I was talking to my co-workers the other day about Ron of Japan.  One of them pointed out that I talk about Ron of Japan almost every day.  I realized that I also think about Ron of Japan almost every day.  When Tom and I have been able to have post-Hazel nights out, most of them have been spent at Ron of Japan.

This may be a manifestation of a deep psychological problem.

Ron of Japan is a Japanese Tappenyaki Style restaurant where you sit at a communal table with other diners. The menu features seafood, steak or chicken cooked right before your eyes with plenty of oil and magic sauce: a sauce with healing properties made primarily from egg yolks.  This sauce is so powerful it transcends the dread of having to sit with strangers- or worse- people you vaguely knew from high school. It also gives you the dizzying sensation of having your blood pressure and cholesterol raised immediately to dangerous levels.  Only a super mai-tai can correct this.  Or make you not care, anyway.

My parents try politely to hide their revulsion at our restaurant-of-choice.  They encourage us to have a night here and there on our own (even though most of the time we’re not with Hazel, we talk about Hazel or look at pictures of Hazel).  We try to branch out, we want to branch out.  But inevitably we find ourselves seated in red vinyl chairs, nervously trying to avoid eye contact with the other people who, for reasons unknown, also love Ron of Japan.

Maybe my affection for Ron of Japan (is “Ron” a common Japanese name or does it mean something in Japanese?) has something to do with a temporary return to the bubble we lived in when we lost our first child.  We were devastated, but we still felt very close to him…he wasn’t all the way gone yet.

After Tommy Jr died Tom was very indulgent, and since we lived down the street from the Streeterville Ron of Japan we ended up there too many Sunday evenings to count.  We didn’t want to be around people we knew, because they were too sympathetic or they didn’t know what to say.  We didn’t want to be around people we didn’t know, because they might ask innocent questions that rubbed our raw hearts.  So we went to a restaurant where the waiters never try and banter with you, and where we could stare into each other’s eyes and talk quietly and quickly to avoid conversation with our table mates.  No one knew us or what we’d been through.

There’s something weirdly intimate about staring at your spouse and talking to them so intently that the other bafoons at your table wouldn’t dare to interrupt.  (Except for “Craig” who recently interrupted our heated argument about politics to boast about his college football record.  He kept swigging gin and tonics while his 15 year old son hid his face in his hands.  And there were the hilarious newlyweds who were into trying new things, so they ordered sushi.  The whole table laughed with them as they gagged their way through spicy tuna rolls.)  We could just eat our lobster and steak and suck down super mai tais until the waiter was stuffing the grease scrapings into a gag-inducing little hole in the tables.

I had the blues after Hazel was born between bouts of giddy, insane happiness.  For a while, after she went to sleep I would cry in Tom’s arms.  I was so happy, but I was reminded of how much we had to lose to get here, and I wondered if my joy would ever be completely free of sadness.

It took a long time for me to realize there were a few places, a few people, a few songs, a few driving routes that would transport me back to a time in my life that was simpler.  I don’t want to relive that time, because Hazel isn’t there.  But a visit for a couple of hours when she sleeps is nice once in a while.  And if they serve lobster smothered in egg sauce, it’s twice as nice.

I’m a Hazelholic.  I’m completely and utterly addicted to Hazel and 90% of my mental and physical energy is completely devoted to getting my next dose.  I even wake up in the middle of the night jonsing for a fix.  Hazel addiction has a few side affects: sleeplessness, disinterest in socializing with peers, difficultly concentrating on non-Hazel topics, as well as a loss of interest in personal care and chore-doing.  But one look at a baby toe, one glance at the funny cowlick in the front of her hair, a coo, a kick of her feet and I’m ready to forgo sleep and socializing for the rest of my life for another hour of Hazel.

When I’m away from Hazel, I challenge myself not to think about her constantly.  I try not to look at the 1,236 photos of her on my phone. I use thinking of her to motivate myself to get things done.  ”I’ll make ten calls then wonder what she’s doing right now.”  ”I’ll answer all these emails then imagine how fun it’ll be to take her to the park this summer”.

Like a true junkie, all I really want to talk about is Hazel.  On the few occasions that Tom and I have been out alone, I try not to talk about her.  We’ll talk about politics or our family or our jobs but after five or six minutes I have to ask: “What do you think Hazel is doing right now?”  Tom is always eager to indulge my addiction.  My Hazel tolerance is so high it would be impossible for me to overdose.  And the more I get of her, the more right I feel in the world.

I have to take my Hazelholism one day at a time.  I can’t let myself be overwhelmed at the thought of us spending so much time apart.  I try not to scowl at the stay-at-home mom’s I see when I’m on my lunch break (deep down inside I know that’s not all it’s cracked up to be).  And I certainly don’t let myself think about how I’m missing all of her milestones.  Instead I try and focus on how I’m her mother, and how this is the thing that I’m the very best at.

My maternity leave is over.  For the second time in my life the little family bubble we made had to get broken.  Tom and I couldn’t stay insulated with our child any longer (we were so lucky to have the time we did).  I haven’t been able to write about it because I have such mixed feelings.  I’m happy to be back at work, I’m heartbroken to have to leave Hazel.  That’s the simplest breakdown of how I feel.  The more complex version is that leaving Hazel everyday feels like a violent, catastrophic tearing of my heart. But that violent event is good and necessary to support my family, and I feel lucky to have a job that I enjoy and am good at.

When Tommy Jr was born my heart went through so many changes.  Meeting him made it grow ten times its size, trying to care for him tore it apart, watching him die softened then scarred it.  As that scar healed I changed a lot.  I lost a lot of my laughter and my ability to sympathize with people.  I feel harder now, more serious.  Sometimes it is harder to push my feelings into words.

This is one of those times.  I don’t know what to say, other than I don’t know exactly what to say right now.

“Ok class” the woman said, “can you tell me what this is?”  She help up a household item so we could all see it.

“Toothpaste!” we shouted enthusiastically.

“Wrong” she said smugly.  ”It’s poison, and the cap is a choking hazard.”  And thus began our infant CPR class, which should have been called “How Everything in Your Home Can be Weaponized By Your Baby” or “How There’s No Way Your Baby Will Survive Unless You Raise it in a Cage”.  The class cost $70 per person, and I guess they thought just teaching us infant CPR wasn’t going to satisfy a room full of new parents.  Actually, we were the only new parents, every one else was a million months pregnant.  If I had taken this class while I was still pregnant, I would have decided that I’d have to give Hazel to my mother to raise because there is no way I could keep her alive.  According to the implications of the nurse who taught the class, even wolves had a better chance of keeping Hazel alive because they didn’t keep disposable razors or cleaning supplies in their dens.

Each warning was followed by anecdotal evidence.  ”You think your child-proof caps are childproof?  Here’s a story of someone I personally know who’s child took all their medication….”  ”You must cover your outlets because your baby will stick his fingers in the outlet and be electrocuted. And if you buy the wrong kind of outlet covers, they will pry them off and choke on them, like my friend’s baby…”

This went on for 45 minutes.  By the end I was searching my purse for a paper bag I could breath into.  I wasn’t just horrified by the instructor’s constant misuse of the word “literally”, I was terrified at the prospect of inadvertently maiming or killing my child because I use the wrong knob covers to the garage door and Hazel sneaks out there once she’s big enough to crawl and gets in my car and puts it in reverse and smashes through the garage door and doesn’t have her seatbelt on…

And then the CPR video began.  While I am very cynical about the crappy acting in instructional videos (I once contemplated quitting a new job because I was so offended by the lack of effort they put into the sexual harassment video).  The first scene introduced a young couple and their infant daughter “Emma”.  Mother explained that “Emma” had been off that day and as she goes on the explain her symptoms she glances over and notices that “Emma” isn’t breathing!  She begins her well-practiced Infant CPR (spoiler alert: She saves “Emma’s” life).

It was the first time in my life that I rolled my eyes and fought back tears at the same time.  As the video progressed, and two more couples narrowly saved their plastic babies using Infant CPR I had to hide the tears of fear and panic from my fellow classmates.  Tom G took my hand when the spunky interracial couple found their plastic baby choking in his high chair at what looked like an Outback Steakhouse. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that the video ended with the first couple having a awkward conversation about how glad they are that they “took that Infant CPR class at the local hospital”.  Kind of beating a dead plastic baby since we were all already sitting in the class, paid in full.  But I guess the director of the film just wanted to hammer the message home: Your baby is about to perish at any minute unless you’ve armed yourself with the proper classes, videos and brochures.

The last thirty minutes were spent practicing CPR on our own plastic babies.  I couldn’t bare to call the dummy “Hazel” during the part where we practiced shouting the infant’s name before starting chest compressions (Baby’s Name! Baby’s Name! Are you Ok!?!).  Without heavy medication I don’t think it’s safe for me to imagine doing chest compressions on my daughter.  Although when I got home I cut my nails painfully short, since the instructor made a point to say that if you have long nails you just dig them into the child’s skin, because what’s the difference if you cut her if she stops breathing.

We finally left, feeling more prepared and more panicked at the same time.  We raced home to Hazel, and I tried not to picture pushing her sternum down an inch and a half in order to pump blood throughout her body.  I told my brain to file that information away in the part of my brain that saves essential but unpleasant information, like how to make myself throw up and what poison ivy looks like. I tried to ignore the niggling thought that if I found my baby limp, not breathing and unresponsive I might not have the composure to start CPR.

In the meantime I’m relieved that I don’t have a stash of Mardi Gras beads, because according to Infant CPR class Hazel would break them apart and stuff them in her mouth the second I turn my back on her.

Hazel began life with a very mild, relaxed expression.  She cried when she needed help, but other than that she seemed sort of contentedly aloof. As she got a few weeks older, she started opening her eyes more and studying us.  I pretended I wasn’t worrying that I wasn’t measuring up to her expectations.  ”I’m usually much funnier than this,” I would say as we stared at each other “you’ll see, when I get a good night’s sleep I’m so funny.”  Hazel would blink passively.  Another week or two went by.  She stuck out her tongue, I started to actually enjoy breastfeeding (it still hurts like hell though).  Her staring started to feel more concerted.

Then she smiled.  A day or so after that she smiled and squealed.  Another few days and I figured out what made her smile.  It’s seems like Hazel had learned how to be happy.

This was the moment that I really didn’t understand would happen: the moment when I finally realized that I have a whole new life ahead of me.  Watching a child arrive on earth with a personality really makes you reconsider your own life and experiences.  Happiness is something you have to learn and practice, even when you’re too young to work or have heartache or worry about making car payments.  There are a few times in my life when I felt hopelessly unhappy, and I decided to change.  I forced myself to smile more and accept invitations and after a few weeks (maybe it was months, maybe even years) I was a happier person.  But it took work and practice, and watching my daughter go through her first phase of learning to be happy is exciting and scary.  I hate to think of the days where she lays tangled in dirty sheets on a crappy college bed, pressing the snooze button 36 times until she has safely missed all her classes and can spend her day smoking cigarettes, eating Mr Goodbars and watching Blind Date.  I can’t stand to think of the first party she doesn’t get invited to, her first disappointing grade, her first broken heart.  Hopefully she can help me gain some perspective so I don’t go on a murderous rampage the first time she has hurt feelings.

Hazel and Tom and I are in this together.  Seeing how much Hazel does on her own make me breath a little easier.  She and I can be partners in her happiness.

Oh my god, prepare yourself to read about the most incredible things that have ever happened to anyone ever:

Hazel rolled over today.  Then Hazel took a bath without crying.  Then the Amazing Hazel spend 10 minutes looking at her Daddy, laughing and smiling.

I’m pretty sure I am the first mother in the history of the human race to ever witness such a brilliant child grow and learn so much in one day.

That’s how it feels anyway.  I have a vague intellectualized notion that this feeling is part of new motherhood.  But this baby is a genetic product of Tom G and he is one of the most incredible human beings on the planet, so it would be logical that she is more incredible than other babies.  I don’t know.  Maybe this is just how everyone feels about a 10 pound person who manages to actually change the axis upon which the earth revolves.

Hazel is a very communicative baby, but not in the way I expected.  Of course, she’s excellent at crying when bored, hungry, tired, wanting of mommy, and overstimulated.  But her non-crying noises up to this point have been the little roars of a baby dinosaur.

While I found this utterly adorable, I did wonder if she would ever make the sounds typically associated with a baby.  I didn’t care if she spent her whole life growling and barking, if that’s how she wanted to talk.  Without a lot of previous baby experience, I didn’t know if babies were born sounding like babies or if this was something they had to learn.  So I waited and delighted in her little dinosaur noises.

Then Tuesday, on the 7 week anniversary of her birth, Hazel looked at me while I changed her and said “coo”.

I had to grab the side of the changing table to myself from fainting.  I knew that little developments would happens as Hazel got older, but I didn’t expect them to flood my heart with love and pride.  I mean, babies are supposed to make baby noises.  I shouldn’t seem like an accomplishment that you want to call your friends about.  I decided not to be one of those moms who makes a huge deal out of every little thing.  I was going to exhibit some self control.

Later that day, Hazel stuck her tongue out for the first time.  I had no choice I had to start calling people.

Luckily people rarely answer their cell phones anymore, so I was spared from having to catch myself trying to wrangle up excitement from non-relatives about this incredible advancement.  The problem with having a few ounces of self awareness if that you know most people are bored by your enthusiastic recounts of what your baby does, but you can’t necessarily stop yourself.  It’s especially hard when your whole day consists of feeding your baby and trying to steal a few minutes of sleep while she’s sleeping.  It’s not like I’m going to fine restaurants and the opera.  Even when I watch TV I’m just looking at the screen, I’m not really absorbing what’s happening.  Well that’s not entirely true, I do really want a Total Gym, the Wen Hair Care System, and the Gojo hands free.  So I guess some of it’s penetrating my brain.

It’s exciting to see Hazel learn more and get older, but it’s bittersweet.  I wish I could freeze these days in my memory- unencumbered by work, socializing, or any big life decisions.  I know that the older she gets, the less time we’ll have to fawn over her every coo and poop.  For the time being though, watching her stick her tongue out is more incredible that anything I’ve ever seen or done.  And this is just the beginning.

Most hard core candy eaters have a system for getting through the bad colors.  Some people eat the bad colors first, some save them until the end, some people even throw them away (although I think those people are not true candy lovers because it’s kind of psycho to throw any candy away unless it’s banana flavored or coconut).

I had to give up my passion for candy for health reasons but I used to have a system.  I would space out eating the good colors- red, purple, orange- with eating the lame colors- green.  A few bites of green here and there reminds a candy eater how awesome the reds are.  Eating the greens gives you perspective.

Being a mother is a life time of red candy, interspersed with bites of green.  There are a lot of moments when I feel scared and overwhelmed.  There are moments when I wish that time would hurry up and get to the part of Hazel’s childhood where she sleeps more at night and gnaws at my boobs less often.  Then I immediately feel guilty for wanting any time to pass, since it’s already going so fast.  I often wonder what day it is, and I have to be sure to shower every other day and brush my teeth every single day.

All of those moments are just green candy though.  They might not taste great, but it’s still candy.  And the red candy- the hours I spend staring at Hazel, the snuggling, the sweet little baby noises she makes while fluttering her baby eye lashes- those moments are indescribably delicious.  I’ll have my whole life to sleep and eat hot meals and shower.  But these infant days are so fleeting and beautiful, I feel like I’m mourning each moment as it passes.

My sister in law asked what I was looking forward to doing with Hazel the most.  I thought about it for a while, and realized that I hadn’t thought of our future together.  I just live in the present with her.  Sometimes I think about how incredible it’ll be when she recognizes me and smiles.  For the most part though, I’m just entangled in her breath and her cries and mews and poops and the little tears that come out of her eyes when she’s outraged after a bath.

If you intellectualize having children, no one would do it.  It’s hard and it’s painful.  You give up your life for these little animals who won’t appreciate what you’ve done for decades.  But when you examine what a child does to your heart, you can almost understand why people have ten.  You can almost understand why your own mother still loves you even though you always roll your eyes at her.

Hazel woke up Saturday night. Instead of her usual ten minutes of wakeful but silent contemplation, she woke up with a startle, as if waking to the world for the first time.  And she started to wimper. Then she started to hiccup a little and cry softly. Then her face got red, her chin started to quiver, and she wailed.

Nothing to worry about though, because Tom and I had a plan for this very situation.  Before Hazel was born we both read Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg and decided this would be our argument settler.  Whenever things got out of control, we would agree to follow the advice of this one book.  No internet hysteria could usurp the calming influence of The Baby Whisperer.  This was the theory we used to raise our dog with great success.

When Hazel first started crying on Saturday night, I said to Tom confidently: “Don’t worry, I know her cries SO WELL.  She’s just hungry.”  So I nursed her for 30 minutes and when she popped off I put her back in my lap.  She sat there, stared contentedly for 10 minutes, then her face started to get red again.  ”Oh, hmm, she must still be hungry” I said, still fueled the hubris of naiveté.  I put Hazel back on my breast for another 30 minutes.  15 minutes later, she was crying again.  We changed her.  We walked around.  We sang to her.  We lowered the lights in case she was over stimulated.  She cried and cried and cried until we could see a little vein over her eye.  An hour passed.  ”I guess she must be hungry.” I said again, less sure of myself now.

This went on for a few more hours.  I convinced Tom that she must be sick, since she now had developed loud and obviously painful gas.  Her tummy burbled and produced man-sized boosters that made us laugh until she cried.  My hands got red from wringing them and my nipples spewed milk every time she started crying.  The constant feedings had increased my milk supply to the level of mediaeval wet nurse. I ignored the burning pain I felt when my breasts filled back up after a feeding, and the blisters that distorted the tips of my nipples.

Around 1 in the morning she tired herself out, and slept for a heavenly 4 hours.  The morning brought the calm baby we had grown used to and we were lulled into thinking that the night before was just a fluke.  We got out our book to review the Baby Whisperer’s stance on feeding and crying.  I pretended to believe that Hazel’s crying and rooting could be caused by factors other than starvation or a fear that her parents were torturing her.  Tom and I had a renewed commitment to stop and listen to our baby, instead of blindly reacting to her crying.  It wasn’t until we were sitting down to dinner that the crying jags started again.  ”It must be a growth spurt?” I said, bringing her to nurse again.  Tom watched my wince every time she latched on until he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Honey?” he said, clearing his throat politely.  ”Remember how we were reading in our book that Hazel isn’t hungry every time she cries?  That she only knows how to do a few things and one of them is rooting, but it doesn’t mean that she’s necessarily hungry?”

“Oh.  Yea.” I said sheepishly.

“And remember how we’re going to try and get her on a three hour feeding schedule?  And we just have to figure out ways to sooth her between feedings?  Especially because her little digestive system can’t handle eating constantly and that’s probably what’s giving her gas?” he went on gently.

“Yea, oh yea” I said.  ”Ok I’ll try and be strong when she cries.”  We smiled at each other.

A few minutes later Hazel started whimpering again.  Then she started sobbing, breathlessly crying and rooting against Tom’s shoulder.

I tried to smile serenely.  I tried to convince myself that she was ok, that all babies cry.  I tried to imagine that she wasn’t crying “Mommy!  help me!  Mommy!  Please, please help me!”  Tom smiled back at me with genuine confidence.  ”It’s ok,” he said “she’s ok, she’s just crying a little.”  I nodded back at him.  I waited a long three minutes.

“Alright that’s enough,” I said “Give me my baby, she’s starving!”  I was only half kidding, and spirited her away to a couch, where I could safely nurse her away from Tom’s completely sympathetic and non-judgemental eyes.

The next day we went to the pediatrician for Hazel’s one month appointment.  The doctor assured us that Hazel was not sick and was perfectly capable of waiting three hours to eat.  In fact, as the Baby Whisperer wrote and Tom tried to remind me, it was better for her little digestive system to have a full meal instead of snacking all day.  I, on the other hand, was suffering from mastitis, which explained my excruciating pain and blisters.  So I was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and a resolve to do what’s right for my baby, even if it meant letting her cry a little.

It’s been two days now, and Hazel and I both feel much better.  I’ve stopped imagining that her cries mean “Why have you forsaken me mother?!” and am finding more creative ways to sooth her between meals.  We’re back to 2.5- 3 hours between feedings during the day, and sleeping 4 hours at a time at night.  I feel much less bovine and had to thank Tom 100 times for his patience with my near-hysteria.  Ramona watched the whole scene passively, trying not to roll her eyes and remind us that she whines for food all the time and we happily ignore her.

Hazel is three weeks old now, and I can hardly remember what life what like before she arrived.  The rumors were true: this isn’t easy.  But what they don’t tell you is that the moments you spend staring at your beautiful daughter erase the dread of sleepless nights and chewed nipples.  I can’t believe I could be so in love with such a demanding little creature who doesn’t even acknowledge me yet.  She’s just as happy snoozing in the arms of a stranger, and yet I would happily throw myself in the jaws of a lion to save her from having to do something unpleasant.  I am already considering allowing her to never bath again after yesterday’s revelation that she despises baths in the tub.  She could be one of those monks who celebrates god by not washing themselves.  Or an artist.

In breastfeeding news, I buckled down and called a lactation consultant.  I felt better after talking to her on the phone, and that day Hazel and I finally seemed to figure out how to get through a whole meal.  The lactation consultant arrived the next day and was a surprising contradiction of make-up-less hippy who dripped with diamond jewelry.  I didn’t expect the diamonds, and was wary of the hippiness.  Because I have a mental problem, I didn’t bother to ask how much her fee was and $325 later she assured me that breastfeeding is just hard.  I was doing it right, it just sucks.  Those are my words, not hers.  Her words were much more earthy and encouraging, but I read between the lines.  I don’t know how I missed hearing how hard this was.  I had images of myself nursing my daughter Madonna-like, both of us basking in the joy of being together, our hair thick and skin dewy.  The reality is much more doggedly tired, sweaty and staring blankly at a television alternating between HGTV and True Crime Stories.

I don’t actually care though.  I’m going to stick with it as long as my boobs and milk supply can handle it.  I don’t want to beat a dead horse with this analogy, but nothing yet has been harder for me to get through physically than being awake during my c-section.  Besides reliving the memory of Tommy Jr’s birth, the actual procedure was really painful and scary.  If I can do that for Hazel, I can can breastfeed.

Things are starting to feel more routine now.  I didn’t have very many expectations of motherhood, I just wanted Hazel to arrive here safely.  Now that she’s here, I’m surprised and overjoyed everyday at how much I love her and how easy it is for me to mother her.  I’m surprised everyday that I don’t miss my old life more.  I don’t know what happens next, but today was another wonderful day.