Leo Clement

When I looked at Leo in the early days of his birth I often had pity on him.  I had never experienced such a sense of loss gazing into his alien face wondering what he saw and felt and loving him at the same time.  That was an incredible trial and a lot of tears were shed.  Now what?  I am kind of a shell.  The person I thought I was before he was born has evaporated, but no new content replaced it.  I am a shell, a parent ghost hovering around Leo waiting to be filled with substance.  Or at least filled with the everyday things parent are likely to take for granted about their children, like growth, health, complex interactions, personality, and potentiality for deep bonds of love and trust.  All of that has a big question mark on it.  What will it be like raising my son?  He will grow, as he is growing, but I find myself wanting more from him.  We are in the vast ocean of yearning but will our desires be met?  I've written about desires before but each glimpse of his personality

Can you believe it, but there are others, many of them who are in the same boat as we are? And I have found them all on facebook. Amazing! Wondrous and tragic. I have read other blogs, looked at other pictures of children who are all ages, from angelic babies, to sweet and heartbreaking children and teenagers. I have become convinced that their parents are infinitely more wise, with larger hearts, and more courage then the average person. I guess it all comes with the territory!

You know the story of Peter Pan? Not the numerous Disney versions, but the real one. Actually I got the real story read to me in Russian when I was a kid. The stories, the characters, seemed so tangible to me, so bigger then life. When you're little, you don't think about the meanings behind the events, just the events themselves. When young you know the stories only through your emotions, and then as you get older, suddenly something kicks in, and you start to see the stories in a different way. Take for example, Captain Hook. In the original story, he's a real piece of work. An all around Mr. bad guy, and I remember hating him for all the trouble he caused Peter Pan and his lost boys. But now I realize, he was just driven by his fear. What was his fear? Time. Of course time was in the form of a nasty crocodile that happened to have swallowed a clock. Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock.

Today another coffee-hour discussion after Liturgy got me thinking.   Many people ask how Nika (our four year old daughter) is handling all of this.  I'm not sure except that she definitely knows something is different about Leo.  It all started in the hospital when she told us that Leo has (quote) "a little big head".  He is indeed our "little big head" like something from Dances With Wolves :).

Today Leo had a follow-up appointment with his neurosurgeon. His head has come down in size 6cm since the shunt revision! Wow! He looks really great, and I think feels great too! His eyes are much more open and I feel tracking objects and faces really well. I guess the trick right now, other then making sure the shunt keeps working, is helping his head mold in a more or less symmetrical matter. It's a good thing Leo's mom is obsessed with symmetry!

So many people have responded to this blog that it's humbling.  A certain topic came up today at coffee hour (the Orthodox Church's post-liturgy feast) that is gnawing at me since Leo's birth.  Call it a Christian idea or a revelation in the realm of parenting but actually our children are the pinpoints of our desires.  Any parent will have a checklist for what their kid should be able to do from the most basic at birth... sight, hearing, movement, to the the more abstract desires later on... will the kid be a heart surgeon, Olympian, teacher, etc?  The whole spectrum of desires, specifically tied to the new being, begins to surge in the parent before birth and grows to astronomical proportions as time goes on.  "Love" too grows in the same way but I am choosing to focus on desires because that is often the missing equation in trying to figure out why parents act the way they do.

Today during the physical therapist's visit, Leo was put through his paces. She had a whole list of things, 40 to be exact, of regular newborn motor reflexes and characteristics. Each one gets a check-mark (or not) and then a total score once she tallies up all the information that she observed. Although the final score for Leo really itself doesn't matter, the test was more to establish a baseline of development for Leo, and to find his strengths and weaknesses. Once this baseline is established, it will be easier to tell any progression and growth. Just since her last visit, she observed that Leo was doing a much better job of keeping his head in mid-line position. Before he would always keep it on one side or the other. She also determined during the exam that Leo definitely tracked her with his eyes and responded to sound. More specifically, to my voice. She had him on his tummy facing away from us, and she shook a rattle and made some noise to see if he would move his head

Believe it or not, but at my worst (or is it my best?) the soundtrack playing through my head is the Eminem song "Lose Yourself." As crazy and probably out of character as it seems for most of you, something about the relentless rhythm and drive of this rap song highlights what this whole ordeal has been like for me. I once read a blog a long while back for another compromised baby with heart issues. I remember then the mom wrote a post about Rachmaninoff, and how for some reason his music was in her head. I remember wondering how she could be thinking about music at a time like that? Well now I know how. Because it invades.

I really don't know who was cuter this morning..... so hence all the photos. Might have gotten a little carried away, and couldn't decide which ones are the best, so you guys vote on that.