A Pilgrimage, An Offering

Amelia and I made a trek to The Children's Hospital on Wednesday to drop off some toys as a Christmas donation. Instead of exchanging gifts, our (very generous and wonderful) playgroup donated gifts for the hospital at a little playgroup holiday party Amelia and I hosted on Tuesday. We ended up with four big bags of toys, books, art supplies, DVDs and even a mini-DVD player to donate. While we were there, I also wanted to buy some Wagon Blend coffee to give as gifts this year.

I was a little worried about returning to Children's. If you don't know the story of our experience there, you can read about it here (scroll down to "Hospital Story Part 1 to start from the beginning). I woke up at 4:30 in the morning on Wednesday reliving a lot of the experience; then I wondered why I had it on my mind--funny. I was thinking it was kind of crazy to voluntarily return to the hospital. But I wanted to make an offering, however small, to the hospital for Christmas, in honor of all the great care Amelia received while she was there.


Amelia on her last day in the hospital

Amelia and I loaded up and left for Aurora around noon. She happily ate a special treat--a Wendy's Kids meal--on the way. The girl loves her hamburgers. When we arrived, we parked and walked into the lobby.

It's hard to describe how I felt. I did of course remember being in that lobby was a worried parent, and I could see the worry (and exhaustion) in several other parents' faces as soon as I walked in. But mainly I felt like what I was--a visitor. Amelia and I found the room where there were collecting donations, then found a little red wagon to take back out to the car and return with the rest of the gifts. Amelia enjoyed the wagon ride, the sticker she got, and the little toys they have in the lobby. After we dropped off the toys, we took the elevator to the 9th floor with a basket of chocolates and candy for the wonderful nurses who took care of Amelia. As I had expected, we didn't get to see any of them, but we left it in the hands of a kind hospital worker who promised to find the right people. On the way off the elevator, Amelia got her fingers caught and smooshed in the opening door. As she cried (mostly with rage) and I comforted her, it really hit me how much of a visitor to the hospital I really was. My perfectly healthy and stubborn child, who tried again to touch the elevator doors the very next time we got on the elevator, is just that--wonderfully, blessedly, healthy. And the primary emotion I felt throughout our pilgrimage to the hospital was gratitude. I feel so incredibly lucky that my and Dean's experience with a very sick child was so short. I am infinitely grateful for Amelia's health and infinitely grateful for Amelia.


Our happy, healthy 2-year-old

There is something that happened while we were in the hospital that I have not mentioned to many people, and never to anyone in full. It's a very small moment but also a very big one. While we where there, they were doing one of those radio fundraisers for the hospital. The lobby was often full of DJs and music and parents and patients telling their stories on the air. Once when I was leaving the hospital for some reason, a mother was with talking to the DJ. She was telling the story of her child's illness. It was an illness her child did not recover from, and she was describing the moment the doctor's told her that there was nothing more they could do for the child. I can't tell the whole story because I pretty much ran from the lobby in tears, but what I remember, what was hard to comprehend at the time and honestly, still is, is that she was speaking about how grateful she was--for all that the doctors and nurses did do for her child, for the time she had left with her child, and for the person her child still was. I am sorry to be writing about this stuff--it's brutal. But I will always remember that mother's voice, and her gratitude.

One of the scariest things to me about parenthood--and life--is that we don't know what's going to happen next. For now, I have a beautiful, healthy, vibrant, fun-loving daughter. Having her is the most challenging, the most interesting, the most wonder-full thing I have ever experienced. This Christmas season, I offer a heart filled with love and gratitude to all of the other wonderful people my life, to the friends and family and neighbors who make my rich life even better. I love you all, and I hope your holiday season and new year are as filled with blessings as my own life has been so far.


Merry Christmas from all of us

Lists, lists, oh lists

If the title of this post seems oddly familiar to you, you may be, or may have been in the past, a high school English teacher.*

Time for the final update on my July list: I didn't get everything done.

But, here are the items on the list I did accomplish:
cleaned out and organized my closet
cleaned off my upstairs writing desk
started running 3 times a week (for the past 3 weeks only, but hey)
learned all about potty training (really--ask me anything)
redesigned, multiple times, this blog
went to yoga 2-3 times a week

And, I did a ton of stuff not on the list, such as:
research preschools and Parents Day Out programs
put up an ad for a babysitter
reorganize the pantry and kitchen cabinets
start a book club
brainstorm ideas for a cookbook

The main things I did not do, however, might be the most important ones for any sort of academic career I might eventually ever have (although that idea seems less plausible the longer I am away from the academic world). I did NOT do any kind of work for the two baby ideas I had for non-poetry writing projects, something having to do with Southern Lit and something having to do with what I am calling "Motherhood Lit." I just don't have the gumption, the energy, or the motivation for these projects. I know a lot of writing opportunities come out of simply having written something, but I have a hard time starting big projects without some kind of outside pressure for doing so. Like a job. Or being in school. Amelia is a tough boss, but she doesn't require much in the way of written material. So I am slacking there.

I have been feeling kind of bad about it. I didn't even want to blog about it, and I have in fact been sitting in front of the computer for an hour NOT blogging about it, but this seems to be one of Amelia's longer nap days. I keep arguing with myself about the situation--see below.


Kim 1: Of course I am not writing much or working on anything all that serious. I am a Stay At Home Mom. My job is to raise Amelia. By the end of a day of playing, coloring, singing, talking about colors, repeating things one million times, getting in and out of the car seat, running errands, preparing wholesome meals and snacks, cleaning up bits and pieces of said meals and snacks from all corners of the house, patiently waiting for a toddler to put on her shoes "self," strap herself into her carseat "self", go up and down stairs "self," and who knows what all else, how could I even expect myself to create serious and insightful work on a realm of the world (i.e. literature) that truly has nothing to do with my life right now.

Kim 2: But you are a writer. And you want to be a writer. And writers read stuff. And also write.

Kim 1: (asleep by 8:30 pm)

So I am really not getting anywhere.

On the one hand, I love Amelia and Amelia is wonderful, and I really do love spending the days with her now. Although I have been so grateful since I stopped working that I am able to be with her so much, "I really do love spending the days with her" is not something I would have written a year ago. I found the baby months--sleepless nights, unpredictable days-- really hard. And now, things are still challenging, and I am certainly tired at the end of the day, but overall I am having a lot of fun. That's why I stopped looking for teaching jobs for the fall, and chose to stay with Amelia for another year.

On the other hand, part of me feels very isolated. When I think about it, which isn't often, I miss school, both taking classes and teaching them, very much. Long term, I would like to be part of the larger writing world again, but I have a lot of fears and worries about ever getting there. I am afraid of being lazy now and missing my chance. I am afraid I can no longer write a good poem. I am afraid I will never have the discipline to read all the stuff I need to read to be a good poet. I am afraid I will never find a teaching job.

And I am afraid no one is all that interested in what I have to say. Awhile ago, I mentioned the fact that I wanted my blog to be more than a "mommy blog." I had come across a piece of academic writing on "mommy blogs" that really annoyed me, but I couldn't quite figure out why. It wasn't particularly insulting, just a kind of study and description of "mommy blogs," but it really not on my nerves. Then I came across this article on the words "mom" and "mommy", and two and two came together. As the Orlean article points out, "mommy" as an adjective comes across as infantile, silly, even trivial. It annoys me to have a whole segment of writing women, most if not all of whom provide each other (and the whole cyberworld) not only with a mothering community but also with invaluable insights on both parenting and writing, labeled as "mommy bloggers." And it both offends and scares me to have most of my writing labeled as such. Offends me because I don't think most of what I write is trivial, even if much of what I write is primarily about Amelia. And scares me because maybe, in the eyes of the larger writing world, it is.

Of course if I really believed that, I'd shut down the whole operation, and here we are. I know these feelings are not new to women or to mothers or to artists in general. And I know how lucky I am, how hugely lucky, that my challenge is balancing mothering and writing, and not working and spending time with my child, or trying to put food on my table, or dealing with war or poverty or fear for my family's physical safety or innumerable other terrible things. I try to remember to be grateful for my life daily, even hourly. And I am very grateful.

Still, I know that part of me is meant to write, wants to write, and it waiting to do so. In the ongoing brave new world of motherhood, a different world every day, I think my upcoming lists are going to look for ways to be more of a writer too.

*It's from Hamlet, a play I read too many times with a great deal of teenagers who were uninterested in, if not downright hostile toward, Shakespeare. The ghost says it (or rather, "list, list, o list!") to get Hamlet to listen. I'd say it to get my students to listen. I was such a cool teacher.

What's Amia doin'?

Amelia is talking. A lot. Amelia repeats almost everything we say, including, once, "Damn it, Suki!" as Suki escaped outside through a closing door. Amelia somehow got a southern accent, or at least a southern way of sayin' lots of words. She drops her g's. She called her (L)u(l)i and Guwu's cat Maude "Mawwwd." Could she have picked up this drawl from her mother? You be the judge.

Amelia also drops l's. Hence the (L)u(l)i and the "Amia." Or often she just calls herself "Mia." Mia was listed as a nickname for Amelia in the baby name book I used, and now I see why.

For yes, Amelia says "okay." For no, she says "no okay." All in one phrase. (Are you ready to take a rest? No okay. I am learning to tell, not ask, certain things.)

Amelia is asking a lot of questions, or rather, the same few questions over and over. What's Amia doin'? What's Daddy doin'? What's Momma doin'? What's Suki doin'? (I remember my mom telling me how many times I used to say "Ronna... What doin', huh?")

Amelia assigns dialogue. She likes me to talk for her dolls and stuffed animals. Usually they want to eat something or do whatever Amelia is doing. Then she will tell them, gravely, "Mia's turn." She also likes for me to ask to do what she is doing and then say no. This might worry me but I read in The Happiest Toddler on the Block (which I highly recommend, along with The Girlfriend's Guide to Toddlers) that it's actually good to let toddlers be the boss and deny you of things sometimes for play, because they have so little power in other things.

Amelia takes her time. I am tested many times a day on my resolve, so long ago, to be patient when Amelia became a toddler. Walking 50 feet can take half an hour. Going up or down the stairs can take half the morning. I try to remind myself that what feels like a sidetrack to me is a learning experience and a experiment in independence for Amelia, and save the times I ask her to hurry for when it really matters.

Amelia wants to do it "self." In other words, "Mia do it." Putting on her shoes, buckling into her carseat, putting on her pants: these are all thing Amelia really wants to do by herself and can't quite, yet. But she tries, sometimes calmly and sometimes with great frustrations. If only patience came in a bottle. For both of us. These have been moments when I have had to literally chant aloud to myself "Patience, patience!" (It helps.)

Amelia likes to collect. One of the things she is repeating is "A-nuh-nuh ____?" For example, she has these little plastic animal toys she calls hippos that have holes on one side and a point on the other end so they can snap into each other. They are all pulled apart and scattered everywhere because she likes to put them on her fingers. If we happen to see one she says, "A-nuh-nuh hippo?" (That's "another.") Basically, anything she finds or likes, she asks for another. A-nuh-nuh haircip? A-nuh-nuh bracet? A-nuh-nuh bear? And etc. Etc. All day long.

Amelia has been sleeping beautifully. 10-12 hours a night, 2 or so hours for naps. Did this coincide with weaning? Yes. Well, the night sleep did anyway. Could be a coincidence, but just for the record. The naps got easier when I started being consistent about a nap routine: home from morning outing around 11, lunch, playtime, stories, in the crib between 12 and 12:30 for 3 songs, the end. She usually cries for a few minutes before she falls asleep, but sometimes she just talks to her animals. Again for the record, her current bedtime is between 7 and 8, depending on how tired she is.

And finally, Amelia is wonderful. She is fun, funny, and fascinating. She changes so quickly and is becoming her own little self with alarming speed. Although I am sometimes tired and impatient, I am truly and deeply thankful that I get to spend so much time with her.

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.

Hospital Story, Part 2

So Dean and I left Amelia with the surgeons. We walked back up to our room where Dean's parents were waiting with dinner. It was hard to leave Amelia and I was scared but I also knew that she definitely was not going to get better without surgery. And we felt very good about the care she was getting at The Children's Hospital.

On yet another side note I want to say how amazing this hospital is. You should take some time to look at their virtual tour. It is a beautiful place and remarkably cheerful considering the fact that it is filled with sick kids. Every detail seems designed to engage children. It is filled with toys and sculptures and aquariums to play with and look at. Even the floors are beautiful--the main lobby floor is a collage of colorful birds and butterflies, and the floors in the elevator are studded with beads and glittery squiggles. And they have all these little red wagons for the kids to ride around in. There are playrooms and a library. There is a free daycare for siblings. There is a fabulous omelet bar in the cafeteria, and they make great pancakes too.

We had left Amelia for surgery at 6:20 PM, and the nurse said she would give us a call at 7:30 to let us know how things were going. As 7:30 approached and then passed, I got that nervous, faint-y feeling again. On the one hand, as I mentioned before, hospital time is not like real time. On the other hand, she had said "at" 7:30, not "around" or "close to" or something like that. She had said she would call us on the surgery waiting room phone if she couldn't reach Dean's cell, so I left Dean and his parents in the room and went back down to the waiting room. Then I was even more nervous there, so I called Luli and the nurse had just called Dean. When I got back up Dean relayed the nurse's report that Dr. Bruny had done everything she wanted to do, and we could meet the surgeons down in the waiting room in about twenty minutes.

So we went down and waited. When Dr. Bruny came out she said the surgery had gone well. Amelia's bowels had kind of rearranged themselves to block in her abscess so they were able to find and clean out the infection pretty easily, and they found and removed her appendix too. The only strange thing was that her appendix did not actually look perforated (aka burst). So they were not sure, if the appendix was in good shape, what would have caused the infection. But the doctor didn't seem concerned about it. I, however, immediately wondered if there was some sort of mystery disease Amelia could have that caused random weird infection in her body. But the doctor, again, didn't seem concerned. She said sometimes the appendix is perforated and you just can't see it, and sometimes you just never know what caused the problem.

I am going to fast forward here and say that we still really don't know what caused all this. Dr. Staetz told us that the germ that caused the abscess was a strep germ that usually abscesses in the brain, but the a surgeon told us it lived in the gut. (In any case it was not the same as the strep throat I was to get the following day.) The pathology report on Amelia's appendix showed that everything was consistent with appendicitis, although the pathologists did not see a perforation either. Picture a team of surgeons shrugging their shoulders here. Anyway, they fixed it.

So. Amelia was out of surgery and on morphine for pain and some other meds (an antibiotic, an anti-nausea drug, and maybe one more). The next day she mostly slept and was still very out of it. We were waiting and hoping for her to talk. But she still had this NG tube in (it goes from nose to belly and releases fluid and gas from the stomach), and she had to have these long braces on her arms so she wouldn't pull it out, so overall it was best that she was kind of in a morphine haze. The following day, Friday, I woke up feeling terrible, even for someone who had slept maybe 7 hours in the last 3 days. My throat was killing me and I thought I was going to collapse. The nurse checked my temperature and I had a fever, so Jim drove me home to rest for awhile. We got back to the hospital around 5 PM, and honestly I don't remember Amelia's state exactly. I know had already removed the NG tube and that we were waiting for her to start passing gas to relieve her swollen belly so they would not have to put the tube back in. I think sometime that day she started saying a few words and saying her animal sounds. Overall she was improving and already in much better shape.

Friday night was fairly peaceful for Amelia but horrible for me because of my sore throat. An angelic nurse gave me her own personal numbing cough drops, which go me through the night. First thing Saturday morning I drove to a nearby Urgent Care center and got a strep test, which was positive, so I got some penicillin. After I got that in my system, I started feeling better pretty quickly. However we were still worried about Amelia's distended belly. The doctors were saying that if she didn't start passing gas soon they would have to put back in the NG tube. Since Amelia was very aware of what was going on at this point, we all really wanted to avoid that. It would have made her totally miserable. She can't stand it when something is touching her face or stuck to her hands. She doesn't even like to wear a hat. So a tube taped to her face and itching her throat and nose would have been quite a trial. Plus putting the thing in is no picnic and having witnessed it once I was planning on being very vocal about not wanting the tube unless it was totally dire. Luckily, Amelia gradually got gassy. We were infinitely relieved.

Sunday was a day of waiting for poop. She was allowed to breastfeed again, and she was very happy about that. (I had requested a hospital pump and was pumping for maybe 5 minutes a night. I was too tired to do any more. Honestly I had come to terms with the idea that this might be the end of breastfeeding, but it all worked out okay.) Once Amelia had some milk, she started having more bowel sounds and finally some poop. Monday she ate some solid foods--Cheerios, rice and noodles Luli made and brought, some crackers. We had high hopes for going home on Tuesday. However, it was not to be. A blood test Tuesday morning showed that Amelia's white blood cell count was still slightly too high for the doctors' comfort. Dean and I were very frustrated because they told us that to go home, Amelia needed to be eating and pooping, and she was doing that. After several conversations with the surgeons we got the message that their decision might have more to do with medical liability than Amelia herself. Dean and I were frustrated because not only were we both tired of living in the hospital, we could tell that Amelia was just getting worn out. It was very hard for her to get much rest with nurses and doctors and who knows who else coming in and out of her room all the time. She looked exhausted and when we brought her back to our floor from a wagon ride, she would whimper when she saw where we were. And at lunch, when Amelia was sitting in my lap holding chicken finger in one hand and a cheese quesadilla in the other, it seemed plain silly to be in the hospital. But we made ourselves get over the frustration and tell ourselves that if out biggest problem with Amelia's doctors was that they were too careful, we were in good shape. (It turns out you can be frustrated and grateful at the same time. It was a spiritually interesting moment for me to realize that.)

Tuesday night was happy in that we had high hopes for getting out of the hospital the next day, and I even had hopes for a good night because the doctors had agreed that Amelia did not have to have her vitals checked while she was sleeping. Dean brought Thai food and the gratefulness in us had overcome the frustration. I have always tried to be grateful about Amelia's health, reminding myself when I am tired or frustrated how lucky I am to have a healthy baby. But I don't think I ever really appreciated it until we went through this. The truth is that what we went through, while obviously stressful, is nothing compared to what so many of the kids and parents in that hospital were and are going through. What was wrong with Amelia was not chronic and it is fixable. It is fixed. We are so grateful that she does not have cancer or a million other things that she just as easily could have. I still am thinking about those parents and kids many times a day, wishing them peace and strength. We are so, so lucky.

And I also want to thank everyone out there who sent us thoughts of healing and of love, who prayed for Amelia, who offered to help us with anything we needed, who called and texted and brought food and magazines and sent Amelia toys and crayons and balloons and cards. Each of those things really was so helpful. I knew I had good friends in Denver, but I didn't know how good they were until this! And we were especially lucky to have Dean's parents around. It will not go down as their best vacation ever, but their presence made it so much easier for Dean and me to get through the week. And even with so many of our friends and family members so far away, it was so helpful for me just to know how many people were thinking about Amelia, sending her support.

Wednesday morning, I woke up to a surgeon entering the room. He walked over to my air mattress and said, "Do you feel like going home today?"

Yes! And, although I was prepared to wait around most of the day for the discharge ball to get rolling, we ended up getting out of there pretty quickly because the hospital was totally full and they needed our room. Amelia got her last tube removed (note to surgeon: quietly singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" while removing a main line from a screaming child is more sinister than comforting) and we got our instructions and off we went.

So we have been home two nights now. Amelia is getting better and better. She was wary at first, kind of looking around wondering where we had been for so long. You can tell her incision hurts when she squats down and tries to stand back up, and she is definitely not as agile or quick as she was before the surgery, but she already moving more and seems to be in less pain. Also, she is still a little overly poopy from her antibiotics. However, I just talked to a nurse and she said the poop sounds like a normal side effect. So I think we are in good shape.

I am very glad to have told this story and put it behind us. Look for some Amelia pictures to be posted soon--live from Denver, now appendix-free.

20 Thoughts in 20 Minutes

I am not much in the mood to post lately but if I don't write something soon we will be on our Christmas vacation, so here are 20 random things I have been thinking about. I am giving myself 20 minutes to write it, because Amelia is napping and there is other stuff I want to do.

1. With the simple adjustment of Amelia's bedtime, all of our sleep problems have been solved! Oops, not really. After that one post about the early bedtime, Amelia started waking up, babbling and sounding fairly happy, at 4:45 am or earlier. So we moved the bedtime later. After 4 days, it was still happening, so we moved it back up to the earlier time. Now she's waking between 5:30 and 6.

2. I am so sick of thinking about sleep I could scream. Yet I still really, really want to sleep better.

3. I am confused about weaning. Sometimes Amelia seems to be self-weaning, other times she is a nursing fool.

4. I am disgruntled at the mixed messages I perceive about breastfeeding. When women are pregnant and have very new babies, the message seems to be "breastfeed or else!," a message that is more harmful than helpful. Then once the baby reaches a certain age--maybe 9 months or so--it's "hurry up and wean." Is this just in my own head?

5. Amelia has a new friend who is a hitter. What do you do when your baby hits other babies? And what are you supposed to do when your baby has a temper tantrum?

6. I miss my family. You know who you are. Come visit us.

7. Actually I have been very, very sad that we love so far away from our families. If we lived close to family Dean and I could leave Amelia with people who love her and desperately want to see her while we--gasp--saw a movie or something. What were we thinking?

8. That said there are a lot of things I love about my life here. I have a lot of friends. I love our house. Denver is amazingly interesting and easy to navigate. And

9. despite what you may think after reading my grouchy blog posts lately I am so, so glad that Dean has a job that allows me to stay home with Amelia while she is a baby.

10.* In a perfect life, I would go to a yoga class every day, get a massage every week, and write for 2 hours every morning.

11. I have been writing some. I am taking a "master class" that requires a "manuscript." So I have been reworking my manuscript. It's getting shorter instead of longer.

12. I wrote this series of poems that was 40 words each, 4 words per line for 10 lines. Now I don't like it and I am making the lines twice as long. But some of the poems want to be 5 lines and some want to be 6.

13. It was supposed to snow 6 inches here last night and not a drop. Denver has negative humidity, I swear. But after a week or so of unseasonable warm weather, now it is very cold.

14. Amelia is starting to say "no." Sometimes for no apparent reason. It often sounds more like she is just making the sound for the letter n.

15. Teething, you will be the death of me. I am attributing all of Amelia's weird sleep and fussiness to teething. The upper molars are breaking through at approximately 1/16 of a millimeter per day. Sometimes, out of the blue, poor Amelia starts wailing and gnawing on her fingers. We are making liberal use of Ibuprofen, Baby Orajel, and cold teethers.

16. I am still wearing my pajamas. If you want gift ideas for me, think warm pajamas.

17. Also: warm slippers, the ingredients for margaritas, those wrist warmers that are like gloves without the fingers, and gift certificates for yoga classes and massages. And could you come here and watch Amelia while I go to the yoga classes and get the massages?

18. If you asked me what I wanted to Christmas in the past couple of weeks and I said I didn't know or nothing, sorry. I just thought of that list as I wrote it.

19. I also like Anthropogie gift cards.

20. But what I really want more than anything is for all of our family to come visit us a lot. All of you. Everyone. And if you are Gano, we are serious when we say we want you to live next door.

*In rereading number 10--and the rest of this post, for that matter--it occurred to me that am a very spoiled person. I already have what tons of people would consider a very perfect life. I really do love my life, even if it's not perfect. Winter is making me grouchy. And underneath a lot of these superficial worries are more substantial ones, like how Amelia is going to grow up in a world filled with poison and melting polar ice caps and war and a Congress full of politicians who overuse the phrase "the American people" and can't get anything done. But my 20 minutes are up. So let me just add one more thought:

21.** What I really, really want more than anything is for everyone on earth, to be able to have the space to breathe, to consider the kind of world they would want to leave for the people who will come after them, and to be able to, with love in their hearts and in ways big or small, make the world that kind of place.

**Now I feel like a contestant in a beauty pageant. But it's been over half an hour and the clock is ticking. Peace.

Cousins at Thanksgiving

Micah!

Amelia and Micah Skyped with Luli and Guru











and played in the Jumparoo.











We were thankful to spend the day with family!

Micah and Amelia 2

Micah and Amelia!

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.

"You Know We've Had Our Share..."

I am the worst for using snatches of old rock songs as post titles.

That song has been in my head a lot lately. "Good times, bad times" seems to sum up life with an infant pretty well. I don't think it takes a genius to infer from some of my posts (and lack thereof) that I find motherhood incredibly challenging. On the other hand, one reason behind the lack of posts is that motherhood has taught me the important lesson of slowing down. When I only attempt to tackle so much in one day, I am a happier person. Usually all I attempt to tackle these days is taking care of Amelia and doing what needs to be done for school, plus the usual household chores.

Anyway, I was thinking "Good Times, Bad Times" would make a good theme for a regular blog post. I'd like to do a better job of recording Amelia's babyhood. By definition, it is more than halfway over. She turned 6 months (and 26 weeks) old last Monday. She is 27 weeks old today. (As you recall, she was born on a Monday.) I think trying to jot down a few good and not so good things that are going on with Amelia and/or my life each week would help me get back into writing, as well as more accurately capture the realities of motherhood.

So, here we go--

Good times: it is spring. I love spring. For a while, in high school, I hated winter so much I counted down the days till the first day of spring. This spring has been early and beautiful, with only a few of those cold and windy days that creep in to torture you after everything blooms. We did have a few oddly, terrifically hot days creep in to torture us, but I withstand heat much better than cold--like rosemary--so that wasn't all that bad for me.

On the Amelia front--she is currently taking a nap--which is more than good; it is excellent. I've realized that 2 and 1/2 hours after she wakes up is a a good time to try for her first nap. We've started a little nap routine: going outside, diaper change, reading stories on the bed (A chews on the board books as I recite Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See and Moo Baa La La La from memory), then I nurse her a little and put her in the crib. I've been making sure she is not actually hungry at naptime, so that I can experiment with the "Pantley Gentle Removal" from The No Cry Sleep Solution. (Don't ask. You can probably guess.)

Another good thing is that I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I do not get to sleep through the night anymore. I guess I only recently realized the real conflict that might or does exist between sleeping through the night and breastfeeding. Again, as we recall, Amelia slept for 7-8 hours straight through from about 9-15 weeks and it was wonderful. So around 4 months when she started waking up 2-4 times a night to eat I was very upset--and exhausted. Now at 6 months she wakes up 1-3 times a night. Usually she only nurses on one side and I really don't think she's that hungry, but our experiments with crying it out didn't make anyone happy. Amelia seems to get to a point of being so upset that she just can't calm herself down. So I continue to bring her into our bed to feed her and then put her back in the crib. I am just trying to tell myself that eventually I will get more sleep. I haven't dropped dead from exhaustion yet (or thrown myself down the stairs, although the thought has occurred to me more than once) so I will probably make it through. Since I am blessed with a very healthy baby and a great milk supply, I assume that everything is going as it should be, and I try to remember to be thankful for those two incredible blessings.

Other good things: Amelia is learning to sit up on her own. She has some new solids: carrots, green beans, and this morning she sucked on a prune in a little mesh thing my mom sent her. She likes to eat ice in the mesh thing too. She laughs a lot, and she is rolling from back to front quite regularly. She is working on pushing up from her belly to hands and knees. It is not her favorite thing to do, but in the sake of her future mobility, it must be done.

Some bad times involve the grunting, whining Marge Simpson noise A makes when she does things she does not like to do. It drives me CRAZY! I think she might actually be teething, because she makes the noise so very much--and drools more than the drooliest drooly dog you ever met.

In general, I am sick of teaching, and I can't wait for the semester to be over. I feel like I am not doing a good job with teaching this semester. I never have enough time. I notice that I walk around with my shoulders leaning forward, something my yoga teachers attribute to "living in the future" and trying to accomplish too much. Makes sense to me.

On that note, I am going to try to use the remainder of A's nap time to practice a little yoga on my own. Speaking of good and bad times, though, we had a pretty big piece of news this week, which I plan to write about in a post of its own before the week is out--and oh! I have some great pictures of Amelia to put up--so stay tuned.

4 and 40 Blackbirds

I have been meaning to write for a while now how thankful I am for my blog friends. If you don't explore the links to the blogs my friends write, you should. Actually not all of them are technically my friends. I only really know three or four of the authors, but I found the other blogs through their sites, and I think of all of them as my friends because their writing inspires and encourages me.

I have a plan to write a bit about each of my blog friends in the coming weeks. Today I want to write about Caroline at Beyond Friendship Gate. Caroline and I met because our husbands went to law school together. The first time they came over to our house she saw a book by Julia Cameron on my table, and she told me about The Artist's Way. Commitment to art + lovely southern accent = someone I immediately like a whole lot.

Caroline has a beautiful new website. And I am terribly inspired by her Forty Forts project. I am not going to try to paraphrase her project. To understand the rest of this post, you will really need to follow the link and read Caroline's explanation of her project. So go do that now.

Okay--you're back. So, I am pretty private about my spiritual life as well. This is partly because I too think that spirituality is extremely personal and partly because my spiritual life involves way more questions than answers. But like Caroline, I grew up around Baptist influences. One of my best friends from middle and high school was Catholic, though, and I was somewhat enchanted with her religion. I liked the rituals I witnessed and what I perceived as the formality of it all. I guess a better word is ceremony. For the past 3 or 4 Christmases, I really wanted to have an Advent calendar. Last year I finally found one. And I have always liked the idea behind Lent.

Last night I was reading Caroline's blog, and everything she said hit home. I feel that I have already given up plenty up this year. And for way longer than Lent. But I love the idea of adding something to my life for the Lenten season.

So I am blatantly copying Caroline. I have the idea of 40 poems in 40 days. Less than 40 days, since Lent started last Wednesday I think. It's 40 days from Easter, not counting Sundays. (Easter, I learned, is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring.)

There are rules. Each of my poems will have 40 words. Probably 10 lines, 4 words each. And each will be "inspired" by another poem--I'll find a poem to read and take 4 words from it. Those 4 words will be the title.

I've been struggling with a series of poems called "40 Weeks." And A is 4 months old. So all of this 4 and 40 business is quite fitting. Thank you Caroline--your project came along just when I was throwing in the towel on writing forever.

snOMG

This is what it looks like outside our front door right now. The Washington Post weather page is calling it "Snowverkill."



I'm not sure whether the blowing snow comes through in the picture. The wind is howling. We are under a "Blizzard Warning."

I am very thankful that we have electricity. The lights flickered last night while Dean and I were watching Lost (the 5th season, not the 6th, so don't talk to us about it). I got very worried about taking care of Amelia in a cold dark house. How would she have her bath? But we are up and showered and breakfasted and still have power. It's so windy, though, I don't know if it will last.

As crazy as this week has been with all the snow, I am also thankful for it. It has given us a chance to just hang out together as a family and not worry about working or leaving the house.

We did take A out for a short walk during the first snowstorm on Saturday:



We made it about a block and a half before I turned around with her. She was not a fan of snowflakes in her eyes.

The next day, though, she loved walking around looking at the white world. She wore her baby sunglasses we bought for her at Waves when were at Gano's in Ocean Isle Beach at Christmas. She was too cool for school.





I am looking forward to writing and reading today, and maybe baking and catching up on laundry if we are lucky. Keep your fingers crossed for us that the lights stay on!

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.

Tying Up Loose Ends

Since I never finished Thanksgiving parts 5, 6 or 7, I thought I'd end the year in gratitude.

I am thankful

-for my family, by which I mean the family I came from and Dean's family. Now that we have Amelia I feel like both families really are "our" families. I am thankful for everyone who loves Amelia so much and spent so much QT with her over our vacation while Dean and I did such things as go on our first post-baby date, walk on the beach, read, and eat dinner at the same time!

-for my mother and Luli, who have each agreed to come stay with us once a month to babysit when my new semester begins. It makes me so happy that A can be taken care of by her grandmothers (and sometimes grandfathers) even though we live so far apart.

-for Dean's and my own flexible jobs, which will allow us to work/teach from home twice a month to cover the other days A will need care

-for the rainforest playmat that is currently entertaining A while I write

-for the breastpump, which I also sort of hate, but I am thankful for the freedom it gives me to both feed my baby breastmilk AND occasionally leave her for more than 3 hours

-for my wonderful friends. Even though I rarely get to see most of them, I am so thankful to know such smart and capable women.

-for yoga

-for this blog--it is a fun space to think, record, and write. And I am thankful for my readers! I am always a bit surprised when I realize that people actually read what I write. I am sorry my posts are so sporadic lately. (Blame it on little A.) And I am thankful for my little blogging community, which are some of the best mommy friends I have.

-that, despite all of the uncertainty about the future, I have a happy and healthy little family here in our cozy rented townhouse in DC, where we will make pizza for dinner and continue our tradition of going to bed well before midnight on New Year's Eve!

Happy Thanksgiving! (Part 4)

Writing these posts has made me much more aware of the many things I am thankful for, so for today I thought I'd just list some randomly:

--Yoga! I just went to my first post-pregnancy yoga class. It made me very aware of my new/old body. For a brief moment, I actually missed my belly! I guess I really missed Amelia being with me all the time. She was much quieter back then. Anyway--I love yoga. It was great to be in a real yoga class again.

--I am thankful for our nice, soft bed, especially when it has clean sheets. And the fact that we get to sleep in it for so many uninterrupted hours.

--I am thankful for the Benetint crushed rose blossom potion that works as both lipstick and blush. Beautiful, smells like magic roses, a real time saver too.

--I am thankful for the way that Dean and now Amelia fill my life with music. I think have sung and danced more in the last seven weeks than I have in the rest of my whole life (and I was in the chorus for most of elementary and middle school, plus I took a lot of dance lessons).

-- I am thankful for the family that is on their way to see us, and the family that visited us last week, and the family we won't see at Thanksgiving but will see soon.

--I am thankful for the Maya Wrap. Amelia is stirring in it, so I have to go... Here's wishing everyone a day of laughter, peace and gratitude.

Thankfulness, Part 3

During spring semester of my sophomore year of college, I realized that Dean was in not one but two of my classes. I got a crush on his quiet, handsome self very quickly. I daydreamed about his intense eyes and very long hair. Soon, I got him to let me borrow his notes. (It was difficult because he said no one could read his messy handwriting, but I prevailed.) Later I followed him down the stairs of Greenlaw Hall and asked him to have lunch with me. We had pizza on a very rainy Monday. We shared an umbrella as we walked back to his apartment after lunch to study for our Spanish quiz. (Yes...study...)

Later Dean went to live in Spain for a year and we sent each other a lot of emails. I fell in love with his writing. He writes like Hemingway.

Dean and I have lived in four different places together. Together we have packed 4 moving vans, unpacked hundreds of boxes, adopted a cat, driven halfway across the country, climbed a variety of mountains, made a 5-hour trip twice in one day due to forgetting something very, very important, learned to make homemade pasta, swore we would never make homemade pasta again, paid off a college loan, obtained and left several jobs, survived terrible flus and one case of hives, watched all six seasons of The Sopranos in one summer, and cooked approximately 1,835 dinners. Oh, yeah--and we made Amelia. Our greatest accomplishment so far.

Dean makes me laugh, even when when I am grouchy and overwhelmed. Dean explains to Amelia the science behind yawning and makes up entertaining variations to "This Little Piggy." He has stayed home with Amelia while I have gone out to get a massage AND a pedicure. He has modified his work schedule while trying to accomplish the same amount of work so that I can go back to my own job. Dean is usually the one who remember to wash the diapers, and he is the Master of Swaddling. He is truly a partner in this parenting gig.

I am immensely grateful that he is my partner, husband, best friend, and one true love.

A Week of Thankfulness, Part 2

I missed yesterday, so I need to do two today!

What I wanted to write yesterday was that I am thankful for my job. This is not only because going back to work has made me feel much more like myself again, giving me the chance to wear real clothes and think my own thoughts during the drive to work, but also because I actually really like what I do! We found out during Dean's stint at the law firm how important it is to love or at least like the job you go to every day (or in my case, 2 days a week). I really enjoy my students. I even like their newly-discovered intellectual indignation, pretty common to freshmen around this time of year, about grades and "institutional education." ("We want to learn for learning's sake, but the system won't let us!!!") I also like teaching writing, even freshman composition. It's fun and challenging to improve my lessons every semester.

Also, even though Dean and I wish we were closer to our families, in this economy we know we are lucky to have any job, especially jobs that allows us such flexibiilty to spend time with Amelia.

As a footnote to this, and a tangent to the real clothes I mentioned above, I am also thankful for my boots, which I bought last year. (Mine are green. They were on sale.) These are the best shoes ever. They feel lighter than flip flops but they keep my feet super warm. They are great for walking across campus in the rain.

Anyway, speaking of jobs, I need to grade some papers. If the day allows, I will post again later.

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.