Tallulah

October 17. Today marked the first day that Tallulah got to meet her sisters. We made some special arrangements with the lead physician, and very early this morning, we took Tallulah to a conference room adjacent to the NICU, where a nurse brought in Estella and Luna to see and hold.

Jenny held both the twins, I snapped pics, and Tallulah scrunched in close, carefully watching her sisters, sometimes holding Estella's head in her hand.

We had a precious ten minute window. This was somewhat of a risky thing to do, but the docs had okayed it, as has the supervising nurse. I was self conscious about having Tallulah in the waiting room, where we're required to scrub down, and where a nurse confronted us about having a child in there -- the rule is, no kids under 16. I wasn't exactly comfortable being the exception.

Lots of folks have asked us about Tallulah, how she is handling all of this. It's been a tough eight weeks for her, no doubt, but I believe she is doing okay. Really I have no way of knowing for sure. She has asked some heart-breaking questions here and there, namely, "Are the twins going to die?" We thought it would be good for her to see the twins and show her that they were living, breathing creatures, her sisters, her future cohorts. She was aglow the whole visit, and very tender and careful with the twins. I know she has wanted sisters for a long while, and I know this wasn't what she expected. It's not the normal routine she had encountered in books, with the sweet fat baby wrapped up and grinning in a crib. No this experience is totally different. All the same, in the end, I think she will be proud of what she'd had to go through, although a great deal of it, if not most of it, has been a struggle for her to understand -- or at least, to articulate.

For the past weeks, she's been making a squishing sound in her cheeks. She'll get preoccupied with a task, like drawing or reading, and while she's doing that, she'll "squish" her cheeks, which is really just forcing air through a clenched pocket of inner cheek. I know she's doing this because she's nervous; when I ask her what makes her nervous, she lowers her head, hiding behind her blond main, and then will mutter that its the twins. Seems she loves them more than we have imagined.

Tallulah has been getting into photography lately. We've loaned her a digital snapshot, and she's taken to photographing with it constantly. The accidental images she captures are stunning. The ones of me bending over to change out a trash bag, not so appealing. She's taken several portraits of Jenny and me, and she loves, of course, photographing the dog.

This morning she crouched over the isolette and fired off a few shots of the twins. I felt happy for her. She liked the whole notion, and while I think some of it was imitating me, I think a big part of it was "articulating" or "understanding" for her, a way of compartmentalizing the experience, of trying to define it for herself. If the camera stops her squishing, so be it. We all need some kind of camera, don't we?

This was also the first moment that our entire family was in the same room, together. This I did not realize until much later. A family of five. I spent the entire time snapping pics. (Not ready to post those yet, too close to the moment) Later I realized what I'd missed, or captured, however you want to look at it.

This was also the first time the twins were huddled close to each, so very close to each other, in the same little crib. They were swathed and on their sides, just centimeters from each other, almost as if in the womb again. We have held them closely, but we have not put them together like this, and here they were. At one point, Tallulah huddled over them, looked down at them, smiled.

She is a good kid, a lovely kid. Today we walked up to a "festival" at the Greek church near where we live. She wore her pink flamingo costume. Literally -- there is a giant flamingo head to this crazy outfit, sits on top of her head; and the arms are wings that she can flap, and there's this cottony pink tail that hangs off her rump. Ridiculous. At the festival, in the parking lot and on the soccer field, there was a moon walk, a cake walk, some bean toss games, etc. Trashy good, giants bags of popcorn, chintzy goods for sale on cart tables, baked goods. We bought mom a scarf, and we racked up a ton of fattening items on the cake walk. Then Tallulah got her face painted. It was a cold, blistery afternoon. The walk back was bitter, into the wind. I gave Tallulah my black coat, and she wore it with relish. She walked between Jenny & me, and I couldn't help up crack up, this cute blond kid in a giant black overcoat -- and cheetah prints stocking, did I mention -- with a flamingo head. She was laughing, kicking her legs, rolling her big blue eyes.

Eight weeks in the NICU for her sisters. I washed Stella tonight in the tub, fed her a whole bottle, then brought her to my shoulder and shuddered. I thought of Tallulah, and I hoped, hoped she was going to be okay. This isn't easy for any of us, most of all her. I can only imagine what is going on in her intense, imaginative mind. All I can do is get home and hold her, too, bring her to the same shoulder her sister had breathed on, rock her until she sleeps, then place her gently down into her bed.