Call it mother’s intuition. Or naiveté. Or maybe it was all the drugs I was on after major surgery, the C-section. But I knew Allie would be OK, despite needing to be on a ventilator in the NICU after she was born.
Sure, I was freaked. Anxious. Scared. No first-time parents want to see their newborn daughter — who they’ve already fallen in love with through Mama’s belly — in an isolette attached to machines, with an NG tube up her nose and bear-shaped heart monitors adhered to her hours-old baby skin. Or an IV stuck into to a vein on her head, taped to her reddish brown hair. (That was a TRIP.)
Still, I knew she would be fine. And she was. The doctor took her off the ventilator after 24 hours. This child is more than fine. She is in charge. Ferociously so.
She spent seven days in the NICU, during which time Mario and I came up with a number of nicknames for our Baby Alessandra:
∙ Allie Pie (which sounds quite lovely when sung to the tune of the old Spiderman cartoon theme song. Allie Pie. Allie Pie. Does whatever an Allie Pie does.)
∙ Pieface
∙ Piemaster 2000
Since then, we’ve come up with a few more nicknames:
∙ Allie Bear
∙ Allie Boo
∙ Bear
We seem to have settled on:
∙ Boo
We never found out exactly why she wasn’t breathing well when she was born. It could have been a bacterial infection in her lungs. Or that her lungs were underdeveloped. The neonatologists and nurses treated Pieface with IV antibiotics and surfactant, one of which did the trick so that she could come home with us (only to have our beloved pug dog, Momo, try to eat the foot off her right leg. He missed, thank God. But he had to go for a drive after that incident [to a pug rescue]).
A natural leader
Yes, she came in to the world with much drama, which, much to our delight and surprise, continues to this day.
As some recent examples, let’s just take Allie’s first experience watching American Idol, which we’ve been following since the start of this season. The first time she saw the show, she said, with such gravitas in her voice, “When I’m on American Idol, I’m going to win it.”
Sure, lots of kids say this to their parents. But several days later, Allie told us about how she’s going to have her own show, where she chooses all the judges and sets up the stage and organizes the contest. This is what I mean by “in charge.” A lot of kids want to grow up to be the winner of American Idol. Not many want to grow up to become Simon Cowell.
And as many of our Facebook friends know because of my recent post, Allie has no qualms whatsoever going online to Amazon and Café Press to order whatever her little heart desires. Cheetah-print iPhone6 cases. “Daddy’s Cutie” T-shirts. $100 bicycles.
She is resourceful, this one. She’s the don’t-ask-permission-ask-forgiveness type.
She doesn’t suffer fools, either. When she was about 2 years old, she told some old decrepit babysitter: “Stop talking, stupid lady.”
Yeah, it was rude. But she had the juevos to say what Mario and I were thinking about this poor old woman who was droning on and on. We were ready for her to leave our house. Allie didn’t waste any time (or courtesy) letting this woman know it was time to see herself to the door.
‘Swinging the world by the tail’
In the first 12 weeks or so of Allie’s life, she’d often start crying right around dinnertime. She was not a colicky baby, but she did start wailing at the witching hour, right on cue, almost every night. I found a simple routine that would calm her most evenings.
I’d swaddle her and we’d go upstairs to her room. I’d pull up the blinds on the window overlooking our front yard. We’d look out onto this huge tree in lawn.
My old stereo with a CD player in it was in Allie’s room, sitting just beneath the window. I’d put on a song called Killing the Blues, from an album called Raising Sand, by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. If you listen to it once, you’ll have trouble not listening to it on repeat. Which is what Allie and I would do.
I’d stand there, rocking my swaddled burrito baby in my arms, holding her so she could see out the window.
Though the song is somewhat sad and haunting and talks about lovers separating (and maybe getting back together?), there’s a verse in there that triggers a vision of my baby in charge.
“Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.”
Now, think of a picture of someone swinging the world by the tail. That person, my friends, is my Boo.
She’s a mess sometimes. But if Mario and I, by God’s grace, can steer Allie to use her God-given strengths for good, she will be taking the world by the tail. And we’ll all be the better for it.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” (James 1:17) She is a blessing. A firecracker gift from above. Happy 7th birthday to my Boo.
