All Information All the Time

We have a lot of ticks where we live. So far, I’ve found one on me and my husband found one on the squeaker. The one on me was a dog tick – big and icky. It was in my hair. The one on the squeaker was a deer tick – very small and icky. Luckily, the squeaker is extremely pale, so it is easy to find any ticks that have attached to him.

I am a bit of a hypochondriac, so I find being pregnant very difficult with regard to scary diseases and problems. I am very anxious about Lyme disease and it’s hard for me to resist doing internet research to find out all about the disease and any risks it poses during pregnancy. I live in an area where Lyme disease is prevalent – at least in comparison to the rest of the country – and since many people with Lyme disease don’t even recall having been bitten by a tick, it’s hard not to worry.

But just as I found with the allergy issue, there are no clear answers. The symptoms are vague and vary from person to person. They can be very severe or very mild. In fact, the disease may have no symptoms. The consequences for pregnant women are sometimes described as nonexistent or mild – no documentation of birth defects – and sometimes as dire – stillbirth, heart defects, and brain abnormalities.

I talked with my mom about this relentless tendency to seek information and answers and to resolve inconsistencies. At the time, she was marveling at a conversation my sister and I were having about breastfeeding, in which we used such terminology as “latching on.” She thinks we suffer from information overload and a tendency to seek out experts on every subject, whether it’s getting books about breastfeeding or looking up Lyme disease on the internet. She contrasted this tendency with her animosity towards authority, and her generation’s rejection of authority.

I don’t really think of the constant search for information as actually seeking the affirmation of an authority. And yet I can see my mom’s argument to the contrary – it’s basically looking for what someone else has concluded about something. It feels like a search for raw information, but in fact it is an acceptance of the role of experts. Still, I can’t shake my information-seeker nature, even when my findings are frustrating and full of contradictions. I wonder if there is something generational about it.

Even if there is, I’m kind of skeptical of the suggestion that my mom’s generation really rejected authority. She certainly has done so, and others in her generation have, but it hardly seems like a hallmark of the generation as a whole. After all, hers is the generation that inflicted such programs as the anti-drug “D.A.R.E.” program on MY generation – complete with police officers in the classroom. And then there’s paternalistic Ronald Reagan, who could not have been elected without the support of the young baby boomers. And her generation is really the force behind our culture’s health craze, from bottled water to pills for just about every ailment – and what would the health industry be without “experts” droning on about the latest studies on heart disease and cancer (which naturally contradict the previous studies...).

Anyway, just something I’ve been thinking about.

Revelations

In the last few weeks, the squeaker has asked some hard questions.

He wants to know if I'll die someday.

He wants to know if HE will die someday.

And he wants to know if I will miss him when he dies.

Ugh. It is not in me to shield him from stark realities. No cushions of religious belief in our household to soften the truth of mortality.

I've also now had the experience of watching other kids leave him out. We took him to the playground to meet some kids over the weekend. He had a great time running around with the other kids and sliding, climbing, and jumping.

Two older boys were sitting in the middle of the play area with a giant egg of matchbox cars. The squeaker wanted to check out the cars, but I told him he needed to ask if he could play, too.

So he asked, in his tiny little voice: "Please may I play, too?"

"No," said one of the boys. "Only him," he grunted, pointing at the other boy.

So my boy stood a few feet away gazing longingly at the cars, with an expression of befuddlement on his little face. It was hard to watch him feel confused and left out. But I suppose that's how we all grow the thicker skin we need for the daily encounters with our not-so-kind fellow human beings.

Oh Boy

The squeaker has decided that he wants a sister.

He’s going to have a brother, if all goes well.

We had our mid-pregnancy ultrasound last week. I can remember that when I was pregnant with the squeaker, I was most excited about seeing the baby and finding out if I was having a boy or a girl. The mood during the procedure was happy and light. Two miscarriages later, this time I found myself holding my breath until I heard that everything looked OK, while my husband rubbed my foot anxiously. Pregnancy loss really does mean never taking pregnancy for granted again.

But the wee one looked good, and I am excited about another baby boy. Since this is my last baby, I feel a little sad to know that I will never have a daughter. But my boy has been such a delight, and I think he will love having a brother. In my family, where girls predominate (my mom, one of three girls, had five girls of her own, including four in a row), two consecutive boys is apparently unfathomable. They keep marveling that it’s another boy. But somehow, I’ve suspected all along.

We went to a wedding this weekend. The squeaker asked us later if there were cows and chickens there. I laughed and asked him why he thought there would be cows and chickens. “Because,” he replied, “there are cows and chickens in Joseph’s nephew’s wedding.” And in his book, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, that is indeed the case. It’s funny to see how the squeaker’s books – and his sometimes unsettling ability to recall their details – shape his perception of otherwise unfamiliar concepts and words.

One of my former co-workers has a son a few months younger than mine, and he has a very small book collection because she doesn’t want to give him paper books – he is permitted to have board books only. She doesn’t want him to tear the books. And yet the squeaker’s experience suggests that books really are a kind of window into new experiences and ideas, even for a very young child. I hate to think that her son is stuck with such a small window just because of concern for wear and tear on the books.

Last night, as we were falling asleep, the squeaker was hugging me tightly. In the darkness, his papa asked what he was doing. “I’m loving this mama,” he replied.