This arrived in the mail the other day:
It’s Sugarplum’s expired passport which we received back after getting her a new one. This is the precious book that is filled with memories and adventures from her first two years. The book that we sat in the Miami passport office for over two hours to get when she was only a week old. The book that allowed her to return home with us, to Ireland, when she was barely a month old.
I picked it up on the way to the girls’ gymnastics class and it haunted me the entire drive. Every time I glanced over at it, I welled up with emotion, fighting back the tears.
At first I thought it was because I miss traveling so much. But after some time to really think about it, I realized it’s the same thing that’s been bothering me for weeks. Months. Years.
It’s this face:
My sweet little Pipsqueak who reminds me so much of this little face:
My little Sugarplum. The baby she was when all the pages of that book were getting filled with stamps and visas.
But I don’t remember that sweet face. Truthfully, I have to search our pictures files and home videos to find that face (and there are TONS of them!). Because the face I remember is this one:
It absolutely tears me apart inside because I don’t really remember her being happy. Everyone who knew her back then knew she was a “hard” baby. She fussed a lot and her fussing involved high-pitched screaming and wailing which could not be stopped. She started screaming the night we brought her home from the hospital and by a few months old she was completely inconsolable. She has been my only baby that wasn’t calmed by nursing. She has been my only baby that wasn’t calmed by being held. She has been my only baby that made me feel completely helpless almost daily.
That is the baby I remember. The one I used to wedge between Hooey and Funky Monkey in her Moses basket and rock vigorously with the TV on almost as loud as it could go. The only one I let “cry it out” as an infant. The one who I used to cry and cry and cry over. The one who nearly broke me.
And I see her now, I listen to her jokes and her sweet little giggle. And I watch her do her silly little dances and love all over her brothers. And I’ve seen her grow out of the screaming and slowly learn to get control over herself (though it’s still not always easy for her). She is my free spirit and while that can sometimes be frustrating, it also brings unquantifiable joy and happiness to our lives.
I watch her flip on the bars and do one-handed cartwheels without even wobbling in gymnastics class and I remember when she was just barely bigger than Pipsqueak is now. She was pulling to stand at just over 6 months old. And by 9 months she was trying to walk but she couldn’t. She drug her right leg, pigeon-toed and over the tops of her toes when she stepped.
I knew it wasn’t right and I saw the frustration in her. And the frustration in me grew when the doctors in Ireland refused to discuss it until she was “delayed” (around 18 months). And I struggled with the decision of whether to bring her back to Florida to see our pediatrician or wait it out.
We decided to wait it out. And I cried tears of joy the first time she stood independently. And I clapped the loudest I’ve every clapped for my kids (and cried some more) when she took those beautiful first steps. Yet I continued to worry as it took her weeks and weeks to begin walking confidently for more than a few steps (a sharp difference from her big sister who basically just got up and walked one day.)
But it happened, eventually she walked. And eventually I took her in to an osteopath and found out she had an extreme tightness through her right hip which had caused the dragging, trouble balancing and trouble walking. It also probably caused her immense discomfort which resulted in her fussiness.
And I felt immense guilt for not getting her help sooner. But we’ve come away from that stronger, she is my “Shortie” and we have an extremely special bond for all we’ve been through. And I’ve moved on from the guilt of not getting her the physical help she needed.
And it’s evolved into guilt over missing her being happy all those months and years. I wish we had always known this happy, silly, amazing girl. I wish I didn’t have to search for memories of her smiling and laughing. I wish they were burned into my memory, I wish they shone brighter than the screaming that still rings in my ears.
But she is and always has been my little peanut. And since I can’t change the past, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure our future is smiley and silly.
