Looking.
Posted on | January 6, 2009 | 1 Comment
Nesting
Posted on | January 2, 2009 | 10 Comments
We go out to the coop in the morning; bring leftover oatmeal and old toast. Break ice from the water canister, hang a heat lamp, staple insulation over the chinks in the eaves where the wind makes the last raveling of a summer’s spider webs flutter like a torn veil.
The chickens make little crooning noises as they peck at the cracked corn we pour by the scoopful into wide mouthed bowls on the straw covered floor. In the nesting boxes we find smooth oval eggs. Two tawny and brown; one the same pale blue color as the winter sky.
Today the sky’s obscured. White, and whirling snowflakes begin to fall. We head back indoors, leaving tracks across the yard. Three pairs. In another year, four.
I’ve grown used to the sway of my hips, carrying like a water buffalo this gibbous belly. I wear snug Ulu’s and the only down jacket that still fits over my belly. At night I rub honey lotion into my skin, and feel my belly stretching. Still not at ease with being pregnant, but present now and more content. I’ve had time to rest. I am starting to feel the days dwindle down. Eight weeks and he’ll be here. Little one, something like his brother. Maybe. I try to imagine his tiny hands, his eyes for the first time.
Inside at the table I sit and watch the birds come to the feeders through the snow. Cardinals, nuthatches, jays, woodpeckers even. Fighting for the fallen seed, grackles come with iridescent speckled backs. The air inside is warm and smells like wood smoke. I fold laundry: little kimono t’s and onesies. Nesting. Diapers arrive by mail and Bean stares at them dumbfounded. He likes the idea of a brother, but I can tell his mind can’t really go that far. How can it possibly? Mine can hardly take the leap.
In the hospital yesterday, in Labor and Delivery, I lay on an inclined bed with my arm hooked up to an IV of fluids and watched the sky change. Sunlight streamed in. The nurse was kind, efficient, full of laughter. It was good to be there. To be cared for. To feel the instant effect of rehydration. I had so much apprehension about going. Hospitals make me nervous. But it was good to have gone because it let my imagination slip forward to those moments, hours, blurred and drenched with sweat and wonder when this babe will arrive.
On Monday I go back to work for four weeks, then I’m on leave. Four jam-packed, helter-skelter weeks to complete assessments, interview my substitute, and prepare my class for the transition to someone else who doesn’t necessarily believe in magic or wonder or imagination the way I do. It makes me anxious, thinking of this. Anxious, but also giddy. Four weeks. I can do this much.
It has been so hard to manage everything this time around. A little like knife juggling, or dancing in very tall stilettos. Too many thing up in the air, twirling, frantic. I’ve been sick way too much, and then there has always been the aching tug of Bean wanting his mama at the end of every day. The first time around it was just me and DH, curled together on the couch after a long day, wondering. This time, we have so much: a life, a family, a house we’ve made, snow covered woods.
***
From all you second time around mamas out there: what to expect? What to prepare for? What things should I have on hand? In some ways I feel like a newbie as much this time as I did last time. Four years is long enough to forget. Looking at packages of diapers—I can’t remember, how many does a newborn use in a week?
Happy New Year…
Posted on | January 1, 2009 | 9 Comments
I started the year off with a bang: in the hospital for a fluid drip after getting severely dehydrated from the most intense food poisoning/vomit/unmentionable sickness EVER. It struck in the middle of the night, after a demure and pleasant dinner out with friends.
Way to start the year off with a bang, no?
Small good things:: Part 1
Posted on | December 30, 2008 | 2 Comments
Small good things, right now, this morning as I’m eating toast & jam with damp hair and bare feet a the center island:
* Watching the chickadees dip and dive to the bird feeders out the dining room window.
* The heat of the wood stove and bare feet.
* My skin smelling like yummy new ginger sugar scrub.
* My Ruby Loves necklace–a gift from DH.
* New Years plans with only adults.
* Crisp green granny smith apples.
* A plan to go shopping this morning–by myself.
Our holiday in photos
Posted on | December 27, 2008 | 11 Comments
I keep wishing that my thoughts could somehow be automatically transcribed here so that I could record all the good and delicious moments that have happened over the past couple of days. I am hoping a handful of photos will serve for the thousands of words that I could write, were I to be inclined (but am not.)
Firstly, here is the Advent Box I made for Bean this year. Remember the one I made last year? This one was significantly smaller and at his height–so that he developed the ridiculously adorable routine of waking up and running downstairs first thing (dragging his blanket no less) to find out what the Advent Fairy brought. I made a note with a tiny little envelope and a vintage stamp for every day that came along with a small gift or treasure. Some major hits were: a Chinese Yo Yo, a small wind-up bulldozer, heart shaped post-it notes, a single large sugar-coated gummy candy, a music box that played The Pink Panther theme song, and a sparkly yellow pen with a little fluffy duck at the top.
Next, I achieved the unimaginable this year–and baked, from scratch, an entire gingerbread train–something Bean saw in a magazine and swooned over. All three of us decorated it together in the kitchen, getting frosting on our fingers. DH and I kept harping on Bean about eating the icing–but then we looked at each other and realized, who are we kidding? It’s Christmas and the kid is decorating a freaking gingerbread train. He’s going to eat the icing. DH made the heart out of candy canes on the caboose.
Bean got sick a few days before Christmas. Woke up with a blazing fever, and spent the day on the couch feeling rather miserable. Still, we did end up going out and cutting down a tree, and decorating it made his entire day. The way he oohed and squealed as he unwrapped each ornament made it almost as fun as Christmas morning. Then he quite artistically clumped all the ornaments together in arrangements of twos and threes on the lower portions of the tree.
Christmas morning Bean woke up later than usual. We were expecting not-even-light-out early, but he slept until about 7:30 and then came into our room (dragging his blanket again) for a snuggle before sitting straight up and asking, “Did Santa come?” We made him sit at the top of the stairs while we went down & turned on the tree lights. When he came downstairs, the look on his face was wide-eyed. I think it’s the first year he’s actually really gotten the idea of Christmas. We let him open his stocking while we went about preparing coffee and fruit salad and dried cherry scones to tide us over during the real business of unwrapping once the grandparents arrived. (Note his awesome pink bunny slippers–as per his specific request.)
By afternoon, we snacked on imported dried salami, fresh mozzarella, and aged vinegar and lounged. Bean was more than content to spend hours with his new remote control fire truck, which was his number one request from Santa.
I was also more than content to play with my goodies. DH was beyond generous and lovely this year, and spoiled me rotten. Soo many fun goodies, including a little Olympus Stylus 1030SW so that I can have a camera with me at all times. Not even close to replacing my beloved Cannon EOS20D, but fantastic to slip into my pocket and take along on trips downtown, or to document impromptu sledding adventure.
All in all, it’s been such a good couple of days–and I’m off for several more, which thrills me to no end. I am nesting. Washing baby clothes and setting up the crib.
How was your holiday? What are five things that you loved?
Right Click
Posted on | December 26, 2008 | 11 Comments
Trying to figure out how to use my new MacBook Air. Everything about it is so pretty I cried when I got it. It’s as thin as a piece of toast; fits in my purse. Love it. Still–I have yet to figure out what to do instead of right-clicking on everything. I had no idea how much I relied on that feature. Mac lovers out there, help, please. 
More to come, once I figure that out.
Here
Posted on | December 20, 2008 | 11 Comments
I am here. Loving the snow, and the snug feeling of being curled with the cat on the couch. I’ve slipped away: to write, to decorate Christmas cookies, snuggle a feverish Bean, make Christmas cards, and do last minute shopping. A real post is in the making.
Getting back in the groove
Posted on | December 7, 2008 | 11 Comments
Happy that the snow is falling.
Hanging garlands and Christmas lights.
Planning to make a gingerbread train with Bean.
Writing.
Making photo albums.
Feeling more like myself than I have in months.
***
What are you doing? I’ve missed you.
Big questions, small boy
Posted on | November 30, 2008 | 14 Comments
Will the sun burn out?
What about when we die, will it burn out then?
Will our truck and our house still be here when we die?
Is Rudolf real?
Is there someone inside the computer that makes it do what you want it to do?
How did the baby get inside your tummy?
***
Anyone have any ideas how to answer the last one in particular? I told him I’d get back to him tomorrow…
Thanksgiving
Posted on | November 27, 2008 | 3 Comments
Thank you all for being here and listening and filling my days with little shreds of wonder and kindness and encouragement.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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