13 on 31

I never seem to find the time to write the developed posts I compose in my head at 4am, so here are 13 things about life, lately:

1. Amelia is sick. Poor baby. She and I both had colds for the past two weeks or so, but when mine went away, hers seem to get worse, and a fever appeared. A trip to the doctor showed no ear infection, and when I called again today, the nurse said a virus that sounds like what Amelia has is going around. So I am giving her ibuprofen, and she is drinking a lot of juice.

2. She says, "Juice!" Also fish, mask (because of an African mask Jes got us that hangs on the wall above our reading/nursing chair) and, just this weekend, Daddy! ("Da!")

3. Naps have been challenging, lasting 45 minutes, tops, for most of last week. Maybe because she has been sick? With 10-15 minutes of crying when I put her down. But today, for the first time since I cut her off from nursing to sleep: no pre-nap crying! She just talked to herself for a few minutes, then all was quiet on the napptime front.

4. Night sleep has remained mostly great, even through the sickness. A couple of early morning wakings. I have nursed her at night twice. My hope is that this is fine, as long as it doesn't turn back into a habit. It seems okay so far. There is a middle way!

5. List of lunchtime food items on the table and floor right now: wheat bread. Strawberry jello. Cheerios. Milk. A french fry. A slice of turkey ("gobble gobble gobble"). Vanilla ice cream. Something gooey I can't name--oh, mayonaise.

6. Number of the above items Amelia actually ate for lunch: 0.

7. What has Amelia eaten today? About 1/3 of a bag of rainbow goldfish crackers. (Don't worry, they are colored using natural ingredients, like beets.)

8. What have I been doing during these 45 minute naps last week? Writing! Somehow when I know there is only going to be 45 minutes, I can make myself get more work done than if I think there might be 2 hours. I have been working on my manuscript and work for the class I am taking. My class met again last week (it meets about every 3rd Monday). We discussed my manuscript and one other (6 students, 2 manuscripts per session, for two rounds). I got lots of positive feedback and several helpful suggestions. And a few crazy suggestions, but that is par for the workshop course.

10. And, I just got an email from the instructor asking me if I want to be in a reading soon! A nice boost for my confidence. Especailly considering that

11. I spent some time this weekend looking into jobs for the fall, mostly getting very discouraged. I read too many faculty bios of people who had PhDs and lots of publications. Whatever, guys. I can recite both Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Dr. Suess's ABCs.

12. I am looking forward to spring. Although we had some days in the high 50s and low 60s last night, tomorrow's high is supposed to be -3. Can people even exist in that kind of weather? How did the pioneers survive out here? I am making it my personal business not to leave the house tomorrow.

13. After 16 months, I am beginning to feel like my old self again, whoever that is. I think sleeping through the night helps. So does getting to leave the house at night and not being the only person in the universe who can get Amelia to go to sleep. Plus having a toddler is really a lot of fun! Hard sometimes, what with the tantrums and the poor communication skills, but fun. I like playing with Play Dough and stickers and puzzles. And Amelia is only just beginning to be able to do those things, so more fun is in store. I've also been doing more stuff I want to do, generally. I made a sort of New Year's resolution to try to integrate more reading and writing and yoga into my daily life, even if I don't have large swaths of free time. I came up with a concept of "5 and 20." Basically, I try to take a span of 5 minutes to do something I want to do sometime during the day, and then another span of 20 minutes to do something else I want to do. So I might read the news for 5 minutes in the morning, or read a poem for 5 minutes while Amelia plays on her own. Or I might try to do 20 minutes of yoga while Amelia plays around me. Or write for 20 minutes during Amelia's bath and bedtime. After roughly 31 days, I feel happier and more... well-rounded is the best word I can think of. Reading more of the news, for example, has allowed me to actually think of something besides Amelia and exhaustion to talk about to my mom friends (not the conversation often turns from babies and/or sleep, but just in case!), and to Dean and my other friends as well. And doing a little bit of yoga each day makes me feel better physically, and I think helps during the yoga classes I go to too. It turns out that there is more to life than motherhood, and I have been finding ways to access that life. And that is a good thing.

Untitled

It is winter here. We woke up this morning (at 4:30, but I don't even want to talk about that) to a very lightly snow-coated world. Under the full moon, it was pretty and peaceful and I baked a pumpkin pie, but now the sun is out and it is windy and bright and terrible. Snow sparkle in the wind so you can see where the wind is going. And the wind is swirling.

I dislike winter. I think I have reptilian roots somewhere and part of my soul freezes when it is cold outside. I am vaguely but constantly itchy and grouchy. Baking, putting up Christmas trees, and drinking hot chocolate help, as does yoga and wearing my bathrobe all day long. Or big sweaters. As long as they don't itch.

I have been writing this morning so that explains some of the weirdness of my opening paragraphs. I am writing about dreams and from the voice of Ryan in Teen Mom, so I am bit out of my normal speaking voice.

We got the results about the lead. Turns out there is a little lead in the dust in several places in our house. We had some work done on the porch that exposed some old paint and some unseen chipped paint inside. So now the outside is cleaned and the inside has been touched up and I am doing to try to mop every other day. Hopefully that will solve the problem. Amelia will be retested in two more months.

I feel guilty for buying an old house and for not mopping it enough. You read all these articles and things that encourage moms to let the housework go a little--and then you find out there is lead in the dust on your floor. The irony is I sweep twice or even three times a day some days. But that just sweeps the lead dust around. Horrifying.

Something about winter is making it very clear to me that we have actually MOVED to Colorado and are not just here on an extended visit. I feel a little shocked. It also has to do with our first experience here that made me realize that we are essentially all alone. We had norovirus. (This was not actually diagnosed by a doctor but it was some sort of terrible stomach virus so I am calling it norovirus.) Amelia had mild symptoms last Saturday, the night before we were leaving for Santa Fe for a week (Dean had a conference for work). Saturday night, I also had symptoms, much less mild than Amelia's. All night. It was terrible. So at about 5:30 Sunday morning, I faced a dilemma. Option 1: In the aftermath of a terrible stomach virus, with a baby who also might still have a stomach virus, get on a plane. Option 2: Stay home, alone, with a stomach virus, and take care of a baby who might still have a stomach virus. Alone.

I have some very nice friends here, but they have babies too. And it takes a special friend to come over and take care of your baby and be exposed to your stomach virus so they can take said virus home to their babies. Pretty much the only person you can ask to do that is your mom. And all moms in my life are about 1500 miles away.

So I decided that if I could keep down some crackers and ginger ale, and if Amelia was okay, I would go. I did and she was, so we went.

We had a nice time in Santa Fe after about Tuesday. (Dean spent Monday battling the norovirus. To any Federal Public Defenders who find themselves feeling a bit under the weather this week, we offer our deepest apologies.) However, Amelia was oddly whiny for most of the week. I don't know if she missed her crib and her Gee and her high chair and her nightly YoBaby Yogurt Drink or if she was perplexed that we had apparently moved to a hotel room or what. But she was whiny. It got old. Also, she slept great in the hotel till the last night, when she woke up 3 times. And she has been making up 2-3 times a night since we got home Sunday.

We are still nursing. I am perplexed. Sometimes I want to quit and sometimes I don't want it to end. Before we left Amelia had pretty much weaned herself to 3 nursing sessions a day but traveling always makes her revert to the breastfeeding habits of a newborn and now it's like every time she sees me she dives for the boobs.

Who knows. Maybe after Christmas we will go cold turkey. We leave for NC again in about 3 and half weeks and I don't see the point in making any huge changes before then. I think after that we are going to swear off all travel till the spring.

This is not the cheerful Amelia Update I had intended to write. But now Amelia is awake. Until we meet again, my friends, drink a cup of hot chocolate for me.

Practice What You Preach

The counters are crowded with dirty dishes. The beds are unmade; there is laundry to be done. There is a poopy diaper on the stairs, waiting to be taken up and rinsed. But I am sitting at the computer, writing.

This morning I had the luck of a longish phone conversation with a dear friend, one I don't get to talk to nearly as much as I would like. She, also a writer, was frustrated with the business of life, the constant demands of home and job and children and family. She is called to the page but can't find a moment to answer. "Take an hour," I urged her. "Take an hour this week and go somewhere, and write. Even if it's just in your journal about how you are feeling. Even if it's crap. Just write."

Words on Words

As usual, I have been doing more writing in my head than on paper or a screen. My friend Corrie just had a baby, and I have been composing an elaborate "Letter to a New Mother" during the hours of 3 and 4 am, which is when Amelia now enjoys talking and singing to herself. I finished--or came to a stopping point on-- a long poem last week, and I am kind of stalled on poetry. (I reread the long poem this morning and was much less enthralled by it than I was last week.) I have been playing around with a series of essays on the first year of motherhood, but I tend to forget what it was I wanted to say. Par for the course, I guess. I also think that I am having trouble re-entering the space of very early motherhood, which is what most of the essays so far are about, as well as when I started some of the essays (noting that by "started" I mean I wrote about 6 words). Very early motherhood was a scary space for me, a fact that I think was at once both obvious all along and one I am just realizing). However, I have been working somewhat steadily, if also somewhat slowly, since we got here, so I have hope for a productive year.

As I have been writing this post I have also been opening news tabs and reading other blogs. I really enjoy my (recently updated) blog list even though there is really no cohesion to it whatsoever. Or maybe because there is no cohesion. I only know about half of the authors whose blogs I read. Some of the authors are pretty different from me. Most but not all are moms. I think what draws me to blogs is the personal aspect. I was the kind of child who would read someone else's diary. I really would. I didn't do it to be mean; I just (1) loved to read and (2) loved to know what other people thought, as well as how they worded what they thought. Only as a near adult--when I had a college roommate who was also my best friend--did my desire not to invade other people's privacy outweigh my overwhelming desire to know about them through their own firsthand accounts. (Meg, I never read your diary, if you had one. I promise.) Anyway, blogs are great because they are about life AND they are public! Perfect. (And speaking of blogs, Debra has some news, and Liz just announced hers, and here is a brand new blog by a very beautiful writer (by which I mean the writing is beautiful, as well as the author herself).)

I realized (while cleaning the bathroom sink, incidentally) that all of the blogs I read are by women. I was imagining some poor English grad student's dissertation 100 years in the future: "21st Century Women's Blogs (Insert Colon and Clever yet Insightful Play on Words Here)" . I was thinking about blogs, specifically "mom blogs", as "women's writing," whatever that is, and I guess about the intersections between the domestic, personal, and larger or more political or worldly spheres. In other words, how I write about Amelia a lot but also about writing. (Or used to.) And what it means. I came to no conclusions. I think MPJ wrote about this sort of thing much better than I am a few weeks ago. Yes, here.

I guess I am thinking all this (whatever "this" is) because, in the back of my mind, while, for example, my body is at Book Babies and my hands are helping Amelia stand, and my voice is singing "One, two, three four five, once I caught a fish alive," I am wondering just what it is I am doing here. In Denver. With, you know, my life. In the distant, pre-Amelia past, when I would think about having babies, I didn't exactly have a clear idea of what motherhood would be like. And truthfully, much of the time it is great. And when I hear that little whisper asking just what it is I am doing here, part of me has a quick answer: I am raising Amelia.

But--and should I mention I just reread The Awakening?-- but. A part of me misses being well-rested, having a place to be at a certain time, participating in a larger world of work and school (which has pretty much always been the same place for me, unless you count those summers I gardened or temped at the law firm ("Keller and Heckman, this is Pam.") I don't want to go back to any of the things I used to do, but I can't exactly see just where I am going with anything besides motherhood.

Still, if there is one thing motherhood has taught me, it's that there is no point over-speculating about the future. The path will appear when I round the bend. AND--here's where it all ties together--sometimes the blogs I read help me feel that path developing. Like when I read about Caroline's VBS projects or Liz's plans to have another baby AND get a PhD. I think, Oh, so this is how you do it. This is how you keep going, how you can be a mom (a role that, in an interview I was reading, Sarah McLachlan described perfectly as "unrelenting") and yourself. Not your old self exactly, but yourself nonetheless.

(I just realized I kind of answered the questions posed in Motherlode linked in MPJ's post. I feel unoriginal. But I really didn't reread her post till just now, after I drafted all this. And I promise I can't remember ANYTHING from May.)

Anyway--in conclusion--The Awakening was beautiful. I read it accidentally. I try to read during Amelia's afternoon nap and for poetry I am reading Lorine Niedecker, so for prose I thought I would read Virgina Woolf (whom the Neidecker introduction says she read a lot). But instead I picked up Chopin. She was definitely a Romantic. The book does make painfully obvious First Wave Feminism's focus on a particular class and race of women (white, wealthy ones). But I love the book's ending:

She looked into the distance, ad the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.

In Reverence of Mothers

I have been annoyed over the past two weeks by the saccharine nature of Mothers Day commercials, in which gooey-eyed women wearing aprons stroke greeting cards and clutch bouquets of expensive, bright-hued carnations. There is nothing wrong with cards and flowers—I love them both—but such depictions, not unlike the depiction of women during pregnancy, devalue motherhood. From childbirth and beyond, mothers are warrior goddesses. They are to be revered, not coddled. Motherhood is a not state of being in which women suddenly become wholly selfless and undyingly loving. Motherhood is instead a practice.

When I was younger I never gave a second thought to my assumption that my mother wanted nothing more than to shape her entire life around my needs. This “assumption” wasn’t even concrete enough to be something that I actually thought in real words; my mother was simply there, and she was there for me.

My mom used to tuck me into bed every night, and every night we would have the same routine. I would get into bed, and she would sing to me. She sang first “You Are My Sunshine,” a song whose second verse always made me achingly sad, and then she would sing a song she made up for me when I was a baby. Then we would talk a little and I would say prayers, and as she left the room she would say four things: “Good night. Sleep tight. I’ll check on you in a minute. I love you.” More often than not I would call her back to ask just one more thing, and she would patiently come back and answer, and then she would say the four things again. Sometimes, when I had called her back several times because I had a lot on my mind, came the moment of truth. I would wait, almost holding my breath, to see if my mother was going to sigh as she said the four things.

I didn’t know the word for sigh, but I knew that loud breath in and out could signal impatience, or tiredness, or in my own current grown-up words a wish for the baby to just go to sleep so you can have a few minutes of peace. If my mother sighed as she said the four things, I would worry that she was not happy, that she was tired of me asking her things at bedtime, and that she would not come back the next time I called from the dark. She almost never sighed. She always came back.

I started this post with the words “when I was younger” but the truth is that by “younger” I really mean about, oh, seven months and one week ago. Sometimes I feel like having a baby is like wandering through the wreckage after a severe storm. The most important thing is that you have the baby, safe and soft, in your arms, but the rest of your life is a mess. It’s not a total loss; many of your things are still there, but the wind has torn through the house, the rain has soaked things through, and you know it’s going to be a long time before it’s all put back in order.

I was my mother’s little storm. She almost never sighed, and she always came back.

So thank you mom, for loving me, for singing to me, for making me breakfast, for packing my lunches and putting little notes in them, for getting me out of school to go eat Chinese food with you, for letting me choose the radio station, for brushing the tangles out of my hair, for driving me miles out of the way so I could go good schools, for letting me host so many slumber parties, for waiting hours for me to get out of ballet lessons, for letting me date boys you hated. Thank you for reading the same stories over and over, for your cool hands when I was sick, for encouraging me to go away to explore the world. Thank you for always answering the phone when I call, for putting your life on hold to babysit my baby, and for being my mother as I become a mother. Thank you for all those times you chose not to sigh even though you were tired and probably looking forward to some time to yourself. Thank you for always coming back. For all this and a million other things, thank you.

And thank you to the other mother in my life, my mother-in-law. Thank you for putting your life and your art on hold to care for Amelia, for making the long drive to DC so many times, for all of the food and gifts and stories and laughter you bring each time you come. Thank you for being the keeper of my library of poems, for the beautiful comforter I am currently snuggling under as I write this, and not least of all, for being the mother of the man who is singing to our baby as I write it. Thank you for doing all the thousands of things you did, both noticed and unnoticed, that allowed him to become the person I love so much.

In conclusion, being the experienced, seasoned mother that I am today, I recommend that you include with the card or the flowers or the brunch or the spa gift certificate or— ahem—the nothing else that you remembered to send your mom today (oops)—a recognition of the practice of your mother’s mothering—the daily choices she has made and still makes to be your mother, the ways she has shaped her life to include your own. And maybe a thank you.