Damon's Bed

Damon is two and a half, and he sleeps in Mommy's bed (funny how three of us sleep there, and yet it is my bed). 

Damon has his own bed; he's had it for a while. First it was a crib, in the corner of our bedroom, by the window. The cheerful, yellow sheet on the mattress would get dusty, and I would throw it in the wash. The oh-so-soft, baby-blue Gund teddy bear hanging from its tie on the rail looked forlorn and abandoned. 

Sometimes we used it as a big bin for clean, as-of-yet unfolded laundry. A standard-sized crib can hold A LOT of laundry, burying his special bear pillow. 

Dad's acoustic, electric and bass guitars all took their turns being propped in the corner of Damon's unused bed- a convenient and protected place to stash them, when a practice session is hurriedly cut off by the call of parenting, house, or work duties. 

Damon got older, and he outgrew his unused crib.

Optimistically, Dad took the side off and, voila, it's a toddler bed! 

There is something about that plain, yellow little bed that just attracts clutter: the shirt you take off but isn't really dirty, the pants you wore only for church that don't quite make it back to the closet... I toss layers of clean shirts, dresses, and pants and little button-up shirts over the foot of the bed that need to be hung up instead of folded. There they sit, abandoned, for days or a week while my two small boys energetically throw themselves around in the living room, thumping up and down the wooden stairs, or their father or I labor in the kitchen, preparing meal after meal. 

One night I was gung-ho: All milk-sleepy, I put him in that little bed in the corner, and in the middle of the night he woke up ready to crawl back into our bed, half-conscious and wheezing with asthma. Superstitiously, I feel like my sensitive, sensitive, allergic child slips under some protective umbrella when he sleeps close to me, stays close to me. 

It's as if we two have our own ecology, and if he stay in close enough proximity, my pheromones or some other nonsense will be a buffer from the countless things he is allergic to. I am just open enough, or far enough out there, and close enough to him that I do not think this idea is so crazy. It does seem to work. 

When the intensity of our fall schedule hit, there came a week where I hit a breaking point: so much waking and disturbed sleep, tugging and kicking of blankets, compromised positions, earlier mornings, new, vulnerable situations when it came to food allergies for Damon, and the never ending, from-scratch, allergenic, limited meal prep. I forced myself to meet my obligations that weekend, but I seriously considered saying, enough. I can't do all of this, under these conditions and stresses. I am too worried, too sad, and too tired. 

Of course there are the exhilarating, positive moments, and they are so amazing in the way they are for every parents and humans everywhere: the little victories, the moments of growth for all of us. But I have to say this: my small two-year-old has been to a month of Saturday preschool classes this fall, and every single Saturday after I leave him there, the teacher and volunteers fully educated on his special needs for protection and observation (DON'T let him put his fingers in his mouth, for the love of GOD), I get into the car and at some point, I cry from the stress, the sadness, or the relief. Maybe this is somehow common, I don't know. 

This is the child who had one bite of fresh pineapple last weekend. One bite of something we were fairly certain was probably not a good food for him, but we just couldn't leave well enough alone (no allergist test results told us otherwise). After about a minute and a half, he started to cry, saying his mouth itched. He had a few hives on his forehead, delicately swollen, and he started to sweat and flush. The wheezing and shortness of breath is the scary part, the kicker. He needed about one and a half doses from the nebulizer to calm him and his symptoms. HE, the two-year-old, was unwilling to pause and take off the breathing mask to take the Benadryl he needed. 

The reaction was probably due to OAS, or Oral Allergy Syndrome. If you are allergic to pollens, some fresh fruit can cause a reaction. How severe it could get, I don't want to test. I don't mess with asthma.  Add pineapple to the list of taboo (for now?) fruits for him. 

From my standpoint, it took me multiple days to come back from that combination- overloaded mom and my child's allergic reaction. Just to be clear, allergic food reactions are dangerous to his life and health. Epipens are NOT completely protective in case of anaphylaxis due to exposure, and the stakes are as high as can be. Every food reaction is terrifying, and you have to be extremely judicious, quickly, about what to do. Also, epipen (or, anaphylaxis) = ER. That is how that works- if it calls for one, you have to do the other. 

But, back to the bed. I disappeared alone to run errands last weekend. I came back, and Damon's bed had migrated up to his big brother's bedroom! Of course!!! Dad had decided: enough was enough. This woman is crazy from sleep deprivation, personal space deprivation. She doesn't even make sense, anymore. (I wouldn't go that far...) but the point was this: give him every opportunity to grow. Give him his own new, exciting space! 

Big brother (all four years of him) is ecstatic about sharing his room at night. So far, Damon sometimes lies in it during the day, for about thirty seconds. We had a few failed nap attempts. We took down a set of zoo-shaped hooks and found the ideal arrangement for two mismatched toddler beds in that blue-painted boys' room. (Bunk beds have been mentioned.) 

Damon slept in his bed last night for two hours, then Dad brought him back down to our bed; no need to push it all at once. But, there is nothing like a sleeping child.

Church Musician Day

I offered to play for the Lenten service this noon, upon hearing the opportunity was there. What to play was my choice. As I planned my selection, my considerations were these: what aspect, what shade of Holy Week can I bring out musically, using only solo instrument, no words? What part of the story can I aid in the telling? 

Today the pastor spoke on betrayal. Jesus reclined on a pillow and shared an intimate meal with his disciples, confiding in an almost offhand manner that one of them, in that very room, would betray him.

Those were the words, or some of them. Other practical issues for my choice figure in as well: how tiring is this or that solo to play? How many minutes? Does it sound too much like the opera house for sacred use? What sheet music can I locate since we moved last year??! (I've looked through more than three crates of music, and I am still missing a stack of solos I've been collecting since college...) 

Also, how can I portray psychologically the pathos of broken trust, of betrayal? I have been in church, Sunday in, Wednesday out, through the season of Lent, taking part in the crescendo of the story of Jesus: the expectation of the people as their future ruler, the dread of his horrific death to come. 

The color of an instrument's sound, the timbre, is one of my musical and expressive tools. One of my colleagues at Christ Lutheran kids me as Ash Wednesday approaches: this is your season, the season of the bassoon! Think lugubrious, and you will know where he is coming from. 

I studied music in college and bassoon performance in graduate school, so the bassoon is my most developed voice. I do not like or dislike it; it is now far too much a part of me and what I do, too much a part of how I feel things, how I understand the artistic role I play within the breadth of human emotion. I occupy a certain place in the spectrum through that instrument, which I treasure in the way it helps communicates my identity and my spirit so directly. So, yes, I guess Lent is my season. Bassoon has a sound that knows mournfulness, and a certain depth. (...Ideally, anyway- as long as the reed speaks and all of those complicated keys continue to go up and down like they should.)

Throughout Lent, we lean toward the more solemn means of expression, until we land on the downright dark on Good Friday. On one noon Lent service, our recorder consort played a Fantasy by Telemann that was stridently minor. Talk about mournful. When the four different recorder lines  converge into a single, loud, unison melody, the effect is ominous. 

But, Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday. Last Sunday the choir sang hosannas over and over. The children stood up front and sang, and the brass played. It is festive, with an edge to it. Our hindsight view of this annual ritual tells us: The pageantry of Jesus on a donkey, walking a street strewn with palms, is the false celebration- the one that preceeds the violence of human nature come to fruition in Jesus on the cross.

So, for this Wednesday of Holy Week, first I chose the slow movement of the Mozart bassoon concerto. It is the most important solo I learned as an instrumentalist, written when he was only 19 years old. It is very sweet, with the simple beauty and clarity of the era which bore it. It is written in the most innate, most intuitive key of the instrument, F Major. To me, all of this communicated an appealing honesty, and also a naïveté that I felt suited this last Wednesday of the season. 

I wanted my other choice to be something unaccompanied, which would have a stripped down feeling of solitude, of aloneness. Nothing too obvious, beyond that. For that reason I did not want anything based on hymn tune, which has an explicit meaning, or content, beyond harmony and melody. For a Lutheran instrumentalist, especially for the lower range instruments like bassoon, Bach's 'Cello Suites are a "go-to," so to speak. Lutherans get to claim J.S. Bach as one of ours, and the many movements of the cello suites are a masterpiece. I told my husband how effective it seemed like they were this noon, saying, even if it is just me playing them on the bassoon, just as a matter of course (and you usually lose a little when you play something written with a different instrument in mind). He replied, no, it's you, and it's Mister J.S. Bach. Good point. 

I guess for me, getting to do this, to play this role, it is an exercise in both expressiveness and faithfulness. If I can share a little bit of the intimacy of how I get to take The Story to heart, then I have done something. When juggling schedules and bills with my husband, along with worrying about the responsibilities of parenthood specific to our family start to turn this music-making we do into a gray, mundane duty, I try to remember the high points with gratitude- like these solo moments I am privileged to share; like my colleagues, past and present, who have shared so much of themselves and their own faith through music; and getting to commune with Mister Johann Sebastian, unworthy as I may feel occasionally. 

The  sun is shining, the pollen is flying, there are (of course) errands to run and children to care for... 

We Want Out!

June 3, 2013

To Whom It May Concern at ------- Property Management Company,

I am writing to request that we be released from our lease for unit -- on ---- Lane, without penalty. My husband and I moved there with our 6 month old son in November 2010. We are not pet owners, partly due to my husband's allergies. We are not smokers. Two units with the same floor plan came available at the same time; I viewed one of them but ended up renting the other because of its location within the community. Assured by management that it would be thoroughly cleaned before moving in, we took it. It turned out the previous renters were pet owners, and upon moving in, my husband immediately had problems breathing in the apartment unless he was within a few feet of a HEPA grade air purifier. He has never had a problem like this in places he has previously rented. There was a strong pet odor in the apartment, underneath whatever fragranced product had been sprinkled on the carpet. The first month we lived there, we had to have the carpet on the lower level torn out and replaced, and the subfloor "pet treated" for urine/allergens. Our first son is not allergic and has had no problems. 

Our second child was born February 2012. He developed relatively severe eczema beginning at 2 months. We have since learned that he has multiple, potentially life-threatening food allergies, as well as a few environmental allergies, including one to cockroaches. He has had issues with his breathing as well, with asthma-like attacks spurred by allergic responses (to what, exactly, it is often hard to tell). Our children do not go to preschool or day care, so they spend much of their time in the home with one of us. 

It has become very clear that this apartment is unsuitable for my younger son's health, and that we need to move out as soon as possible. There are pest problems and vermin problems. Last fall one afternoon, I was home alone with my toddler and baby, both of whom were feverish and sick. I had reported that I thought a squirrel had gotten into the apartment walls, that we were hearing noise in our kitchen ceiling (on the first floor of our 2 story town house). I was told that no one could come that day-there had been a maintenance emergency. I then heard a commotion through the grate in the kitchen wall, and distinctly heard the squirrel traveling through the air duct above the kitchen cabinets. I was then assured that there was no way for the animal to get into the apartment. Shortly after that phone call, the squirrel escaped under the mechanical closet door, into my living room. I ran out the back door with a sick child under each arm and no shoes on to the leasing/management office, where I left the kids so I could go open the front door to let the squirrel out (the office staff was reluctant to do anything without a maintenance worker). 

Meanwhile, we have been killing cockroaches as they appear (the big ones are the ones we get). I described them to your staff, who offered to spray our apartment as a solution. Given my baby's sensitive respiratory and immune system, I am unwilling to have pesticide sprayed in my home, and I agreed to have the exterior sprayed about a month ago. We have also trapped one mouse in the past month, but another has appeared recently and eluded the traps. Two nights ago, I caught sight of the mouse hopping across my clean dishes on the kitchen counter. In response, I moved a stack of clean baking sheets and cutting boards from the counter where we store them, by the area where we dry hand-washed dishes, and discovered a pile of what appears to be cockroach excrement. I took a photo of it before we cleaned the counter. (We are still actively trying to trap the mouse, as we see new evidence/droppings, showing where it has been going.)

I have to point out how heavily that small kitchen gets used, and why: because of my younger son's severe allergies, he is on an extremely restricted diet, as am I because he still breast feeds. We cannot eat any pre-packaged food with more than a few ingredients, and eating out is nearly impossible. My husband spends hours cooking and cleaning in the kitchen every day by necessity, making most of our meals from scratch (no bread because of a gluten allergy, no cheese because of a dairy allergy, no beans because they are too closely related to nuts and soy, nothing with corn or eggs in it, etc, etc...).

We need to be living in a home with a workable kitchen that is not infested with mice or cockroaches, and one with no carpet. It traps allergens, and is too hard on my son's skin and lungs, with him spending so much time so close to the floor. As to what sorts of exposure during my pregnancy lent themselves to my son's health problems is probably water under the bridge, although the off-gassing of chemicals that occurs with new carpet is upsetting in retrospect. Regardless, we HAVE to curb my son's allergic reactions as his immune system continues to develop. I am not willing to accept the frequency with which we have to medicate a 16 month old baby.

Our lease is up this November. I have my doubts that an older rental like this with shared walls can really be rid of its pests, at least not while it is occupied, and by a family with very young children at that. Clearly, the carpet is something that cannot be changed. I am seeking to move out in a month. Given the limited length of time left on our lease and the dramatic change in our family's needs for health reasons, I am hoping that ------ Property Management can comply with my request.

Respectfully,

Kirstin etc.

Celebrating Damon

Damon is my second child. He is a little boy, and he just turned one on February 2nd. We celebrated Damon last weekend while Mom was here- both his baptism and his first birthday.

I was raised in a church that mostly baptizes infants when they're still tiny, red and wrinkled. Jack certainly was, doused with water and anointed with oil at three weeks old. For Damon, I put it off for a handful of reasons. For one, about the time I was ready to schedule a baptism for him, at about 2 months old, an ugly rash suddenly spread across his cheeks. I (vainly) thought, I'd rather clear up his skin before we stand up in front of  a church full of people.

Little did I know how long that would take, and what it would involve (that's another story). 11 months later and his pale little cheeks are finally, reliably soft and clear. I cherish that little baby, but there is a lot more...gravity in our lives that accompanies being his parents.

I remember planning Jack's first birthday party. There was a buoyancy about it, like the bouquet of brightly colored balloons we bought for the celebration. We frenetically planned a guest list and a menu, racing around, bickering in our way about how it was all going to be completed (and paid for), all to say to our small world, our wonderful, perfect baby Jack is one year old! It was a party- friends, warm weather, food, photos, streamers, and those wonderful balloons- you'd hold the long ribbons of the bunch of them in your fist, and they would gently tug upwards, like having a fish on the line in the water. The wonder and happiness of having Jack floated above it all, above the buzzing around of our inexpert entertaining.

It was joyful. We drank champagne and ate quiche, and tried to get Jack to eat his birthday cake before he got too sleepy from a skipped morning nap. Guests came and went from our sun-drenched little rented townhouse like birds circling a chirpy little nest. It was shortly after Jack's birthday that I learned I was pregnant again.

This brings us back to Damon, born about 20 months after Jack. The day we baptized him was the only real fair-weather day the whole week Mom was here. We had beautiful sunshine that cast a pale warmth over the wet city. I ended up dressing Jack and Damon in matching, navy blue fleece pea coats and light-colored linen pants. Damon's white pants had been Jack's, and Jack's had turned up in a bag of handed-down clothing from any one of our friends and acquaintances (all through church) with a boy or two older than ours. Their older half-sister, Emmy, showed up with her dad wearing a fancy dress, black tights, and her wheat-colored hair in lovely, loose curls. Dennis wore the dark suit we bought him for our wedding, and the light blue tie from being a groomsman in his brother Steve's wedding, which was the same week as ours.

Damon was baptized in a room of red, white and gold: when I will look back in memory, I will see the white walls and arched ceiling of the sanctuary, with its tall, mullioned window panes of frosted glass and matching, arched and hinged white shutters, folded up like great birds' wings; the carpet is scarlet, a little worn but still very formal-looking. The white baptismal font opens to reveal a brilliant gold plate full of water, the flickering movement of which fascinated both boys. I passed Damon to the pastor, his legs held out stiffly in front of him during the hand-off. Our pastor cupped one big hand full of water, splashing over Damon's fuzzy head and pausing there reassuringly after each splash for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Damon didn't make a noise, just looked at that gold pool of water with eyes wide and curious as it dripped down his face and neck.

The rite of baptism doesn't last long, but feels to me dense with meaning- the dark green hymnal in my hand, the unison voice of the prayer and response of the congregation that surrounds us in community, the choir gathered in the balcony to the right of pipe organ, all in that light-filled room. As our other pastor introduced the service (he spoke on Paul), Damon looked up into that balcony, and with a sharp, far-sighted eagle gaze in his light blue eyes, called out to someone with recognition. This is likely really what happened, I'm telling you- Damon spends a lot of time up in that balcony with me, the choir, and that powerful organ.

So, that was the baptism of Damon Michael, at almost thirteen months- not quite talking, not quite walking, but very, very alert.

We spent a lot of time, care and love this past year, Damon's first year, identifying and diagnosing his health challenges- all of the chronic, allergic and respiratory type (again, another story). As self-employed and part-time employed musicians and music teachers, we haven't been actively participating in the economy for very long, so to speak, so this process has carried its own weight of concern making decisions about how to get Damon the health care he needs. Sometimes it's not as simple as just taking your child to the doctor. It also wasn't a simple matter of identification and treatment. These things sometimes reveal themselves slowly, and episodically. You react, make a change, treat a flare-up, and wait to see what happens as they get incrementally older, day by day.

I guess, in light of all of that, and with the illness of a good friend, we kept Damon's party small. But I wanted to celebrate him in spite of how worry-fraught his first year sometimes got. A close friend offered up her house in the South of the city, and in her congenial kitchen and dining room, with a few friends, we toasted Damon's sweet little face, his goofy ears, his mild nature. Dennis made an array of very hypoallergenic foods, including vegetarian sushi and cupcakes notable for all the ingredients they don't contain- my husband's own recipe. We drank tea and strong coffee, and wine.

For me, the whole party, the vividness of my love for my small children, family, and our life together, it has this chiaroscuro of sadness throughout. It reminds me of a trip I recently took- overnight to a conference for choral music in Atlanta, a half-day's drive from home. It was in a beautiful, sprawling Protestant church, and that night, there was a candle-lit Taize religious service. This trip was the first time I'd left Damon overnight, and to do so took a great deal of preparation and logistical planning (yet another story).

Raising your voice to God is at the heart of Taize services, and in a minimalist style, as the melody repeats over and over, congregants are free to come in and out and harmonize as they feel moved- to join or to be silent, to create a living song. Sitting there in the dark among flickering candles, I remember being so sad. I was away from my family, able to view my life from a step back, a city away, a day away, and I was feeling the stress of the year vibrating under my skin and pulsing behind my eyes. I was sending it in waves up into the high darkness above me, and as I grappled with it, I thought and prayed, it's all okay. Accept it. Just accept your life, whatever condition it is in. Quit fighting the sorrow. I see a lot of joy in my life outlined with sorrow right now. All I can do is focus on ridding myself of the feeling that something is wrong. I am very sad about certain very specific things, and I grieve about them. But in this life, it's all part and parcel, the sorrow and the joy.

And that baby Damon, he is darn cute and a lot of fun..

-Kirstin

Potty Training: A Stop Along the Way and what Happened There

On a whim I took my baby and toddler boy shopping at a certain children's thrift store today, which I won't name. I got there at 1:46 pm, only to read the sign taped to the door saying they will close at 2 due to winter weather. I poke my head in, saying, I’ll be quick. One male clerk behind the counter (the nice one) smiles and tells me, no problem, it’s all good. Or something like that. I park my toddler behind the carpeted wall barrier that marks off the designated play area (which keeps them from ransacking the merchandise the store is trying to sell.) I hurry off with my baby to quickly browse the sweaters and long sleeves that are marked down this late January day. (Wasn’t it just Christmas, when there were no real good deals to be had, unless you’re a masochistic Black Friday enthusiast?) Damon, my 11 month old, stands in front of the toys that are for sale, testing his stability and not doing much else. 

• I find some little leather slippers with frogs on them for him. Perfect! 
• A coordinating pant and tee set, and I think it’s a boutique brand. Nice!
• Aw, a Gymboree playsuit with a raccoon on the front... and a striped tail on the back? Yessss! 
• Baby clothes- (I cluck to myself) most of the time, they hardly get worn and then they outgrow it. They’re more pre-washed than pre-worn. 

The other clerk, (the colder one) passes by me, and I ask for confirmation that the shirts I am eyeing are indeed part of the buy-two, get-two-free sale (!!!). Making a sound in his throat to convey the inconvenience of my question (or my existence on this planet), he politely agrees, yes, they are on sale.

Alright. I throw Damon over my forearm so he’s looking at the floor, and a few brief cardigans and pullovers later, I’m checking out. I hear Jack in the play area, singing the ABCs and playing with the little green army men which were wedged in the play cash register drawer like military sardines in a can.

Just as I am about to head over there, I hear, “Mommy, I pooped. I pooped! And I peed. I’m wet!” I see the stain covering his pants and agree, yes, he is wet. @#$% (you know which expletive I mean). Damon is already nestled in the baby sling. I haul Jack back over the wall at arm’s length, taking care not to let any part of him touch that carpet that blankets it like a 70s rumpus room.

I survey the damage: The linoleum floor is a little wet, and it looks like one of the green army men took a hit. I pick it up, and order Jack to stay *right there* while I hurry off to the restroom in the back. I take the last of the paper towel, think for a second, rinse off the little army man, and leave him to dry on the edge of the sink (I mean, what would you do??).

Jack is continuing to inform me of his damp state. I make reassuring sounds, saying we’ll take care of it somewhere else. As I am laboriously leaning over that darned wall with my wad of cheap paper towel in hand, and Damon is protesting getting wedged between me and it, the 2nd clerk comes over and says, word-for-word, “If I may ask... what is *that*... on the floor?” (Did you not hear Jack’s store-wide announcement, Buster?) I pause, then, striving for understatement, I say, “well, he’s potty training.” Pause. “It looks like it’s just the floor that is a little wet.” He replies, “We’ll try to find SOME way to get it clean.” A little pee? Really?

I ask you, who is the most wretched one of us: 

1) me, the chagrined mother, who somehow naively deemed training pants to be optional when my poor little guy still can’t quite figure out where number 2 goes; 

2) the clerk, who just wants to get the *heck* home and who doesn’t want to accept that he works at a CHILDREN’S SECOND HAND STORE (which I love to patronize, by the way, no shame there... which is partly my point). What does he THINK is going to happen here- swingin’ and stylish twenty-somethings sloshing their martinis on the floor, while they flirt and exchange witticisms? 

3) or, poor Jack, who is wearing soggy Elmo underwear full of you-know-what, and will soon have his bare butt exposed to 25 degree weather and freezing rain, lying on the floor of the minivan, the door wide open, while I clean him up?

I'll end the story there to leave something to the imagination, but what I have to offer is this: Humility, people! This Lutheran is preachin’ humililty- a warm cup of it to go around! Think on it. Nothing makes a person humble like being in the toilet training trenches, rag in hand. Even if you haven't potty trained a small person, your mother, father grandmother, or other beloved caregiver did- for you.

Happy skidding cars and “wintery mix” from Charlotte, North Carolina!!