Saturday, October 30, 2010

Modeling Mothering

Rosetta does most of the writing here, but I wanted to jump in to talk about mothering.

Rosetta had modeled mothering for the last several years.  Of Sierra's 3 years and 28 days of life, Rosetta spent 3 years and 27 days with her.  The one day she didn't, our other daughter Ruby was born so she was a little busy.  But its not so much about the number of days spent, its about what she did during those days.

When Sierra was in NICU, the doctors put a feeding tube in her stomach because they said she would never be able to eat normally.  Rosetta found a special kind of bottle called a Haberman that assisted kids with with sucking reflexes to learn to suck.  Within two months, the tube was out.

This does not mean that feeding Sierra was easy.  She eventually learned to suck well enough to go to a regular baby bottle and then to a sippy cup, but feedings typically took at least half an hour, many times longer.  On top of that, Sierra typically couldn't go to the bathroom on her own, so Rosetta spent significant time each day helping her make this happen.

On top of all that, there were endless therapies and appointments.  It started out with taking her to a chiropractor in Austin twice a week.  Eventually we switched to a chiropractor in Temple, but then found a good massage therapist in Austin that she started taking her to.  This involved significant drive time, not to mention the various local therapies that she took her to, or had therapists come to the house for.  Most of the time any time Rosetta got to herself was after midnight, if she got it at all!

Sierra's cues were very subtle.  Many times I wouldn't even pick up on them.  But Rosetta did, even if it was the middle of the night and she was asleep.  Rosetta was so tuned in that if anything was amiss she would wake right up and tend to Sierra.

Sierra could not have had a more caring mother who dedicated her life to her daughter and giving her every opportunity.

1 comments:

Shannon Wallace said...

Rosetta is a blessing from God. :o) Thank you for recognizing her for being such a wonderful mommy! God bless!