My pumpkins

When Kathleen was a baby, approaching her first Halloween, somebody sent me a baby pumpkin costume, which I promptly passed along, because I couldn't imagine having another pumpkin.

When Henry was in the hospital, I decided he would be a pumpkin. It was hard to dress him with his IVs and monitors and oxygen and other tubes, so I decided I would make something like a large bib that would cover him from neck to foot. Despite my vision and desire to make is costume (and the fact that I spent a long part of my day just sitting in his room), I couldn't quite get to it. People wanted to do thing to help, so my mom had one of her friends make the basic pumpkin (hemmed orange fleece with a ribbon to gather the top). My mom bought a pumpkin hat and I cut a face out of felt.

After a long day of waiting for Henry's fever to break, his nurse told me he could have his costume on for a bit.

So I never planned to have another pumpkin. Until Kathleen picked pumpkin.

I suggested witch; she thought cookie monster, then giraffe, then pumpkin. And there she stuck. Again and again I'd ask, and again and again she'd answer pumpkin.

I still had the orange fleece blanket, but I didn't want to tie it around her neck (fears of strangulation). So I sewed up the sides, cut a slit in the center for her head, cut the face a bit smaller and sewed it back on, and made running stitch to gather up the bottom. Instead of the hat, I attached a felt pumpkin top and stem to a headband.

I had a night of frustration when I tried to sew her costume on my machine and spent almost two hours fiddling to get it to work. The next day I gave up and sewed it all in less time than I had wasted. My sister had offered to send me a choice of pumpkin costumes, but I really wanted to make it. There are so many things like this that I've wanted to do since Henry died, but when it came time to do or make or create, I ran up against a mental block or energy drag. So making this felt like a step forward. 

So there you have it: my two pumpkins. I actually love that I reused Henry's costume for Kathleen, and in two years I will suggest to Elizabeth (who wore Kathleen's recycled kitty costume) that she should be a pumpkin, though by that time she may very well have ideas of her own. 

The Swing

I'm looking forward to getting rid of the baby swing. It takes up such a big space in our not so big living room. I imagine putting a cozy reading corner in for Kathleen or a real bookcase to replace the milkcrates housing her books right now or some kind of toy storage or . . .

I'm almost ready to ditch it (give it away, put it up in the attic for that tag sale we'll never have). I barely ever put Elizabeth in it. She never took to it the way her brother and sister did. When Kathleen grew too heavy for it, she went from a three hour nap to a twenty minute nap. I swore I wouldn't make that mistake again, so Elizabeth didn't swing much.

I started saying I was almost ready for the swing to go more than a month ago. It's still sitting here beside my chair, though. Now Elizabeth's far too big and too eager to be moving around. The last time I put her in it (a month ago? two?) she grabbed for the mobile pieces that circle around the top, so I took her out.

I thought it was one of the things I would have no trouble getting rid of.

Then I remembered.

December 14, the night we finally brought Henry home from the hospital, we put him in the swing, which he had always loved, and turned it on. His oxygen tubing tap, tap, tapped on the floor in the swing's rhythm. Henry looked at himself in the curvy mirror above him. He seemed to notice the mobile for the first time, not odd as he was six months old, not the three months he had been when he left the swing behind for the hospital.

Brian wanted to get some video footage of Henry in the swing, but before he did, Henry fell asleep. Our footage pans back and forth between our content, sleeping baby in the swing and me telling the story of our homecoming. I am deliriously exhausted and relieved and happy to be home and terrified at the prospect of keeping up with Henry's meds and keeping him healthy and haunted by what we had just endured. My story ends with us all home, getting ready for a busy med schedule, but all doing it together.

Brian focuses the camera once again on Henry, wishes him goodnight and then says More footage to come.

I didn't remember he said that until afterward, when we finally sat down and watched all of our video of Henry.

More footage to come.


And the screen goes blue.

The swing is just some metal and cloth and mechanical bits. And the very last place my baby was okay.

My to-do list f has us putting the bassinet and the swing up in the attic later in the week during Brian's time off. I've made a mental note to remove the batteries from the swing. I'm mentally cataloging space up there wondering where it will go. I'm ready, to get it out of the living room, not quite ready to get rid of it, though.

Someday. For now, I hold onto the swing and hold onto this: