Last year, I shared some of the books we read for Black History Month. Really, Black History Month is every month at our house. But if it isn’t a part of your everyday reading material, make a little extra effort in February (which starts tomorrow!) to include titles that will expand your mind and refresh you (or even teach you something new). Here are some of my picks.
The night Six was born, I hummed through labor. It was a single note with each contraction, in the same key. I wondered what note it was. Not long before, I’d heard a piece on NPR about the note nature hums in, and it was B flat. Could it be that I was humming with the universe without even knowing it? At some point, I was able to ask the Chaplain, who has perfect pitch, what key I was humming in.
It was B flat. The note that excites alligators. The note that black holes hum (in a very, very low octave).
Six came into the world not long after that, after a brief, intense labor. As he was being born, my first thought was that his nose was enormous.
His face isn’t the only thing that sets him apart from his siblings. His personality is a shower of sparks, a hurricane of energy, deep feeling, and stubborn determination.
As number six, he’s always been surrounded by an entourage. Since he was a baby, his siblings have loved to entertain him because of the faces he makes in response.
He has been spoiled and placated at times, and he manages to squeeze equal amounts of fury and nurturing from everyone in the family.
I’ve lost count of the number of photos I found with him in the hiking backpack, either in the kitchen, or on the trail. 
He was as likely to be on Dad’s back as Mom’s.
He is the kid who from the time he was small, has screamed bloody murder at bath time, but loves water.
He got all the extra cuddles because we thought he’d be our last.
He’s so young that it’s hard to imagine the person he’ll grow up to be. He can be impossible. He shows us his tough side, then melts into tears. I’m often puzzled by how to parent him in a way that leaves us both sane.
He has moments of pure joy. There are the times when he just lets me hold him. And he fights sleep passionately, then powers down on the spot wherever his body finally shuts off.
I want the best for Six, as I do all my kids. He certainly broke the mold when he was born, entering as he did to the hum of the universe. Like his siblings, he is a fighter, a stalwart soldier.
He wants things a certain way and can’t be convinced the way our other kids usually can be to just do what he’s being asked. I’ve been in more fights with him, and let him win more of them, than with any other person (adult or child) in my life.
Six, you confound and challenge us. We love you so much. You are a square peg, and we know those angles are the gifts that make you unique and will make you an amazing grown up.
Photo credits: feature image, Lindsey Crandall Photography. First image in post, my midwife.
One of my favorite things about nursing is that I’m always learning. On my floor, things sometimes come in groups – one time I’ll go in, and most or all of my patients will have the same type of stroke, the same type of brain tumor, or the same kind of surgery. Another time, the patients will all be radically different and have different needs.
On a recent night shift, I had a complex patient with a type of drainage tube that we rarely see on our floor. In fact, we have lumbar drains (which drain cerebrospinal fluid from a spot in the patient’s lower back) and several different types of drains coming out of patients’ heads all the time, and are quite comfortable with those. Stick a drain in another part of their bodies, though – say, a drain that replaces their bladder, or one leading to a wound vac (which is probably as gross as it sounds, but it serves a purpose), something like that, and sometimes we can get a little twitchy.
On my Netherlands trip, I mentioned that my relationship to pain changed after I had a huge knot in my neck disappear after the psilocybin trip.
I see a few doctors here and there, and they’d given me the gift of names for why I feel so crappy: Hashimoto’s, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Carpal Tunnel. Fatigue? Achy joints? Blame one of those pesky autoimmune things you’ve tested positive for.
Before the trip, I was wearing wrist braces to bed every night because of pain in my wrists and hands. It used to make me anxious when I had to launder the braces, that I wouldn’t get them washed, dried, and find them again before bedtime.
They’ve been in one of the four laundry baskets of unfolded laundry in my living room for days now and I’m totally cool with it.
I have never felt like teen parenting was an area of giftedness for me. I believe that parenting older kids requires a firm connection to our instincts, and I’m still learning to trust mine. It requires a long fuse, and a lot of wisdom – again, not really my natural strong suits.
Plus, I tend towards being critical first, compassionate later.
I came back from my retreat hoping that it would change the way I parented.
So far, I don’t think my younger kids have benefited a whole lot. I may be a tiny bit less flammable and impatient, but I don’t know if it’s enough for them to have noticed. I’m definitely a work in progress.
