ten thousand things

I have exactly ten thousand things to update y’all on. I have a post about breastfeeding that is desperate to be written. And one about grief and marriage. We started night-weaning last night, which I have thoughts and QUESTIONS and lots to say about. I have Bram updates to offer (the boy learns new things every minute; he is a wonder), Iris insights, my first post-miscarriage period (which is hell and which I’m in the middle of now), job conversations… Oh, and I finished my doctorate. Bloggers, do you ever have so much to write about that you find yourself sort of paralyzed and thus write nothing. I’m there. But instead of continuing to write nothing, I’m going to write a jumbled mess of WAY TOO MUCH. You’re welcome. By which I mean I’m sorry.

•  Maybe I’ll start with the week before my defense, which we got to spend with an out-of-town guest, a beloved professor/friend from Charleston. She came to our sweet town to run a marathon (!!!), and then to attend a conference, so it just worked out that she was here for my defense. She stayed without complaint on our couch for five days being alternately woken by a toddler and harassed by a kitten. She was a trooper. But what’s even more delightful is that she got us OUT OF OUR HEADS for a while. Things had gotten sort of dark around here: I’ve been struggling more with depression than usual (the loss of a baby, death of a father, loss of a(nother) pregnancy, and death of a beloved cat kind of depression, which isn’t slight) and J has been walking through the default anger that sorrow tends to bring up in her. I won’t say we’re out of the woods (really: we have work to do), but M coming brought us some much.needed perspective. She is a joyful person, and that’s what we needed: less navel-gazing and more lighthearted happiness. When she left, we sort of fell back into the tension a bit, but only for a moment. I think we both realize that as easy as it is to act out of grief and anger, it’s not worth the toll it takes. I’m not 100% sure what the next few months will look like, but I know we’re both devoted to staying grateful and present and kind again, and that, as my dad would have said, is a good good thing.

• And then there was my defense itself. It was intense, but so so lovely. My committee really seemed to like what I’m doing. They basically planned out my next four books, which is daunting (and laughably unreasonable, frankly, given my devotion to a work/life balance), but so exhilarating. One of my committee members said she “fell in love” with my take on vulnerability and wanted to re-read my dissertation immediately after finishing it. I can’t even tell you what hearing something like that does for my sense of… I don’t know… having labored with a purpose? Another said it was the most original he’d seen in a long time, and he called it “courageous.” They had all kinds of ideas about how to use the theoretical lens I constructed (to read history. to understand culture.). I hesitate to include this (and won’t go on) because it sounds like I’m bragging, but having felt like a failure for years in terms of my reproductive abilities, and having labored so painfully twice now with babies who will never be with us, it feels amazing to have actually accomplished this feat. So please forgive the self-congratulatory tenor of this part of the update. I truly needed a personal win to help dig me out of the sense of bodily defeat that has threatened to consume me of late. The feedback I got from my committee (and from J and my mom, both of whom read my dissertation and offered lots of wise insights) felt healing.

• Also healing was the party J threw right after my defense, a kind of open house at a local wine bar, which lots of my dearest friends attended. I always find such events overwhelming (I can never process them until weeks after), but I will remember the feeling of being surrounded by so much love and support for the rest of my life. The everyone-calling-me-doctor part, though? That’s just weird. I expected to find it sort of exciting. I mean, it was kind of a lot of work to get here. But so far, it just embarrasses me and makes me feel extremely awkward. Who knows what that’s about. A sense that it isn’t real, maybe? Because of course I’m not a real doctor, right? Or, to some people, a real mother. These narratives. Sigh.

• And then there’s this damn menstrual period. Oh, gods. It was this way for the first few periods after Emmett too. Every cramp is a PTSD trigger. Every bit of bleeding. Flashbacks. Panic. The constant reminder that we’re not. I’m not. That a lifetime of clockwork-like ovulation will almost certainly come to nothing but loss. Last Friday was supposed to be the first day of our second trimester. I had started to consider which dress to wear (for my defense) out of a box of gorgeous maternity clothes that friends lovingly sent. Now that box sits in our basement waiting for one of us to have the courage to mail its contents back, unused. It is a struggle. But Yogi’s Mama has been helping a friend through loss, and she wrote this about that mom: “she lost her child. Her son. Her second born. She didn’t lose a pregnancy and she didn’t have a 2nd trimester loss. While those things are technically true, they skate around the emotional heart of the matter. Although the mechanisms may be different, this birth will shape her life and the life of her family in ways that are no less significant or far-reaching then the live birth of her daughter.” It is no small comfort to have people in our lives who understand the loss we’ve faced, and who grief our babies alongside us.

• But then there’s Bram! This kid, I tell you. His words aren’t completely consistent, and they’re not super clear either, but man oh man are they awesome to hear. Cat, dog, mo (for pomo), mama, cow, horse, truck, eeeooooww (meow), oooo (moo), who who (the sound an owl makes), Nemem (for Nemesis), Ice (for Iris), mun (for monkey), no!, hi!, done! (said at the same time he signs “all done” at the table). He’s also gotten super attached to his (my) woven wraps. It used to be that when I wasn’t wearing him in one he kind of ignored them. Now he gets them out of their little basket and wears them like capes or snuggles them on the floor. It is SWEET. He’s never really had much in the way of a (successful) lovey, so I’m pretty sure these are the first objects he’s attached to in this way. Which, if you couldn’t guess this, makes my heart MELT. Also, my mom got him a squirrel feeder for his birthday which we FINALLY put up a couple of weeks ago and he is IN. LOVE. with the squirrels that come to eat corn off of it just outside our dining room window. She also taught him to use the sign “eat” for squirrels. So now whenever he sees one (here or out on the town) he puts his fingertips to his mouth. You know, because they’re always eating. Lovely little being, our boy. He also, though, threw his first temper tantrum in the grocery the other day. Oh, Id-driven little creature. J was alone with him, and I know she handled it wonderfully: she didn’t make it about her, she managed not to care what other people thought, she was present with him, and comforting. But it’s a whole new world. I mean, the trauma when something breaks: a Lego tower, a banana (he WILL ONLY eat the banana while it’s still attached to the peel)… Still, mostly he just loves life and we just love living it alongside him.

Okay, I’m pretty sure this nap is about to end, so I’ll close here. But I still owe you updates on breastfeeding, grief and marriage, night weaning, Iris and Nemesis, Mother’s Day, job stuff, and a tiny little baby named Maya (AKA my craziness). Oh, and I clearly owe you photographs! Soon, soon, soon. I promise. I hope spring has brought lightness to all of you! I’ve kept up with blog-reading, just not blog-commenting. Forgive my failures and know I am with you, if silently.

Okay, little baby gave me time to post a handful of photos!

Iris. J. Bram. As you can see, we’re all struggling to bond.

Celebrating M’s marathon!

We get to look at this face. Everyday. Everyday.

Bram is a peaceful little lover of wide-open spaces. Which makes him different from his (city loving) mama and pomo and exactly like his Aunts C and A (whose land this is).

B wears Bernard (his stuffed rabbit) a lot. This photo is blurry, but I don’t even care. Oh and yes: that’s his pomo’s undershirt. We welcome warm weather/no air conditioning in style, I tell you. ;)

Pre-defense me. Not a maternity dress, but a sweet one anyway, and a graduation gift from my mom. Those gorgeous roses are a graduation gift from J’s mom. I have a thing for roses. And dresses. And graduating. And look closely: this mama even painted her nails! (Which chipped off immediately. Because I’m a SAHM. Which is incompatible with fingernail polish. Still. For that moment.) :)

Me and my wonderful friend Z wearing our left-leaning, sleeping babes on a pretty spring day.

Oh and see! He snuggles his wraps now!

.kittenish.

Introducing the newest member of our clan: Iris Woolf

Iris is a (now) 10-week old kitten rescued from a feral cat mill just outside of town. Judging from her ears and paws, I expect that she’ll grow to be a large cat! She’s sweet, snuggly, and super-playful. I had forgotten how much life-force a kitten contains (I had especially forgotten about the kitten life-force between the hours of 1 and 5am – not unlike our human newborns)! Bram is completely smitten with Iris, though we’re having to really work on playing soft and gentle. He wants to throw his toys at her out of sheer delight (ouch kitty!). Our girl-cat, Nemesis, is slowly adjusting. She had become completely withdrawn and had stopped eating after Hades died. She’s been showing some interest in food again (especially the kitten food) and she’s been coming around more and more. So far there’s been no cat bloodshed and everyone’s going to the bathroom in the proper spot, so I’d say we’re doing well! I look forward to watching the two cats (hopefully) grow closer together in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, R and I are finding a baby cat presence very soul-lightening as we finally see the light of spring after this long and dark winter.

welcoming newness

I wanted a new blog theme because – though there’s been so much sadness, and there ain’t nothing new about that – this is also a time of newness and possibility.

• This is my second week at home with Bram when I’m not also writing, and the difference is profound. Even with this tiny bit of space, I can see that writing my dissertation and being home with B was overwhelmingly intense. Trying to fit all the research and drafting I could into the two or three or four hours Bram was with sitters. Revising from the bedroom over the sound of dancing or kitchen play in the living room. Sending B off for bedtime rituals with J only to settle down for more work, night after night (which feels achingly impossible after being on with a baby ALL. DAY.). Wearing him through ALL of his naps so he’d sleep longer, and precariously balancing the computer on my knees, which got harder and harder to do as he grew. [Though full disclosure: I'm still wearing him through naps. Only right now, I'm doing it for the snuggles. So it's selfish.] The hardest thing of all was the feeling I could never shake that I should be doing something else. I never worked when B was awake and I was on alone with him, but I always sensed that I needed to be working, so I always felt a low grade sort of panic. Now the days stretch out before us, and they are exhausting, but they don’t scare me the same way because for the moment, my only job is mom. [This is not strictly true. I need to read my dissertation and plan my defense opening statements and do some formatting, but I'm ignoring all of that, and with an impressive degree of success.] And though I worried about what it would be like to only have this one hat on for awhile (the summer), I am finding that I love it. I feel a new freedom to just be with him. We’ll see how it feels after my defense, when the summer really just stretches out before us, but right now: I am aware of and grateful for the privilege of this tiny moment. Because it will likely never come again, not with B or with our other children. I’ll hopefully be on the tenure track. It won’t be the same. I now know that I could be a stay-at-home-parent for the duration if things were different, but I’m also okay working. I ADORE teaching, and I ADORE being at home with my kid. And I am so deeply lucky to feel fulfilled by both of these things. I hope to find a balance once I’m working full-time, and I do think that, R-1 universities aside, the professoriate lends itself to some balance. What I most hope is that J will get to do some of this with our next child (or children): that I’ll be able to carry us for awhile to give her a little space at home. It is hard, hard, hard work (as so many of you know), and I am dog tired by the day’s end. But compared to the weight of writing WHILE giving my son everything I have, this singular focus feels blissful.

• Oh, and this: I cannot thank you all enough for your communal, resounding GET A NEW CAT message. Y’all are just absurdly kind, and you get us, and we are so lucky. So I think we’re going to get a cat! I mean, that many of you can’t be wrong! :) Our vet feels strongly that N will do better with a kitten than an older cat. And he feels even more strongly that a kitten will do better with Bram because s/he will have just always grown up with an annoying being chasing her/him around, unlike an older cat who might resent the hell out of young children. So we’re leaning in that direction, though there’s a nine-month-old boy cat we’re also drawn to… Anyway, more on this soon. We might have happy news to post in the near future.

• And HUGELY: our dear friends A & C brought their second daughter into the world this week. Little Zora joins big sister Thea, and she is sweet sweet sweet. Thea asked to be with me during/after the labor (heart-melting, by the way), but she was sleeping through the whole thing, so they called me when C was pushing, and I walked in to the darling cries of born.seconds.earlier Z. I kept thinking of that Ani song when she says, “I was there to hear your bell the first time it rang, and the beauty was the beauty of everything.” It was painful because, you know, I want to do that (give birth to a baby who cries after), but it was beautiful. I brought Thea (who is three) home with me for the day so her mamas and new sister could sleep, and when we got here at 7:30, B was still resting. (Miraculously. Likely because he couldn’t sleep for awhile after I left at 4.) Since Thea was a little sleepy, I put her in bed with him. When he woke a few minutes later and rolled over to smooch me (like he does), he found her in my place! J said it was the sweet-sweetest thing. Anyway, welcome baby Zora. You are no end loved.

So, newness!

But there’s also other stuff.

• I went to the dentist yesterday because I have stress fractures in a filling (so, pain), and the hygienist asked (when looking at my medical records) if my son inherited my clotting disorder. I told her that he didn’t because my wife carried him. When I mentioned later that I’m at home with him full time, she said, “Oh, so he’s practically yours then.” So, yeah. That happened. He’s practically mine.

• In terms of wanting to give birth to a healthy baby, I’ve been letting myself fantasize about a number of things this week, and it needs to stop. When I lay down at night, or when B is napping, or when I’m washing dishes, I find myself imagining calling my dad, and hearing him answer, hearing him call me sweetheart or tell me to have a good good day. I imagine him at my graduation. I imagine seeing him proud of me, with tears in his eyes. I fantasize about being huge and pregnant and feeling the baby move inside of me. And about pushing, which is what I most wanted to do, most of all, like desperately. Desperately. I fantasize that Hades will run into the room, meowing his disgruntled old-man meow. That he’ll push his head into my mouth for kisses. I’m not sure how to stop letting these fictions in. It feels impossible to me that these things can’t happen. And I feel so peaceful and happy when I’m playing them out in my head like a movie. Maybe writing this down will help.

• Also, probably because of all the loss, I’ve been (and J has been too) obsessed lately with B’s health. Like, checking his breathing every ten minutes at night like you do with a newborn. And asking our NP to run a CBC on him. (Which she gladly obliged, and everything looks great. And by the way: Bram LOVED having his blood drawn, the weird child. He sat on my lap, and they prepped me for how to keep him steady, but he watched the whole time and never even flinched. And then he wanted to go to one of the techs after!) We’ve always been worriers on this front, but the last couple of weeks have been newly bad. So, trust. Something else to work on. And thank the gods because I was bored. ;)

• One good thing, though, is that other than the wanting to be pregnant, and to give birth to a big, breathing baby, I’m not all that sad about the fact that I probably won’t try to carry again. When I got pregnant this time,the emotions were just different than before. And I was deeply sad to be losing my NGP identity. I LOVE this role. I feel like an ambassador for NGP-hood. I think about the misunderstanding out there, about how many people believe that the only way to truly be a parent is to have a child who carries your DNA, and I think: I can help undermine that. I think that at this point, adoption would be even more profound for me than carrying to term, because then J and I would SHARE the NGP role. That sounds just mindblowingly great, doesn’t it? But of course, that requires being chosen by another birth mother. So we shall see. It could happen, right? Anyway, the peace I feel in this regard is surely nice.

• Okay, that’s all. Thanks for letting me ramble. I’m glad it’s finally spring. I’m sure I join most of you in welcoming the sunshine.

.turning over.

The snow is finally melting today, and, though it’s teased us with this prospect before, it does seem that spring is near. I am so looking forward to a new season, to new life, and to more time outside. By the end of February living in the north, I start to feel trapped by the constant deluge of snow.ice.scraping.sliding.cold.dark.days. And this winter has seen its fair share of dark days of the soul with losing Saul and then R’s dad.

I’m currently at home sitting out a rare sick day with acute mastitis (sidenote: Ouch!). I’ve never had any kind of breast problem throughout the 14 months I’ve been nursing Bram, but I awoke Thursday morning with tenderness in my right breast (which I chalked up to PMS). By 9am, though, it had grown intense, and by the time I pumped at 10am, I was really miserable. I left work early and by lunchtime was running a 102.5 degree fever while taking extra-strength motrin, so we decided to go get it checked out at urgent care. I was prescribed antibiotics and motrin and told to keep nursing, massaging, applying heat, and taking it easy. I’m supposed to go in for a recheck tomorrow. The rest of Thursday, I was out.of.it. I was delirious with the high fever, had tingling and numbness in my joints and neck, and was just beside myself with discomfort in my breast. My heart goes out to the many new mamas who experience this multiple times early on in their nursing relationship. It’s really the pits. So today I am feeling a little more like me. The fever has abated and the prescription motrin seems to be keeping a handle on my pain. Bram and I aren’t showing any reactivity to the antibiotics (a fear given his recent bout with penicillin allergies). Still, though, I can’t move any milk through the left quadrant of my right breast. It’s red, hard, and warm to the touch, which makes me think that there’s still a plugged duct(s). I really hope that I can get this worked out myself, as the idea of more aggressive treatment sounds really unpleasant (and makes me worry about keeping our nursing relationship consistent). So: Heat-Massage-Drain-Rest-Repeat.

In much happier news, how about R’s last post!?! We are so so so excited by our new Love Child. Early Days, yes, but I’m choosing cautious optimism over debilitating fear and anxiety. We just miss out on so much living because of the latter. R is at the outset of nausea and fatigue (though that could also be the byproduct of it being less than a month before she goes to committee with her dissertation). Our first appointment with our midwives’ group will be in April, and we think we’ll be able to see our beloved friend and midwife, C, before she’s out for maternity leave with her own new bundle-of-joy. We really do love our practice and are very encouraged to think that we’ll be able to birth at the low-risk hospital again! And I for one am hopeful and excited about becoming an NGP to a baby that R carries. I look forward to the many things that I missed out on because I was so locked into my own bodily experience of our pregnancy with Bram. I caught glimpses of those benefits during our time with Saul, but I am curious how those dynamics will play out for me over a lifetime of parenting.

And I would be remiss to not offer some recent photographic evidence of our toddler (Toddler!?! How did that happen?). R has had to handle all of the big news and heavy pronouncements on the blog lately, so I’m bringing some lightness!

Storytime with Bubbie is the level-best:

Bram and I handle our co-op shopping together every weekend. He’s getting really sweet about interacting with the other customers and carrying produce for me…

Bram planking with Uncle Buddy:

B still adores being worn everyday:

Bram’s snow adventures in our backyard:

And he’s up! Bram started walking at right about 13 months. It was a shy skill at first, but he’s walking more and more each day:

This is our beautiful, sweet, goofy, earnest toddler (photo credit: Aunt Kippie at the Children’s Museum):

a glimpse

Two nights ago, I got a glimpse into exactly how tired I am. I’m sure most parents have had these glimpses, and I’d love to hear about yours if you’ve had one (or more) because (especially when they’re not your own) these glimpses are damn funny.

Here’s my glimpse. I wake up in the middle of the night, for once NOT because Bram is hitting me over the head or crying out for milk, and not because one of the cats is standing on my bladder. No, I wake up because I have realized (in my sleep) that my right nose stud is gone, that it has fallen out of my nose. My left one is there – I confirm this about twenty times – but my right one is gone. I confirm this too, feeling my nostril again and again and feeling more and more panic at the absence of metal. Where is it? Is it in the bed? I start searching the sheets by feel. I get my iPhone to use as a flashlight. Where is it? I’m running the risk of waking Bram now, but it’s dangerous to let him sleep in a bed with a nose ring anyway. He could choke. Or get it stuck in his eye. I actually have these thoughts, and I actually take them seriously. I also think: I should look at the hole. Maybe it isn’t so bad. Maybe I don’t need the right one. And then I think that I shouldn’t look because it might be gross. A hole in my nose. No, I shouldn’t look. But it’s Sunday. Can I even find a new one on Sunday? Will it match my left nostril stud? Will I have to drive to a big city nearby? Can I afford a new one anyway? I mean, they aren’t cheap. Oh, no. I have to find it. I am desperately searching for what must be fifteen minutes. Finally I lay down defeated. I am ready to cry. I will look horrible tomorrow and my son may not be safe in the bed. And then I wonder – amazingly for the first time - if I actually have a right nose ring. I mean, is it true that both of my nostrils are pierced? I’m not sure. I just don’t know. Well, have I ever seen someone with two nostrils pierced? I haven’t. I’m sure of that. So am I likely to have done that? To have pierced both nostrils? And it all comes back to me: NO! That would look absurd! I only have my left nostril pierced, and there that stud is, all snuggled safe in my face. Crisis averted. Such good good news!

The next day, J reads this passage to me from Laurie Wagner’s, “Rah Rah Happiness Pills.” I have some objections to this essay’s portrayal of the NGP role, but damn, this paragraph is gold:

In parenthood, there is no recuperation. There is no rest. Before kids, you come home from the busy world and you let all the pieces of yourself fall out onto the floor, higgly piggly. You breathe, you space out. You shuffle through your home, opening drawers, picking up the phone, looking at a magazine, lying down, reading a book. And then, when you’re restored, you slowly put all of your pieces back inside of yourself and greet the world…renewed. It’s hard to define what is accomplished during this so-called ‘nothing’ time, but the ability to step back from your life and empty out is deeply significant. Parents live in another world. When I find some quiet time…I might begin to let my pieces fall out of me, but moments later I’m shoving them frantically back inside, all jumbled and in the wrong places – a brain where my heart was supposed to be, my liver in my lungs, and my heart in my throat – as I dash to the next crisis.

When your parts are jumbled, you forget things like the fact that only one of your nostrils is pierced. Oh parenthood, you joy of a beast.

[Parents: Pretty please share your glimpses into your own exhaustion now. If we're going to walk around with jumbled parts, we should at least have lots of laughter.]

just to be sure, there’s happy too

Bram’s first time sledding:

One year in, still (or once again) us. And dating (each other, of course)!:

Pomo + Bramble + Mama (at B’s one-year-well-baby):

One year down. Now bring on this sweet second year we keep hearing about! (And thanks thanks thanks for all of your words of late.)

.birthday boy.

This kid. I just adore the hell out of him. And I can’t hardly believe that he’s a whole year old! It seems like just yesterday we were dizzy with the newness of this little creature in our family. What lucky moms we are to have such a sweet little boy. I’m at work right now, so I don’t have time for a proper post. In lieu of thought-provoking insights, I’ll just say that Bram is finally on the mend after two weeks of illness (RSV followed by croup followed by ear infections — poor bug). It’s so nice to see him back to his joyful self. And that self is careening into toddler hood at lightning pace! We’ve had a few tentative steps (all while mommies were looking elsewhere, of course), and he’s starting to pick up signs at a steady clip. We had a big one-year birthday party planned, but we had to cancel because of his illness. Still, we had my Dad and Kelley in town from down south, and R’s mom drove up for the day, so we had a very nice family affair. B ate up all of the grandparent attention! Here he is pictured with a most excellent drum that my mom sent for his birthday – this thing really has a great sound. R and I also found B a beautiful handmade wooden kitchen, which he loves to crawl inside of (oddly enough). We’ll post more pictures and updates soon, but I just wanted to check in with a big “hello” to the blog world.

All good things,

J

 

why the first year of parenting reminds me of boot camp, and other year-in reflections

This is the last day of Bram’s first year of life. The last day! Tomorrow marks one year since this sweet creature made us pomo + mama, and two years since Emmett Ever made us parents. This, I think, calls for a well-organized reflective post full of anecdotes and observations. The trouble is, I only have the length of one nap time to write it. I hope, then, that you’ll settle for a hastily organized, mildly reflective post full of what I manage to hold in my head long enough to write about it. :) Here goes:

I went to boot camp in December of 1997. I think it sounds strange to people now, but the truth is: I loved it. Not at first. At first I was terrified and homesick. I craved the comforts of sleep, relaxation, and good food. I felt small. I longed for a friendly voice and a hug. For touch. I don’t do well without touch. But as time went on, I began to realize that everyone felt that way, which was of immense comfort to me. When I went to officer training six years later, this was not true. People who go to officer training are, for the most part, already skilled in things-military. They are competitive. They want pilot slots, navigator slots, intelligence slots. They want to outperform their peers — doing so is the whole idea. But at boot camp, pretty much everyone’s a kid, and pretty much nobody knows anything. For this reason, boot camp suited my soul – everyone all vulnerable and relying on one another and having to work together – while officer training broke me. So when I say that parenting reminds me of boot camp, I mean it with love and adoration. I mean: the first year of parenting is fierce and formative.

By two weeks into boot camp, I knew the women in my flight. I knew who they’d left behind. I knew who got letters, and who didn’t. I knew what I could rely on them for: who was best at folding and ironing underwear into a perfect square (yeah.), and who was dynamo at polishing boots. I did pre-inspection checks of all of our lockers because I have a good eye for detail. I looked over uniforms. I quized them in preparation for the exam. Other airmen paced me as I struggled with the run. We took care of each other. We were scared. We missed our family, so we became family. By the end, I didn’t want to leave. I was exhausted, but I didn’t mind. We had made it through together, and there was nothing sweeter on earth than that feeling.

Nothing since boot camp (except officer training) has made me anywhere near as tired as I am today, and those experiences can’t even compare. I’m saying: I am tired. My fantasies are of napping in a cool, dark room, in a warm bed, alone. That must be what most parents fantasize about. Because really, there is nothing like attachment parenting a child through his first year of life to teach you exactly what the word tired means. But the exhaustion? I don’t care. I am so proud of the hours I spent sitting up with this person, holding him, rocking him, singing, bouncing, kissing, loving him through the newness of living. Through teething, Through colds and flu bugs and learning to share with Sauly. Though it has not always been pretty here, I am so grateful to have lived it. There is nothing sweeter on earth than this feeling.

And the community! Even with all of the community we had before parenting, I still couldn’t have expected this. Friends I just trust and rely on. My mom coming through all the time to make dissertating while parenting possible. Friends and family who’ve held our hands through every new hurtle. Who’ve offered guidance. Or quietness. Or help. Or all of these things in exactly the right way. Kate at All Things Relative is not too far into her first year, and she’s been struggling with some postpartum depression. I read what she writes and I think: yes. And I think: you are a lovely and a powerful mama. And I think: you are doing great. You don’t know it yet, but you will. She’s still in the trenches (that’s war, so I’m mixing metaphors now, but cut me some slack: I haven’t slept a full night in a year!). The “my baby’s sick.” The “what if something happens?” The vigilance. The insecurity. The trying to have something leftover for your partner, or sometimes, just sometimes, even for yourself. The depth of love that most days, you don’t even know what to do with. The terror of loving somebody this much. The way it almost crushes your heart sometimes.

And though it’s so much deeper than the intimacy I shared with those women all those years back, the sense of having done this, together, with J is immense. We let go of the comforts. We let go of the indulgent pleasure of childless evenings. We jumped, together, holding hands. We put this little boy before all else because doing so was exactly right for all of us. I watched her become a pomo. I am her truest witness, and she is mine. I am fiercely proud of her, of us, not because we didn’t have a hard year, but because we did, and we’re here, and we’re in love. There’s nowhere near enough time for each other, but we are in love. We get tired, we get worried, we snap at each other, but we’re in love. Being her co-parent is the hardest and finest thing I’ve ever done. We got each other through this year day-by-day, hour-by-hour. On bad nights, minute-by-minute. No one will ever know the mama I am at 2am except her. She recognizes the subtle shift in my voice that means I need help. That I might not have it to give for just a moment. It’s a dance, and we’ll go on perfecting it, but it is the hardest and finest thing.

And now here we are. We are the parents of a one-year-old son. I am the mama of a one-year-old son. A son who took three steps from his Great Aunt Nancy to his Bubbie when I wasn’t even watching. When – after what has felt like a year of never looking away – I glanced down. A son who will go on being his own person, at once of me and not of me. A son who loves broccoli and eggs and chicken – his pomo’s boy – and curry and French lentil soup and oven fries – my kid. Who lights up for pomegranate seeds and animals, Oh Animals! A son with a hilariously goofy overbite, and his pomo’s big eyes, and his mama’s uncaged expressions. A little person who hates to sleep without one of us curled up next to him. Who knows how to hug and to smooch like nobody’s business. Who knows the word “dance,” and who wiggles and bounces every time he hears it. Who signs “more” when he wants anything, and is sheepish and quiet when we ask him to sign “please” instead (though just today, he finally did it!). A baby whose laugh holds all of the goodness. All of it. A little light in the world who is at turns vulnerable and tough and brave and clingy. Whose love for play is as aggressive as his love for our arms. For being in our arms.

All these years later, I still think of the women in my flight at boot camp. I’m not in touch with any of them, but that doesn’t matter. We met 4am together, day after day. We urged each other through one more mile, one more day, one more fear. We listened. I would not have made it through without them and – philosophical concerns about the military aside – the person I was then needed to make it through. Being a mama is eight trillion times greater than being in the military [and more important! and harder!], but there’s something of the pride and gratitude and camaraderie that I felt then in what I’m feeling now, one year in. There are lots and lots of people I couldn’t be the mom I am without, and I’m thinking of all of you now. And of my partner in all of this, and of how sure I am – despite all the bumps – that I chose very, very well. I’m thinking of our little girl, and of her almost-brother this year, whose lessons to me as a parent were how to let go. And I’m thinking of our little birthday boy. Our sugar-sweet son, whose joy is the only thing I ever need to believe my life here is meaningful.

Happy birthday, Bram.

Strong work, pomo.

And thanks to all of you for cheering us on through this sweet sweet sweet (hard) year of parenting.

christmas 2012

The thing about community is, there’s always joy to be found.

There’s always hardship too because, you know, communities are full of living people and living isn’t always easy, but there is always always wonderment to be found in some corner of every community, and our little blog world is no different. On the home front, this has been a complex Christmas: full of the delight of a near-toddler opening his first gifts and the low of sorrow over our sweet baby. But alongside this roller coaster – the kind of roller coaster Yogi’s Mama describes sweetly here – two breathtakingly wonderful and right things happened. So this Christmas – with J and B at a friend’s house for dinner and me at home because I just couldn’t manage company tonight – I am taking a break from the sorrow just long enough to honor those things, and to offer a few photos of our sweet Bramble Bug and his first-ever winter holiday.

These two bits of goodness are especially delightful because they happened on the same day, because they complement each other so perfectly, and because they happened to two of my absolute favorite bloggers: Olive and Allison.

The first is that Olive at Insert Metaphor Here got the magical news – on Christmas Eve of all magical times – that she is expecting their second child, Goldie’s little brother or sister. Read this news here, and lift a glass to Olive and Fern for their hard-earned bravery and their openness throughout this TTC process. We all carry battle scars of some kind or another, and these amazing mamas carry plenty when it comes to the hardships of infertility. This BFP is all the more glittering for the daring risk it took to seek it out.

The second is the joyful news that Allison over at Two Moms To Be just gave birth to their second child: a perfect, tiny daughter to be sister to their sweet, sweet son. You can read this joyful news here. Like Olive and Fern, Allison and Jen are wonderful, inspiring parents, and their new daughter is so, so blessed to call them her moms. I am thrilled by this Christmas Eve arrival, and I can’t wait to read all about this new, sweet child as she grows into herself, and as this family learns itself anew through her.

All of this sweetness makes the sadness a bit easier to bear, as do photos of B’s first Christmas – spent quietly at home with his mama, pomo, and bubbie – which I leave you with now. Peaceful days to you all, wherever you are. Thank you for holding our hands through the pain and welcoming us into the sweetness time and again, and for allowing us to do the same for you. I’ve decided there’s exactly one thing that matters, and that’s kindness. This community brings that in spades.

So, photos:

My first ever (as an adult) Christmas tree: small and high this year because of our boy and his resilient devotion to putting everything in his mouth, but J has promised me a real tree for B’s second Christmas.

The sweetest handmade heart – truly, its slight weight carries the love of a hundred hearts – from our beloved Laura at greensteeped.

One of three perfect gifts from Olive at Insert Metaphor. This one is a sailboat for our sweet baby Saul, who is still our Sailor.

Olive’s second gift: a star for our beloved E.

And her third: a rabbit with the most delightful face for our Rabbit River.

Finally, this delicate copper heart from our dear JE. It’s open at the bottom. I told Bram that was to let all the love of the world inside.

Our overalls-clad boy – thank you, dearest Kelley – opening his first-ever wrapped gift on Christmas Eve.

For my whole life, my mom has bought me Christmas Eve jammies. Every year. This is the awesomeness that happened this year. And yeah: those are butt-flaps.

The night before Christmas, after the boy went to bed.

Bramble and his big present from us – a Waldorf doll named Rudy.

Bram wearing Rudy for the first time in the same sling our beloved doula/friend JE’s boys wore their babies in when they were this little (which wasn’t all that long ago):

Bram and Rudy. B clearly knows how to do this.

Our sweet boy and the (handmade) pushcart his bubbie got him. He is in love.

Boy, bubbie, pushcart, Velveteen Rabbit, and (fast moving) organic felted wool ball:

B and the music table his sweet Grandmom sent from the south:

Love to you all.

.ten things for ten months.

My ten favorite things about ten months:

* Turning the corner on daytime naps and night-wakings. Hello again, sleep my old friend.

* Waving hello and goodbye. Heart melting.

* Watching Bram watch big kids in order to learn more about his world.

* Yoga for the almost walking set.

* Almost walking!

* The patience and desire to finish every last morsel of dinner.

* The desire to share dinner with the cats (where chicken is, of course, welcomed, but broccoli takes more convincing) ;-)

* Big unexpected bear hugs and snuggles. This kid has gotten so good at throwing his arms around your neck and nestling in. Again, heart melting.

* His ability to still seem like a little baby when his 23 pound self is nursing sweetly in my arms.

* His newly found desire to fall asleep in the car (see #1)

And a bonus eleventh thing: Getting to do all of this over again starting in only eight (or so) weeks!

And a few recent shots of his adorableness. The first is of B helping me to prepare a mother hubbard squash and the second is of B showing off his bookish side at the optometrist (there for me, not for B):