Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Keyhole

For my lifelong blog reader(s)--smirk-- : I have decided to write a book about life with a Dandy-Walker child. Originally I thought this would be my first chapter, but now I'm considering making it a prologue. Please offer any constructive criticism, either in the comments or in a personal e-mail: solomongirls at yahoo dot com

That cold December Kansas morning I noticed it for the first time in my newborn’s eye: a keyhole where a perfect pupil should have been. Just a few weeks earlier I had made prep-for-the-new-baby lists, Thanksgiving travel lists, Christmas shopping lists, pack-for-the-hospital lists, remember-for-my-older-daughters’-school lists. Lists, lists, lists. My third child was due in late December and I knew that if I wrote everything down, I would somehow have control. However, control is an imaginary friend who disappears when real life arrives.

Few of those lists were completed because Hannah Savannah, baby number three, surprised us by arriving several weeks early, November 30, 2002, while we were in Wichita celebrating Thanksgiving. Other than her unexpected early arrival in an unfamiliar hospital with an unknown doctor, her birth went fairly smoothly and her first week of life was typical: the smell of baby shampoo, the softness of talcum powder, extra laundry, diapers and new schedules. As usual, my mom visited, bringing with her the white wicker bassinet in which she, her sisters, her children and each of her grandchildren had slept during their first weeks of life. Now it was Hannah’s turn.

All three of my daughters weighed between five and six pounds at birth, but Hannah was such a short, tiny bundle that my mom gently rested her in my eight-cup measuring cup, holding her in place while I took a picture. Because both Carl and I come from short-statured families with several immediate family members falling short of the five-foot mark, including both of our grandmothers, Hannah’s shortness didn’t seem anomalous, just a little quirky and useful for a fun photo op. We would save these pictures for future boyfriends.

Once mom filled our freezer with food, took an excess of photos, caught up the laundry and ensured that her daughter was settled into the new routines and responsibilities of caring for her newest granddaughter, she packed up her little Honda Civic. I waved goodbye until I could no longer see her, then settled into my stuffed green rocking chair, simultaneously exhausted and energized, to rock our newest family member.

Katie and Hailey were in school and Carl was at work, so I took the opportunity to rock and gaze into Hannah’s blue eyes, a blue that wouldn’t fade as it does for so many other children, a blue that surrounded…a keyhole. Was I imagining it? She was born three weeks early; did her eye simply need to finish developing? Maybe I was just a tired mom with an overactive imagination stimulated by sleep deprivation. I decided to ignore it until tomorrow, confident that sleep would bring about better mental and visual clarity. After all, my normal, perfect baby could be no less than that.

Little did I know that the tiny keyhole staring back at me from my child’s eyes, the windows to her baby soul, would portend a lifelong search for keys, keys to Hannah Savannah.