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| My mother with Clint, Milo, and Baby Hallie |
Here we are on the last day of September, so if Hallie’s baby, “Little Guy,” is going to have a September birthday, he’ll have to hurry. I suspect he’s reluctant to leave the comfort of his present abode. Maybe he’ll come on his Uncle Clint’s birthday, October 6. It's a lovely time of year to have a baby.
Anyway, when Little Guy gets here, I’ll go to Seattle for a few days to help daughter Hallie take care of him. It’s tradition. My mother did it for her daughters, and I will do it for mine. However, methods of care have changed, and Hallie has gained so much knowledge on her own that I’m not sure I’ll be of much help. Maybe I can at least give her confidence. She will soon see that she and Nick really can nurture this little person. Nevertheless, I’m grateful for the opportunity to bond with him early on. I think that’s important.
I was just six when my sisters began to have babies, and I was right there to help. (Well, okay – they let me watch.) Do you know that we didn’t bathe them in water for the first week or so? In the ‘50s and ‘60s, we cleaned them with a cotton ball saturated in baby oil -- absolutely no water until the navel healed. I guess somewhere along the line the medical community decided that didn’t matter so much. My babies (born late ‘70s / early ‘80s) enjoyed baths in the kitchen sink.
And how about all those lotions and potions and powders? Mennen’s Baby Magic smelled great! And powder was sprinkled liberally on baby’s tush until we decided the talc just wasn’t the thing for his lungs. Somehow millions of us survived anyway, or we think we did.
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| Baby Clint gets a sink bath |
And the new baby came home from the hospital with the expectation that his bath would occur in the morning. That schedule worked for me until I had the third one – Hallie. Then I struggled to supervise two little boys while I bathed her. “There’s nothing set in stone about the baby’s bath time,” Mother said. “That’s just what the hospital does. Bathe her at night when the boys are in bed.” That’s what I did, and it was great together time for the two of us.
When I was a little girl at the family home in Orofino, the large house across the street was called, “Hayden’s Apartments,” but in earlier decades, Mrs. Hayden ran a kind of hospital there. That’s where my mother’s first baby, Harriet, was born in 1930. Mother said that the screams of women in labor could be heard all over town, and as time for the birth approached, she asked the doctor at what point she would start screaming. “You aren’t going to scream,” he said. And she didn’t. I figured that was Mother’s subtle way of letting me know that screaming would be unnecessary and unhelpful. I didn’t scream. KW
7 comments:
Lovely story. And I learned something I didn't know about the apartments across the street, or that Harriet was born there. Never too old to learn.
They still say no bath until the navel heals--you can give them a little sponge bath, I think. And too many baths aren't good because it dries out the skin. Just two or three baths a week. That's about all I know. I'm banking on them teaching us the necessities at the hospital.
See? I don't know why you need me. My advice is outdated. Little Guy is just going to eat and (hopefully) sleep.
Oh Kathy, you left out that he will dirty diapers!! Haha! I, too, had an October baby--it's Ann's birthday on the 7th. How quickly time has flown. And Hallie, how did you know he would be late? My kids were both early and I had no idea when they would be born other than the projected due date. My mom came to stay for a few days both times and it was helpful, especially when Ann was born as Matt was only 10 1/2 months old and didn't walk yet. (I remember crying after she left wondering how I was going to make it without her with two babies!)
Love the photos! The one of Clint is obviously him--his features are still the same.
This baby's father struggles with punctuality, so I figured he'd come into this world "Johnson style". In this case, the tardiness is less maddening because we've been able to continue our household preparation.
Hi Chris!
I thought of the dirty diapers, but I try not to gross people out. However, it's a given that he will have to be cleaned --perhaps more than once a day. And I remember sometimes picking up a baby who was soaked to his neck and had to be totally cleaned.
As I understand it, Hallie wasn't given a firm due date, but I had due dates. Milo was due Christmas Day but came the 30th. Clint was due the 4th but came the 6th of October. Hallie was due the 6th (I think), but came the 4th of February. Hence, I always have to stop and think about the exact date of Clint's and Hallie's birthdays.
And Chris! When it comes to Clint, I have always said, "I would know you anywhere."
I was given a due date—September 28th. There just isn’t any point in putting a lot of faith into the target date since they rarely come on appointment. I read that if you announce a due date, the whole world gets caught up in that particular day and it can seem stressful. I haven’t been stressed by it, but I understand some people get anxious when the baby hasn’t come.
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