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A baby's life: An observation

A friend of mine called me the other day. She is a young woman who finds herself, for reasons that don’t need discussing for this story, a mother of five. Her last pregnancy was twins; cute little boy and girl. She’s the typical mom. Loves her kids, wants the best for them and provides as best she can for their needs.

 

We were neighbors for a while and out of that relationship was born a friendship that endures five years later. We lived at the same apartment complex, very cute, nice, two bedroom apartments, where they got to know me because of my passion for gardening.

 

Mind you, the very small plots in front of the units were nearly nothing to contain my passion for planting and growing roses and lilies and arches of perfect morning glory vines.

 

We shared many a summer evening sitting outside, while we watched the neighborhood kids playing noisily in the grassy areas in the back. Las tardes frescas de verano, cool  summer evenings filled with the fragrance of nearby roses and night jasmine.

 

So this ex-neighbor and good friend calls me the other day and asks me to come over to her house, she told me that the little boy half of the twins had been crying a lot lately and she didn’t know what it was.

 

I got out of my pj’s, my normal, cool autumn evening wear, put on warm pants, and hoodie and headed over to her place, just a few short blocks away.

 

When I got there the baby was sleeping, she proceeded to tell me that the baby had been crying a lot for the past three or four days. Within half an hour of being there the baby woke up crying and straining and clearly in distress, only to calm down slowly after a couple of minutes. So I asked her all the obvious questions and she told me that he had been eating well and pooping well and no fever.

 

And as I watched this now calm baby boy in my arms, start crying again, straining, turning red and making tight little fists I knew. I turned to my friend and told her.

 

Honey the baby is suffering from pedito trabado syndrome…

 

Yes, the typical infant affliction, the little fart that’s stuck and won’t come out, making for miserable bouts of cramping and red little faces and tears and tight little fists.

 

She looked almost surprised that I said that, as if I had dared to doubt her good maternal instincts, she told me-

 

“But I burp him when he eats and he does good”

 

Having been through the experience with my own kids long ago, I patiently explained to her –

 

Yes, is true, but sometimes babies have residual gas and it gives them cramping and pain.

 

She had this worried look in her face when she asked me-

 

So what do I do?

 

I took her to the store and showed her where the infant gas drops were and how they worked. She got some and we came back to her house and administered the first dose.

 

The baby cried one more time and napped a little more. I finally left her home around ten and went home to rest. The next morning I got a call from her.

 

After exchanging pleasant buenos dias, I asked how the baby was, and she told me with a sigh of relief-

 

“Oh, he is doing good…

After you left about half an hour later he started farting…

To quote my friend the baby was “Pedito tras pedito”

Fart after little fart, until finally relieved he fell fast asleep and slept through the night in his usual fashion, after a couple of sleepless nights”

 

She said to me-

 

“Remember you told me he had pedito trabado syndrome?

 

 I was being halfway funny at the time I said it.

 

“It’s wasn’t pedito, it was peditos!”.

 

She was actually a little more descriptive than that. As she put it at one point in our conversation, it was like a tiny motorcycle gang had hit town. You know, the fourth of July. I could go on, the comparisons are endless. Some of you may be begging me to stop by now.

 

In any case she went on to tell me that her other kids had never suffered from that problem, a first, for this young mother.

 

I am glad for our friendship, more of a sisterhood really. My friend and her family, besides my daughter, are about the closest thing to a family here in good old Delano. I am blessed to have them in my life and that I can be there if she or my adopted nephews ever need me.   

 

I know that some who read this story may think…Uh…gross.

 

It may very well be, but it is life, and we all go through our little incidents, and accidents and life experiences, similar things, though maybe different circumstances.

 

Is just part of our shared experience, part  of the common thread that ties us as the human family we are. The shared experience of a baby’s inability to fart, un pedito trabado en la noche, and the sweet release when it comes. A good night’s sleep...