The Pea and I are at home alone together for the first time since she arrived. Our house has been filled with people and whilst these have been the happiest of months, I'm relishing the solitude and the feeling of independence. This morning I feel as though the storm of the beginnings of a human trajetory has passed, giving way to gently lapping waves against the sides of our little boat of life. Our keel feels steadier, the rudder set gently in place and we sail forwards.
St Grace has gone to collect her husband who will be coming to work here in Jerusalem. After nearly 2 years living in our house, she will move out and live with him in a small lodging with his new employer - conveniently just across the valley from where we live.
I've learned so much from St Grace over this time, despite the inevitable and occasional pinch points due to co-existence. She's tolerant and quick to laugh. She lives and she loves with a fullness of spirit. She's been so happy since the Pea arrived, calling her Pinki - a Sri Lankan name she loves. 'She is our first girl,' she laughed. St Grace has only ever cared for boys: her own son, now 13; our dwarfs; and one other boy before us. She crocheted a little dress for the Pea which we will keep for ever.
As she left our house for the bus to the border into Jordan, to return in two days for a new life here with her husband, she said goodbye to us. She touched the Pea's cheek. 'Good bye Pinki. I will see you in two days.' St Grace's eyes filled with tears. I will never know all the depths to that woman and how much she suffered from leaving her own child at only 2 years of age. But what I do know is the sadness and struggle of it all has not left a shred of bitterness behind in her. Her strong faith has helped her work things through. 'That Holy Sepulchre has answered many of your prayers, hasn't it Grace,' I joked to her the other day. She shook her head, laughing, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. 'We ask for things, we ask again, we try to do good. And then we wait. Wait for the answers.' she said.
I'm looking forward to her being back, and working with us in a slightly different capacity. With a bit of extra space between us, we can appreciate each other even more, like when you move back from a painting in a gallery to wonder at it more wholly.
***
The first few weeks with a new baby is like living in marshmallow land: everything is soft, sweet and squishy, with the moments melding languidly into each other making me wonder what we did with our time. Each anecdote and action is in danger of being immediately forgotten as the body takes over from the head, and locks into provision mode until the baby is about 3 months old when some clarity and angles appear from the mallowy madness. I think a production cycle is almost exactly a year - 9 months in the making, and 3 more to rejoin the wheel on which other non-hormonal humans spin.
The interesting thing about having a third child, as Rashimi pointed out, is that 'The Pea is all of our baby'. Not just J's and mine. And the beauty of having multiple kinder is you get to observe as well as participate, while the small strands of relationships begin to form between ourselves like a tiny web - our threads linking to each other and back and on towards a different human in the family. The web is more complex and the dwarfs thoughts and actions towards their small sister are intriguing and funny.
The Lozenge had drawn a picture of 'Petra and the Planets' and stuck it on the door in time for her arrival home. The small, and the infinitesimally enormous, combined on one purple bit of paper stuck to her new bedroom, formerly the dwarf zone, with 'mathking tape' without which the Lozenge does not spin happily in his own personal orbit.
With each new child, the level of chaos and lack of control creeps down a notch. The new normal is now a new level of chaos, I thought as I hurried from delivering the dwarfs at school to give the Pea some more immunisations, her little body like a sack of new potatoes dangling around my front in a hastily hitched sling, her small purple mottled calves sticking out like frogs legs, causing bemused looks from Palestinian passers by who do not carry their children in this way.
The night before, I'd threaded Rashimi into a spiderman suit while feeding the Pea and operating the TV control with the other hand for the Lozenge, and Rashimi observed: 'Wow, Mummy, that is cool. You can feed the baby and put on my thpiderman suit at the same time. You're just like Mr Clever!' He's right. I often find myself carrying the Pea, still feeding, on her cushion around my waist while I go to answer the door or reach for the phone. Like the lady with the ice cream tray around her waist at the theatre. There's no limit to what you'll try to avoid screaming Peas or histrionic dwarfs. Life becomes a constant conquest for calm. And life for those first few weeks and months is purely about milk, which is also reflected in our conversations.
I'm not a natural milk cow and I complained to J one day somewhat tearfully that the Pea would have starved to death by now if we were in the wild. Or we'd have been eaten by an animal because I had to sit there for so long feeding, for her to get enough. Even with the third child the 'breastapo' breast feeding warriors can make you feel bad about using formula milk. But fortunately if you're married to a man, only one of you will be surfing on hormones. J replied calmly: 'But the great thing is, we're not in the wild Luce, and we can use the formula milk when we don't have quite enough,' giving me a huge hug.
And the constant feeding allows room for dwarf observations, who are never far away. They miss nothing.
While playing with a little friend who has no brothers or sisters yet, Rashimi explained: 'Did you know, Dylan? That milk cometh out of Mummy'th boobies?' he enquired of his friend who was staring with interest as the Pea had her fourth meal of the day.
'Yeah,' continued the Lozenge, 'she's just like a cow.'
'And a cow. That can talk!' marvelled Rashimi putting a final piece of Lego on the garage they were building.
Later that day the dwarfs flanked me, their hot breath near to the Pea's face, their hands, which looked so enormous compared to hers, leaning on our bodies. 'Do babieth have bones?' mused Rashimi kneading the Pea's legs, while the Lozenge whipped out one of the pads from my bra and said: 'Mummy, what'th this?' putting it on his head, while Rashimi did the same with the other. They sat there either side of me with the white pads on their heads. 'They look like those hats that men wear on the street! But their oneth are black!' referring to the Jewish kippa hats we see every day.
As he left for school one morning, Rashimi asked. 'Mummy, is it alright if I can see your boobies?'
'If you don't ask, you don't get,' laughed J, helping them zip up their back packs and heading out the door.
We wondered if this would be one of Rashimi's stock chat up lines later in life.
Hopefully that one rather than another one we overheard at school: 'Did you know that dogs sniff each other's bottomth becauthe they really want to say hello to each other, but they can't talk.'
On the whole, the dwarfs seem unperturbed by the diminutive newcomer. And they don't seem resentful of how much time I've been locked down, feeding. Although the crying of the Pea does upset them and occasionally spurs them into rather effective action. At one point of fever pitch, they both crouched by her car seat rocking it enthusiastically back and forth, the Lozenge singing Jingle Bells on the kazoo, Rashimi on the castanets, and both musical boxes throwing out a clashing harmony of Brahms and Swan Lake. Some gentle snoring emanated from the car seat in a matter of minutes. This baby seems to love noise. And both dwarfs love rushing into her room to re-insert the dummy. Perhaps smelling of Nutella not baby milk is a help.
And the existence of a girl about the place is also educational. They often bathe the three of them together and the Lozenge picked up the Pea by the legs and had a good look at her bottom. 'So she doesn't have a willy,' he remarked. 'So does the wee and the poo come out of the same place like a pigeon?'
The order of things changes with each new chick in the nest, and in some ways the older ones become more independent as a result. The Lozenge had his first day out to the beach with his lovely Swedish friend.
He took a sketch book in his backpack and they had lunch in Ikea, aka 'the blue and yellow shop'. As his brother drew out in his friend's car, Rashimi sighed: 'I miss Lauwie.' They hadn't spent a day apart since January.
I feel like the time in marshmallow land is drawing to a close. I have more energy for other bits of creative activity, and my brain seems like it is creeping back into the lead again, leaving the body a close second. In some ways it reminds me of reaching the end of making a TV or film production: I am thankful for the space, but in a little corner of myself, I miss the frenetic action of the set and the adrenalin and excitement it gives.
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