! So WHERE my daughters got their striking good looks is one of my life’s profound mysteries! :^)
What’s In A Name?
Anyway, back to my beauty, Scarlet. I should record, for her interest when she’s older, a little something about her name and why we chose it.
I have loved the name Scarlet since about 1983, or thereabouts, when Jerry Hall and Mick Jagger called their first daughter, Elizabeth Scarlet. I thought it was a dashingly romantic name, and one of my favorite literary heroines has always been the feisty Scarlett O’Hara, from Gone With the Wind. Vivien Leigh’s portrayal of Scarlett on the big screen is one of my all-time favourite performances, and my mother’s favourite movie, and I have always thought Vivien Leigh was one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the planet. I got married in a scarlet velvet wedding dress, and over the years I have often looked at Pixie and thought she could’ve so easily been called ‘Scarlet’, as the name would’ve suited her just as well.
When I think of a scarlet poppy (the flower) then I think of a vibrant red velvety flower with a deep, dark heart of black. I often think of the scene from the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy falls asleep in a field of scarlet poppy’s…they are alluring, vibrant, enticing, with secret depths and hidden powers (as an opiate). It’s a complex name, with many and varied connotations, but mostly we thought it represented a feisty vibrant energy with a deep and peaceful heart. Very romantic, rather captivating, and it had enough of a unique ‘ring’ to fit into our family! I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up I longed for a romantic, alluring name. I wanted a name that nobody could spell and that captured hearts the moment it was spoken. A magical name that was all mine, that somehow captured and spoke of my unique spirit. And that, my friends, is the basis on which we have chosen our daughter’s names. I am always so proud that Pixie absolutely loves her name, even when kids in the playground call it weird. And most people who meet and know Pixie will comment on how they have never met a more appropriately named child. I only hope we got it right with Scarlet too!
Scarlet Poppy’s Personality…
I know I’ve said this many times before, probably because I’m having trouble believing it, but Miss Scarlet Poppy is SUCH a delightful baby! How I managed to produce such a sweet-natured soul I’ll never be sure, but there she is nonetheless. She’s starting to do the cutest things. She’s taken to ‘talking’ to me when she’s on the boob for a feed; she’ll babble out a few sloppy incoherent syllables and milk will froth up and dribble down her chin. Her eyes will light up and she’ll give me a big milky grin. Oh how my human heart will hold the love I do not know! That it hasn’t burst already from overflowing is another of life’s great mysteries.
Scarlet is so open and loving and trusting and happy, that it makes me feel like I must be doing something right. Dear little Pixie cried quite a lot as a little baby, and the difference in my mothering experience is profound. As a first-time mum with an unsettled baby I felt inadequate, sad, drained, exhausted, and desperate because I couldn’t always make my baby happy. This time round my mere presence makes Scarlet beam and smile, and I am reveling in this parenthood gig more than ever.
Scarlet is happy to spend time alone. She can happily sit in her rocker or lie in her porta-cot staring at her fluttering silk-fairy mobile, sucking her fist and kicking her legs. And if you wander over to see her she’ll burst into a high-voltage grin like she has just laid eyes on a radiant being. Her unconditional love, adoration and trust is a gift more precious than great hordes of gold. And this, my friends, is my latest revelation.
Scarlet is doing a lot of furious leg-kicking when I place her down on the floor these days. In her mind’s-eye I am completely convinced she is ‘running down the hallway’ when her little legs start madly kicking away. When Pixie was a baby and used to kick her legs I could tell she simply couldn’t wait to run away from us and find some trouble to get into! There was some kind of ‘gleam’ in her eyes that let me know she was destined to be ‘into everything’. And I was right. As soon as she could walk she started running and was into every nook and cranny of our home turning EVERYTHING inside-out and upside-down. When Scarlet ‘pretends to run’ she grins her head off and I’m guessing that she will run just for the sheer joy of movement, without a thought for any further trouble. I can see her now, running and squealing, her eyes beaming, her face bursting with a big, open-mouthed grin. She is nowhere near as complicated as Pixie.
Scarlet hasn’t been out in the world much yet. Maybe it’s because it’s the middle of winter here, and quite chilly and cold. Maybe it’s because she was so completely tiny when she was born, and I still feel that I need to protect her from sensory overload because she’s so little. When I carry her outside she squints because she’s so unused to the bright daylight. My mother thinks it’s unhealthy for her to be so sheltered from the world, but I know she’ll learn about it all soon enough, so why overload such a tiny new being when every single sense impression would be new and confusing already? I think Scarlet is more settled and calm because of it; there’s not too many surprises in her day, no intrusive sounds, no bright lights, no sensory overload. She sleeps a lot, she wakes and feeds and talks to her sister. It’s a calm and settled life. The few times we’ve taken her out into the busy wide-world she has ‘pretended’ to sleep. It’s truly quite funny, because she’ll open one little eye every now and again to peep out, and then she’ll ‘pretend’ to sleep when she realizes we’re still not home! I’m convinced it’s her way of dealing with a bright noisy world that she’s not ready for. Pixie just used to scream and holler when we took her out; Scarlet pretends to sleep. And this perfectly illustrates just how different my two daughters are!!
When Scarlet gets tired she babbles and smiles a lot. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, because a tired baby usually wails or moans or out-and-out cries, but little Scarlet will grin her little head off and start making lots of squealing noises. You know she’s tired because she’ll rub her little eyes with a fist and she’ll make lots of spasmodic jerking movements, or she’ll go really stiff in your arms. But she doesn’t really cry or shout and holler about it, and can often be found, deliriously tired, babbling away to herself. I have a feeling she’s going to love to talk. She seems to respond so freely and gregariously whenever we ‘talk’ or sing to her. And she especially loves it when you make silly noises. That always elicits a huge gummy smile. Oh, she has such a beautiful smile. Her little eyes crinkle and her big open-mouthed smile reveals her ragged toothless gums. I can’t wait for her to start to laugh; I have a feeling she’s going to laugh and squeal a lot.
The Milk Bar…
Well, we’ve come a long way, and now we have reached that delightful plateau where all boob-feeding difficulties are behind us (touch wood) , and feeding is a joyful part of our day. I enjoy feeding so much more this time around, realizing what a precious bond it provides. Sitting on the couch to breastfeed it is one of the more peaceful and restful parts of my day.
Scarlet has always been fed by bottle at night. Jay gets up to do the night-feed and feeds Scarlet expressed breast-milk. Well, just recently Scarlet has started to ark up and Jay’s has had a bit of trouble feeding her at night. He thinks she’s decided she only wants the boob, and I feel ridiculously proud about that! I mean who wouldn’t prefer a soft warm snuggle up against mummy, and a warm soft nipple, to getting out of bed, waiting for the bottle to warm, and then being fed by a great plastic teat! I am so glad my baby is now discriminating between me and the bottle, even though it means I now have to wake up to feed her at night. Even though I suffer badly from disrupted sleep, as we all do, I’m finding I really enjoy those night-feeds now. Scarlet shares our bed, and it’s so nice to reach out, pull that bundle of warm little baby up against me, flip out the boob and off she goes. It’s so nice to see her shining eyes looking up at me nestled down in the covers, and to hear her slurping away. It’s just so delicious to feel that close to her, to know that I’m the only one who can provide her milk. And it’s so much easier than getting up to bottle feed. I am so thankful that our breastfeeding troubles are behind us, and we can now simply enjoy feeding as part of our bonding time.
Scarlet is a good feeder. She usually only needs 10 minutes on each breast. Pixie used to stay on the boob for up to an hour at a time, which was literally draining! And because Scarlet sleeps so well, she only needs about 5-6 feeds a day. I used to over-feed Pixie because she didn’t sleep well and was always so miserable and complained a lot. Sometimes sticking her on the boob was the only way to quieten her down. I didn’t understand Pixie’s cues very well and often thought she was crying for hunger when she was really crying because she was miserably over-tired. I made so many mistakes parenting first time round; sometimes I shudder at the memory. Poor Pixie, having to put up with such incompetence!
Sleeping Like A Baby…
I am one of those rather old-fashioned mother’s who likes a baby to thrive on routine and lots and lots of sleep! Scarlet didn’t start off sleeping really well, in fact, for a little while there I thought she was going to be just like Pixie and never go down for day-sleeps without a fight. We’d put her in her cot and she’d cry. We’d freak and pick her up and pat and rock her, thinking we had to help her to somehow drift peacefully into sleep. Eventually, when she was about 6 weeks old, after about five days of her barely going down for a 15 minute kip at a time, I’d had enough! I swallowed my disappointment and prepared myself for the sleep-battle again. After a feed and a play in the morning I wrapped her, put her in the cot and basically left her to it. She surprised me enormously by staying happily in her cot and talking to herself. I left her alone and eventually went back to find her asleep. Phew! Some days she would cry when I put her down for a nap, and I’d let her go for a little while, only to find her asleep five minutes later. She rarely whips herself into a frenzy like Pixie used to, and if she cries too intensely we go and pick her up, pat her in case she needs to burp, and put her down again. Sometimes when she’s really tired and cranky I need to sit with her and rock in the rocking chair. She usually likes it, and within 10 minutes she can no longer fight the rhythm and her eyes will drift to sleep. Then I put her in the cot and she stays asleep! Whenever Pixie fell asleep in my arms if I DARED to move her to the cot she’d wake up howling and I’d be back at square one.
These days Scarlet wakes at about 6.30-7am, has a feed, we get up, change her and let her play for an hour, then she has another feed, then we wrap her and put her down for a nap. More often than not she will sleep for 3-4 hours in the morning, which is simply DELICIOUS! The afternoons tend to be more unsettled though. She’ll usually only sleep for 40-50 minutes at a time, once or twice, but eventually go down for her night-time sleep at around 6-7pm, thoroughly exhausted. She may wake once for a feed during the night, but many nights she hasn’t woken at all! She’s probably sleeping 16-18 hours out of every 24, just like a baby should!!
This makes our life really ordered and routined, gives me lots of time alone with Pixie, and Scarlet is a thriving happy baby. The only downside is that we rarely ever go out because we really don’t want to disturb Scarlet’s routine. I’m a reclusive homebody anyway, preferring to spend time in my own mind than out in the world, so it really doesn’t bother me to be tied with a rope and chain to a baby’s routine. And I know it’ll loosen up when she gets a little older. I guess after my experiences with a baby who was miserable because she never slept, I realize how important it is to keep a baby’s life calm and firmly centered on a feed-play-sleep routine. I DO NOT want to go through life with a miserable baby again, thank you very much.
Daddy’s Little Girls…
Both of my baby’s have been Daddy’s girls. Some days Scarlet will only settle for Jay, and she won’t take her eyes off him when he comes home from work. Pixie was the same, and Jay had endless patience with her when she was restless and unsettled. He is happy to rock, jig, and hold babies for hours. I guess my girls are so attached to their Daddy because right from the get-go I have insisted that he share the parenting responsibilities FULLY. He is a capable, caring man, who married a staunch feminist, so he is happy to change his fair share of nappies, get up for night-feeds, and pace the floor rocking and patting if need be. When Scarlet was a tiny 5lb newborn Jay was the only one game enough to dress and undress her…she was so tiny and fragile that I couldn’t cope at all! We used to call her Little Chicken Wing because she’d keep her tiny, bony arms folded up so tightly against her side that Jay would have a real battle to get her sleeves on and off!
Jay stayed home with us for 10 weeks after Scarlet was born. He had accrued 12 weeks long-service leave, and was saving it for then. It was positively magnificent to have so much help in the first 6-7 weeks, he kept Pixie happy, got up at night with Scarlet, and basically gave me lots of time to physically recuperate after pregnancy and birth. When he went back to work a few weeks ago he found it hard. He missed Scarlet terribly, and told me he wished he could just stay home and cuddle her all day long. I was struggling with the new responsibilities of looking after both girls by myself for 8 hours a day, but when he said that to me I realized that I was the lucky one. Yes, it would KILL ME to have to go to work and leave my babies. I vowed to no longer complain about the long days alone with the kids, because I am LUCKY to be able to do it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Life with Two Children…
Truly, I can’t begin to tell you how much I am loving life with TWO children. Three months down the road and I am amazed at how different it feels. Despite the complete chaos in my laundry, my two daughters give me an incredible feeling of abundance. Life feels very full and joyful and vibrant; rich and complicated. It seems simply incredible that Jay and I have created TWO very distinct but equally beautiful little girls. Two entirely different personalities, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, each bringing a different quality into our family. Yes, there’s no doubt about it, TWO children seems positively indulgent! Think of all the time I can now spend trying to decipher TWO personalities, trying to understand why they are the way they are and how I can bring out the best in each of them. What a job!
Yes, two children makes me feel very rich. Do people really crave high-powered jobs, fat pay-cheques and fast cars, when they could have snotty noses to wipe, cloth nappies to scrub, and be woken to start the day at 6am every morning??? It may have taken me 30-something years to cotton-on, but I now believe true wealth and riches lie firmly within the heart of family life. I have two most delightful and beautiful girls and I feel as rich as Donald Trump (I mean really, what’s the point of all that wealth and power if life is just a succession of seriously bad hair days?). Yes, I am amazed, truly, at how abundantly blessed I feel with my two daughters. They fill me up with love, joy, plans, dreams and hopes for the future. And Jay and I never run out of things to talk about! The pseudo psycho-analyst that I am will never run out of personality dynamics to analyze now! (insert furious and gleeful hand-rubbing)
I have photos of my two gorgeous girls on my coffee table. I meditate on them when I sit at the couch to breastfeed Scarlet. I glory in the thought that I will always have photos of my two girls on my table, and wonder at how those faces will change and grow over time. How proud, and humble, and blessed, and honored I will feel to watch those two girls grow up; to know that I will always have two gorgeous daughters in my life, even when I myself am old and ugly and decrepit (it’s not that far off, believe me!). What a joyful comfort that is. What an exciting prospect that is. How rich I will feel to have two vibrant, healthy, beautiful girls in my life for all the years to come.
And you know where all this leads me? To the irrepressible feeling that I want ANOTHER ONE!!! I am truly shocked to feel this way, but I really, really, REALLY want another baby. My newest is only three months old and I’m thinking about no.3 already!!! How bizarre. But it’s dawned on me that I waited a long time to have no.2, and time’s fast running out if I want a no.3! And I’m enjoying two so much I can barely fathom how RICH I would be with three!!! How exciting it would be to find out what a THIRD baby would be like! And imagine the differences if it was a boy!! And imagine the traffic chaos we would cause if it was another girl! Yes, yes, yes, I seriously want another one. Oh, but aren’t I a glutton? He-HE-he.
How transient those newborn babies are. I thought I was all psyched-up to squeeze every last little drop out of that newborn elixir. Having gone through it once before with Pixie, I thought I KNEW exactly how fast the newborn stage passed, and that I would languish in every little nuance of my newborn baby’s being. Well turn back the clock, pur-lease, because it passed me by all too quickly; a ferocious blur of dirty nappies, night-feeds, nipple thrush, sleepless nights with the flu, bleary-eyed days trying to juggle the new responsibilities of caring for TWO children, with all the consequent laundry, grocery shopping, bathing, dressing, and feeding that comes with it. Maybe I could’ve languished a little more and soaked in every last newborn way, although I imagine I would now be sitting on a mountain of laundry, with my bath overflowing with dirty dishes (because the sink would be full!), living on home-delivery take-away because we couldn’t possibly drag ourselves away from the baby long enough to do the shopping!!! Well, I wish!
No, life marches on irregardless of your adorable newborn; there is still an endless list of ‘to-do’s’ and it is probably impossible (short of owning a few slaves) to truly soak-in your newborn as much as you wish you had’ve once the fleeting stage has passed! But passed it has for little Miss Scarlet, and I have already forgotten just how small and fragile she was when she was first brought home. I look with wistful longing at her first little premmie suit and can barely believe she was TRULY that small when she was born. Yes, my memory has failed me already, because I am gobsmacked by the size of that suit, and it was only 13 weeks ago!! Thirteen short weeks of time, but it feels like a lifetime in the language of the heart.
Welcome to our world Scarlet Poppy; it is so good to have you home.
Love, Eloise.
 |  |
|
want to keep a diary on iParenting?
Authoring a diary on the iParenting network allows you to chronicle your family's story, preserving it for years to come. It's also a great way to get the most out of the iParenting community. Click here to start...
|
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families. 
