Piper Notes #1: Wings, gender, baby pterodactyl

[podcast]/2009/08/Piper-notes-1.mp3[/podcast]

(Direct link to audio: /2009/08/Piper-notes-1.mp3 )

Our first, rough audio letter for Piper. It’s long (7 minutes you will never get back from your life), and includes:

  • Sir Paul McCartney,
  • Piper wailing,
  • and the sound of me being very, very wrong about our daughter’s gender only seconds after she was born.
    You’ve been warned.

We took too long recording and mixing it, but before I spent a month polishing it and wanted to record another, I figured we’d post it and be done. Behind the cut, the original notes we jotted down. (We found we sounded too scripted if we read from it, so we wrote the notes and ignored them as we spoke.)

`- Greetings, intro, why we’re doing this - it’s your mama - and Abba - We’re recording this open letter to you so that you know what you were like when you were growing up - also, a little, what we were like when you were growing up - and we’re calling it an open letter because even now, when you’re small enough to fit in a shoebox, you’ve got a lot of people who we think might like to know what you were like while you were growing up. - We promise that when we talk about the really embarrassing parts of your babyhood, we’ll feel just a little bit bad about it later.

  • Birth Story, Naming, Lightning
    • You came along pretty quickly, too, which meant that while we had been bracing ourselves for you to be 16 days late and take 40 hours of labor, instead you showed up at 5:33 just one day after your due date, and after about 7 hours of labor
      • which is surprisingly prompt, considering your mother and I cannot get anyplace without being 5-10 minutes late, ever.
    • Our friend and orlop Marnie would have been there to help usher you into the world, but you came along so promptly that she was still on the bus from D.C. (You can ask us what an ‘orlop’ is later)
    • You were an entirely organic baby
      • Your and your mom didn’t have to use any drugs or forceps or any interventions
        • NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH BABIES WHO DO NEED THOSE THINGS
        • but you weren’t one of them
    • And you were born with a piece of amniotic sac over your face
      • which is known as being “born with a caul”
      • one of the nurses told us it means you’ll be “gifted with sight”
      • so let us know if you see anything.
    • Then we sat around the hospital with Marnie and your Nana and Pop-Pop and made lots of phone calls and had pizza and avolemono soup and tried to figure out what we were going to name you
      • We’ve got the whole conversation to play you some other time
      • but we settled on “Piper” pretty quickly, because that’s a family name from your Abba’s side, and we thought it was a beautiful name
        • but we didn’t know what to use as your middle name
        • so the next morning we bought some books and read through them
        • and your aunt Marnie helped us talk through possibilities
        • and after trying to find another family name, we just decided that “Piper Rose” sounded nice
        • So that was that
    • then we went home that afternoon
    • and getting home was a little odd, because our old lady cat, Lightning, who had been very old and very sick for a long time, had died that morning
      • So maybe we’ll call you Lightning, too, because of how fast you showed up and for our old gray cat, who we loved very much
  • Sounds: Birth, Hiccups, Crying
    • the first one requires a little explanation:
      • it’s the moments right after you were born
      • and we have to explain that we were pretty sure that you were going to be a boy
      • It wasn’t really our fault – when K had an amniocentesis (ask one of us what that is) the counselor said:
        • “Do you want to know the gender? No? Well, there are two normal chromosomes on 13, 18, 21, and two sex chromosomes, an X and a Y.”
        • I asked, “did you just tell me the gender of the baby? and she said no, it could be an X and an X.
        • But we thought she was covering up for having accidentally told us that you were a boy for sure.
      • So when you were born, I looked down quickly, thinking I knew what I’d see
        • and then I looked up at your mother to make sure she was okay.
        • and then … well, here’s the tape
        • [tape plays]
        • That was your Abba, about to correct the nurse about whether you were a boy or a girl. Here’s that reaction again, in case you didn’t hear it the first time.
        • [tape plays]
    • And here are a few more sounds –
      • Sometimes you sound like this:
        • [play snuffling, and yawn]
      • and sometimes you sound like this:
        • [play basic crying]
      • And when you’re really riled up, you sound like this:
        • [play baby pter. crying]
        • but actually, you don’t really cry all that much. You’re a pretty easygoing kid.
  • What have you done in your first 6 weeks? (must include Band on the Run)
    • The first few days you just slept a lot
      • The pediatrician said we had to wake you up to feed you, even though you didn’t really want to be woken up
      • So we had to wake you up by putting cold washcloths on your stomach, which you hated
      • and we hated doing it, too
    • You love to look out the window at light, especially with the plant in the window.
      • I put some big black and white patterns up over your changing table, and when you’re not freaking out, you seem to like looking at those
    • You stretch a lot, by arching your back and raising your eyebrows and putting your arms up over your head
      • Your hands and arms usually orbit around you like little animated dizzy birds
      • and then they hit you in the face or the ear and you look confused
      • but when you stretch, your arms move like you’re doing something with them on purpose, and you look much more grown up than you actually are
    • you poop yourself, which is totally normal at your age.
      • and your poop was, for a while, brilliant, glowing orange.
    • you seem to like being swaddled, so most of the time when we’re putting you in your co-sleeper, we wrap you up in a little baby straitjacket.
      • Then, when you wriggle, you look like a little larva.
    • You’ve earned a lot of nicknames, which we won’t get into here
      • The Larval Human
      • Pipes, when you’re crying, or Peeper, when you’re just opening one eye
    • When I carry you around in the Moby, which you seem to really like, you pull out my chest hair with your little hands
    • I also sing to you when you’re on the changing table (usually to the tune of Band on the Run)
    • When we were spending the weekend with your Nana and Pop-pop, we left them taking care of you and went off to see District 9, which was a really great movie to see in a movie theater.
      • When we got back, it turned out you had slept the entire time we were gone!
      • we were very proud of you that night.
    • You’ve crossed state lines New Hampshire to see John and Mike
    • your other grandparents have also come to visit you: Danny and DeetDa, and Kathleen and Gil, who you, my dear, will have the privilege of naming someday. You’re their very first grandkid!
  • Adam’s bit: So for me, at least, I’m just really curious about who you’re going to turn into.
    • I’m back at work now, and when I’m not at home, I miss you and wonder what you’re doing.
    • So far, of course, you’re doing pretty much what most babies do,
    • though of course, because you’re our baby, we think you’re great
    • but they say that soon, you’re going to start turning into a real little person
    • liking one position and not another, liking one sound and not another
    • so I’m excited to see what’s going to make you, Piper Rose Hirsch, totally unique in all the world
    • I’m trying to keep your options open by insisting that no more than half of your clothing be pink
    • but I have no idea whether or not that’s what you are going to want
      • (and someday, whether you really want all of your clothes to be pink, or none of them, that’ll be okay with me)
  • Kates’s bit: And for me, I’m watching the little ways you change from day to day, and trying to capture them through memories or pictures (although your Dad is better about taking pictures of you than I am, but I’m working on it)
    • We spend the day together and I try to find things that entertain and engage you when you’re awake, but aren’t too over stimulating, and put you down for naps when you’re tired, and feed you when you’re hungry…
    • And of course I have that new parent worry about whether I’m doing too much or not enough
    • But it’s neat to have this time together - this mama/daughter time
  • So we’ll record something for you next month - we love you very much `