Month nine: All The Tired Horses

Dempsey celebrated turning eight months old yesterday with a morning full of vomiting. In fact, the last month and 1/2 sickness has engulfed our house.

I have been challenged. The day after Valentine's Day, I was told that my husband had the flu, Madeus had a combination of the flu perhaps, RSV, and maybe pneumonia, and Dempsey would develop RSV. The next two weeks go on record in the top five most challenging moments since I found out I was going to be a parent. I never realized I could be that sleep deprived and a series of bad timing and serious contagiousness left us without many people to call for help. Madeus has never been so sick. Dempsey got it last and I thought it was not going to be that bad but then he stopped nursing. For two night, he screamed the whole night and I would just pace the floors. I was reluctant to go to the doctor because they had already diagnosed him with RSV and said I would have to ride it out. However, we went back the next day and he had developed bronchitis and two ear infections. The poor little man had blisters on the back of his throat which coupled with the ear pain, explains why he could not nurse. He had antibiotics and recovered. I fell sick but not badly and we thought we were in the clear.

Then last week we believe Madeus got food poisoning and last Sunday night I got it as well. Madeus recovered pretty quickly, but I have never been so sick and so scared of getting sick. We recovered and on Friday, I took the kids to the indoor play park at the mall and Dempsey started to projectile vomit. I was soaking wet, trying to gather Madeus from the park and get out of the mall as fast as possible. It continued for the next 24 hrs. He is all better. However, it does seem a crazy coincidence that we had two food poisonings (from the same hot dogs) and one stomach bug all in one week.

And then today Mike again has a fever and a cough, and just now I hear Madeus coughing from his room.

Until this year, I had the healthiest little boy in Madeus. He has still never taken an antibiotic and he just recently had any stomach illness for the first time. Some people say this is what happens when children go to school and Dempsey is suffering from being the second child in a family where the first child is bringing home germs from school. The pediatrician assures me it will only build his immune system. The whole thing has made me feel inadequate, frustrated, depressed, and just exhausted.

But, tomorrow starts the first day of Spring and I hope also the reblooming of my little family. Dempsey, true to his little personality, smiled after every time he vomited. In fact, he takes it all in such Dempsey style, it was often hard to tell just how sick he was.

Month Eight: Man in the Mirror

Dempsey is in his mirror stage. I remember learning about this from a psychoanalysis perspective in graduate school and it always made me a little sad. From my understanding of Lacan (which is really limited), the discovery in the mirror marks the moment an infant becomes a subject in the world. It is the first encounter where they "see" him/herself as whole. Before this moment, the baby only saw his/her fragmented form (grabbing a foot, looking at a hand, etc). From a Lacanian psychoanalysis perspective, it is a moment of awareness between the body and the image that develops self-hood and the "I". However, that "I" is understood to always be dependent on external objects, the images, and on the "other" that defines the self. (I am fully aware I am butchering Lacan, go easy on me).

I know this is a necessary and not really a negative moment in development. Maybe it makes me sad because it is so huge. In so many ways this is important. Those who we surround him with become so important, self esteem is introduced, and identification and division with others is created. Perception is shifted, the role of the gaze of "other" (you, them, her, him) shifts his internal perception, language and symbolism begin to emerge, and the list goes on and on. It is also his introduction into community, and it just feels like the most important marker of my role as a parent - to help him navigate a world where he can develop a healthy sense of I, while being part of a larger community. Where defining self, which inherently creates division, needs to be coupled with understanding and invitation to accept difference in our communities. Where he will most definitely feel insecurity, embarrassment, and peer pressure. Helping guide, protect, lead, acknowledge, create opportunities, embrace, and allow space for little Dempsey's "I" is an overwhelming responsibility as one of his parents.

And Dempsey seems very into this stage. I often find that he has rolled over to the mirror and is playing peek-a-boo with himself. His shadow on the wall intrigues him, and he catches his image in any reflective surface we pass. I don't really remember Madeus (my three year old) having this much involvement. But perhaps it was because this marker overwhelmed me so much I actually avoided mirrors a bit with Madeus;)