Shannon Phillips

Ages ago, I bought this cloche. It was on sale because it had lost its trim. I thought it would look sweet with a simple, thin, dark band. This was maybe fifteen years ago.

For some reason the stars aligned and I finally fixed it up. I bought the bunch of cherries from Judith M Millinery Supply House, and the grosgrain ribbon from The Ribbonerie, and I sewed one onto the other and voilà, now I have a fetching hat. Not too bad for a bumbling amateur!

So, we have a little blessing that we say before eating dinner. We’re not a religious family—Sam and I both tend toward a vague kind of pantheism, a sense that we are all small pieces of something incredibly vast, and that the pattern in its wholeness is sacred and divine. But we reject the notion of a personal God or Hell or any of that jazz. I have more of an urge toward ritual than Sam does: there are plenty of things about the universe that inspire in me a deep sense of awe and wonder, and I like to make whatever small gestures I can toward participating in the holiness I perceive. For a while I thought we might even find a church to go to, like a Unitarian or a Friends group, something very liberal and individualistic. But Sam’s not really a “joiner” and, frankly, it’s nicer to sleep in on Sundays.

Our compromise is that we have some invented rituals we carry out as a family, and one of those is saying “grace.” I had to hunt around for one that was suitably vague, invoking no particular God, and I found it included in a little book called Bless This Food: Ancient and Contemporary Graces from Around the World. It’s a prayer composed by Father John Giuliani, director of the Benedictine Grange in Redding, Connecticut. Our very slightly modified version goes like this:

Bless our hearts
that we may hear
in the breaking of bread
the song of the universe.

We say it all together, holding hands. I do feel that there is something sacred about coming together as a family for the evening meal, and I wanted a small ritual to underscore that, a little moment of mindfulness and gratitude. And it’s worked out really well, it’s become a piece of our family identity. Children are innately ritualistic, I think, and the boys have embraced “saying the blessing” every night—to the point that they will protest if for some reason we try to skip it.

At the same time, though, Robin likes to play around with the words. Sometimes instead of invoking “the song of the universe” it will be “the song of the Power Rangers” or some such. And the other night he gave us:

Bless our hearts
I love you
You can eat noodles
Whenever you want
I love you

Which I thought was so sweet and hilarious that it deserves to be documented for posterity. “You can eat noodles / Whenever you want!”

I love this photo of Sam’s dad, taken by my lovely and talented sister in law, Betsy Phillips. I feel like it shows an essential element of Sam’s background. We’re both city kids who grew up rural—me in the Ozarks, Sam in the shadow of the Sierra Nevadas. I see that modern-day mountain-man element in Sam, in a lot of ways.

Also, Sam is a wonderful father. And I think that men who take easily, naturally, to parenting generally do so because they had close and nurturing relationships with their own fathers. So when I look at this photo, I see one of the people who made Sam into the man that I love so much.

Sol had a great check-up today! He weighs ten pounds and two ounces, which puts him back on a normal growth curve, and the pediatrician gave me a print out that says “General appearance: well nourished infant” right up at the top, so that I can take it out and look at it whenever I’m feeling blue. And he’s 23 and a half inches long, so almost two feet. The doctor also exclaimed over his enormous feet.

He’s starting to “talk” more, grunts and coos and other funny little sounds, so it’s possible to have amusing conversations with him now–at least if you’re the type that’s easily amused. He’s a remarkably chill little guy most of the time. He cries when he’s hungry or needs a change, but otherwise he’s pretty content to hang out and observe. I think that might be an adaptive trait in a household with two loud and energetic older brothers!

Sol is visibly plumping up. I am so, so relieved. It took him a few days to get used to the bottle, but it turns out our doctor was right: supplementing with formula has made this problem vanish.

I was struck by the fact that every mother who left me messages of support, to say they had been in the same position, also talked about how hard it had been to confront the stigma that surrounds formula, and the sense that anything less than exclusive breastfeeding makes you a Bad Mom. There is a whole industry out there that has a vested interest in pushing the “breast is best” philosophy to an irrational extreme: “the lactation-commercial-industrial complex,” as my BFF calls it. It’s like the crunchy-granola mirror of the formula companies—I mean, those are still more evil, but at this point they are less insidious.

Every mom in my demographic can reel off the studies: breastfeeding makes healthier babies, even smarter babies. (It doesn’t, actually, but never mind.) And of course we want the best for our babies, so women are quite literally torturing themselves in a struggle to live up to the breastfeeding ideal. I had one friend, whose baby was prone to a painful latch, describe to me how she would spend each nursing session weeping from the pain. Another, who spent a small fortune on lactation consultants and breast pumps, told me that her failure to exclusively breastfeed made her feel like she wasn’t a real mother to her baby.

This is crazy, and cruel. There’s no One Right Way to be a mom, and while nursing is lovely, formula is fine too. I’m still nursing Sol a lot, but I don’t feel the least bit ashamed of giving him a bottle as well. I’m just glad that he’s getting what he needs to grow.

At almost six weeks Sol’s weight is still really low. The problem seems to be his inefficient latch—he can nurse for an hour but not get that much milk. We give him a bottle right after every nursing session now. He mostly refused it at first but he seems to be getting used to it; he’s been drinking more formula in the past couple days. The doctor told us to keep doing what we’re doing and come back in a month. He seems confident that supplementing with formula will boost Sol’s growth. I hope it starts working really soon. This morning as I was nursing him I just sat there with tears rolling down my face, staring at his stick-thin arms and legs.

I’m still spending almost all my time feeding (or trying to feed) the baby, and Sam goes back to work next week. I have a lot of anxiety around that too.

One thing I can do while nursing is read, so this blog might be all book reviews for a while.

Sol had a pretty disastrous weigh in yesterday. He actually weighs a few ounces less than he did two weeks ago and still hasn’t regained his birth weight. This during a time when babies should be growing rapidly. I’ve been worried about his growth for a while and it sucks to know that my concerns are very real.

We’re making a concerted effort to make sure he nurses every two hours, and if he doesn’t start putting on weight immediately, we’ll switch to formula.

Update 4/26: Sol’s weight check was good today (up nearly half a pound) after two days of all but force feeding him. Seriously, I’ve basically been nursing him nonstop, leaving Sam to deal with the needs of the other kids. Thank God for paternity leave.

This baby curled into me is so little and warm, and he smells so nice. Every now and then he makes a tiny sound and my heart clenches.

Robin and Davy asked for, and were given, pickles and cold pizza for breakfast. They are now running around the house in their pajamas. The TV is on but is being ignored (limits on screen time have been placed in abeyance). This week is spring break for the boys, so no school; Sam is home on paternity leave for the next six weeks. It feels like the world is in suspension. Everything revolves around the rhythms of Sol. He is our tiny sun and center.

He’s here! Baby Sol was born on Sunday, March 24 at 5 pm, weighing a hefty eight pounds two ounces. The labor was straightforward (he came in literally two minutes of pushing) and he’s looking great—nursing well and showing every sign of thriving. We brought him home today to two very interested older brothers and one big puppy (also very interested, but so far not allowed to do anything more than give the baby a thorough sniff). Robin said, “I’ll teach the baby how to walk and talk! Sol, when you are hungry, say ‘Please make me a sandwich.'”

It’s a good start.

I am now responding to all inquiries about the baby with a dramatic impression of the little raincloud that hangs over Eeyore’s head.

My adjusted due date was yesterday—and that was already pushed back a week from the original due date—so I have this sense that I’ve been pregnant forever. And it will never end. There will never be a baby, only endless, endless bouts of Braxton Hicks contractions and backaches and an inability to pick things up off the ground or get comfortable at night or wear jeans or walk at anything approaching a reasonable pace. And everybody will be so disappointed in me.

So if you want to know if there is a baby yet, imagine the little black raincloud is giving you your answer.