{my topography}

Up close

What it is

Paint gets everywhere, on his legs, on the rough red of the patio bricks, on the paper, and I nod. “Yes,” I say, “Yes that’s awesome! Do some more.” And he grins, swirling the brush through the paint, confident in my pleasure.

He swipes the paper with a bold stroke of red, thick as jelly, and looks up, checking for my grin. Then a smile alights softly on his face, like a playful cat, matching my own. So here we are, in this moment of pure joy. All previous frustrations, tantrums, exhaustion, entirely obliterated by this bright happiness.

Each day I learn this, again and again: allowing someone to make you happy is the ultimate forgiveness. Allowing a small gesture of joy or tenderness to pool in your heart, again and again and again, even when things have come up short. To open, even after words have zig-zagged like blistered arrows across the room and leaving dark trails of hurt across the heart; to allow a small fissure for pleasure to split sorrow in half like a opened melon, this is forgiveness.

***
PS–the theme over at Mama Says Om this week is forgive, go check it out.

The pictures I promised

Go here for the up-close versions & lots of notes. I had maybe a little too much fun with the writing the notes.

And thank you for the suggestions. I currently smell a tad like sauteed cabbage, but my boobs don’t hurt as much… (Bean was down to one nursing a day–before bed, so it was a very gradual thing. Still. DH made some comment about bra/boobs being a “garden of eatin’ ” tonight. Let’s just say I’m eager for this particular phase to be over. HOWEVER, Bean has been remarkable–sleeping–for the first time ever–all the way through the night, in his crib, willingly… they say when they’re ready, they’re ready. I guess he was ready.)

Also, we’re going to Florida next week to hang out with my best friend. It will be Bean’s first time on a plane. DH & I are virgins in the air travel with a small child department. More help please. What should I bring/do/be prepared for?

And now a quick recap of house progress: Every single room is full of boxes. My god, where did we manage to accumulate so much stuff? But the kitchen, oh it’s so lovely. It begs to be used. So I have been. Grilled tuna stakes with couscous salad, banana muffins, soup… And I’ve been slowly, so very slowly, unpacking all the rest of the house too. Rediscovering artwork that’s been packed for over a year, and precious vases, soft velvet pillows, and letters from old friends. But in between there is still the stress of feeling constantly addled: I cannot find anything, ever, when I need it. It’s kindof making me nuts.

But then I go outside and sit in the sunshine and take pictures of bugs and play peekaboo with Bean, or walk in late evening with DH hand in hand through waist high grass watching the bats swoop over head, and it’s all worth it. All of it.

Mamas, your expertise, please

So, I’m totally working on the picture laden post (I’m not just lolling about in the sunshine, picking armfuls of black-eyed susans and daisies, reading a really a really good book, and eating organic cantelope, I swear!)

But in the meantime I have two pressing issues. Boobs & poop.

I need to know two things.

A) When you’re weaning, how do you reduce breastmilk production? Bean spent his first night in his own room EVER last night. He woke up once, but went to sleep without crying, all by himself… and so we’re down to the before-bedtime nursing and I’m thinking of cutting that out tonight. But I’m not sure how my boobs have gotten the whole weaning memo. Advice?

and…

B) When your 16 month old comes to you, pulling on his diaper and grunting after he’s taken a poop, and when you say, “Did you poop?” he says, “Uh-huh” and points to the clean diapers, is it time to think about buying one of those little potties? And if it is, which? And then how to proceed from there?

I’ll be eagerly awaiting your responses.

Don’t think I’ve forgotten you…

It’s just–WE MOVED IN. And my kitchen is gorgeous and it’s summer and we just got back from all-day furniture shopping and licking peach juice off our fingers and I’ve had no time to post. But I will tonight. With pictures. Promise.

Summer

We blow a hundred bubbles one by one. Our breath caught up in the glycerin spheres that float up above the trees. Bean watches each faint rainbow circle as it drifts away against the backdrop of pale blue. It is the beginning of summer. Lazy afternoons in a plastic wading pool with a red rubber ball, with the smell of sunscreen slick on our skin. Days of short attention, and grilled corn; afternoon naps and magazines piled high on the coffee table. Popsicle days. Late evening ice cream stops in town. Firefly nights, lying on the lawn and kissing after dark.

A year here

A year ago, more or less, I started this blog hoping to find a reason to come to the page every day. I have. You. Thank you. For your kindness, your friendship, your encouragement, your humor, your beautiful art, your appreciation.

This blog has become a kind of lens for me, allowing me to look from a different angle back at my life. Most months I have come to the page almost every day and given something up. Some shred of my day, some moment, some thought. And the act of writing it, and sharing it, has altered it. Like sudden small diamonds pressed out of the carbon of daily life, I’ve learned to see things differently through this process.

I could not have imagined this outcome. When I started writing here, I still felt like I was an imposter as a parent. I was still in a riot of shock that I was somebody’s mother, and this was the place I came to start exploring this new role. Now a year into the thick of it, scraped knees feel second nature. But also, I’ve found art again: my brushes, camera, keypad. I’m so grateful.

PS—Tonight we sat outside at the edge of the lawn where the last of the evening sun fell in large swathes of yellow on the grass. We blew bubbles, and watched them float weightless and dreamy through the light. Bean, his hands outstretched towards each swirly blue and rainbow orb. Me, shutter happy as usual. See ?

16 months

My dear beautiful boy,

The sweetness and heartache of watching you grow is almost too intense to bear. You will understand this someday: how your growing marks my growing too; your life making mine finite and fragile each day in a myriad of small ways. But for now you are content to ponder simpler things: bumble bees, and ice cream cones, the tick tock of the clock, the orbit of the fan’s blades.

Your life is the punctuation for mine. Sometimes is it like an ellipsis, certain precious moments with you stretch out forever across my heart. Like today with your first ice cream cone after you fell on the pavement and cut your face. Sitting in the evening sunlight outside under the giant oak, you watched me first as I liked my cone. Then your tongue followed, inquisitively, and then with eager pleasure, the sweet cream running down your chin and onto your shirt.

Other times, your growing feels like a parenthesis around my life, as things begin for you, other things end for me.

We’re just on the brink of weaning, you and I. And I keep waiting for the perfect time, caught up in the warp and weft of the bond that this act of sustenance has woven between us.

I never pictured nursing you even this long, and yet I have, going off of instinct and circumstance. And the circumstances haven’t been easy. This past month your molars came in. Four of them, and two more front teeth, all jostling through your gums at once, causing you to constantly seek the solace of my breast. Then there has been the problematic fact that we moved out of our apartment, and not into anywhere at the beginning of the month. You’ve tried hard to keep up with all the places we’ve been, but the changes have had their effect. You’ve started to cry often when we leave you with one or the other grandmother, and when you’re with me, like this week, you’d love to be ON TOP OF ME all the time, if you could. So I’ve put off weaning again and again, but I think we’re both at the point where we could be ready (maybe I am more than you.)

You’ve started drinking milk from your sippy cup this week—for the first time, and often now when I put you down for a nap in your crib, you’re wide awake and you put yourself to sleep. You nestle into the corner of your crib like a puppy and wake with the imprint of sheepskin on your face, your hair smelling of sleep.

We will most likely wean this month, after my mastitis clears up and we’re home in our new house. Though I’m ready—my body is starting to feel drained, and my sleep is restless at night because of you—a small corner of my heart harbors some sharp shard of sadness. A part of me I could never have related to or understood before I became a mother. The part of me that has so often since I had you, swallowed old words of judgment, finding my heart a softer place than I had known. When you nurse for the last time, you’ll not remember it. But I will. The solace of this intimacy we’ve shared will be forever contained. Like a parenthesis, joy filling up the space between it’s beginning and it’s ending.

Watching you explore the world makes my heart spill out about me like a melting popsicle, the sweetness of my love pooling at your feet. You run now. You climb incessantly, instinctively. You have incredible balance, navigating uneven surfaces with so much confidence. I watch you and I’m struck by how YOU, you are. You are determined, sympathetic, goofy, pensive, thoughtful, and curious, often in the span of a minute. You have your own fascinations, and inclinations. The other day I watched you dig in the dirt, and then seeing that the dirt had made your pants all messy, you brushed them off. This is something you didn’t learn from either parent, I can assure you.

You’ve begun talking this month, with more frequency, and giving sweet perfect kisses. You call sun glasses “goo goo goggles” after the character in Dr. Seuss on the page for the letter “G” and you say “tick tock” and “ding dong” with the a lovely little sing song intonation. You figured out how to blow bubbles—all yourself yesterday, and now you love to blow bubbles out in the yard, watching as the drift up into the sky, and when you’re hurt or tired you run to me, arms outstretched.

My arms are always outstretched towards you in return, my sweet boy.

All my love,
Mama

Apparently I’ve been asking the wrong question…

Over the past two weeks, before I got here, I definitely whimpered once or twice, “Can it get any worse?” The answer is YES, you idiot.

I have mastitis again. For a third time. The worst I’ve had it. Fever, soreness, the whole works. I’m ready to fully wean, but Bean has been more needy than usual, tossed about in the recent turbulance of our lives, and then there are those four pesky molars. So things have dragged on longer, and this is apparently how my body processes stress.

So much for long luxurious posts while I’m here (I have yet to write about what didn’t happen with the marathon) and book reviews (I just read the Mermaid’s Chair by Sue Monk Kidd–in a day. I devoured it.) Instead I’ll be in bed. Hopefully I’ll kick this by tomorrow & I can post some pics of Bean on his tricycle (he can’t quite reach the pendals, it’s a hoot!)

So while I’m curled up on the couch, I won’t dare ask if it can get worse, because I’m starting to understand that it can, and probably will. But don’t begin to think I’m depressing, because if you were here in person, you’d know an odd piece of trivia about me: I at a humor high point when I’m sick and/or miserable. Like after being in labor for 18 hours–the nurses were in awe. They kept saying, “We’ve NEVER seen anyone in such good spirits at this stage.” I was cracking jokes left and right–and lord, I had an audiance (I think there may have been 14 people in the room when Bean finally showed his little self to the world). When things are clearly getting worse, I get funny. It’s my survival mechanism. Which is actully pretty funny, because I’m generally not that funny at all. Oh dear. You see the state of my brain.

Sweetness