The Big Three

 On October 5, we woke up to snow.

Dean told Amelia the sky gave her snow for her birthday.

The Small Snowman

Snow on tomatoes

I was very proud of my cupcakes.

The land animals have green icing, and the sea animals have blue.

We had planned to have Amelia's party on Saturday, the day after her birthday, but because of the weather we changed it to Sunday. Sunday morning was chilly but by the time of the party, it was warmer and sunny. It was nice to be outside after the two days of cold. It was a small, last minute and simple party--no presents, no favors (other than the animals on the cupcakes)--just coffee, bagels, cupcakes and a few friends from the neighborhood. I had worried about Amelia asking about presents but she did not notice the lack of presents at all, and I think it made the party more fun. She was not worried about when she could open presents, and the kids had a great time playing with the basket of sand toys we brought.

The big three

Blowing out candles

The last time we all had our picture taken together was Amelia's second birthday party.

Our sweet 3-year-old.

19 Facts for 19 Months

1. 19 months has been a lot of fun! I somehow never imagined Amelia being older than 18 months. 18 months was a big milestone in my mind, a sort of "I've made it this far so I think I'm gonna make it!" I remember holding 3- or 4-month old Baby A, enviously staring at parents with 18-month-olds. So when Amelia turned 19 months old, it was kind of a shock: it keeps going after this? Maybe because I truly had no expectations, I have been pleasantly surprised.

Part of that is because 2. Amelia is talking more and more. With talking comes communicating, so it's easier to figure out what she wants and doesn't want. Also, it's hilarious. She repeats tons of what we say, including, this morning, "suck it." In context, it was fine--she found one of those mesh baby teether things and I was telling her what to do with it: "You suck it." She spent the next hour saying, "Suck it! Suck it!" Then she stopped. I am hoping she has forgotten it.

3. Other, less disturbing things she says:
"Momma Epyoo" (Momma help you.) She says this when she wants me to help her.
"Naken" (Naked). She loves to be naked. She needs Momma Epyoo to undress, though.
"Peekaboo!" It's adorable. She actually memorized a little peekaboo book, Peek-a-who, from the library. She has also done a few short sentences: "Momma comin'?" "Daddy doin'?" She makes it clear to us that we drop our "g's."

4. Amelia loves her extended family, and talks about them all the time. If we talk about what we are doing, she lists all of her family members and we have to say what they are all doing at that moment.

5. Amelia loves to sing. We also have to include all family members' names in one of her favorites songs, Raffi's Willougby Wallaby Woo. Other favorites songs include Raffi's song about going to the zoo, the ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Old MacDonald.

6. We really are weaned. It really is done. Overall, it has been easier than I thought. Amelia asks for "mik" fewer times each day, and yesterday she seemed to do it almost as a joke. She drinks a lot more other liquids, which makes sense. She likes juice of all kinds, regular milk, and "chocate mik" (which is really chocolate soymilk, mostly for the sake of variety).


7. Amelia still snuggles! She likes to hug, to sit in my lap, or to play a games where she pushes me over and falls on me. And the last couple of naps, she has let me rock her to sleep! This is a huge improvement over crying for 10 minutes each and every naptime. I do think sometimes kids just have to cry themselves to sleep--or Amelia does anyway--but I just cannot take it at naptime.


8. These days Amelia is napping around 12-2, give or take 15-20 minutes on either side. It's predictable, for now, which probably adds to my general enjoyment of the days.

9. And we have a pretty set little routine, something I also enjoy. Amelia wakes up between 5 and 6 (sometimes before 5, yikes, but less and less). She likes to play upstairs for a while, then come down and have something to eat and drink. If it's cool and the heat is on, she likes to sit on the big heating vent in our living room and eat her snack. There are fairly large holes in the vent. Sometimes, from the kitchen, I can hear her muttering "too big, too big" or calling "Uh oh!" I have removed a wide variety of items from the vent, but luckily there is a flat place under the vent to catch anything that happens to fall. This is not the best toddler habit but I have decided that for now it is not a battle I want to fight. And it buys me time to clean up the kitchen.

After Dean leaves for work, Amelia and I play downstairs for awhile and read some books. Then we go upstairs and I take a shower while she plays in the bathroom. I take some toys in there to entertain her or she looks at the toiletries in the various baskets I have. (All babyproofed.) This week, she discovered a drawer that contained tampons and has been having a great time dissecting them. Again: it buys some time.

Then we get dressed, a long process, since sometime in the morning Amelia usually become naken. I try to brush her teeth, and once we are ready, we leave the house. On Mondays we go to the grocery store, and other days we go to the Children's Museum or some other fun place, or run other errands, or if it's nice, go to the park. I try to have her home by 11, and we have lunch. Then she messes around till noon while I half play with her, half straighten up. We read some more books, then nap.

After her nap she likes to play with animals in her crib for awhile, and then we usually try to get out of the house again. Amelia is much more grouchy about being in her car seat in the afternoons, so I don't like to go anywhere too far. My favorite thing is to just spend the afternoon in the park, but we haven't been able to do that much lately. Apparently of the 65 non-sunny days a year Denver supposedly has, 31 are in May. So afternoons this week have been challenging.

Anyway, Dean gets home around 5:15, and we all play/work in the yard, or I go to yoga (!; see below). Amelia tends to be hungry for dinner early, between 4:45 and 5:30. We feed her, then she plays till bathtime and goes to bed between 7 and 7:30.

The days are mostly very good.

10. One of my Mother's Day presents was an unlimited summer yoga pass. I picked it out myself. It lasts through July and I have been going to yoga as much as I can. I go in the evenings to a 6-7:15 class. It gives Dean and Amelia time to play and do the bath-bed routine. We have found that when I am in the house, she is much fussier about having me be right with her. If I go to "cass," she might be a little upset when I leave but quickly gets over it and everyone has a pleasant evening, especially Momma. I love going to yoga. May has been a bit more sporadic than I planned, but I have made it to at least 2 classes a week. I am hoping to go more even more often in June.

11. Teething: Amelia is getting her canine teeth. This has truly seemed to last forever, and they seem to bother her a lot more than most of her other teeth. She has drooled, run a low fever, and gnawed on her fingers a lot over the past two months at least. It has gotten so that when she gets too fussy, I just get out the Orajel. I will be glad when the teeth are finally in.

12. In other toddler behavior news, I should touch on eating and sleeping if only for the record. Amelia's eating remains very toddler-esque: she will eat like a horse for a few days, making her mother very happy, and then seem to eat almost nothing for a day or two or more. Highlights of the eating times have been berries of all types, a return to chickpeas, and tiny broccoli florets--raw. Discovering that she liked broccoli was an accident. I gave her a crown of broccoli to hold in the grocery store and she started chewing on it. She is definitely a grazer. Her favorite snacks are salty, crunchy ones like pretzels, crackers and Veggie Straws.

13. My most hated baby-related chore--and I have thought this through--is changing crib sheets. It's terrible! The sheets are super tight and they get caught up in the bumper pad and it takes forever and I think I pull a muscle every time I do it, which is often because Amelia spends so much time lolling in the sand in the park.

14. We are not exactly potty training, but we now own 2 training potties, one that sits on the floor and one that sits on the big potty. Amelia likes to take apart or fill with toys the one on the floor but other than that has no interest in using them. But since she is naken so much she is becoming more aware of when she needs to use the bathroom. She says "pee-pee" for both pee and poop, then proceeds to go on the floor. It seems to upset her so I try to be very upbeat and encouraging about it:


Me: Pee on the floor! That's great! Let's get a towel!
Amelia: (standing naked in a pool pf pee, looking upset) Momma epyoo! Towel!

15. Our garden is planted and growing. I owe you an entire garden-related post, but we (and by we I mean Dean) have planted tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, blueberries, asparagus, peas, radishes, and flowers, and squash and beans will be planted soon. Our fingers are crossed.


16. I love my Denver friends. The playgroup has really gelled, and I spend a lot of time with my neighbor and her daughter. It makes living here so much easier.

17. I still clean too much. I am trying to cut back, I swear.


18. How many ambulance rides have you taken in your life? Because Amelia has now had two. Last week, she fell out of her wagon and hit her head. She cried inconsolably for over 10 minutes, then got sleepy, so Dean called 911. Luckily, by the time the paramedics got here, she was much better. They took her to the ER just in case. The doctors all thought she was fine but watched her for 2 hours (in hospital time, if was just over 3). We were super relieved. It was terrifying while it lasted--one of those times that reveals to you the fact that your child is your entire world--but I think it says something that I just thought of it here at the end of the post. Um, welcome to parenthood? Just as I felt when she got through the appendix episode, I am deeply thankful that she is all right, still her sunny, funny, lovely self. I would think that Amelia could be finished with ambulance rides now, though. Seriously.


19. This is my 350th post. I am glad blogging is still part of my life. I had a community of blog "friends" long before I had very many real mom friends. I love the blogs I read (and I should say I stole this idea of a listed post from Liz's birthday post on BC), and I love writing posts too. This is the only baby journal I keep, and it is so nice to share Amelia with so many others.

When she was good, she was very very good..

Do you know that rhyme? Amelia has no curls, but I just wanted to write a quick post about the fact that when Amelia and I have a good day, it is a very good day!

I spent most of yesterday in a state of worry about some new and mystifying toddler behavior from Amelia. Tantrums, fits, etc. Somehow it seems like every time I think I've gotten the hang of this motherhood thing, something changes.

Anyway, after a nice talk with my mom, lunch with Dean, and the afternoon at the Children's Museum, yesterday turned out fine. And today was great! It was sunny (albeit terribly windy) and Amelia slept till (gasp) 7:15. We had breakfast--Amelia ate 2 scrambled eggs--and went on a walk, then a wagon ride, then to toddler yoga. We came home, spent an hour pushing the baby stroller and grocery cart, then Amelia napped. We spent the afternoon at the park, and the evening Skyping with grandparents. Bathtime was pleasant and bedtime was super smooth! No real crying at all. Now Dean is picking up Thai takeout and I am having a glass of wine, enjoying the peace.

How We Are

Eight days post-hospital, we are doing very well.

I am sure this is not what is on the forefront of everyone's minds, but I have had terrific writing week. Amelia has been sleeping for almost 2 hours every day so I have been able to do almost everything I wanted to do. I finished a poem that I think-- and hope!--will be the title poem of my manuscript. It's hard to say. I was totally enthralled when I wrote it, and I still like it a lot, but sometimes that first love fades as you realize the poem, in fact, is terrible. It's one I only started last week, so it could be too good to be true.

I am also working on rearranging my manuscript.



Lovely.

In other writing-related news, just before Amelia was in the hospital, I got an email from the editor of a journal who wants to publish one of my poems! This is from the round I sent out in October, and other than this good news, and one journal who told me that my poems have moved to a "second round of readings," it has been rejection city. I got one rejection email in three days. So it was encouraging to get an acceptance. And, I am in a poetry reading tomorrow! Read about it here. If you want to make a last minute trip to Denver... it'll be totally worth it.

Now, on to what you really what to know, which is how Amelia is doing. She is doing really well. She eats like a horse. Well, a small horse. Seriously, she has been starting her day with Cheerios, two scrambled eggs, some fruit and maybe some soy sausage or bacon, and going on from there. A snack like an hour later, then another snack, then lunch. After her nap a substantial snack and an early and large dinner. She has also been eating a wide variety of things, as long as they are first stabbed with a fork. It's a relief, since she basically didn't eat for the 3 weeks before and during her hospital stay.

Amelia is moving around well too, almost totally back to normal. For awhile you could tell it hurt her when she squatted and then stood back up but that seems to have gone away. She is very happy at home, but when we go out she is still wary of other people. She cried when we went to the library today. I think she thought it was too much like a hospital. But then when she saw we were just at Book Babies (we were at a library we had never been to before) she relaxed and sang and clapped and danced. She wasn't quite as mobile as she used to be, but it has been about 2 months since we have even been to Book Babies, and honestly, it was nice not to have to chase after her the whole time.

She has been spending a fair amount of time playing by herself since the sad departure of both of her grandmothers. The other day I was loading the dishwasher and realized it was quiet... too quiet...





Suki's water bowl has been moved farther down the stairs.


Back to normal... toddler-style.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring...

but last night, Amelia slept from 7 PM-6 AM with nary a peep (and took a two and a half hour nap yesterday afternoon). Dean and I slept well last night too, and Amelia has been a happy baby all morning. Now she and her daddy are out playing in the snow.

I noticed as I logged on to blogger that this is my 300th post. This is a nice event to record for it, at the end of a week of change for the better.

The One Year Old

I am officially the mother of a one year old! I got over most of my sadness on Amelia's birthday after writing my letter to her and talking to some friends on the phone. Then Amelia and I met our friends Ali and Anna (who just turned one on Monday) at the Denver Botanical Gardens--their children's garden is my favorite place to take her in Denver. We had fun playing and talking, and then Amelia slipped on a block and got her first big knot on her head. On her birthday! So life goes on.

Amelia had two birthday parties. First she had a party at her Grand-aunt Linda's house. Then Sunday afternoon, we had a little party for her. A few Book Babies friends and neighbors came over for about an hour. We had cupcakes. Sadly, I have pictures of neither party. I have pictures in my email of the first party that I don't know how to download, and I have picture of the second party but not any with Amelia alone, and I don't think I should post pictures of other people's babies on the Internet without asking their mommas. So here are some recent pictures of Amelia in her high chair.







What a funny bear.

Amelia at one is a lot of fun. Dean and I agree that we could keep her at this age.

Oh, she said her first word: Ball! She shouts it. She definitely says it when she sees a ball, so we know it's a real word, but she also says it when she sees a dog, and about 7,000 other times a day. She said it as soon as she woke up this morning. Ball! Ball! We got her a basket of balls for her birthday, so there are plenty of chances to say it.

In other Amelia news, she taking baby steps between pieces of furniture but has yet to venture out on her own two feet. She drops to her knees to crawl if she wants to get somewhere far away.She has learned to play with Suki a little by throwing a ball to her (which also gives her a chance to say Ball!). She still seems to be transitioning from one to two naps. We had a pretty successful one-nap day Monday when she napped from about 11:30-1:15. But since then she has had two naps. She went down this morning at 8:30! Which is how I am able to write this. It seems that if she sleeps till 7, she will have one nap, but if she wakes up earlier, she'll take two. Who knows. Night sleep is okay--she has been waking at 11:30, crying for a just a minute, and sleeping again, then sleeping till 3:30. I have been breaking my 4am rule. We are going out of town again next week, so my new rule is 3:30am till we get back from that trip and can reestablish things. Having a baby is hard.

All right, I want to try to catch up on a few more posts before A wakes up...

Blog Meets Blog

As you will recall, we kicked off our month of summer fun with a visit from my friend Liz and her son Oliver. Liz wrote about the visit much more promptly than I did (am doing), but rest assured it was a great week.

Last weekend I had some rare free time in our cabin in Estes Park (more on that soon), and I spent some of it catching up on my reading my blog list. I was really touched to read the nice things Liz had to say about her visit here and about our friendship.

I have probably written about this before but Liz and I met at Governor's School East in 1996. We spent 6 weeks becoming lifetime friends. I LOVED everything about GSE, especially getting to know Liz, and when it came time to go home that summer, I was heartbroken--except I wasn't that sad to leave Liz. I knew--I just knew--that we would always be friends.

As things worked out, we were--but also sort of weren't. We thought we might be college roommates, but then went to different universities. After college, we went our separate ways and only rarely wrote each other very short emails. But when somehow--I don't quite remember how--I started reading Liz's blog. Then I started my own blog. Then Liz and I shared some pieces of writing through email, and then she had a baby. Then I had a baby--and we were in touch constantly.

I wouldn't call Liz one of my "mommy friends"-- those are the friends you have just because you are a mom, people you wouldn't really have much to say to if you weren't both sitting on blankets in the park, trying to prevent your babies from eating too much grass. Liz is my friend because she is kind, funny, and super smart, because she is just one of those people, rare in my life at least, that I liked immediately and liked more the more I got to know her. But she has been one of my most important friends who is also a mom. Oliver was born a year and a month before Amelia, and not only has Liz patiently dispensed advice regarding breast pumps, diapers, baby monitors, and God knows what else, watching the adventures of Liz and little G has also, more importantly, given me a model of what life as a mother can look like. Liz is a mom but also a teacher and a writer , a wife, a sister and a daughter, a blogger and a friend to others and someone who takes time for herself--not to mention a pregnant person. And now she is also a PhD student. She wrote that she is nervous about this new venture, understandably so, but if anyone can do it, it's you, Liz! I have no doubts. You will make a truly outstanding professor of education.

Anyway, so Liz and Oliver came to visit! We had a great time, especially considering that due to A and G's different ages and nap schedules, one of them was sleeping for a great part of each day. We managed trips to both the zoo and to Book Babies, and had daily picnics in the park. Liz was very patient with some of Amelia's more difficult nap episodes and my fear of driving on Denver's Interstate 25, which made our travels from and to the airport take longer than they really should have. (I have since conquered that fear--yea me! I am a grownup who can drive on the busiest stretch of interstate in Colorado!--but at the time I insisted on taking the long way.) It was a real treat to have so much time to catch up with Liz and to really meet Oliver, who I have read about extensively but spent little actual time with. He is a fabulous kid. He is calm, happy, loving--and he can put away an impressive number of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!



Speaking of the airport, I cried when we dropped them off. Thanks for visiting, Liz. I wish you lived next door, but I know we will be friends wherever we are.

P.S.! The fish oil smell is all gone. :)

Babies

The E Street Cinema in DC just started a weekly "Rattles and Reels" showing. At 11:00 on Wednesdays caregivers can bring their babies to see a movie in a child-friendly atmosphere. Yesterday they were showing Babies. It was wild.

I have never sees so many babies in one place in my life. I am talking about the real babies there to see the movie, not the film. Amelia and I got there kind of early and sat beside a small group of moms and babies on our blanket on the floor between two sets of seats. When we got there, there were maybe 10 or so moms and babies. This was about 10:45. Then more people came in a steady stream. Then more people. More people, clustering around the door. More and more and more.

It got to be a little chaotic. Many of the early birds, like me and Amelia, were sitting on the floor, but we were kind of in the way of people looking for seats. The people who were sitting in actual seats tended to choose first the seats at the end of the aisles (for reasons that, if you are a parent of young children, are obvious to you). So then you had people with babies climbing over other people with babies. And not to mention the baby transporting devices. Baby carriers everywhere, and the strollers! Amelia and I left the movie a little early, and there were strollers parked along the walls outside of the theater, double or triple parked, for a stretch of at least 50 feet.

Crying. There was a lot of crying. And shushing, coughing, sniffing, sucking, giggling, cooing, shrieking, babbling. But there was pretty much not a second of the movie in which there was no crying.

It was great, though. I did get a little stressed when so many people kept filing in. As a city movie theater, the E St showing rooms are not that big, and it started to feel a little overcrowded. But in the end everyone got pretty much settled and it was a good time. In my opinion, the movie itself was neither great not horrible. I was kind of distracted throughout (feeding Amelia, helping her practice crawling, doling out toys and banana puff halfs) so I couldn't do the cultural studies critique that I normally love to do while watching documentaries or reality TV of any kind. Plus I had read a review in the New Yorker that kind of ruined the movie for me. Mostly it was just fun to watch. The film really just focused on the babies. There was very little talking or focusing on the adults. There was hardly any attention given to pregnancy or childbirth, which I especially liked. Just babies: babies sleeping, staring, sitting, playing, crawling, jumping, learning, being. The whole experience led me to realize something about myself: I really like babies.

I really do. I like their little faces, the strangely wise eyes of newborns and the chubby little cheeks of older babies. I like how they are always striving to do something new, and how they are so attentive, and how they express whatever they are feeling at any given moment with no reservations whatsoever. I like their little hands and their soft, soft skin. I like talking to them. I often find them much easier to talk to than their parents. I just really like babies.

It's kind of a strange thing for a mother of a baby to realize. Obviously most parents love their own babies, and obviously I think Amelia takes the cake in any baby cakewalk, but it was funny to actively notice how much I enjoy the company of other babies.

It makes me pause again in thankfulness of Amelia. It suddenly seems like she is changing and growing so fast. You can't pick up the same baby twice. I would freeze time right now if I could...

One time is random, twice could be an accident...

three times makes a pattern.

That's what my teacher Stan Plumly says, and although he is talking about patterns and form in poetry, I think it could also apply to sleeping through the night.

For the SECOND night IN A ROW Amelia has slept from 7-4:30, at which point I fed her, and she went back to sleep. I suppose I could try to avoid the 4:30 feeding but sleeping through till 4:30 seems super luxurious to me right now, and I don't mind feeding her then, because by then she has gone over 10 hours without eating. As you can see from the time of this post, I could not go back to sleep after she ate; I was lying there writing in my head and listening to another early bird, a real one, chirping outside. Rather than toss and turn and keep Dean awake, I got up to spend some QT with Suki, who is curled up beside me, and sip coffee in the pre-dawn twilight. (That seems oxymoronic, but I can't think of the word for the light before sunrise. ?)

My life is already remarkably better than it was one week ago. Although there are still signs of sleep deprived adults in the house (the container of grated cheese I found stashed in the Tupperware drawer (yuck), the running faucet I came downstairs to this morning (of HOT water--YIKES)), I feel much better, and since when have I been able to get up and write? So, I am hoping twice turns into the 3 times tomorrow, and 3 times melts into many.

Now--of course--as I write this, Amelia has begun to coo and call from her crib. I am going to give her a few minutes and see if she goes back to sleep. We put her down 15 minutes later than usual last night so it'll be interesting if she wakes up this early (the books say, although it's counterintuitive, that if a baby goes to bed too late she will wake up too early: "Sleep begets sleep").

As I wait her out, I'll note that I spent Amelia's entire nap writing poetry yesterday. A poem I started when I was pregnant with her has suddenly found its form and its pathway. I am finally not-pregnant enough to write about pregnancy with some reflection, and the form was inspired by my fling with the project that was triggered by Caroline's forty forts (thank you again, Caroline, a zillion times over. And to everyone else, if you haven't been reading about her forts, you should!)

-------------------

So now Amelia is awake and I am trying to finish this post while she sits on the floor and takes toys out of a bin. She is in an excellent stage in which she can sit up really well, without you having to be there to catch her from tipping sideways or forward, but she can't crawl away. If we put her down on a soft blanket surrounded with pillows (just in case she does tip over), with a bin of toys in front of her, she will sit there for like 20 minutes taking toys out of the bin, chatting with the toys. Right now she is alternately waving her toucan back and forth saying "gaagheebababa" and enthusiastically biting the toucan's beak. We have been able to get a lot of packing done this way. It is a stage in which I could easily pause for a while. Although we are trying to give her lots of tunny time so she can learn to crawl (she is now able to push up on hands and knees and rock back and forth), I kind of dread the crawling, because it will shatter this calm and peaceful world of sitting still.

Here she is:





Now I will join little A on the floor.

Applesauce Face

This is truly the Golden Age of Amelia. She is portable, agreeable, adorable, and so much fun. Here she is eating applesauce off of a tray like a dog.

You might be wondering...

What's Amelia been up to these days?


Well, she's been enjoying wearing her cowgirl outfit around the Hill--jacket made by Luli, boots courtesy of grand-aunt Linda:





She had a great visit with her best friend Sophie:








She tasted her first "solid," if you call five parts breast milk to one part rice cereal a solid:



She was not a huge fan. We might wait a few weeks to try again.



She's teething, we think, and loves this infinity teething ring:




She also loves to wallow around on a towel, in the nude.



It's a good life.

A-mel-i-a! A-mel-i-a!

A-mel-i-a! A-mel-i-a!
A, M, E,
L, I, A
A-mel-i-a! A-mel-i-a!
A, M, E,
L, I, A!

That's a song I made up to sing to Amelia. In the song, Amelia has 4 syllable, like Olivia. (Dean and I have often discussed the proper pronunciation of her name.)

Dean has also made up a song for Amelia:

Amelia the baby,
she's such a sweet baby,
such a good baby,
Amelia!

I'm sorry I can't write out the melodies. But rest assured they are both excellent songs.

I wanted to write a good, old-fashioned post about Amelia in celebration of her forth month birthday tomorrow! Here are some things I absolutely love about my baby:

-When she has had enough sleep, she wakes up smiling. When you go in to get her in the morning or after a long nap, she just grins and grins.

-I love her long, soft baby hair. All of the other babies are jealous of her hair. It is already growing down into her eyes. (Just don't tell her she has a bald spot. Luckily she can't see the back of her head.)

-Although I hate waking up in the middle of the night, I love cuddling with Amelia to feed her in the dark and quiet.

-I am a fan of breastfeeding, in general. Sometimes it is the only thing that makes me stop and rest. Besides all the fun of cuddling and looking at Amelia's beautiful eyelashes, it's a great excuse to sit still (and maybe watch Teen Mom).

-I love washing A's face in the morning. I sing, "This is the way we wash our face!" She opens her mouth and smiles when I rub the washcloth over her nose.

-I love reading to Amelia. It'll be even more fun when she can understand more of the stories.

-I love her long, plump toes.

-I love watching her take a bath. When Dean puts her in the water, she gets a very serious expression on her face and begins to kick her legs and wave her arms. Bathing is serious business.

-I love watching Dean love Amelia. I love the triangle of our family.

-I love watching A change and grow. Just this last week she has really started to look at things with interest, reaching out and grasping. She likes to sit in my lap and gnaw on my fingers.

Yea Amelia! These last four months have definitely been the most challenging months of my life. They have contained the most overwhelming moments I have ever lived through, but they have also contained moments of the greatest joy I have ever felt.

Happy Forth Month to you.

A Week of Thankfulness

In honor of Thanksgiving and of my 31st birthday on Wednesday, I thought it would be nice to try to write each day a bit on thankfulness. During my hardest moments over the past 7 weeks--and 10 and a half months, for that matter--it has helped me to stop and list a few things I am thankful for. This has gotten me through more than one teary moment in the middle of the night when I thought I could not possibly wake up and feed you-know-who. Just considering for even a second how thankful I am to have the healthy, lovely Amelia here with us now made the sleeplessness and exhaustion suddenly bearable, even not so bad.

(Note that I am referring to sleeplessness in the past tense. Amelia has been sleeping in 6+ hour stretches for the past several nights, waking once to eat, and sleeping some more. This is because we began swaddling her again. Or, rather, Dean began swaddling her--he is the master of swaddling. It's wonderful. It also considerably cuts down the amount of grunting and writhing Amelia does while she sleeps. Of course I know her sleep habits will change and change again, but I am reveling in this while it lasts.)

So to begin, I am so very thankful for Amelia. I love her. She is a cuddly, squirmy, fascinating little person. After she eats, she throws back her head and cradles it one arm like some little diva tossing her hair back because she knows the paparazzi is watching. She makes baby farm animal noises in her sleep. When she wakes up, after her initial adorable grouchiness, she smiles at whoever is there, and she loves to rest in her pack and play and watch her black and white mobile spin around. She coos at it.

She is the very picture of good health, too, which I am extremely thankful for. She is already quite chubby.

Yea, Amelia! My life, though admittedly more complicated and less my own, is infinitely more interesting and more wonderful now that you are here.

Joy, Terror, Despair

Those are the three emotions I seem to cycle through on a fairly regular basis. To call them "mood swings" is a bit of an understatement. I'm talking extreme happiness one day, extreme sadness the next. Yes, I know--the hormones. But it's been interesting to consider what else causes these feelings.

The terror should be pretty obvious. I am having a baby and I am going to have to figure out what to do with it--I mean her. I've read enough to know that there is no real way to plan for this. Of course on the one hand there are LOTS of ways to plan. We've picked out baby items. Set up a crib. Signed up for birth and baby care classes. I have read tons and tons and tons about pregnancy, labor, birth, the first year, sleeping, nursing, etc. But until it happens, I have no way of knowing what will actually happen! I don't know when the baby is coming, or how, and I don't know how long I will need to stop teaching after she comes. I don't know how nursing will go. I don't know if the used breast pump I just got will work. I don't know how much I will get to sleep. If at all.

I don't know from day to day if I will feel good, horrible or somewhere in the middle. I don't know if I will have a good writing day or be too tired or nauseous to write anything worth saving. I am a planner. I like to be in control. I like to make lists and cross things off as I complete them. Having a baby is a huge reminder of how out of control life really is. It's overwhelming.

Being overwhelmed, I think, mixed with the terror like some kind of cheap, sub par martini bar cocktail, leads to the despair.

But.

At the same time--actually NOT at the same time, but soon or eventually following--is the joy. I have a lot to celebrate. In fact (caution--swift mood-swing-like transition here--), I thought I would take some time to count my blessings:

1) I have a very healthy baby! This is too easy to take for granted. A friend of a friend is pregnant with twin boys and has had a really scary, difficult time. Each time I remember her I feel guilty for being blue about nausea, weariness, the uncertainty of the future, or just plain nothing. I am very, very thankful that the baby has been so healthy and happy. (Every time the doctor checks her heartbeat, he says, "What a happy baby!")

2) I have a great husband and partner. Dean is very patient, loving and supportive. He is very excited about the part where the baby actually comes, which I find very helpful and hopeful. If I say I am terrified, he waves his hand and says "It's going to be great!" (This COULD be annoying but isn't--it's actually extremely reassuring.)

3) I have a wonderful family. From parents to parents-in-law, sister to aunts and everyone in between, my entire family has been nothing but kind, loving, generous and supportive. The nameless wiggle baby is very loved already.

4) I have terrific friends. You know who you are. Without your endless and amazingly thorough advice, I would be a zillion times more lost and overwhelmed.

5) I have a flexible, relatively well-paying summer job that gives me time to write.

6) I have a flexible, relatively well-paying teaching gig for the fall, AND I found a great person to fill in for me for 6 weeks after the baby is born. Dean's job will allow him to stay home with the baby while I teach two mornings a week after that.

7) We have a lovely (albeit rented) home, well-chilled with central air, lots of good food, a soft bed, a soft cat (and soft pillows, a soft couch, six-and-counting soft, soft baby blankets...)

8) The blueberry cobbler I made yesterday turned out well! I am NOT a good baker, folks. This was a real triumph. I can go to the fridge at any time and get some, with ice cream. Yum.

9) We have home-grown tomatoes just steps from our back door.

10) Dean just came home and is going to cook dinner for me.

11) I have spent the last hour on the aforementioned soft couch, doing what I love (a.k.a. writing), with the wiggle baby kicking or bopping around inside me in a happy and reassuring fashion.

What more could a wanna-be poet and mama-to-be ask for?

Cloudy With a Chance of Showers

The nameless wiggle baby was given not one but two baby showers last week. They were wonderful! Everyone was so kind and generous.

The first shower, last Thursday, was a family shower planned mostly by my aunt Carolyn. Thank you Carolyn! And thank you to the rest of my family too. It was a lovely shower, with great food and super cute decorations. Not to mention the super cute gifts. The baby now has more clothes than I do. The days of documenting each individual baby item are over, I guess, but everyone picked out great stuff, lots of precious dresses and gowns and skirts and t-shirts and onesies. One particularly scary onesie says "sleep is for the weak." Yikes!

It was great to be able to talk to my aunts and cousins about pregnancy and motherhood. Collectively they have a lot of advice to share. When the shower began, I was a little sad that my grandmother could not be there, but I tried to be happy to feel her presence in all of the other wonderful women I was with.

Then on Saturday, Meg and her mom threw us another shower in Chapel Hill. It too was beautiful. I got to see lots of friends and family, and again everyone was so generous. The baby received more lovely clothes, blankets, lots of practical items like baby wash and outlet plugs, and lots of fun things like books and toys and a rainforest play mat and a piggy bank. It took Dean and I many trips up the back stairs to unload everything yesterday. I had fun sitting down with Dean to show him everything. Right now the baby stuff is in bags or small piles in storage, but we think that next weekend we are going to start setting things up so that we don't have to avoid tripping over piles of baby items for the next 3 months. I will post pictures when things look a little better.

We are so grateful to have so many wonderful friends and family members. Thank you all for everything! And if all this weren't enough, we have another baby shower to look forward to soon--Luli and Corrie are giving us another shower in August!

The Weekend In Pictures

Well, words and pictures. We had a busy weekend. I graduated from my MFA program on Friday, and on Saturday Jim and Luli, Dean's parents, came up for a birthday visit and a Will Oldham concert. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the concert, since they didn't allow cameras, but it was a lot of fun. I also have no pictures of today: Dean and I took a picnic to the tidal basin area, and then I stayed on the Mall and watched part of the Memorial Day parade. It was a great DC Memorial Day activity, but they didn't allow cameras. No, really, I just forgot the camera, as usual.

Anyway, here's the weekend's photo album.

My graduation was Friday. It was very hot wearing the robe. It made me sleepy. Graduation ceremonies are so strange, but they are nice punctuation. Here I am with my poetry friends, the people I started the program with 3 years ago...



My family made a whirlwind trip up to see me graduate! Stupidly, we did not take any family pictures at the graduation. But they did get me some gorgeous roses:



and here are some books they brought for the baby (on the beautiful new table Luli made; more on that below).



The baby has a promising library already.

On Saturday, my parents went home and Dean's arrived, bearing many gifts. It's not her birthday, but most were for the baby. Here are some clothes:



and a sling Luli made! I am trying it out with my Cinnamon Bear.



There were also some new clothes for Mama. Here's the cute top Luli made for me:



Sadly, some of the clothes, including the gift from Linda, which I LOVE, do not fit. Sigh. Anyway, Dad-to-be got something he's been wishing for: a rain barrel! It's thundering now, so we're hoping to be able to use it soon. Here it is with its friend the composter:



Just for fun, here's how our garden looks now:



and a close up of the peas:



The most exciting gift, for the whole family, is the beautiful table Luli made for us.



Here's a close up:



and a side view:



I love this table. It is just gorgeous and perfect for the space. It's a drop leaf table, so we can make it small if we need to, or big enough for a large workspace or a dinner for 6 (we think) if we need to. Thank you Luli!

Finally, Suki was a little sad that no one brought her presents, but she found consolation in the bag the presents arrived in:



All in all, a great weekend. It's not often we get to see both sets of parents! Now I'm coming to terms with the end of the holiday--I start my new job in the English department tomorrow!

Inventory

I am 20 weeks pregnant , which is officially halfway through, although of course the pregnancy could be longer or shorter than 40 weeks. We have been very excited since the ultrasound, and spent a lot of time this weekend reading our baby name book. Some names we had been considering were decided against, and some new ones were added to the list. I don't want to post the list yet, but I'll say that Dean and I both seem to like names that sound somewhat old-fashioned, as well as names that end in "a."

I am super excited that the baby is a girl, although I suspect I would be very excited about a boy, albeit in a totally different way. I had been leaning toward wanting a girl, but the night before the ultrasound I kept waking up hearing "it's a boy," and I was still very happy. In fact right before the ultrasound technician told us it was a girl I thought I could see that it was a boy, if you know what I mean--I guess I was looking at the umbilical cord? Anyway, maybe it's just the 20-week ultrasound, but since Friday I have been much more excited about the part where we HAVE A BABY, as in when the baby comes home and we get to have it, oops, HER, around. This is an extreme relief since I have been pretty nervous so far. I'm still nervous, but I am also enchanted by our lovely daughter's first baby pictures and I can't wait to see her in person!

She is moving around a lot more in her snug little space. Or I guess she is moving the same amount, but I can feel it more. The flutters and kicks are interesting, but there is also one very odd type of movement. It's odd because of where I feel it, which is sort of down low, just over the cervix area. It makes sense that you would feel movement there, but it's strange because, as Meg put it, "you didn't think anyone could ever touch you there." I'm excited for when Dean can feel her kicking. On Friday afternoon, she kicked strongly enough for me to feel with my hand on my belly, but that's all so far and of course there is no way of predicting when that will happen again.

We are collecting more and more baby items, so I thought it would be fun to take a baby stuff inventory. So far, my daughter-to-be owns:

1 crib, bought Saturday with Meg and Sophie, to be delivered in 7-14 business days. It looks like this one except it's brown, not black. (Don't cribs look like jail cells?)

1 beautiful quilt, handmade by Dean's great aunt for him when he was born, seen below

1 doll, handmade by Dean's grandmother, also seen below



5 finger puppets: I bought these at Eastern Market with Laura a month or two ago. (Note the baby llama, baby monkey and baby kangaroo!)



3 books: Goodnight Moon and Pat the Bunny, sent by Liz; Freedom on the Menu and Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope, sent by Linda; and Hippos Go Beserk!, bought by me on the day I first heard the baby's heartbeat




2 gowns: pink, one polka dot and one with tiny flowers and a little lamb applique



(See the little lamb?)



1 towel. It has a little lamb hood on it. (I seem to have a weakness for lambs.)

1 pajama set: pink, with matching hat, bib (again with a lamb), and socks.

1 rattle: a cow, with udders, sent by Corrie

24 pairs of socks that look like shoes, sent by my mother in both boys and girls versions in two sizes, seen below in green.

and

1 soft blanket with baby animals on it. (This, the towel, the pajama set and the gowns, not to mention the crib, were bought this weekend by sweet Aunt Meg, who visited with precious baby Sophie--and I forgot my camera so I have no picture of them!)



It's all very exciting and almost exhaustingly cute!