Class Clown

Back to news about the kid. (Considering that last entry, seems I could use a therapist not a blog!)

Quinn is doing amazingly well. Growing like seaweed, she will make your arms arthritic after a good twenty minutes of toting her around.

Chances are if she isn't eating or sleeping, she's giggling at herself or one of us. As if the class clown, she finds a way to crack herself up over anything, and has developed a laugh that is bubbly until it ends in a shriek. And I still catch her chuckling in her sleep.

When I've had to wake her from a deep snooze, for things like taking my parents to the airport, Quinn doesn't wake up sobbing. Instead, she smiles and snickers as if it's a funny secret that we're both up at an ungodly hour.

For well over a month, she's been playing a game of her own creation. Ok, so maybe a few of you have heard of peek-a-boo, but no one taught her; so she gets extra credit for tapping into the archetypal baby game and initiating it with me whenever she wakes up and I'm nearby.

Raising her head to get her bearings, she'll look at me and then guffaw just as she turns away and pretends to be sleeping again. A moment later, Quinn looks back at me and giggles just to turn away like she's hiding and can't be seen.

Reminds me of what a riot I thought hiding around the corner from my friends in elementary school was. In anticipation of popping out to scare them as they approached -- I'd laugh so hard at the mere thought and summarily pee my pants.

After a few incidents like this, my little joke looked like a bizarre private habit I had of going off to some corner to piss myself. Good memories.

So far, Quinn has more class than that. She also seems to know who is worthy of the more intelligent games as she plays peek-a-boo with me, she tries to converse with Grandma by mooing and sticking out her tongue at every chance she gets. To make myself feel better, I tell my Mom it's just her big teeth and silly Swiss accent that intrigues Quinn.

Of course, she's also gathered that Grandpa is too sophisticated for the elementary games she reserves for me. So she saves the most tricky of games for him. The one where he's wrapped around her little premie finger.

He's a sucker for her nutritive needs, so she works it so that he feeds her as much and as often as possible by being irresistibly cute. Even as she spews mashed bananas and rice cereal all over him and the room, he smiles and coos at her, and she grins knowing just how whipped he is.

So, all is well here as nothing is done without a good laugh.

Hope you are finding much merriment in your world too,
J & the Class Clown

A Rising Wind

So, I've kind of stalled.

Stalled writing the many things I've thought would be interesting, important, or at the very least, humorous. But if the air around me could speak, it'd say I've stalled in a whole different way -- midair -- or so it feels... And here I am stalling as I peck out these words.

No longer gripped by apathy, I've taken a sharp turn and gone headlong into serious empathy. Strangely, not for any one, but for the many.

Overdosing isn't a habit of mine. But now I can't seem to stop gathering the details of challenges faced by people unknown to me, chased by a curiosity bordering on preoccupation with those I do know. All of which make for quite a concoction when life feels filled to the brim as it is.

If time is any compass to how I got to the land of heightened empathy, it'd point to a phone call I received on July 4th.

The tenor in the house, even one rather heady as my parents', was quite playful as we poked around to the sound of Garrison Keillor and like every other Saturday, I made Quinn dance with me to the Buttermilk Biscuit song. When a call came on my parents' phone for me, my Mom chuckled that someone had tracked me down.

Eyebrows cocked, I was sure it was a solicitor... Until I saw the name on the caller ID. A call from Clarksville, Tennessee could only mean a call from the Army. Now, I knew it wasn't the worst possible news because those words don't come by phone, but rather dressed up in Class A uniforms. Sometimes though, that kind of hell has a prelude by way of phone.

I gulped.

The voice on the line was of a woman I got to know to some degree before Jack deployed. Consistent with my previous interactions with her, she was as collected as ever. Steadily she told me that among Jack's unit, a helicopter had crashed under enemy fire earlier in the day. The same kind of helicopter Jack flies. Her voice was calm but a unsteady nerve underlined her words, and I wondered what she might say, or what she might not - yet knew.

Only by the grace of God was the news that the two pilots (no passengers) were alive and unharmed. She shared their names. Neither of which were my husband... but one was hers.

After a brief conversation laden with the best virtual hug as I could offer, she conceded that she need not be the person to make the rest of the calls to alert others before they caught something of the crash on the newswire. So I began down the list.

Just as my Mom had answered the call for me, so many others took the calls I made. Each time, a gasp could be heard when the other person realized I was calling on behalf of families for the unit, and a deafening silence reverberated over the line as the phone was passed to its rightful recipient.

It was in those tender conversations that I felt a connection I have been longing for since the day Jack left.

Perhaps it is an ache to align my heart and nerves with others that has launched me into this curious trend to be fully saturated with compassion for the plight of others. Not that it brings me enjoyment of course. Rather, it allows me to mourn things I have not lost.

Maybe my fears find solace in the stories of others, and give me a place to grieve all that I have not and hope never to lose...

Although not as morbid as it sounds, and I'm quite truly happy, it can't be a good habit I'm honing by reading online utterances of grief by other premie parents ( tragically not as fortunate as I), or collecting a stack of dark articles and Dear Abbys with the most heart-wrenching of stories.

So, I'm sobering up and admitting my dependence... and hoping that will release me from this long stall.

With warmth,
Mama Murph and her beloved Little Little