{my topography}

It’s only the beginning

I’ve grown accustomed to being hunched over. Hunched, as in, knees up, back rounded, almost fetal. This is the way I spend my day, curled on the couch, attached at the hip to my laptop, mostly, between tentative forays into the kitchen, and occasional attempts to be useful in any way. It isn’t pretty. Remember when I used to be a runner?

When I wake up, for a split second as I’m lying there in bed, I think I’ve maybe just been having an unpleasant dream (one that involves lots of dry heaving and vomit.) I lie perfectly still on the apricot colored sheets and feel the wind blow through the open window above the bed, cool on my cheeks, and my body feels simply there. Toes, knees, arms heavy from sleep. Usually, DH has already gone to shower, but Bean, who crawls into our bed at sun up, is snuggled next to me, and I still like the smell of his hair, so I curl towards him and nuzzle in.

Eventually though, I must stand, shower, and begin the ridiculous process of trying to put food in my stomach while my stomach furiously tries to expel it. Banana didn’t go over so well this morning. Peanut butter, which I can barely stand in ‘real life’ is one of the few things that sticks without complete offense. If I eat every two hours, I seem to be able to avoid vomiting. Sort of. According to the doctor, this is all good news. She told me this with a grin, while she measured the blur of black and white with a fluttering heart rate on the ultrasound monitor. Due date, February 24.

Yesterday was miserably hot, which only increased my discomfort. Over night though, the humidity was squandered in big fat raindrops. Now, the grass is dew-dimpled and silvery. Everything is a tangle of green, the meadows are waist high with grass. The goslings have tripled in size. In the garden, the cabbages like fat purple jewels are tucked between pewter leaves. The tomatoes are ramshackle, taking over an entire bed. The radishes have gone wildly to seed, but I leave them in place, their tiny white flowers calling for honey bees.

Last night, in a rare moment of inspiration devoid of nausea, I made peach grunt with a pile of almost spoiled peaches. Easy peasy. Cut up peaches and place them in the bottom of a pie pan with a few dabs of butter and a sprinkle of sugar. Mix 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup sugar, and 1-1 ½ cups whipped cream together until it becomes a sticky dough. Place dough in mounded spoonfuls on top of peaches and bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes until the top is golden brown and the peaches are bubbly.

We ate it with whipped cream. The dough bakes into this lovely scone-like confection. Really quite delicious, even while nauseous.

Now I am hunched on the floor beside Bean who is drawing with scented markers. Of course, he thinks they are the coolest things in the entire world. I think they were invented to torture women afflicted with the all day version of morning sickness.

While I’m genuinely excited about the idea—the idea, mind you and not necessarily the actuality—of two kids, the fact that I now must be pregnant for the next eight months is painful to me. And depressing. I hated being pregnant the first time around, and I hate it no less this time. I also hate all those women who virtually sparkle the entire time they are pregnant. Who act as if it is the best thing in the universe. Halley Berry types who say they wish they could be pregnant forever.

Am I the only person in the world who hates being pregnant?

flitter

I spend much of the day curled like a cat, now, dozing. My dreams are surreal and technicolored and sexy. My stomach is in a constant state of upheaval, the word nausea hardly encompasses the scope of queasy that I feel. It is a perpetual all day thing, indigestion, bloating, every single food suspect.

I turn my nose up at foods I have always loved; I become obsessed with certain food and then suddenly, irrationally, cannot stand them. The refrigerator is a dangerous place. I can hardly stand to open the door. My sense of smell has gone from acute, which it has always been, to hyper sensitive. I can smell peanut butter across the room. Garlic makes me dry heave.

It’s a weird state to have suddenly slipped into. Early pregnancy has forced rest upon me. It’s been a long time since I sat in a lawn chair on the grass and did nothing. I sit and watch clouds get tangled at the horizon; swallowtails land on the yellow roses by the door; my small boy rides his bike pell-mell up and down the driveway, skidding to a stop on purpose. He has attached a pinwheel to his handle bars, and it spins brilliantly. His face is a smudge of wild strawberries and dirt: a recipe for little boy glee. Next week he’s going to summer camp at his preschool for four half days and I’m holding my breath, wondering what it will be like.

Of course, I start to think about him there, away from me, and my heart feels like a bungee jumper, mid air before the cord catches at the bottom of the fall.

He is at this lovely stage right now where, on a good day, he’s the sweetest most sensitive little guy in the world. He picks me flowers. Sometimes when we’re walking he’ll stop dead in his tracks and gasp, “Oh look at that flower, its just so beautiful!” He notices sunsets, and birds darting though the sky like bright flecks of paint.

In the book Lyle Lyle Crocodile, he gets genuine big tears in his eyes when we get to the page where Lyle gets locked in the zoo. And at the playground when a smaller boy was crying, he stood near by, a worried look on his face, until the boy was comforted.

I so hope that this tenderness doesn’t get wiped away by the big-boyness he’s sure to acquire in the first few days of spending so much time with other, older kids. Around big boys he walks taller, his little shoulders thrown back, and laughs at jokes he doesn’t understand. He’s growing up, and it makes me feel dizzy.

The other day he asked, “Who will snuggle me at preschool?”

“Your teacher will,” I said hopefully, and he smiled, convinced.

But will they?

And what about me, when this second little one enters the world? Will my heart really expand to love the both of them? Somehow I can hardly believe it, even as I feel fiercely protective of my tender belly, where this unexpected miraculous handful of cells is multiplying and growing: tiny arm buds, eyelids, it’s heartbeat like the fluttering wings of birds.

I’m pretty much just muttering now

Am packing for our trip to Spain. In the process I’ve discovered: dear god in a housedress, I live under a rock. I haven’t gone “out” in oh, over a year I imagine. I no longer know how to wear lipstick. My feet, my barefoot garden loving feet, are in desperate need of a pedicure. And I threw a load of whites in the wash with a delicate, silky PINK wrap. And now everything is pink. Everything. I have never, ever done that before. Love how I saved that up for right now.

So I’m a bit muddled. Thank you all for your love from my last post. Some days parenting just knocks my socks off. Today, Bean was still sleeping when I was getting ready to leave–so I smooched him and sort of nudged him awake and he opened his eyes, reached out and climbed into my arms for the world’s most perfect snuggle ever. I’m gonna miss him like crazy. Even though we’ll be soaking in Old World charm, and having drinks with some of our best friends ever, and generally having a blast.

I’ll try to update when I’m there, but I can’t be sure of the Internet connection I will have. Don’t think I’ve forgotten you. I’ll be taking lots and lots of pictures.

A fun weekend

New baby chicks & new bantam chickens from a neighbor (we named the rooster Guisseppe!)

A new bike for Bean.

New plants in the garden.

Sore muscles.

A night with just DH.

And only four three weeks left of school.

I know I promised I’d write more

But it’s been sunny and I’ve been outdoors in the garden. I’ve decided I want to keep a garden journal here–but I’m afraid if I say so, I’ll surely sabatoge my entire attempt. Everything I seem to say I want to do I immediately lose all interest in following through on. Why is that? Anway, I’ve double dug three long beds–and am currently in the midst of digging mounds for squash, watermellons and pumpkins. My legs itch from using the weed-wacker to cut down tall grass at the edges of the garden, and I’m wearing a big floppy white hat.

Why am I posting then, when I claim to be in the midst of gardening? Bean is taking a poop. And dear lord, I still can’t figure out how to teach the boy to wipe himself. So I was summoned from the garden with yells echoing from the bathroom. “Mama! I need to be wiped.” I am sure the neighbors love that.

Weekend snapshots

(Bean took this one.)

The world has turned green. Less than a month left of school. The morning sun is waking me up, and I’ve been heading out to run more. Still not feeling totally in harmony with myself yet: still too much on my plate. But more days and more moments where the the orbit of things aligns with my own twirling self.

(Btw: The Cure was a wild, loud adventure that included getting lost when leaving Montreal–4o miles east, before we realized we were supposed to be going south. Oy. And the next day was a blur of tiredness.)

I am hoping to update here every day this week. I have a thing with perfection. I don’t like writing here unless I have long moments to spend, delving into the deeper fabric of my thoughts. But I miss the daily practice. The flawed jotting of notes, of small moments, of daily life. When I first wrote here, I wrote all the time… but somehow I seem to have upped the standard on myself, and now I’m dragging my feet, feeling like if I can’t post a brilliant post, I should’nt post anything at all. What is with that?

Nerdyness

We are going to The Cure tomorrow, up across the border. I’m not sure if this is cool. DH thinks it is, but he’s the kind of guy who can sing the lyrics to EVERY SINGLE SONG on the face of the earth. Really. His favorite genre: every song from the ‘80s.

Thus, when I found out that that The Cure would be near here, I knew we had to get tickets: just so I could go and watch him sing along to every word. True love, baby.

However, he’s returning the affection:

In late summer A Prairie Home Companion is happening my town, and this made me so excited I may have even equated Garrison Keillor with The Cure: as in, the Keillor is as cool in my mind as the Cure is in DH’s. Basically I’m an NPR addict all the way. Other shows that make me swoon/giggle hysterically: Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, or Say’s You.

Now that I’ve posted this DH is learning how to hide his head hole in the ground from an ostrich.*

Alas, I cannot stop.

What kinds of wine come to mind when you read the following clues:
(snagged from Say’s You—which I had to listen to in the driveway, until it ended because I could not stop laughing):

1) Fake window glass

2) A deer in the doldrums

3) The tide’s out at Mer San Michelle

Oh, I am such a nerd. It’s spring, I met my deadline, and I get to go somewhere international tomorrow to eat yummy food and listen to music I’m unsure about with my long-eyelashed guy. Life is good.

*See? Even my jokes are nerdy.

It figures…

…that the day I’ve set aside (taking full advantage of it being Mother’s Day so I can totally claim several back to back hours) for finishing up my two manuscripts (which incidentally are DUE tonight) is GLORIOUS.

Apple blossoms, a perfect breeze, seedlings to plant in the garden. Sigh. And here I am in my shady studio, clacking away on the keyboard. It is nearly impossible not to procrastinate now, when I’m working on revisions (which I hate) and a honey cheeked little boy comes running upstairs clutching a piece of bread and butter with the sole purpose of giving me kisses.

Anyway. Happy Mother’s day to all of you mamas out there. I’m so lucky to know so many of you.

Glimpse

He’s there on the couch playing guitar and the notes are doing things for him that make my breath catch. Not perfect, but strings of notes in a minor chord from the sun-faded couch where he’s sitting barefoot.

Outside the lilacs are just beginning to bloom. It’s Saturday again and I can’t seem to manage to put in more than a post a week right now, or get enough sleep.

Saturday in reverse

Eating Nutella out of the jar and writing.

A two hour nap with Bean, our noses pressed into nooks amongst the pillows, rain falling outside.

Buying seedlings: artichokes (the love affair continues), lettuces, swiss chard.

Following a dashing Bean around the Aquarium, checking out turtles stacked like pancakes, and sea stars and frogs.
“Let’s be sturgeons,” he said tonight after dinner.

Blueberry pancakes, made my DH, smothered in maple syrup (the only way to eat them.) Outside the azaleas are blooming.

A three mile run first thing this morning, on the treadmill, while Bean ate banana bread and butter and played with “Big Orange” the tractor.