It’s been a long time since “a dollar an hour per kid” made me a rich tweenager, and the cost of babysitting now makes me suck my breath in every time. We’re feeling the burn of double day care payments and fifty other increased expenses, and as worried as anyone about our financial future, but lately our usual friends-and-family sitters have been unavailable for one reason and another, so over the past couple of months we've ended up paying for babysitting several times. The extravagance is enough to make me almost grind my teeth down.
But how fantastic to leave the house with A, practically empty-handed, walk in silence down the steps, open and close two car doors, and drive away together.
Saturday was A’s and my sixth anniversary. Ingrid’s old teacher, T, came at 5:30, fed the girls dinner, played with them a bit, and put them to bed. We went to a new Indian restaurant in the neighborhood, and I (swaggering a little before the young waiter who questioned my ability to handle the heat) ate a meal of chicken vindaloo that threatened to sear a layer of skin out of my mouth and esophagus. We discussed what would happen if we both lost our jobs. (“We’d still love each other!” I gushed, grabbing for my ice water again. “We could live in my parents’ basement!”) We progressed to a new-ish neighborhood bar, where the greatest hits from our junior high years were playing, and A convinced me to order a Belgian beer that came in a round-bottomed glass with a wooden stand.
“Do you notice how it’s staying cooler that way?” he asked, when I was about a third of the way into it.
“No, but I notice I am getting very drunk.” It turns out I have become even more of a lightweight than I used to be.
Rumor has it that this year will bring the seven-year itch. “What do you think that involves?” A asked.
In our relationship, there is one person with itchy, dry skin, who does a lot of scratching in the privacy of her home. And one person who doesn’t even scratch his own mosquito bites and can’t bear the sound and sight of the scratching. I am the scratcher. “Lots of scratching,” I answered. “Probably lots of scratching.”
Ingrid, it turns out, loves it when T comes over. After three weeks of T taking care of the girls while A was traveling and I was at poetry class, she was a little disappointed that Daddy would be the only adult around while I was at class yesterday, and confused about why T wasn’t coming.
“Mama, when will you and Daddy go to your university again?”
Aaah, right. Five syllable word with “versuh” in the middle. “Probably soon, kiddo. Probably sometime soon.” As soon as we can afford it.
Showing posts with label if only i could sing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label if only i could sing. Show all posts
10.08.2008
9.16.2008
Less Stingy (apologies to William Carlos Williams)
This is just to say
This morning I used up
two half-full boxes
of baking soda
and a whole bottle
of organic white vinegar
making volcanoes with Ingrid
in the sandbox.
Forgive me.
She loved it, and it smelled
like childhood.
This morning I used up
two half-full boxes
of baking soda
and a whole bottle
of organic white vinegar
making volcanoes with Ingrid
in the sandbox.
Forgive me.
She loved it, and it smelled
like childhood.
7.30.2008
Postcards from the Best Summer Ever
I spent last summer slowed by the sweet weight of Iris, first in my belly, then in my arms. The summer before that, I was barely emerging from the fog of the first year of motherhood, and afraid, still, of getting my baby dirty. The previous year I was frozen in the heat, shuffling through sweaty, milky postpartum days. And before that trails a string of nondescript grownup summers, indistinguishable, almost, from winter in their bland air-conditioned office chill.
But this summer. This summer the weather is gentle and we spend hours at the park, the girls and me, getting filthy. A joins us after work for picnic dinners, and we add watermelon juice to the layers of sweat and sand and sunscreen. Ingrid is brave on the ladders up to the big slides, even swings alone on her tummy while A and I eat and Iris showers her own back with fistfuls of sand.
...
Ingrid is in an easy time—eager, interested, easily soothed. During Iris's morning nap, we do special fun things together. I build us an obstacle course ("oxtable horse") in the backyard, and we follow each other under the low pear tree branches, over the picnic table, and along the winding line of the garden hose in the grass.
We raid the fridge and empty all the eggs into a bowl so we can cut the carton into cardboard caterpillars. We each paint one, sitting on the warm backyard path, and then rinse our purple hands in the sandy wading pool.
I lay paper over an ivy leaf and rub across it with the breadth of a blue crayon, touching foreheads, almost, with Ingrid, as we watch the veins of the leaf emerge—the thick, prominent lines first, then the finer ones...more on the paper than we can see in the leaf itself.
...
One night last weekend after Iris was in bed, I was cleaning up the kitchen, and A and Ingrid were in the backyard. "Caro," I heard him say. "Come here for a sec." I dried my hands and stepped out the back door to see him lying on his back on the concrete walkway, his head resting on the bottom porch step. "Lie down here with me. The ground is warm, and the air is just perfect."
The ground was warm; the air was perfect. We lay watching the high-up wind drag the thinnest veil of cloud across the sky. We could hear cars on the next street over and each leaf of the neighbors' elm tree rattling just slightly. Ingrid puttered between porch and living room, bringing blankets and stuffed animals to drape over our chests and nestle near our necks—we were her dental patients, receiving rewards for our "good cooperating". We lay there for minutes and minutes, quiet, resting.
...
But this summer. This summer the weather is gentle and we spend hours at the park, the girls and me, getting filthy. A joins us after work for picnic dinners, and we add watermelon juice to the layers of sweat and sand and sunscreen. Ingrid is brave on the ladders up to the big slides, even swings alone on her tummy while A and I eat and Iris showers her own back with fistfuls of sand.
...
Ingrid is in an easy time—eager, interested, easily soothed. During Iris's morning nap, we do special fun things together. I build us an obstacle course ("oxtable horse") in the backyard, and we follow each other under the low pear tree branches, over the picnic table, and along the winding line of the garden hose in the grass.
We raid the fridge and empty all the eggs into a bowl so we can cut the carton into cardboard caterpillars. We each paint one, sitting on the warm backyard path, and then rinse our purple hands in the sandy wading pool.
I lay paper over an ivy leaf and rub across it with the breadth of a blue crayon, touching foreheads, almost, with Ingrid, as we watch the veins of the leaf emerge—the thick, prominent lines first, then the finer ones...more on the paper than we can see in the leaf itself.
...
One night last weekend after Iris was in bed, I was cleaning up the kitchen, and A and Ingrid were in the backyard. "Caro," I heard him say. "Come here for a sec." I dried my hands and stepped out the back door to see him lying on his back on the concrete walkway, his head resting on the bottom porch step. "Lie down here with me. The ground is warm, and the air is just perfect."
The ground was warm; the air was perfect. We lay watching the high-up wind drag the thinnest veil of cloud across the sky. We could hear cars on the next street over and each leaf of the neighbors' elm tree rattling just slightly. Ingrid puttered between porch and living room, bringing blankets and stuffed animals to drape over our chests and nestle near our necks—we were her dental patients, receiving rewards for our "good cooperating". We lay there for minutes and minutes, quiet, resting.
...
We drive to the CSA pickup spot with the windows open, nixing the A/C and letting the breeze cool us and mess up our hair, blasting the Music Together CD and singing Jumpin' Josie with every set of words we can think of, wearing clothes that have seen a day of play. We pull up in the driveway next to a spotless Saab. I watch a well-pressed suited woman emerging from the cool of her car on her way home from work. Looking at all that neatness, all that control, I am surprised to realize that for a change I lack envy. This is what I want. This is freedom.
7.07.2008
Dreamy
The red currants are ripe, and both girls know how to pick them—Ingrid conscientiously placing most of hers in the bowl, and Iris with great concentration and two tiny fingers. The herbs—parsley, dill, mint, sage, basil—are ready to be pinched back and harvested. There are flowers, and Ingrid and I clip a little bouquet for the table: coneflowers, amaranth, lavender.
It's hot out, but not too hot to run. There've been warm, breezy days, and no rain since I can remember, but lots of help watering the garden, and lots of time in the wading pool in the backyard and the big pool at the park.
Iris's hair is a couple of inches long, and in the humidity it whips into ringlets. She is intrepid, standing on the seat of the child-sized rocking chair, holding the back with one hand and rocking it, brave and strong as a tiny cowgirl. Everywhere, she looks for things to climb. She is becoming lean and uncontainable.
Ingrid is mysterious as ever, but affection and joy rise up. At the park, she throws off her shoes before I've even set down our bag and wades to the middle of the pool. Look at me, Mama! Look at me! She makes a bed for the two of us on the couch and asks me to lie with her under the blanket and read Shel Silverstein poems. She hugs me—for the first time, I realize, in ages—with arms that suddenly seem so long.
Our CSA delivers strawberries—pints of them that keep coming: one, two, three, four, five. And heaps of salad greens, piles of chard, and handfuls of sweet peas. Ingrid helps me make shortcake biscuits. We eat dinner outside.
We end the days, all of us, covered with the evidence. Sand inside diapers and undies and under my watch band; fingers and faces stained with berry juice; arms and legs and cheeks mosquito-bitten and smeared with dirt; the knees of tiny pairs of pants filthy and scraped; sweat—mine and theirs—everywhere.
For the first time in a long time, I wish this could last forever.
It's hot out, but not too hot to run. There've been warm, breezy days, and no rain since I can remember, but lots of help watering the garden, and lots of time in the wading pool in the backyard and the big pool at the park.
Iris's hair is a couple of inches long, and in the humidity it whips into ringlets. She is intrepid, standing on the seat of the child-sized rocking chair, holding the back with one hand and rocking it, brave and strong as a tiny cowgirl. Everywhere, she looks for things to climb. She is becoming lean and uncontainable.
Ingrid is mysterious as ever, but affection and joy rise up. At the park, she throws off her shoes before I've even set down our bag and wades to the middle of the pool. Look at me, Mama! Look at me! She makes a bed for the two of us on the couch and asks me to lie with her under the blanket and read Shel Silverstein poems. She hugs me—for the first time, I realize, in ages—with arms that suddenly seem so long.
Our CSA delivers strawberries—pints of them that keep coming: one, two, three, four, five. And heaps of salad greens, piles of chard, and handfuls of sweet peas. Ingrid helps me make shortcake biscuits. We eat dinner outside.
We end the days, all of us, covered with the evidence. Sand inside diapers and undies and under my watch band; fingers and faces stained with berry juice; arms and legs and cheeks mosquito-bitten and smeared with dirt; the knees of tiny pairs of pants filthy and scraped; sweat—mine and theirs—everywhere.
For the first time in a long time, I wish this could last forever.
7.02.2008
Our Friends on the Outside
Our friends C and J come over for dinner every week, usually on Thursday, when our shared box of CSA vegetables arrives. They are terrific people. Cooking and eating and sitting around the table with them is a deep and reliable source of pleasure. And there's something else, too.
One Thursday in May, C came over early to bake a birthday cake (their oven was broken). Ingrid had refused, in a dramatic and whiny way, to nap, and, in the middle of a long afternoon with an overtired girl, I was relieved to have another grownup in the house. Iris was napping, and Ingrid stood on the stool next to C as he mixed eggs and flour and sugar, coconut and pecans. I kept ducking into the living room to breathe air uninhabited by children, the way some punk would lean out the window to sneak a smoke.
But the few minutes of rest weren't the best part. The best part was what C said later, J nodding along, after both girls were in bed and all four of us were warm with wine and arugula and cake: If I lived with Ingrid, I’d do a lot more baking.
More baking? I didn't get it until he went on, She loves batter. It’s so much fun.
Oh my God, I thought. Fun. I’d forgotten.
Ingrid does love batter. She loves watching us mix things, loves getting her fingers in there, getting covered with it: cheeks, wrists, elbows, neck. She says, I love it! She mutters, sticky-tongued, smacking batter off of her fingers: Mmm. Tastes like whoop cream. Tastes like whoop cream.
And if you’ve had a good night’s sleep—and if you’re wearing a clean shirt, and if you’ve spent at least a few hours recently without anyone climbing up your torso or shrilly demanding your undivided attention—then apparently it’s easy to see what that girl on the stool with her arm in the bowl really is: a joy. A pure example of total sugar-coated delight. And funny, too.
Everyone talks about it taking a village, and about how we need the arms of friends to share the work of cooking and caring and carrying. These friends have definitely got arms. The four of us take turns chopping and grilling and stir frying, soothing and (this falls mostly to J on our dinner nights) imagining and playing—changing one pretend poopy diaper after another, inventing elaborate dances for each of Ingrid's unique and beloved stuffed animals.
As I think about that cake baking day, though, I realize that, often, even more than their arms, I need their eyes. Eyes that are fresh to all of this.
And being a mother—being embroiled, so often, in discipline or struggle or shoulder-to-the-wheel loneliness or just plain exhaustion—I can tell you how very, very rarely I have it in me to offer that to another mom. There is freshness in loving children but being childless. There is something we parents keep using up that these friends—without, I think, thinking about it very much—replenish.
I am sure there are times C and J would rather be visiting friends with less chaotic pre-dinner hours, cleaner place mats, more reliable short-term memories. Their lives, just like ours, are work. But the kind of energy they have left at the end of each day is often different from what we've got. It's the kind of energy that can stand to change a couple of pretend poopy diapers. The kind that can look at a sticky three-year-old and see fun.
We tell them we're glad they're around, and I think they believe us. But I'm afraid my absurd, sloppy gratitude can't ever quite make sense to them. Without experiencing it for myself, I don't know if I'd have ever believed that all a person needs to do to make my day or, hell, my whole week, is come over and bake a cake with my kid at three in the afternoon and then say they liked it. But it's true: that's all it takes. And these two lovely people do it over and over, and I'm so grateful.
One Thursday in May, C came over early to bake a birthday cake (their oven was broken). Ingrid had refused, in a dramatic and whiny way, to nap, and, in the middle of a long afternoon with an overtired girl, I was relieved to have another grownup in the house. Iris was napping, and Ingrid stood on the stool next to C as he mixed eggs and flour and sugar, coconut and pecans. I kept ducking into the living room to breathe air uninhabited by children, the way some punk would lean out the window to sneak a smoke.
But the few minutes of rest weren't the best part. The best part was what C said later, J nodding along, after both girls were in bed and all four of us were warm with wine and arugula and cake: If I lived with Ingrid, I’d do a lot more baking.
More baking? I didn't get it until he went on, She loves batter. It’s so much fun.
Oh my God, I thought. Fun. I’d forgotten.
Ingrid does love batter. She loves watching us mix things, loves getting her fingers in there, getting covered with it: cheeks, wrists, elbows, neck. She says, I love it! She mutters, sticky-tongued, smacking batter off of her fingers: Mmm. Tastes like whoop cream. Tastes like whoop cream.
And if you’ve had a good night’s sleep—and if you’re wearing a clean shirt, and if you’ve spent at least a few hours recently without anyone climbing up your torso or shrilly demanding your undivided attention—then apparently it’s easy to see what that girl on the stool with her arm in the bowl really is: a joy. A pure example of total sugar-coated delight. And funny, too.
Everyone talks about it taking a village, and about how we need the arms of friends to share the work of cooking and caring and carrying. These friends have definitely got arms. The four of us take turns chopping and grilling and stir frying, soothing and (this falls mostly to J on our dinner nights) imagining and playing—changing one pretend poopy diaper after another, inventing elaborate dances for each of Ingrid's unique and beloved stuffed animals.
As I think about that cake baking day, though, I realize that, often, even more than their arms, I need their eyes. Eyes that are fresh to all of this.
And being a mother—being embroiled, so often, in discipline or struggle or shoulder-to-the-wheel loneliness or just plain exhaustion—I can tell you how very, very rarely I have it in me to offer that to another mom. There is freshness in loving children but being childless. There is something we parents keep using up that these friends—without, I think, thinking about it very much—replenish.
I am sure there are times C and J would rather be visiting friends with less chaotic pre-dinner hours, cleaner place mats, more reliable short-term memories. Their lives, just like ours, are work. But the kind of energy they have left at the end of each day is often different from what we've got. It's the kind of energy that can stand to change a couple of pretend poopy diapers. The kind that can look at a sticky three-year-old and see fun.
We tell them we're glad they're around, and I think they believe us. But I'm afraid my absurd, sloppy gratitude can't ever quite make sense to them. Without experiencing it for myself, I don't know if I'd have ever believed that all a person needs to do to make my day or, hell, my whole week, is come over and bake a cake with my kid at three in the afternoon and then say they liked it. But it's true: that's all it takes. And these two lovely people do it over and over, and I'm so grateful.
5.23.2008
Miracle
(Two days ago, near the breakfast table.)
Ingrid: (Stands near Iris wearing pink felted slippers.)
Iris: (Pulls at flower ornaments on slippers, tries to put in mouth.)
Ingrid: (Yells.) NO, IRIS! (Bats Iris’s hand away.)
caro: You need to find a gentler way to tell her no. You could just step back and say…
Ingrid: (Interrupts.) Here, Iris. (Sits on floor and removes slippers one at a time, handing each to Iris.) You can play with these now, and then I’ll have a turn when you’re done.
Ingrid: (Stands near Iris wearing pink felted slippers.)
Iris: (Pulls at flower ornaments on slippers, tries to put in mouth.)
Ingrid: (Yells.) NO, IRIS! (Bats Iris’s hand away.)
caro: You need to find a gentler way to tell her no. You could just step back and say…
Ingrid: (Interrupts.) Here, Iris. (Sits on floor and removes slippers one at a time, handing each to Iris.) You can play with these now, and then I’ll have a turn when you’re done.
4.20.2008
Running Again
I’m wearing the t-shirt from the last 10K I ran, and it’s 2008 but the giant green numbers on the shirt say 1990. And the pants I’m running in are yoga pants that have all the perk of a spent condom, having stretched and collapsed with me through two pregnancies. The college women running by me, although I still expect some sisterhood, are looking at me like 1990? And the runners who really hold my gaze like comrades, like, I know who you are and what you’re doing? They are old. My pelvis makes a blunt snapping sound every few steps, as though it’s about to fold in half.
I remember so distinctly being 18 and peeling off this same t-shirt in my dorm room after a run. That room smelled like old straw and my roommate’s hair conditioner and hazelnut coffee. I remember looking down at my body and thinking I am a woman now. Look at this body—I am lithe and awesome. Why am I just now noticing how beautiful I am?
Then, I was always under the eyes of that boyfriend. My love for him seemed singular. It was as singular as anyone’s love for her 18-year-old boyfriend, and as wrong-headed. But I can’t keep from being fond and teary remembering it. It’s what taught me to love my hips, my breasts. It was the first time I felt exactly the same size as my skin.
All of a sudden I’m not carrying a two-pound Walkman blaring Crowded House; I’ve got an iPod Shuffle tucked into my bra strap and I’m getting weepy over Jerry Springer’s lost dreams. The skin of my stomach actually hangs down a little bit over my waistband.
And all of a sudden the person I lie next to is a man whose love throws that age-18 romance up as the strange, giddy shadow of a thing it really was. We are swimming in the ocean together, we two, all the days we've had together buoying us. He knows about my stomach. We have seen each other ugly. We have looked together at the most beautiful things on earth.
I am so much braver now. I can see so much better. I have amazing biceps from three straight years of carrying giant babies. I know better what to say, and what to be quiet about, and how to stay powerful doing both. God, look at me! Look at me, huffing my way through twelve-minute miles, ridiculous saggy boobs and all. Look at me! Now I am a woman.
_______________________
Random note: Remember the post getupgrrl wrote one time about running? She was emerging from a miserable many months, and she wrote about the feeling of being ready to run again, setting her shoes by the door. Not strong again yet, but ready to get there. Remember getupgrrl? This is one of my least favorite things about blogging: people can write and write and write and then disappear. I know about her running shoes and how the sky looked to her on the worst day of her life. And now where is she? It doesn’t seem right.
I remember so distinctly being 18 and peeling off this same t-shirt in my dorm room after a run. That room smelled like old straw and my roommate’s hair conditioner and hazelnut coffee. I remember looking down at my body and thinking I am a woman now. Look at this body—I am lithe and awesome. Why am I just now noticing how beautiful I am?
Then, I was always under the eyes of that boyfriend. My love for him seemed singular. It was as singular as anyone’s love for her 18-year-old boyfriend, and as wrong-headed. But I can’t keep from being fond and teary remembering it. It’s what taught me to love my hips, my breasts. It was the first time I felt exactly the same size as my skin.
All of a sudden I’m not carrying a two-pound Walkman blaring Crowded House; I’ve got an iPod Shuffle tucked into my bra strap and I’m getting weepy over Jerry Springer’s lost dreams. The skin of my stomach actually hangs down a little bit over my waistband.
And all of a sudden the person I lie next to is a man whose love throws that age-18 romance up as the strange, giddy shadow of a thing it really was. We are swimming in the ocean together, we two, all the days we've had together buoying us. He knows about my stomach. We have seen each other ugly. We have looked together at the most beautiful things on earth.
I am so much braver now. I can see so much better. I have amazing biceps from three straight years of carrying giant babies. I know better what to say, and what to be quiet about, and how to stay powerful doing both. God, look at me! Look at me, huffing my way through twelve-minute miles, ridiculous saggy boobs and all. Look at me! Now I am a woman.
_______________________
Random note: Remember the post getupgrrl wrote one time about running? She was emerging from a miserable many months, and she wrote about the feeling of being ready to run again, setting her shoes by the door. Not strong again yet, but ready to get there. Remember getupgrrl? This is one of my least favorite things about blogging: people can write and write and write and then disappear. I know about her running shoes and how the sky looked to her on the worst day of her life. And now where is she? It doesn’t seem right.
4.17.2008
Writer
I'm a writer, you'd say, and I'd think, Well, when was your novel published? Or have your essays appeared in The New Yorker? No? Well then you are middle aged, likely recently divorced, and have been reading Julia Cameron.
Then last month I told some friends of ours—good friends: people we see every week—about the poem that was accepted for publication this winter*, and they were surprised. Have you always liked to write? they asked. Subtext: You write? Really?
Well, yes. I write. Have scrawled in notebooks ever since I discovered that spiral-bounds could be purchased by the stack at the grocery store. Have considered it a practice ever since I ripped through Writing Down the Bones in a public library armchair one Saturday in high school. The best part of my job is the writing. The best part of my plans is what I'll write next.
And yet, somehow, my writing is a surprise to the best of my friends. How can I have kept this a secret?
Trying to bring in a little extra income, I'm working on picking up some contract writing jobs. Newsletters, brochures, whatever editing work I can find. Part of getting this going is updating my résumé. Opening a separate business checking account. Making business cards. On those cards and those new checks, I'm having printed, under my name, Writer. Call me middle aged. (I'm 34, thanks.) Say it's wishful thinking. Damn the self-help books. Question my credentials. Whatever. I write. Have always written. Will always. Am, have been, and really always plan to be. A writer.
---------
*Accepted for the spring issue of this journal, and it's still not out. Come on! Spring is here! Even in Minnesota!
Then last month I told some friends of ours—good friends: people we see every week—about the poem that was accepted for publication this winter*, and they were surprised. Have you always liked to write? they asked. Subtext: You write? Really?
Well, yes. I write. Have scrawled in notebooks ever since I discovered that spiral-bounds could be purchased by the stack at the grocery store. Have considered it a practice ever since I ripped through Writing Down the Bones in a public library armchair one Saturday in high school. The best part of my job is the writing. The best part of my plans is what I'll write next.
And yet, somehow, my writing is a surprise to the best of my friends. How can I have kept this a secret?
Trying to bring in a little extra income, I'm working on picking up some contract writing jobs. Newsletters, brochures, whatever editing work I can find. Part of getting this going is updating my résumé. Opening a separate business checking account. Making business cards. On those cards and those new checks, I'm having printed, under my name, Writer. Call me middle aged. (I'm 34, thanks.) Say it's wishful thinking. Damn the self-help books. Question my credentials. Whatever. I write. Have always written. Will always. Am, have been, and really always plan to be. A writer.
---------
*Accepted for the spring issue of this journal, and it's still not out. Come on! Spring is here! Even in Minnesota!
4.05.2008
Web
So, we did have an IM conversation. Friday. And it was messier (shocking! I know!) than what I imagined. Having, after all, some boundaries about what I post on the internet, I won't go into detail, except that it was one of the most bittersweet, cathartic conversations I've ever been in.
He did say he was sorry. And I said it was ok. And meant it.
This morning the four of us went for a walk in the sun. My brother-in-law came over to borrow a saw, and at the same time a friend called needing me to drive her to the hospital (she cut her hand). There was logistical shifting and asking for help in various directions, and we did what we needed to do and later went for a walk to the park and ran into a family from Ingrid's day care. A big bunch of friends came for dinner.
All winter we clung together, the four of us, tangled in this sticky little life, not looking out, not seeing who else we could touch. And now the doors are open again and we are inhaling. Lending and borrowing and helping again. No longer hunkered down. It's good.
And it's good—if unnerving—to remember that I can still reach people way out there on the periphery—old loves, old friends. People who from so far away can still make my world tremble just a little.
He did say he was sorry. And I said it was ok. And meant it.
This morning the four of us went for a walk in the sun. My brother-in-law came over to borrow a saw, and at the same time a friend called needing me to drive her to the hospital (she cut her hand). There was logistical shifting and asking for help in various directions, and we did what we needed to do and later went for a walk to the park and ran into a family from Ingrid's day care. A big bunch of friends came for dinner.
All winter we clung together, the four of us, tangled in this sticky little life, not looking out, not seeing who else we could touch. And now the doors are open again and we are inhaling. Lending and borrowing and helping again. No longer hunkered down. It's good.
And it's good—if unnerving—to remember that I can still reach people way out there on the periphery—old loves, old friends. People who from so far away can still make my world tremble just a little.
3.30.2008
Sweetness
Ingrid hadn't nursed since December, but this morning while I was feeding Iris she asked to, and I let her. She couldn't remember exactly how to latch on. She got a little, and laughed and said There's not enough milk in there! Iris noticed what Ingrid was doing and started to laugh, and for a full minute they both nursed and laughed, nursed and laughed. *
I'm reading about music and all the ways our brains can turn it around. One person in ten thousand can recognize and name each tone just as easily as I can call the sky blue. It's possible to hallucinate music, hear it ceaselessly, as though a radio is on and can't be turned off. It's possible to lack—or lose—the ability to "hear" music at all; it can sound like nothing but noise. And a stroke of lightning can uncoil, in a regular guy, a passion so great that he teaches himself to play the piano and stays up all night composing.
*
A's dad taps his maple trees every spring and cooks down the sap in a vat over a fire. We drove up today to help carry buckets, chop wood, and stand around in the sun breathing wood smoke and maple steam while the dog and cats squashed around in the mud.
Iris was enchanted with the dog, and I repeated several times That's the dog. The dog says woof. Woof woof. Woof. The dog did a lap around the house, and when he reappeared, Iris was right on him. 'oof, she said. And again, looking right at the dog, 'oof.
The sap runs just during the time of spring when the days are above freezing and the nights are below. The warmer days make the roots start pulling water up from the soil. The sap runs until the buds pop open, until you see a haze of green across the woods; then it's done. Forty gallons of sap boil down to a gallon of syrup.
A's brother showed up, and his grandma, and we all ate lunch outside. Iris rode in the sling for hours. Ingrid zipped around the yard, peering at the roiling liquid, tossing sticks on the fire, letting A lift her up to sip drips of sap right from the tap. She careened back to me and locked Iris and me in an almost illegally tight hug. My baby sister, she said. My baby sister. I'm going to keep her forever.
We wrestled both girls down for naps, and by the time they woke up it was late afternoon and the sap was almost syrup, murky and foamy. We took turns tasting it from a metal ladle, all four generations of us. This is the kind of sweetness I want for my girls: the kind that can sleep underground all winter. The kind that takes all day to boil from barely sweet water to thick sticky syrup. The kind that tells the leaves it's time to open up and see the sun.
3.13.2008
We Made it!
For the first time in months, there’s far more water than ice. It’s comfortable to go outside without a coat, at least for a while. The sun isn’t just bright; it’s warm. I can open the windows and let the (I know, now) stale winter air out and the sweet, sweet outside air in.
Today was just gorgeous. Perfect blue sky, perfect warm sun, and everything melting, melting, melting. We splashed in puddles. We drove with the windows open.
There’ll be colder days again before we’re through, I’m sure. There might even be more snow. But I can smell spring from here. The front porch and back yard will be ours—really ours—again, and the house will feel three times bigger. Ingrid and I will be able to dig in the garden while Iris naps. Green things, I’m told, will start busting out all over the place.
All day I’ve been surprising myself with how happy and relieved I feel. It’s as if every half hour or so I wake up from a nap, blink a few times, and discover again that the whole world is made of chocolate.
If you live somewhere more temperate, this will seem silly; you had this day ages ago. But if you’re in, say, Duluth or Winnipeg or Fairbanks, take heart. It’s coming. It really, really is.
Today was just gorgeous. Perfect blue sky, perfect warm sun, and everything melting, melting, melting. We splashed in puddles. We drove with the windows open.
There’ll be colder days again before we’re through, I’m sure. There might even be more snow. But I can smell spring from here. The front porch and back yard will be ours—really ours—again, and the house will feel three times bigger. Ingrid and I will be able to dig in the garden while Iris naps. Green things, I’m told, will start busting out all over the place.
All day I’ve been surprising myself with how happy and relieved I feel. It’s as if every half hour or so I wake up from a nap, blink a few times, and discover again that the whole world is made of chocolate.
If you live somewhere more temperate, this will seem silly; you had this day ages ago. But if you’re in, say, Duluth or Winnipeg or Fairbanks, take heart. It’s coming. It really, really is.
3.06.2008
Cream
For a day when I couldn't breathe through my nose, my birthday yesterday seemed pretty charmed.
It was a work day for me, but I came home a couple of hours early to take a nap and sit on the couch knitting in complete silence for 45 minutes or so before picking the girls up from day care.
Ingrid came home excited about the promised piece of Mama's birthday cake (A got ahold of a fantastic chocolate cake with some sort of amazing chocolate cream inside).
Before dinner, Ingrid and A mysteriously disappeared into the basement. It turned out A had a little surprise (earrings! and flowers!) that he got Ingrid to help him prepare. (She signed the card, put the flowers in a vase, and, it seems, helped tape up the wrapping on the earring box).
A friend joined us for dinner: takeout Thai food, a huge treat since our extra-lean budget went into place last summer. Iris fell asleep at seven, and I drank a whole beer. We stretched Ingrid's bedtime a bit so she could have a sliver of cake, which she dug into with relish.
I kept thinking about my past several "birthday wishes"...from when I blew the nuts off the cake five years ago (a baby, please) to the following year (please, a baby?) and the next (a healthy baby?) to last year (another healthy one?)...and feeling so sleepily, stuffily grateful that no giant want looms so large anymore. Huzzah! I can now use my birthday wishes for, I don't know, better hair. Or a winning Obama/Clinton ticket this fall.
I read to Ingrid before bed, and before I left the room I said to her, Thank you for making my birthday so special. With her eyes almost closed, she gave me a drowsy smile and said, I loved it. I wasn't sure what she meant until she finished: It had cream in it.
It was a work day for me, but I came home a couple of hours early to take a nap and sit on the couch knitting in complete silence for 45 minutes or so before picking the girls up from day care.
Ingrid came home excited about the promised piece of Mama's birthday cake (A got ahold of a fantastic chocolate cake with some sort of amazing chocolate cream inside).
Before dinner, Ingrid and A mysteriously disappeared into the basement. It turned out A had a little surprise (earrings! and flowers!) that he got Ingrid to help him prepare. (She signed the card, put the flowers in a vase, and, it seems, helped tape up the wrapping on the earring box).
A friend joined us for dinner: takeout Thai food, a huge treat since our extra-lean budget went into place last summer. Iris fell asleep at seven, and I drank a whole beer. We stretched Ingrid's bedtime a bit so she could have a sliver of cake, which she dug into with relish.
I kept thinking about my past several "birthday wishes"...from when I blew the nuts off the cake five years ago (a baby, please) to the following year (please, a baby?) and the next (a healthy baby?) to last year (another healthy one?)...and feeling so sleepily, stuffily grateful that no giant want looms so large anymore. Huzzah! I can now use my birthday wishes for, I don't know, better hair. Or a winning Obama/Clinton ticket this fall.
I read to Ingrid before bed, and before I left the room I said to her, Thank you for making my birthday so special. With her eyes almost closed, she gave me a drowsy smile and said, I loved it. I wasn't sure what she meant until she finished: It had cream in it.
2.27.2008
Vitaversary
One day this past month we hit the fifth anniversary of my chucking my last packet of birth control pills and beginning, instead, to pop a daily prenatal vitamin. Eighteen months of trying to conceive, one pregnancy, eighteen months of breastfeeding, another pregnancy (while still nursing), and six more months (and counting) of breastfeeding later, I am still rattling through one giant bottle of the little capsules after another. Five years on prenatals is nothing compared to what long-term infertility veterans go through, but the image of all those purply-pink pills (oh, and the uncoated nasty yellow ones that made me sick) tumbling through my system impresses me just a little.
And I count myself infinitely lucky to have so much to show for it. I tossed those birth control pills knowing there were no guarantees, knowing I sometimes ovulated no more than once a year. I would never have guessed—and barely dared to hope—what a fruitful five years it would be.
And I count myself infinitely lucky to have so much to show for it. I tossed those birth control pills knowing there were no guarantees, knowing I sometimes ovulated no more than once a year. I would never have guessed—and barely dared to hope—what a fruitful five years it would be.
11.17.2007
In the Zone
Where have I been? Hitting my stride. In it. Being, really being, a mom of two. Taking care of meal after diaper after ear infection after spill after day care crisis after load after load of laundry (oh, and a few hours a week of “work”, as well), and being to far into it to say, let alone write, anything about it. In a good way. Consumed. Busy. Focused.
11.09.2007
Sanity May Strike Without Warning
What I didn't mention is that in the face of all this rapid-fire sick emotionally distraught sensitive two-year-old madness, I myself am feeling unexpectedly, maybe unprecedentedly calm. Where two weeks ago I was close to responding to Ingrid's precise naptime water bottle positioning requirements by yelling I don't know what you mean, the past several days I've been weirdly patient. Waiting out her naptime shenanigans. Offering choices and meting out consequences without so much as a clenched jaw or curled toe.
It is unnatural. I would not be surprised if I learned that A has been lacing my morning Tazo with barbiturates.
It is unnatural. I would not be surprised if I learned that A has been lacing my morning Tazo with barbiturates.
9.08.2007
Better and Better
Yesterday Ingrid napped for almost three hours, and then she woke up and went the entire afternoon and evening without a single tantrum. I can’t remember the last time that happened. In celebration, I drank half a glass of wine with dinner.*
Right as it was getting light this morning, Iris finished nursing, opened her eyes, looked right up at me, and gave me a real, full-face smile for the first time. We dozed off again and when I woke up it seemed like a great, hazy dream, that smile.
A and Ingrid were up early, and when I came downstairs carrying the baby, Ingrid right away said Want to touch Iris, so I knelt down, and Ingrid stroked her head and cooed, Just look at her blue, blue hair. It keeps getting better and better.
I have no idea what she meant, but it was a perfect thing to say today.
A did a lot of baby holding, and Ingrid helped me scoop oats and sesame seeds and sunflower seeds and mix them up to make granola, and then we baked it and the house smelled sweet and nutty all day. It’s so cool out, I’m wearing socks and long pants for the first time in months. We were at home all morning, which is rare—we get so stir crazy that we try to get out, if only to the playground, almost always. But today it just felt nice to be at home for hours, the four of us, puttering around.
During Ingrid’s nap, I lay on the couch with Iris lying on my chest in a deep sleep. I wanted to sleep, but instead I thought about how sometimes I say to myself, in an off-hand way, We have two daughters, and then I do a big mental double take and say it again: two daughters, and how that feels—heavy, but in a good way, like a tree with more fruit on it than it was quite ready for, bending just a little, holding all that sweetness.
In the afternoon we drove to a barbecue—a thing for A’s work—which was fine, but the best part happened on the way there: We saw a horse, and Ingrid said I wish I have a horse like that at home. Wif red socks. (Here is my equine ignorance: The horse was wearing what looked like ankle braces or maybe leg warmers. Red ones.) I turned to A and said, You realize she just asked us for a horse for the first time, right?
And when we got home? Ingrid’s first why. Why you get that new Baby Bjorn, Mama? And then she asked it, like six times, unsatisfied with each of my carefully constructed answers.
Also, I’ve hesitated to mention this because I know that many of you also have children, and I don’t want anyone to be jealous, but Iris is the prettiest baby in the world. She is so pretty. And don’t even get me started on the cuteness of her belly button.
Going with the theory that Ingrid needs more sleep to keep from turning back into Sullen Whiny Tantrum Girl—and going on faith that this won’t cause her to wake up at 5 a.m.—we put her to bed at 7 tonight, a full hour earlier than usual. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but, boy, was today quietly, sleepily sweet.
*This is in contrast to the entire bottle of wine that I’ve needed after some of the worse days.**
**Just kidding.***
***Sort of.
Right as it was getting light this morning, Iris finished nursing, opened her eyes, looked right up at me, and gave me a real, full-face smile for the first time. We dozed off again and when I woke up it seemed like a great, hazy dream, that smile.
A and Ingrid were up early, and when I came downstairs carrying the baby, Ingrid right away said Want to touch Iris, so I knelt down, and Ingrid stroked her head and cooed, Just look at her blue, blue hair. It keeps getting better and better.
I have no idea what she meant, but it was a perfect thing to say today.
A did a lot of baby holding, and Ingrid helped me scoop oats and sesame seeds and sunflower seeds and mix them up to make granola, and then we baked it and the house smelled sweet and nutty all day. It’s so cool out, I’m wearing socks and long pants for the first time in months. We were at home all morning, which is rare—we get so stir crazy that we try to get out, if only to the playground, almost always. But today it just felt nice to be at home for hours, the four of us, puttering around.
During Ingrid’s nap, I lay on the couch with Iris lying on my chest in a deep sleep. I wanted to sleep, but instead I thought about how sometimes I say to myself, in an off-hand way, We have two daughters, and then I do a big mental double take and say it again: two daughters, and how that feels—heavy, but in a good way, like a tree with more fruit on it than it was quite ready for, bending just a little, holding all that sweetness.
In the afternoon we drove to a barbecue—a thing for A’s work—which was fine, but the best part happened on the way there: We saw a horse, and Ingrid said I wish I have a horse like that at home. Wif red socks. (Here is my equine ignorance: The horse was wearing what looked like ankle braces or maybe leg warmers. Red ones.) I turned to A and said, You realize she just asked us for a horse for the first time, right?
And when we got home? Ingrid’s first why. Why you get that new Baby Bjorn, Mama? And then she asked it, like six times, unsatisfied with each of my carefully constructed answers.
Also, I’ve hesitated to mention this because I know that many of you also have children, and I don’t want anyone to be jealous, but Iris is the prettiest baby in the world. She is so pretty. And don’t even get me started on the cuteness of her belly button.
Going with the theory that Ingrid needs more sleep to keep from turning back into Sullen Whiny Tantrum Girl—and going on faith that this won’t cause her to wake up at 5 a.m.—we put her to bed at 7 tonight, a full hour earlier than usual. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but, boy, was today quietly, sleepily sweet.
*This is in contrast to the entire bottle of wine that I’ve needed after some of the worse days.**
**Just kidding.***
***Sort of.
6.29.2006
Rich
Shortly after M was born my husband's mom dug out of her storage room a big metal wash basin. It has some deep family history that I've forgotten. Three generations have bathed in this thing as babies? Four generations?
Anyway, the M had two baths in it last summer ... one good (staring up at the leaves in the backyard and cooing) and one bad (screaming, me crying, both of us soaked, lots of grass clippings, no one especially clean or happy), and then it went unused for many months.
Today I got it out, threw in a few stacking cups and a toy watering can, let the hose run in it at a trickle, and turned the Monkey loose with it. She elected to sit IN the washtub, getting totally, totally soggy and thorougly enjoying the running water, the splashing, the general fun of being out in the backyard and all wet.
And I sat ten feet away and picked a big colander full of red currants, which were on the verge of being too ripe.
I chatter at the Monkey a lot during the day, but while we did this I was quiet and it felt like we were both content, just soaking in the colors and sensations of a not-too-humid midwestern summer day in the backyard.
Anyway, the M had two baths in it last summer ... one good (staring up at the leaves in the backyard and cooing) and one bad (screaming, me crying, both of us soaked, lots of grass clippings, no one especially clean or happy), and then it went unused for many months.
Today I got it out, threw in a few stacking cups and a toy watering can, let the hose run in it at a trickle, and turned the Monkey loose with it. She elected to sit IN the washtub, getting totally, totally soggy and thorougly enjoying the running water, the splashing, the general fun of being out in the backyard and all wet.
And I sat ten feet away and picked a big colander full of red currants, which were on the verge of being too ripe.
I chatter at the Monkey a lot during the day, but while we did this I was quiet and it felt like we were both content, just soaking in the colors and sensations of a not-too-humid midwestern summer day in the backyard.
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