Thoughts About Lucas

Carol's Point Of View

I had put Lucas in his chair that was attached to the table. I looked in the fridge for baby yoghurts. Finding no baby yoghurts, I looked into the cupboard to see what powdered foods Lucas liked to eat. I found a rice powdered cream. It was Yiotis like Eleni had enjoyed when she was Lucas's age. Tina had refused to eat any Yiotis creams and had only eaten baby yoghurts. I looked at the instructions because it was such a long time since I made food like this for the girls. After I had mixed in the hot water, I checked that the food was cool enough for Lucas to eat.

Something I had learnt by feeding Eleni was that babies had to sit upright when they were being fed. My mother-in-law had tried to feed Eleni in her arms so that Eleni's head was back. My mother-in-law believed that babies couldn't choke at six months and tried to plough a lot of the cream into Eleni's mouth. The result was that Eleni choked and my mother-in-law apologised when she proved herself wrong. It's also better to give a small amount of food at a time.

I later learned that my mother-in-law, Angeliki, had not spent much time with her children when they were babies. Her mother and father looked after my husband and sister-in-law, when they were babies. Angeliki was running a hairdresser salon at the time. I think this caused her to have strange theories because of the lack of experience. Because of running the shop, Angeliki only breastfed for six weeks and then she went back to work. It meant that Angeliki had not that much experience of breastfeeding either or changing diapers in the middle of the night. Because once she went back to work, Angeliki could no longer look after babies in the night and so her mother took over.

If you breastfeed babies for more than six weeks for at least six months, you usually have to change diapers at night. In the first few months, Angeliki didn't realise that new mothers breastfeeding could change up to twelve diapers a day. Because she only breastfed for six weeks, it's possible she forgot how many times she had to change diapers initially.

Lucas I guessed was over six months because he could hold his head up on his own. His head wouldn't flap around if I didn't support it. That is why I realised that he should be eating solids. The question was would he like pureed fruit. Eleni had eaten pureed fruit without adding petit beurre cookies, plain apple and pear for a while. Then she ate it with yoghurt. Then with orange juice, then with petit beurre cookies and last powdered fruit with cookies. Tina had never wanted to eat fruit puree, she quickly wanted to eat lumps of fruit. She didn't like blended soups for very long either. Tina liked lumps in her soup.

At first Eleni would come home from nursery and eat some of Tina's soup. Even without the salt. I wondered if Lucas would eat the soup pureed or with lumps. If he was just over six months old, he would probably not be eating soup with meat until he was nine months old. I would check with his paediatrician when he would have soup with meat and vegetables.

The paediatrician, we had for Eleni and Tina, had died of a heart attack in my reality. Was he still alive in this reality? I suppose I will soon find out. We had stopped going to the paediatrician who had looked after the girls when they were babies because he was too far away. We found a paediatrician that had a practice near us, so Lucas may be taken to the latter. Even if Eleni and Tina's first paediatrician was still alive we still might not visit his practice.

I looked for a teaspoon in the cutlery drawer and looked for a bib because I was good at missing babies' mouths. I started to feed Lucas small mouthfuls of creamed rice pudding. Lucas was a good eater and in no time had finished all his food. Not too much was round his mouth and though there was some on his bib because it was rice pudding it would not stain his clothes. I thought that I wouldn't be able to look after a baby again, that I would have forgotten how but I was remembering how it felt. I had begun to feel tired, like I hadn't had a lot of sleep. I must be sleep deprived. Lucas probably wasn't sleeping all the way through the night. Most parents fantasised about their child sleeping through the night at six months. Those parents whose child slept through the night always gloated about it.

I remembered having dreams about having another child. In them, I panicked. I realised that we needed to buy another pram and buy a new bed. In my dreams, I was pregnant at first and was freaking out because we needed to buy clothes because I had given all the girl's baby clothes away. Thinking about it now, it didn't matter if I gave all the clothes away if the baby was a boy because I didn't have any clothes for a boy anyway. I would still have to buy all new clothes. This time I didn't have my mother. She had given me baby clothes from her workplace. One of the perks of working at a place that made clothes, and distributed clothes from other countries to English shops, was that you could buy clothes at extremely low prices. I had thrown Tina's and Eleni's pram away because it became damaged when it had fallen down a hill on holiday. As for the girls' cot I had given it away because the plan was to not have any more children.

When the girls, Lucas and I were back at the car before leaving to go home, I didn't know how to put the pram down but I feigned a mental block and Eleni helped me collapse it so I could put it in the car. She was annoyed at me because she couldn't believe I didn't know how to do such a simple procedure. I couldn't tell her I was from another reality. Instead, I had to put up with the flashes of annoyance from a pair of beautiful blue eyes. What would she have thought if I told her the truth? Would Eleni think I was delusional? I had never used a pushchair like this in my other life. It was different from the one I had with Eleni and Tina. I don't know what Tina thought because she was quiet as usual. Had Tina been rolling her eyes like Eleni? At least the baby seat was the same. It was already set up so I didn't have to worry.

I didn't want to have more children because when the girls were babies I was a nervous wreck. I constantly worried about cot death. I constantly worried that one day I would wake up and they would be dead. For some reason, I wasn't as worried about this with Lucas. For some reason, I decided I needed my phone. I remembered there was a message on my phone that I hadn't checked. I looked for my mobile and found it on the table near the door. It was a place I often put it when I entered the house. Looking at my phone I found a message. It was from my psychiatrist's secretary. It was thanking me for confirming my appointment the next evening. I realised I would have to talk to Nikos because he would have to look after Lucas tomorrow night. I didn't want to take Lucas with me.

While I was thinking this I put Lucas down on his mat on the floor and put the tv on. Soon I heard Nikos's shoes squeaking up the stairs to our house.

"Hi Niko," I said as Nikos entered the house.

"Hi Carol. Γεια Luca (Hi Luca)!" Nikos said, coming over to where Lucas and I were sitting. He lifted Lucas into his arms and asked, "Where are the girls?"

"They are doing some homework because they have school again next week. Before I forget I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, can you look after Lucas for an hour or two?" I asked.

" Tina has Kung Fu tomorrow-" he said, a bit annoyed.

"I know but can't you take him with you. It's important for me to go to the psychiatrist and I think it will be difficult to take Lucas with me."