tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73561849283391397762024-03-13T09:06:04.460-05:00This Ro(a)mantic LifeFinding ways to put a foot down in an ever-shifting existenceThis Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.comBlogger287125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-72635050966288260992017-02-21T12:57:00.000-06:002017-02-21T12:57:46.319-06:00Where to beginThe hour on D.'s old alarm clock glows green on my nightstand by a pile of unread lit mags and a Valentine's Day card that isn't really one but a blank-for-your-message Papyrus selection. D. has written in it in pink gel pen. Where did he even find that? I wonder -- every ballpoint, felt tip, and roller ball we've dug out to write Christmas thank-yous is dried up or nearly so. In the top right corner, in his tiny print, is the year. Before he met me, the keeper of family histories and their artifacts, he never added that to his cards. <br />
<br />
I, too, have picked out a blank card by the ubiquitous overpriced paper goods imprint this year -- maybe to make up for this occasion on which neither of us has much more to offer.<br />
<br />
There is no card for "I have a brain tumor and I'm sorry it is completely fucking up our lives" (D.). There is no card for "I am holding my shit together as best I can for you and the kids but I know I'm not doing a good enough job" (me). And we're not about to write those things in our respective valentine stand-ins. That would be admitting too much about the beating our marriage has taken in recent months. Okay, years. Illness exacerbates the things that haven't been working and makes them impossible to table indefinitely. <br />
<br />
We are trying, in spite of it all. To the outside world, we are managing. <br />
<br />
At this time of night, though -- last baby feeding done, late-night TV guiltily consumed in a separate bedroom, resistance to the arrival of the next day keeping me from sleep -- I know our efforts aren't even countering enough of the damage to make this a zero-sum game. The silence I've kept here, protective as it is meant to be, is serving no one. <br />
<br />
In a few weeks, I will file our valentines with the rest of our letters to each other, spanning almost 18 years. I have not paged through them recently. I don't want to read between the lines and find the little fissures before they became cracks and then shear points. But leaving the card on my nightstand for six months, as I did last year, is just as much a reminder of my reluctance to face our history.<br />
<br />
I never imagined that this was the life waiting for me, for us, when I started writing in this space, and that bears some unpacking. It's been too long. But I'm here. <div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-26885839523766649272015-09-18T18:08:00.000-05:002015-09-18T18:11:28.212-05:00WoolgatheringWith regret, I set down a jumble of slender double-pointed knitting needles and gaze at the limited progress I've made: a one-inch ribbed cuff, the beginnings of an impossibly tiny sweater sleeve, in a rosy pink that calls to mind the columbines for which this particular colorway is named. I can't knit any further without the larger needles that are supposed to arrive today in the mail.<br />
<br />
I haven't been able to knit for months. Not for lack of supplies, but from near constant morning sickness, which I'd expected to disappear around 17 weeks as it did when I was pregnant with O. But not this time. Here we are, well into week 24, and there are still plastic bags stashed strategically around the house in case of emergency.<br />
<br />
The motion-induced nausea eased off somewhat around week 22, so since then, I've enjoyed being back at my needles in anticipation of this new little one, slated to arrive in the first days of January. But food smells (and certain foods) are still hair-triggers, and all my energy is in reserve for toddler wrangling while D. is at work. So I've been keeping a low profile.<br />
<br />
I wasn't prepared to be so sidelined, given that my first pregnancy was so vastly different from this one -- I had <i>energy.</i> But for whatever reason, this baby has insisted that I slow down. Which has meant a lot of sitting with my thoughts since the beginning of May, of listening to voices I tend to push aside when the normal busyness of life keeps me from paying attention.<br />
<br />
I had the chance to attend a weekend writing retreat on Whidbey Island at the end of May, where (in between nibbling rice crackers) I gave myself permission to put some of those thoughts on paper. Real paper, an old school notebook I'd abandoned after eighth grade and unearthed again last fall. I wrote words I had avoided writing, read them aloud to a gathering of 60 women on the last day, remembered what it felt like to crack open the stoppered bottle of stories that needed to come out. Found new mentors. Returned home with a changed sense of what I needed to write. But not how.<br />
<br />
Since then, I've continued to jot things down on paper, something I never used to do. It all feels fragmented and dream-journalish, as if my subconscious is doing the writing. But, given the slowing of the rest of my life, it's also felt like the right thing. That is, of course, until the needles came back out and the months of yarn deprivation caught up with me.<br />
<br />
I'm trusting that the words are still there, and that the writing is taking its time for its own reasons. But I do wish coming to the page could always feel as compelling as waiting for today's postal delivery ...<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-28696938003410858542015-01-16T14:11:00.000-06:002015-01-16T14:11:15.539-06:00Processing and processingSome time back in early November, I reached the <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/11/first-day.html">one-year mark</a> for a writing goal I didn't realize I'd set for myself. <br />
<br />
When I finished my thesis for Little U. on the Prairie in 2011, I wasn't sure how I felt about writing. I'd spent four years wrestling with words in an environment that was meant to give me the time and space to do just that. And yet, after being put through all the academic paces that went with that luxury, I felt like I'd trained for a foot race only to learn that the event I'd signed up for was for swimmers. <br />
<br />
Writing in real life is not a process bookended by predictable deadlines at various points in the semester. Nor is it something you're lucky enough to do with a preselected set of peer reviewers. Not that the work that comes out of all that is at all good, either -- in fact, some of my worst writing happened at Little U. Forced into artificial final form for the end of each term, my work was undergoing revision -- prematurely, it seemed -- before I had even had time to get distance from it, much less consider all the feedback from my professors and their workshops. I hated my thesis. The first five chapters felt like mine, but the rest didn't come from my writing brain; they were a strange, out-of-body text generated to make page count. <br />
<br />
Somehow, in creating those final two chapters, I lost my voice and my way. When I got back to Seattle after my defense, I couldn't understand why something I had once loved doing and felt confident doing, despite its difficulties, was suddenly like trying to do calculus without knowing any basic math.<br />
<br />
So I stopped writing for two years. Partly because life happened -- I'd been sick for more than half the time I was a graduate student with no explanation in sight and I wanted some answers. We got them. And then we had O. Any hope I'd had of getting back to the page evaporated with my claim on a proper night's sleep for the first nine months of his existence. In the haze of new parenthood, the idea of a writing life was so implausible that spontaneously sprouting a third arm was looking more likely (and at the very least, more useful in baby-wrangling). <br />
<br />
But in that mid-fall of O.'s first year, I sat down in front of this screen and put words there, one by one. Not the random notes on life with O. that I'd been posting infrequently, but words from my writing brain. It felt strange. It wasn't the voice I'd had in the past nor the stand-in text generator from my final months of work for Little U. I didn't question it. I just wrote.<br />
<br />
And I kept doing that. In fits and starts, yes, but always with the knowledge that I would come back to whatever I left behind, as long as it was giving back to me some measure of mental energy that being a mother wasn't. And suddenly, it was November again, and the work was no longer an exercise but a comfortably demanding habit or practice, which is what I'd wanted it to become all along. I think in returning to the screen, the words, the ways of thinking I had abandoned, I was hoping to make them the part of my life I had failed to establish in a meaningful manner in my previous attempts.<br />
<br />
I am still at my keyboard even though there's been little to read for a while here. Words are finding their way to the page, so much so that what I'm working on is no longer a reasonable fit for this space on sheer length and scope alone. So if I'm silent, it's not for lack of news or thought. I'm just working. <br />
<br />
This is more than I ever expected would come of going back to something that felt more and more exacting with less and less benefit to anyone when I left Little U. If it hadn't been for O., I might not have pursued it at all. But having him has given me a different lens through which to consider the subjects I write about -- the nature of family and its ever-evolving dynamics -- and with that change, the old sensation of being lost has gradually faded.<br />
<br />
I still have no map for the path forward with my work. But for now, I'm no longer trying to see a way out of it.<br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-64381740681561261482014-10-21T12:08:00.000-05:002014-10-21T12:08:00.854-05:00Rude awakeningsAt quarter after 11 on a drizzly Wednesday, O. pushes off my lap, where he's been climbing up and down all morning, and starts rubbing his eyes. My rendition of "This is the way the ladies ride," which I've been repeating for half an hour with all the associated bouncing speeds, has finally lost its appeal, and the tell-tale signs of tiredness are on both our faces. <br />
<br />
For most of O.'s life, I've automatically kept an eye on the clock -- if it isn't time for him to eat, nap, or be changed, it's almost time -- and we both do better when he gets his needs met on a reasonable schedule. Of late, though, despite my attention to his usual signals -- half-mast eyelids, a sudden interest in cuddling rather than running circles around the sofa -- O.'s barely been sleeping during the day, and I have yet to figure out why.<br />
<br />
I've grown skittish of his new quickness to wake. And resentful of every rumbling truck, yapping dog, and shrieking middle-schooler passing our door at certain times of day. Our walls are thin. While O. used to slumber through almost anything, the slightest disturbance now raises his banshee howls right away.<br />
<br />
I know he's not fully rested. When he used to nap for three hours straight, he'd wake up babbling to himself and thump the bars of his crib with glee. His screams of distress complain of interruption, of the sudden, abrupt transition from a dream state to reality, almost like the indignant cries of an infant just born. I'd pity him more if his predicament didn't mean a similar disruption of my own work. I am inevitably writing -- I've stepped into that ever changing current of words and thoughts that will only be here in this form on this day <i>now</i> when, unexpectedly, I'm hurled from the stream onto the rocky shore again and someone has made off with my towel and shoes.<br />
<br />
Today, though I'm tempted to hustle him off to his crib right away, I buckle O. into his high chair and put his favorite foods on the tray. It's hard to know if this is the right choice -- if I delay putting him down, am I missing that magical window where he'll naturally fall into his deepest sleep state, or if I don't, will I set him up to wake too soon because he's hungry? He seizes a pork rib, bone and all, and gnaws contentedly. That he has the patience for this tells me all is as it should be for now.<br />
<br />
I take O. to his room an hour later. There's minimal protest -- a whimper or two as I leave him, but he's quiet in seconds. At last, I can sit and think, the blank page before me, only the slight hiss of air through the floor registers for company.<br />
<br />
But I can't settle. Three delivery trucks motor through, engines thrumming. Our neighborhood school lets out, and children call after their friends as they head to the park down the street. It's not the noises themselves distracting me -- I've written in a college dorm that faced a local fire house and in an apartment under another inhabited by an old professor who thumped around with his cane at all hours. He'd swear in Greek every time he couldn't get his PowerPoint slides working for his next day's lecture, which seemed to be a frequent problem. No -- I only cringe now because I'm <i>anticipating</i> a rude awakening for O. and me, though I haven't even entered that meditative state I've been looking forward to.<br />
<br />
This can't continue, I tell myself. You can't jump at every <i>potential</i> disturbance or you won't get anything done. <br />
<br />
But there is no solution for this when I am both mother- and writer-in-residence. I laugh wryly at the idea of parenthood as a post one might apply for like a guest lectureship at a university. I enjoyed the visiting professors who rotated through my department when I was working on my MFA, but as they weren't permanent, the connections I made with them always felt tenuous and harder to guarantee. That certainly wouldn't be an ideal dynamic for me or O. <br />
<br />
Still, I wish in this moment for a little less mother brain and more of the focus that only a particularly emphatic stream of profanity from the old man upstairs could break.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2014/10/21/just-write-158/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg" /></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-28239894893031672942014-10-09T13:49:00.004-05:002014-10-09T13:58:01.091-05:00Conversation in a dressing roomIt's unseasonably warm for October and the padded cloth baby carrier cocooning O. against my torso is making us both sweaty. But the consignment store I'm about to enter has no room for a stroller in its narrow aisles and I'm intent on dropping off the clothes my sister has helped me cull from my wardrobe in the last week. On her post-wedding visit, we sorted every last item I hadn't worn in several years to donate or sell -- by holding on to these pieces, she insists, I've been using up valuable real estate in my closet, fooling me into thinking I have what I need. "You owe it to yourself to have clothes that you'll actually wear," she says, pulling hanger after hanger from the rack. <br />
<br />
I can't argue with her. I wear only a fraction of what I own, and by most standards, I don't own a lot. But I rarely consider what I <i>want</i> to wear on most days. Since O. arrived over a year ago, I've lived in yoga togs while at home. I tell myself it's a matter of practicality -- when I'm constantly cleaning up after a baby, now a toddler, having to avoid getting my clothes dirty is impossible. And during his precious sleep hours -- my writing time -- the last thing I worry about is how I look.<br />
<br />
But some invisible finger always pokes me a little when I see how put together my sister is. <i>Hey,</i> the voice that goes with it says, <i>why can't you dress like she does? If not all the time, at least when you're making your</i> n<i>th run to Target?</i><br />
<br />
Half the problem, it seems, is that I can't tell what makes an outfit work. Starting with basic fit. At least four pairs of pants I model for my sister get an immediate rejection. One is in beautiful Italian herringbone wool, which I've had since my first year out of college. "Those legs," my sister says. "Way too wide." She's right -- even if the style might have been in ten years ago, I never quite liked how it looked on me but couldn't understand why. "You've got sad crotch too!" she adds with almost comical dismay -- the rise is too deep, and the extra fabric is sagging beneath me. I laugh. All of this adds up to a heavy look in the butt and thighs that is, in my sister's words, tragic. How did I not see it, though? I wonder. It's only clear now that she's pointed out the underlying issues.<br />
<br />
The pants are tucked in with the rest of the items I hand to the girl behind the cash register at the consignment store. While I wait for the manager to screen them, I wander through the women's section on a whim. My sister and I took one day of her visit to shop a nearby outlet mall, with success -- she's helped me replace what I'm getting rid of with updated staples -- but we didn't find the skinny jeans she's insisted will be a versatile addition to my wardrobe. <br />
<br />
I'm intimidated by the idea of anything that might grab my post-baby jelly belly in its unforgiving waistband, but I browse the racks. This'll be a long shot, I think. Most of what I tried on at the outlets fit in the legs but not in the seat -- it's as if my body's been cobbled together from different-sized parts. But I spot a pair that looks promising: clean tailoring without embellishments or flaps on the pockets, a rise that's not too high or low, and a really dark wash that will be long wearing. O. wriggles impatiently and cranes his neck to see what I'm looking at. When he can't turn beyond the limits of the carrier, he starts making noises of protest.<br />
<br />
"Okay, okay," I say. I might as well try these on at under thirty dollars, and O. needs to stretch his legs.<br />
<br />
I maneuver us into the curtained dressing room and quickly release O. from his straps and buckles. He sits on the built-in bench for a few minutes while I change. The legs on the jeans are too long, but the waist buttons at a good position -- no gut overflow. I'm not confident on what else I'm supposed to be assessing, though, having never owned skinnies. Are they like any other pair of pants? Will these bunch weirdly at the knees after I stand up from sitting down? Is there a teensy bit too much fabric in the butt? Do I buy the jeans regardless? They're less than half the price of a brand-new pair, but like all else in the store, they're final sale. <br />
<br />
As I peer ambivalently at my reflection, O. scrambles off his seat and starts shaking the mirror, which is only propped against the wall, not fixed. He moves quickly to test an adjustable floor lamp in the corner then makes a dash for the curtain. I take one last look at myself, switch back to my own bottoms, and wrestle O. into the carrier before he escapes completely. <br />
<br />
I check the time. It's hard to say whether my sister, who is several hours ahead of me, will be available, but I want her advice. If you can't reach her, it's not meant to be, I tell myself. I dial her number.<br />
<br />
To my relief, I get an answer. "Ass and crotch," she says, when I've explained the situation. "Those are the areas that matter most."<br />
<br />
"Yes," I say. I've already anticipated this, after her most recent assessments. "But what am I looking for?"<br />
<br />
"Across the front -- is there whiskering?"<br />
<br />
She's referring to that rayed wrinkling that occurs around the base of the zipper when the cut isn't right for the body, not the intentional dye fading on the same area to produce a certain look. I'm pleased that I remembered to check before I took the jeans off. "Only a little," I say, "but I think it's because the inseam is too long and my legs are uneven."<br />
<br />
"Okay, we can alter the hems. How about the back pockets -- are they riding really low? Is there sagging?"<br />
<br />
"No," I say, trailing off slightly. "I mean, there might be a little extra under the cheeks, but again, I think it's because the whole leg is bunching."<br />
<br />
"You'll pull that down and scrunch at the ankles," my sister says.<br />
<br />
"You're sure? I mean, this is definitely not a saggy ass or sad crotch problem, but I'm worried they'll pull up out of my boots and then do a muffin-top thing at the knees."<br />
<br />
My sister pauses. I can't tell by her silence if she thinks this is absurd, hilarious, or plausible, but I trust her more than anyone else on such matters because I know she's taking my concern seriously. Then, "I've never seen that happen. How much are they?"<br />
<br />
"Twenty-eight."<br />
<br />
"Done and done. I think we can work with these for this season as a starting point!"<br />
<br />
Her enthusiasm convinces me -- and just in time. O. utters a small blast of complaints that signals me to wrap this consultation up. I pay, then collect what the shop manager doesn't want from my closet clean-out.<br />
<br />
The drive home is quiet. I'm flushed from the heat and wrangling O., and as I turn up the air conditioning, I realize my heartbeat is running fast in my ears. I'm strangely elated. In spite of my doubts, my initial read on the jeans was good -- my sister's guiding appraisal only confirmed what I thought I ought to look for.<br />
<br />
"Sad crotch," I mumble, remembering my sister's horror at the ill-fitting rejects now headed for donation. I start to giggle. While I usually never give this much thought to how I look at clothing, I imagine anyone listening to our conversation at the store would think I'm obsessed with the space between my navel and thighs.<br />
<br />
There's something that's tragic, I think, laughing harder. But I'm happy to feel for once that I'm not a complete fashion idiot.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2014/10/07/just-write-156/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg" /></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-14771322420070815562014-10-01T13:23:00.000-05:002014-10-01T13:23:59.364-05:00BuzzedIt is silent, except for a hushed drizzle I haven't heard in months. <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2014/07/ventilation.html">Summer</a> is finally over. The whirlwind weeks leading up to my sister's wedding are over. I'm in the sweater I love instead of shorts and T-shirts stretched from too many rotations in the wash. I can stop tracking the <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2014/09/blind-spots.html">million little things</a> that any major trip requires and just sit, for the moment, without wondering what comes next.<br />
<br />
I feel empty, as if I've been turned inside out and shaken thoroughly. The last twelve months feel as if they've been one nonstop, high-speed obstacle course and stillness has been almost unrecognizable to me. But here I am. There's been no time to pause for excitement, worry, frustration, even tiredness -- only fleeting acknowledgment of their presence before sprinting toward the next thing. Now it all floods in, jamming the connections. The heart and the head gasp in unison, like I've touched a live wire.<br />
<br />
There will be time to sort it all out. I promise myself this even as the crackle of so many sensations leaves me buzzing. The year's biggest demands are finally past, and now -- <br />
<br />
And now <i>what?</i> asks the voice in my ear.<br />
<br />
I don't need to know right now, I say. And that's the point.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2014/09/30/just-write-155/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg" /></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-83137314224058010772014-09-02T15:31:00.000-05:002014-09-02T15:31:21.844-05:00Blind spotsIt's the last Wednesday in August, and the packing list for my sister's wedding is growing by the hour. With our extra baby gear and my food allergies to work around, every trip feels like camping: we haul the edibles and other supplies in and hope nothing runs out. <br />
<br />
"We should get an RV," D. has said more than once this week. "Seriously, we'd be able to go anywhere."<br />
<br />
After this morning's slow progress on our plan, I'm almost tempted to say yes.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, my other wedding to-dos are waning. I've written my toast and charted the day-of schedule we'll have to get O. through. My dress and his ringbearer togs are fitted. All I have left is to assemble a slideshow of the happy couple, finalize the reception games we'll subject them to, and figure out which purse to carry. Makeup, snacks, sewing kit, hair pins, band-aids, headache relief -- where to put it all? The diaper backpack's tempting but a poor match for stilettos. <br />
<br />
I start gathering supplies for a test-fit. "Oh come on," I mumble -- I'm out of the meds. I was at the store last week but hadn't started the packing list yet, and I'm dreading the back-to-school crowds. But O.'s already at the door to our garage, begging to go out. I don't resist. If he's willing, there's no better time than now to get the job done.<br />
<br />
Everything these days is a job, I think as I pull out of our driveway. We are halfway down the block before I wonder if I've closed the garage door. It doesn't matter, I tell myself. We'll only be gone thirty minutes. But these endless tasks, boxes to be checked off -- it's no wonder I feel dull. I can't remember the last time I did something for myself this summer. At least, not without needing to invest as much energy in arranging for a personal stand-in to cover my absence as I was supposed to reclaim in the first place.<br />
<br />
Four turns, six stoplights. The route is busy, but traffic moves. O. babbles to no one in particular -- is he telling me what he sees? We've been waiting for words, but even at 18 months, he has none. At his last check-up, we got a referral for early intervention services, which will start after we return. I'm relieved. Between this trip and the last one we took in March for my mother's birthday, we've spent most of O.'s year thus far in planning mode. This wedding needs to be over just so I can focus again on him, to say words like car, truck, and bus instead of accommodations, airline tickets, and aspirin. "Ya ya ya ya!" O. exclaims. I can't help wondering if the outside demands we've been fielding all year have more to do with his delays than any other cause.<br />
<br />
I park. There are no carts nearby, so I sling O. onto my hip and start trekking to the corral at the store entrance. As I reach the end of our row of cars, a red SUV comes roaring past the front curb. It blows through the crosswalk and suddenly it's turning head-on toward me. My body freezes. Run, you idiot, the primal part of my brain says, but it's as if the rest of me can't believe the driver hasn't noticed us. Or maybe I'm afraid if I move, he'll swerve the wrong way. "Hey!" I shout. He can't possibly hear me. He goes left at the last second, swinging just wide. <br />
<br />
I'm fuming. There's no apologetic wave or even recognition, just the hot stench of exhaust. I consider walking back to the guy's car and demanding an explanation. But I know it's pointless. He's got a wife and a kid in the passenger seats. For whatever reason, on his end or mine, I just wasn't visible.<br />
<br />
See me, I scream silently. I haven't felt seen, I realize, in a terrifyingly long time. The work of preparing to move a pop-up habitat for so many events in this year and the last is like a scrim -- it keeps me forever busy behind the scenes and is itself so easy to look past. Not that my reasons for being in this parking lot on this day are the guy's reasons for nearly hitting me. But that don't-you-know-I'm-here moment I had in front of his bumper -- more and more, it feels like an ongoing state of being.<br />
<br />
O. squirms in my arms. All this time he's been quiet, and I look at him for the first moment in a long minute. He's watching me, trying to read my expression, which must be anything but reassuring. <br />
<br />
"We're okay," I tell him. But I know we both need better.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2014/09/02/5829/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg" /></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-58032847236879145682014-08-22T14:06:00.000-05:002014-08-22T14:06:47.933-05:00On debris<i>Author's note: I wrote this in late June and never got around to editing it until this week! Chalk it up to what came out of the incident below -- lots of other writing and even more decline in my laptop's function. The latter's at the shop, so I'm working on borrowed technology until further notice ...</i><br />
<br />
Yesterday, I sat down to write as I've been sitting down to write for several months since establishing something like a morning routine with D. and O. We have breakfast together and go for a walk, then D. leaves for his office and I entertain O. until he's ready to nap. On some days he shuttles happily from toy box to sofa to floor, sorting and piling various items with intentions only he understands. On others, he gets impatient and sweeps aside the entire mess -- a fallen tower of blocks, stacking rings that refuse to stack -- flailing his arms to remove every last offending piece. And then he starts from scratch, arranging the materials he was just rejecting toward whatever ideal his busy fingers want so much to create. <br />
<br />
Most of the time, he finds his way, but I've been wondering lately when to step in during those moments of frustration to do more than comfort and redirect, as so many parenting advocates suggest. To teach him how to handle the disappointment without producing quite so much debris. For now, when play is no longer fun, I know it's time to give him a break. That's also where my nap time writing window fits.<br />
<br />
My laptop had restarted in the middle of the night -- to install some automatic, unavoidable update the operating system insists on making once every few weeks -- and I'd expected that, given the warning messages it had been flashing the evening before.<br />
<br />
What I didn't expect was that the essay I'd been working on over several weeks had been failing to save, thanks to a glitch with the software, for three days.<br />
<br />
I'm sure the first thoughts I had after the discovery were unprintable. Silent, fuming, desperate, I considered my options. Rewrite it all? It was worth a shot. The draft that <i>had</i> saved was substantially different from the version that was lost. In a moment of clarity -- rarely do I have these, so ever more my dismay -- I'd drastically altered the direction of the essay, moving sections, reintroducing ideas where they made more sense. Those changes were gone. Sifting through the older draft, I could see the phrases that had triggered the shift in thought, could see fuzzy fragments of particular transitional sentences in memory that I'd begun working in, an essay in pieces that if only I could reassemble them --<br />
<br />
Thirty minutes later, I might as well have been trying to rebuild a melting sand castle on a beach at high tide.<br />
<br />
The words just weren't right. I was copying a badly damaged artifact without the benefits of the original moment of inspiration guiding my choices. I wasn't hearing the stream of thought, just listening to echoes and fighting a mounting swell of frustration instead. <br />
<br />
The impulse to sweep it all aside -- much as O. would -- was suddenly a hard lump in my throat. But there was nothing really to fling, lost data being lost. I understood, though, the temptation of clearing something away, of needing to be rid of the mess that I was unable to right. After a few minutes, I gave up. If I couldn't sweep aside the damage, I could at least clear myself away -- to deal with my frustration without staring the creative disaster in its face. <br />
<br />
O. is asleep again this morning. I have, perhaps, another hour to work at this unforgiving thing I do because I need and want to, in spite of all the challenges the act comprises, even without technological snafus. That I'm actually grieving the loss of this essay tells me it matters, that the work is essential, that scraping together the time at the cost of -- well, at the very least, certain household chores and anything else I can't do while O. is awake -- is better than any alternative. <br />
<br />
But after looking at the essay yet again, even with fresh eyes, I know I won't be able to pick up where I'd left off. All frustration aside, I can't relocate the place in my consciousness where those particular words dwelled. So I'm going to have to start from scratch.<br />
<br />
Am I disappointed? Yes. But maybe there is something to be said for debris, and what can come of rummaging through it. <div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-52967149501400301912014-07-02T15:38:00.000-05:002014-09-02T15:28:26.531-05:00VentilationIt's Wednesday, and the house I wake up in is still leaching heat from its thin walls after our first 90-degree day of the summer. The thermostat says it's 74, and the thermometer on the porch says 65, but the stagnant air both in and out feels warmer, heavier. Even as we throw the downstairs windows open to let the first floor draw breath, the atmosphere doesn't want to stir. D. puts box fans on the sills to get things moving, but there's no competing with the retained memory of the previous day's sun. We are headed for at least 80 again today.<br />
<br />
I'm groggy as I pull breakfast together. We had all the upstairs windows open overnight with fans in those too, but the constant buzz and strangely warm breeze, like a giant's exhalations, make for poor sleep. We are spoiled, living in the Pacific Northwest, where summers are short -- the rest of the country has had its hot temperatures for weeks. But they have air conditioning, I mumble in my mind. For July and August, I will be on ventilation duty, drawing blinds or opening them, flipping fans to blow in or out, depending on the indoor/outdoor temperature differential. I wouldn't mind if it actually had a detectable effect on days like this.<br />
<br />
I'm not the only one feeling the weather. D.'s brother, who recently moved up here to start college, has agreed to watch O. once a week for two hours in the morning to give me chore-and-errand time so I can <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-work-nap-balance.html">write</a> while O. naps. He calls shortly after we sit down at the kitchen table -- he has a migraine and won't be coming.<br />
<br />
I resign myself to juggling O. and the paperwork I've put on my agenda. We are -- surprise -- trying to get an air conditioner installed, but the homeowner's association has a Modification Request Form for such things that's more daunting than a college application. I've bogged down at the section that asks for a description of the project. How much detail do I need to provide? Illustrate on diagram, it simply says, to scale. I'm no contractor, but I suspect just sketching in a box on our porch and labeling it "A/C" isn't going to suffice. There will be wiring and refrigerant piping and other small but significant parts that I don't know the first thing about, all of which will be connected in some way from the unit to the house.<br />
<br />
O. scarfs his yogurt and cereal but pushes scrambled eggs away. Smart kid. He's not inclined to eat anything heavy after yesterday's heat. For the rest of the morning before naptime, he alternates between stacking board books in an empty Huggies box and chugging water from a sippy cup. I attempt to compose a description of the air conditioner project that addresses the design guidelines on the form, but every time I turn my attention to the directions, O. tries to climb onto the couch with me. I abandon the papers and my laptop, neither of which will benefit from an accidental splash or O.'s damp hands, and move on to sorting mail. O. takes all the unwanted coupons and grocery circulars and spreads them on the floor. Losing interest, he turns to the box fans. I grab his fingers just before he shoves them through the plastic grille at the blades he cannot see. <br />
<br />
This is a new wrinkle, I think. Last summer, O. wasn't mobile enough to get remotely near the fans on his own. The rest of the day stretches out like a mirage retreating toward the horizon -- I'm not looking forward to being on this additional piece of ventilation duty. <br />
<br />
He finally naps. I sit down to my real work. At least I can run the fans while O.'s asleep. But their drone is so loud that I can't hear myself think. I read and reread for twenty minutes a draft of an essay that is suddenly a collage of disconnected words. Sweat or write, I say. I can't bear the idea of losing this time to something as stupid as this noise, but not cooling the house means another day of the same. Stagnant progress or stagnant air? <br />
<br />
I close the file, open a blank page, and give in to neither.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2014/07/01/just-write-142/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg" /></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-68389160445944712182014-06-26T13:18:00.000-05:002014-06-26T18:16:23.704-05:00The work-nap balanceLife's been busy.<br />
<br />
I imagine I could start any post that way, but lately it's been a different sort of busy. Busy for just us, D. and O. and me. We've had a lull in <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2014/05/tension.html">travel planning</a> and at last, we've begun finding time for other projects as a family. Outings. Home improvements. Social time with kid-friendly friends. Some tasks are more mundane -- like tweaking our household budget tracking system so that it's not so labor intensive -- but even that feels like a welcome change, a shifting of our attention back to our own home life rather than managing being away from it. <br />
<br />
Of course, just as we were starting to get some hours back for all these neglected things, O. began sleeping less and exploring more. Walking and running have given way to climbing, banging blocks together has become building with them, and suddenly, he's in need of an adult playmate much more than before. Which is fun -- as D. was commenting to me the other day, you can now play <i>with</i> him as opposed to watching him play on his own. But all the random weekday tasks I used to do while he self-entertained are harder to juggle. You can't balance the budget while being asked to balance multiple stacks of blocks on your knees. (Believe me, I've tried.)<br />
<br />
I'd started to feel a sense of panic whenever O. would nap, which was abruptly down to once a day. My mind was pulling itself in multiple directions during that window. I was supposed to be writing -- I'd told myself months before that I had to treat my work seriously if I wanted to stop second-guessing its value -- but I was also supposed to be researching bids for a new air conditioner and doing basic home care tasks that would take more time than was reasonable to put O. in the playpen for and, oh, how about showering too? Never mind attempting something for true leisure so that writing didn't have to be the sole activity to serve <i>that</i> purpose as well. <br />
<br />
I'd sit down before the page and freeze. There was so much pressure to <i>get something done</i> during O.'s nap that I ended up expending more energy being frustrated by my sense of compressed time than using it toward building any sense of accomplishment.<br />
<br />
After a few weeks of this, D. gently suggested that we try rearranging my routine a little. <br />
<br />
The idea of asking for help hadn't crossed my mind. At least, I didn't feel I could justify asking D. to give up some of his own limited hours outside of work or our family time on the weekend to let me use it to scrub down our bathrooms and wash my hair. I'd looked at those tasks as things I ought to do while he was working or O. was asleep so we could make the most of our down time together. But he was right. Something had to come out of the nap window to return that time to what it was best intended for: putting one word in front of another, without worrying about whether I should be doing something else. I wasn't happy when I wasn't writing, and I needed to give myself a lower-pressure environment to let it happen in. <br />
<br />
So we trialed a new schedule over the weekend. For the two hours after breakfast usually preceding naptime, D. hung out with O. while I did some chores and got properly clean, instead of speed-showering. Once O. was asleep, we both had a chance to work on our independent projects. And in the afternoon, we all got to be together for a little World Cup viewing, reading aloud, and stacking blocks on every surface imaginable. <br />
<br />
The difference in my state of mind was almost palpable. At the end of the weekend, I didn't feel like an over-wound spinner's bobbin, just a properly tired person who'd done a fair amount of work in addition to taking care of O.'s needs. A reduced set of his needs, but certainly plenty to keep me feeling just as connected to him. And also D. Giving up the time we would have spent together in the morning didn't feel like a loss when it meant being less conflicted about using the time we did have later in the day. <br />
<br />
We're now considering having a baby-sitter twice a week to cover the same two-hour morning window. If that works out, I suspect the dividends such help will pay in giving me semi-dependable work hours will be enormous. I know there will still be difficult days when I emerge from my time at the page with no more than a paragraph I'm truly happy with. But the panic that was setting in during the last weeks of ever-shrinking writing time is at bay now with the small but significant protections we're building in.<br />
<br />
This just might work. Until O. shifts his routine again, of course, but now I know what I need -- and how making it possible is so very worth it. <div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-73601827203130450472014-05-06T18:25:00.000-05:002014-05-06T18:25:46.462-05:00TensionA text message from my mother buzzes my phone. She tells me I need to start deciding where to stay in Boston for my sister's September wedding -- even though the official invitations haven't been sent yet, our relatives have booked nearly all the rooms blocked for our party at the hotel where the reception will be.<br />
<br />
I consider the price point my mother gives me for a single bedroom there and laugh wryly. I'm not shelling out that kind of money. As it is, O. will have difficulty adjusting to the three-hour time difference and he's not going to be easy to wrangle during the festivities without adequate sleep. I'd rather pay for a suite at a less luxurious place with the same cash and ensure we'll all have a better chance at getting through the long weekend without having to manage a meltdown.<br />
<br />
Against my will, my mind turns to the logistical puzzle this next trip promises to be. We've just dealt with the months-long planning process of getting ourselves to Colorado and back for a week of skiing for my mother's birthday -- a trip whose demands far outstripped any usual holiday visits we've made with O. -- and I hadn't intended to throw any resources at our Boston obligations until, say, July. But now I'm wondering how many days we need to be on the ground, how we're going to do two cross-country flights with a kid who can handle at most two hours strapped in a car seat before he's reached his limits. I see standoffs with the beverage cart coming already.<br />
<br />
Research flights first, or hotel? My mind spins. I feel like a satellite caught in my family's orbit, destined either to burn up in the atmosphere or circle in the void for eternity.<br />
<br />
I reach for my laptop, perched by the sweater I've been working on in fits and starts for D. Then I set it down again. The sweater's yoke, patterned with a geometric array of knits and purls, is perfect, except for one row I've noticed near the lower left of the chest. I've miscounted on the pattern, and everything from the center to the end of the row is shifted one stitch.<br />
<br />
There's no ripping it out. Well, there is, but I've knitted the entire yoke, cast it off, and blocked it. Undoing all that work -- it's not worth it if I can find a simpler cosmetic repair. I consider using the same color yarn and just weaving fake stitches over the mistakes. I'm not satisfied with the solution, but I give in, threading a rusty orange length of wool onto a large tapestry needle. Push it under, draw it through, push it under, draw it through. If I had more patience to spare, I tell myself, I'd do this the right way, but the fact is I don't. All the more reason not to go hotel hunting this morning.<br />
<br />
As I study the pattern's ins and outs, trying to figure out exactly where to overweave the new stitches, I can't help thinking about our week in Colorado. How my parents insisted they wanted us to be there, O. included, but hardly spent any time with him or us. How much effort we put into finding a baby-sitter long-distance and preparing to baby-proof a condo without having to ship our own safety gear or buy it just for a few days' use on site. How challenging my parents' dining preferences were with my food allergies and how we worked our own cooking and grocery shopping into the schedule so I'd be able to eat.<br />
<br />
We'd anticipated all of that and decided ahead of time that we'd make this a vacation for ourselves, regardless of my parents' agenda -- we'd enjoy skiing together, even if the days were limited by our baby-sitting rotations, and we'd have fun being on a dinner "date" with my family on my mother's birthday, even if I couldn't eat anything at the restaurant. But then D. got altitude sickness and a head cold on top of it and by the time the week was over, he'd lost a third of our ski time and completely missed the big dinner in question.<br />
<br />
I'm not proud of the way we handled those setbacks. After so much effort to turn a difficult trip into something positive for us, D. and I had a whisper-screamed verbal brawl late into one of our last nights in Colorado because we'd had it with the tension between us, built up over those months of dealing with my parents' requests. Extended family politics have, in the year since O. was born, been at the root of much of our growing frustration with each other. There are other stressors, to be sure, but we keep getting stretched thinner and thinner by the same primary forces we have yet to find a way to push back against together. Instead, we prey on each other's patience because it is easier than trying to appeal to my parents for the consideration they simply don't possess when it comes to their expectations of us. <br />
<br />
These thoughts kink like yarn twisted too tightly on my needles as I attempt to oversew the first iteration of my offset stitches. For weeks I've been unable to move past them or, at the very least, push them aside. Now, I'm caught again, distracted again. This is why there are mistakes in my knitting in the first place.<br />
<br />
The errant stitches are still just visible to me, but only because I know they are there, behind the camouflage I'm creating, loop by loop. They will always remain, no matter how carefully I match their tightness with the cover yarn.<br />
<br />
I sit with my disappointment, unsure whether I should keep going. The act of mending is fitting for my state of mind, but it feels emblematic of all the bending and twisting I've been doing for little cumulative benefit. The yarn slackens in my fingers. This was meant to be a project to bring pleasure to both of us -- to me for the enjoyment of the process and to D., who had been searching for the perfect fall-weight pullover season after season. How had even this become about my family?<br />
<br />
I pull the yarn taut again. This is exactly why I have to finish, I tell myself. I need <i>something</i> to feel like I've finally set it right, that I am not totally powerless. <br />
<br />
The errant stitches slowly vanish beneath the new surface I weave, leaving their trail like a faint scar. I know I won't forget they're there, but I can at least keep the rest of the world from seeing them.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2014/05/06/just-write-134/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg" /></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-36683157734441840412014-02-18T13:46:00.000-06:002014-02-18T13:46:57.040-06:00Sick dayO. wakes early from his morning nap, screaming in uncharacteristic distress. It's an hour from his usual rousing time, and from the sound of his cries, punctuated with coughs and splutters, I can tell he's as congested as I am. We've both been fighting a head cold since the end of last week, and so far, there's no sign of relief.<br />
<br />
I abandon the hope of getting any writing done -- the essay that's been sitting idle for two weeks, the kernel of another that needs me to put notes on paper <i>now</i>, lest the shape of the ideas erode like sand sculptures in high tide. My head feels underwater anyway.<br />
<br />
I usually eat a fast lunch before O. is ready to be fed, but his shrieks tell me he won't wait today. So I collect him from his crib. He doesn't realize I've picked him up -- he writhes and sobs and throws his head back, choking in between attempts to register his complaints. I press my cheek to his, damp and chapped by the work of his fingernails. No change. Only after we come to the stair landing, bathed in the flat light of a gray day, does he take note that he's been rescued. He looks at me, reproach in his bleary gaze, and hides his face in my chest as if the world is too much to bear.<br />
<br />
I bring him to his favorite toy in the living room, a tower of plastic stacking doughnuts, and set him down. He grabs them right away and accepts this consolation. But as soon as I make tracks for the kitchen, he bursts into tears again. There will be no leaving him alone, it seems.<br />
<br />
I try the high chair, but O.'s crying goes from aggrieved to furious, especially when I try to clean his dripping nose. He's relieved, though, to be strapped into the wearable carrier. From there, he watches me manipulate knife, fork and leftover pork chops for five minutes. I haven't eaten this way since he was only a few weeks old. The memory of that same furrowed brow nestled against my chest pulls at my heart -- O. turned one earlier this month. He is no longer a baby, but a toddler who is rarely content to be still. I've missed being able just to hold him, I realize, letting my chin rest on his dark hair. Though I wouldn't trade O.'s usual wiggly, giggly cheer for the cranky cuddler he's been today.<br />
<br />
Still wearing him, I assess the leftovers in the fridge, none of which pique my interest. It's a <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/10/treats-for-overbooked.html">mug cake </a>day, I decide, and throw together cocoa, flour, and applesauce as O. begins to wriggle. "Hungry, little man?" I ask. He's not pleased to be put back in his high chair, but he's recovered enough to be distracted with cubes of avocado while I eat. Despite my stuffiness, I can still taste the dark chocolate, warm and just sweet enough on my tongue to soften my own edges. O. licks his fingers and I, my spoon -- at last, I can take a breath.<br />
<br />
A hot drink beckons. And O.'s having no more of anything that holds him down, so I pop a bag of orange-spiced tea into the microwave and take him into the living room again to play. This time, the plastic doughnuts are only marginally more interesting. I manage to step away when the tea is done without O. protesting, though he notes my activities with an owlish glance. If he had spectacles, I think to myself, he'd be peering over them with disapproval.<br />
<br />
I reach to set the mug on the half-wall behind the sofa, where it'll be out of his reach -- he's gotten so tall that the usual places on the end tables are no longer safe -- but it tips. In one bobble, the contents spill over cushions and carpet and now <i>I'm</i> ready for a cry. There's no way O. will let me address the mess in his current mood, but I can't leave it to stain. With a long sigh, I scoop him up in one arm and gather cleaning rags and soap in the other.<br />
<br />
Of course, O. fusses when I put him back on the living room floor. By now I've steeled myself to ignore the tantrum I suspect is inevitable -- I'm out of tricks to redirect his focus, at least while I'm unable to attend to him directly. But as I tug on the arms of the sofa to work it away from the wall, curiosity overtakes O.'s dismay. He pads nearer to observe as I blot with the rags, pulling a cushion aside to get at the wettest parts.<br />
<br />
This won't last, I think, as I climb over the seat back to assess the damage to the carpet. As soon as I kneel out of sight, he'll start up again. Just get it over with, I tell myself, and bend down in acceptance.<br />
<br />
And then I hear a hoot of excitement. Followed by the scramble of hands and knees and the creak of sofa springs -- O. has climbed onto the seat frame, now low enough without the cushion for him to negotiate. He peers over the sofa back at me, thrilled by his accomplishment. Suddenly, he's all dimpled smiles and giggles of delight.<br />
<br />
"So that's what you needed, huh?" I say, returning the smile, though mine is wry. He bounces and slaps the damp seat back, then, with some calculation, crawls to the edge of the frame. Before I can stop him, he lunges for the floor, landing face first in the cushion turned tumbling mat. He laughs at the novelty of it all, clambering back up to do it again.<br />
<br />
I'll take it, I think, and I bend again to the task at hand. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2014/02/18/just-write-123/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg" /></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-7765765725437982462014-01-16T13:24:00.000-06:002014-01-16T13:24:55.501-06:00A forecastWednesday is my second day returning to routine after being away from home for eleven and hosting my mother for another six. The light's fading, O.'s about to wake, and I'm still in yoga togs. Not because I do yoga these days but because they're wash-and-wear and slightly more presentable than pajamas.<br />
<br />
The day started with a rush to get O. up and fed before the fridge repairman was supposed to arrive -- but he was late and the morning was an exercise in waiting, half-resumed chores and plans for a much-needed walk held in limbo. That is what the first two weeks of this year have felt like, a suspension of progress. I'm travel-weary and stiff in the joints from being cramped for decompression time, mental and physical. Though, in the name of efficiency, I've tried to skip the post-holiday recovery phase -- the type that follows overexposure to my parents -- it's clear I need it more than ever. So here I am. Poking erratically with one hand at the keys, the other in a bag of chocolate.<br />
<br />
I didn't think of writing as exercise, once upon a time, but after these weeks away from the practice, I know it's my form of meditation. I've missed it not because it's pleasurable -- hell, it's hard going most of the time -- but because I'm much worse off without it. Congestion of the mind is killer, and time with my family generates exactly the kind of cloud that stifles me, confuses me. I'm surer of who I am when I'm away from the voices that continue to try to raise me. For that reason alone, I don't think I remember starting any year with a clear head since leaving home -- most Januaries in my memory hold the spillover of December's return to old nests. Ones that are good for short visits but are, for longer, inhospitable.<br />
<br />
I've always wanted the beginning of the year to be what so many people seem to enjoy -- a natural time to take stock of what's in store for us. I've peered into the months ahead, though, and it's looking extra foggy. It's a big year for family get-togethers -- more milestone birthdays, a wedding, and all the prenuptial events on top of the usual holidays. It would be an understatement to say I'm approaching all of it with trepidation.<br />
<br />
But the year also promises to be an exercise in this exercise -- writing through it all. In recent years, I've dodged the page because I hated the truths about my family it forced me to examine. Can't you write about anything else? I wondered. Shouldn't you just give up on the subject?<br />
<br />
How can you leave what follows you, defines you, whether you wish it to or not.<br />
<br />
I don't know. But I suspect this year will offer plenty on the matter to think about.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-76144305940320119112013-12-17T11:42:00.000-06:002013-12-17T13:12:45.382-06:00Homesick for the holidaysAt the end of the first week of December, D. hauls in the boxes of Christmas decorations from the garage and sets them on the living room floor, amidst the toys O. has scattered in every direction. From upstairs, where I'm getting O. ready to nap, I hear the familiar jingle of a wreath of bells, the rustling of artificial greenery, the whisper of tissue coming off carefully wrapped baubles for the tree. O. doesn't know these sounds yet. He gazes at me, placid and sleep-ready, hardly registering the activity in his customary play area below.<br />
<br />
In past years, our halls were, at best, hastily decked ahead of the twenty-fifth. Gift runs were last-minute, and
plans for festive meals got pared down because it was just the two of us --
why roast a whole turkey, we said, when we're about to leave for a week-long
family visit? We were still in some ways our parents' children, returning to their homes for the real observance of the holiday. <br />
<br />
But this will be our first Christmas as a family of three, a family of our own. And even though O. won't remember anything of the event at ten months, I sense D. and I both feel there's more at stake in feting it properly before we join the celebration at my parents' place.<br />
<br />
For starters, we've bought a bigger tree, whose parts D. is inspecting when I join him after O. is settled in his crib. I can tell he's excited -- he's wanted to have something more generous than our skinny six-footer for ages, and this fluffy spruce promises to fit the bill. "Christmas-y enough?" I ask with amusement as he wrestles top and bottom together.<br />
<br />
"Absolutely. But how about you?" he asks. "What would make the house feel Christmas-y for you?"<br />
<br />
I consider the question as I tackle the garlands D.'s set aside for our banisters. We already have holiday songs playing softly, many from an album of favorites I'd found for us when we were married seven years ago. My mother used to play the same collection -- on vinyl, rather than digital file -- while my sisters and I helped her decorate. As I bend and wrap, bend and wrap, coaxing fat lengths of prickly fir around a stair railing, the memory of my mother doing the same in our old house rises with the strains of Bing Crosby.<br />
<br />
To my surprise, I don't have a ready answer for D. There's something needling me, and it's not the fake bristles that have come off on my sweater sleeves. It's a sadness that shouldn't have a place in D.'s invitation to create seasonal joy. Or so I stubbornly tell myself. That <i>is</i> what our efforts are about, right? Joy -- ours to seize, ours to share, with the delights of a first child's first experience of it all to cherish too.<br />
<br />
I wonder why, in spite of so much happy, our plans feel flat. What's missing? Should we make Christmas cookies, the tree-shaped ones I used to love pressing M&Ms into as a kid? Should we take some to the family next door? I start to suggest these options but stop myself mid-sentence. Somehow I know they won't change my mood, despite my fond memories of rolling buttery dough in my mother's kitchen.<br />
<br />
My mother too, I imagine, is going about her own preparations now for our post-Christmas visit. I hear the brisk slap of her house slippers as she carries armloads of craft-store trappings from room to room. She's talking to herself, sighing over bows that need pressing, noting the dust on the fireplace mantel, remembering the extra powdered sugar she's forgotten to pick up from the supermarket. The closer the holiday comes, the more stressed she grows. "I hate going near the grocery store right now," she'll say when I check in with her on the phone. In spite of her complaints, though, I know she'll make the trip for whatever she thinks she needs because it's part of the traditions she's built single-handedly over three decades of motherhood. The music, the garlands, the goodies she reserves to make at this time
of year for the neighbors -- all of these have come to embody what is
Christmas-y for her and, by extension, for me.<br />
<br />
To duplicate that without my mother's presence, I realize, is impossible.<br />
<br />
Still, I add red and gold ribbon bows to the garlands, just as my mother
does. Then I step back, debating their effect. They draw my mother near
in memory, and yet they make me ever more aware of her physical absence.
Of how I'm grasping for pieces of my mother's version of the holiday because it's what represents the comfort of the season for me. Of the contradiction in wanting to capture
that comfort, which only grows more elusive the harder I try to make it
mine. Traditions take time to build. In a few years, we'll have our own favorite rituals and activities, but until then, the realm of possibility stretches so vast. It's this emptiness, I imagine, that's weighing on me. And the impulse to fill it with what I know.<br />
<br />
If D. senses I'm feeling lost, he doesn't say so. But he offers to help me tuck lights around my handiwork -- the final touch my mother usually adds. I let him take over.<br />
<br />
Not long after he's finished, O. stirs. There's the sound of soft babble, followed by a series of thumps. I find O. sitting in his crib, pajama-clad feet sticking through the bars he's whacking with his little hands. He flashes an enormous grin as I come into view, and the sweetness of that recognition pushes aside any other thoughts. "Hi there, little man," I say. He reaches to be picked up.<br />
<br />
"Come," I say, carrying him into the hall. He looks at me gamely though he doesn't understand. And then his gaze settles on the stairs, the tree, the lights below. Though I haven't yet traced his line of sight, I can see the glow of our work reflected in his eyes. <br />
<br />
I watch O.'s expression, expecting a smile or at least some indicator of his usual happy curiosity. After all, this is what I've been hoping for, in spite of the homesickness the last hour has wrought in me. But he observes with uncertainty, lips pressed tight, brows furrowed with concentration -- something's different about that space, <i>his</i> space. It is, I've forgotten, a room he's also used to laying claim to. And now I've made it anything but familiar in my quest for comfort and joy.<br />
<br />
O. looks to me as if to ask, is this okay?<br />
<br />
I laugh and cuddle him close. "We'll figure it out together," I whisper, trying to reassure us both.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<br />
<i>This post appears as part of a series on mother-daughter relationships on</i> <a href="http://dailyplateofcrazy.com/2013/12/17/homesick-for-the-holidays-mothers-and-daughters-c-troubadour/">Daily Plate of Crazy</a>. <i>Click <a href="http://dailyplateofcrazy.com/tag/mother-daughter-series/">here</a> to read more essays in the collection.</i><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-37057985896102346082013-11-19T13:13:00.001-06:002013-11-19T13:13:13.045-06:00First dayMy alarm goes off and my eyes snap open. Dark. It's 5:45, and even the cat is still quiet in her room, not pawing the door to be let out yet. I shake the grogginess from what feels like an otherwise empty space behind my forehead and will my feet to find the floor, then two old polar fleece slipper scuffs with the backs flattened into the soles.<br />
<br />
I'm not in thinking mode yet, but this early morning is meant to provide the opportunity.<br />
<br />
I let the tap run at the bathroom sink until warm water makes its way through the pipes. Face cloth, no soap. Just warmth and then coolness over my skin as dry air hits residual moisture. Lotion to seal it in, then downstairs to a borrowed laptop. Mine is hopelessly slow, with a space bar that sticks and a finicky charger. This won't do if I'm going to make these early mornings a habit.<br />
<br />
Recipe for lemon curd. I've been craving this since before our fridge died, but only two months later am I finally getting to this just-for-me experiment. I've selected a few potential winners (gluten-, dairy-, and egg-free); all that's left is to pick one to try. I scan the instructions, looking for the most appealing candidate -- this is what I've decided to do with the half-hour that remains before getting O. up for the day. I choose the recipe with the least sugar. Corn starch into a small sauce pot, fresh lemon zest. This is as far as I get before breakfast can't be put off any longer.<br />
<br />
I'm fine with the interruption. The lemon curd is what I would have spent O.'s morning nap researching instead of doing what I've really wanted to for months: writing. Really writing. Sitting-in-front-of-a-blank-page writing, the uncomfortable sort where the work is hard but the process is purifying and the lies and truths you tell yourself finally get separated because no one else but you is wrestling with the words on the page. I've needed that. This motherhood thing is wild and strange and moving ever faster and setting sentences down steadies me. Except having a very mobile nine-month-old makes doing that impossible while he's awake. And I want that curd too. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">* </div><br />
O. goes down as expected, three hours later, and I reopen the laptop. My brain is awake now, and the erratic static of synapses coming out of hibernation has given way to slightly more organized flashes of thought. Fuzzy still, but thought with language attached. The muscles that were once poised to translate these impulses into text on a page are stiff and tight with disuse. It actually hurts to make them rise to attention again. <i>This isn't going to work,</i> a voice says, infused with all the authority of the practical, no-nonsense persona I usually inhabit.<br />
<br />
But I keep typing, even though the first words that appear make me cringe. <i>You've really let yourself go,</i> a second voice chimes in, its imaginary eye looking my writing up and down as if it might embody its writer. <br />
<br />
So you admit there was a self <i>to</i> let go, I counter. That there is a self worth getting back.<br />
<br />
At the end of an hour, I've dogged my way through three paragraphs, and the voices are quiet.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
I expect not to return to the work once O. wakes again. The curd needs curding and I'm hungry enough to quit for lunch before O. starts to make noise in his crib. It's okay, I tell myself as I look at the scant progress on the page. This isn't a race. I add almond milk to the pot, set it on a low flame, and begin to stir. I'll come back to the writing tomorrow.<br />
<br />
But even as I make my way through the afternoon with O. -- handing him junk mail to tear and wrinkle as I set aside statements and bills, reading from tooth-marked board books, stealing away for a few seconds to whisk the cooling curd -- my mind returns to the tangle of sentences I've left behind. It's happening. The writing sinews are twitching, demanding time and space to flex and uncramp. So is O. He seems to sense I'm not giving him my complete attention, and my offering the latest grocery coupons is not a substitute for play. He circles the living room aimlessly, shrieking his protests at the papers in his hands, and finally starts to cry. I pick him up. This isn't good enough. He wants a game, to tumble and tussle with me, but now he's too tired yet not ready to nap.<br />
<br />
I snuggle him and let him finger the zipper of my fleece jacket, apologizing into the fine, silky hair on the top of his head. This is the part I don't yet know how to manage. Writing is immersive, a state nearly as hard to step out of, once I will myself in, as the bed I left this morning. Alert writer, groggy parent.<br />
<br />
This is only the first day, though. O. eventually stuffs his fingers in his mouth and snuggles back, his way of telling me he's getting sleepy at last. I think back to the early weeks when naps had no pattern or predictability, and even learning to hold his flailing limbs to lull him into slumber felt awkward. My arms know his shape and heft now, and not from anything more than lifting, cradling, moving with him daily. I remind myself that the day's routine, too, will make space for new habits as long as I start treating them as parts of me again. With tussles reserved for play, not attention.<br />
<br />
O. goes down readily, lower lip tucked up tightly under the top one, the rest of his body limp. I head back to the kitchen. Spoon. Sauce pot. The curd looks thinner than I'd expected, but it coats the sides of its container with promise. I taste.<br />
<br />
The brightness of lemon dances on my tongue. Its tart zing is everything I'd been hoping for.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2013/11/19/just-write-111/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg" /></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-61544737817694973232013-11-12T12:33:00.003-06:002013-11-19T13:29:52.220-06:00Those busy, busy feetBefore O. was born, we brought home a tiny pair of cowboy boots that D. had loved when he was little. They'd been stored by his parents for years, waiting to be handed down when the occasion arose. A few weeks before O.'s arrival, I set them on the bookshelf in his bedroom, thinking they'd be cute and figuring they wouldn't be needed for at least a year.<br />
<br />
O. decided he was ready to walk two weeks ago. <br />
<br />
At nine months old this week, he's gone from taking tentative steps to running headlong from one end of the living room to the other. There are slips and stumbles and wipeouts, of course. But our fearless little man has managed to get his legs under him in less time than it took for him to be ready to leave the womb. Consider me gobsmacked.<br />
<br />
He entertains himself by toddling in circles around the couches -- following a similar path as the one D. used to wander with O. in his arms when O. needed soothing to sleep. Now these are routes for wide-eyed exploration. Does he realize he's retracing his steps? I wonder as he zips past for the nth time, a favorite stuffed toy rattle in his hands. He pauses only to exchange the jingle of soft bells for the remote control's novel buttons that light up when pressed -- or mouthed. Though he's going nowhere, he moves always with most urgent purpose.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-N67TlOxq33U/UoJzoXQAVMI/AAAAAAAABeQ/n-GK32Hy2XQ/s1600/WP_20131014_005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-N67TlOxq33U/UoJzoXQAVMI/AAAAAAAABeQ/n-GK32Hy2XQ/s320/WP_20131014_005.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The more speed he gathers, the less forward motion I seem to be able to make on my own roads toward -- well, anything. I know it's normal, but I feel scattered (even with breaks for <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/10/treats-for-overbooked.html">mug cake</a>). On the wish list of personal projects: work on hand-made Christmas gifts, sort through clothing for donation, reorganize closet, print wedding photos. Yes, wedding photos! We have yet to do that since we got married seven years ago, and now with so many shots of O. also in the queue, I fear it will never happen. His baby book has more in it than our wedding album. In fact, I'm not even sure if we have a wedding album ...<br />
<br />
It's odd, that need to get something done. That's all I want, really, to finish something and, if I'm lucky, enjoy the process involved. Maybe the problem is in wanting an end at all -- but I can't turn everything into a love-the-journey thing. Sometimes you really do want to think about and be delighted by the destination and be done with getting there. Holiday travel comes to mind -- preparation for all that is taking priority now too. If you think baby-proofing our own house has been an adventure with an early walker, consider the grandparents' homes we'll be visiting. They're definitely not ready. Thinking ahead of what our families need to know -- and conveying the information effectively -- is my new responsibility.<br />
<br />
So here I am, trying to stay one step ahead, to get somewhere, though on some days, I know O. isn't the only one running in circles. He just doesn't mind.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">*</div><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2013/11/11/just-write-110/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg" /></a></center><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-67946993987367781862013-10-26T23:00:00.000-05:002013-10-26T23:00:40.180-05:00Treats for the overbookedThe fourth-quarter time-crunch is making itself known early this year.<br />
<br />
Somewhere in my heart, I love fall and the winter holidays that follow. But for the last several years, the final months on the calendar have felt overstuffed with commitments I've been less than eager to agree to. This one is no different.<br />
<br />
Maybe it's the fault of the airlines that make it impossible to enjoy a brief trip for Thanksgiving with our extended family -- an itinerary for a long weekend has now stretched to nine days in a very non-baby-proof house because tickets at a better price couldn't be had for a shorter stay. And maybe it's my giving in yet again to D.'s ambitious plans to transform our front porch into a spook alley of sorts for Halloween, requiring trips to Home Depot and Radio Shack for staging supplies and subsequent test runs with the setup. Add to this that dead fridge we've been working around since the middle of September; a work trip D. took earlier this month, leaving me on complete baby duty for a week; and the head cold* and food poisoning D. managed to get (the latter not because of our dead fridge but from some baaaaaaad catering), extending my round-the-clock call shift to cover not just O.'s usual demands but also D.'s sorry state of affairs.<br />
<br />
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I'm out of enthusiasm for the remainder of 2013, but I feel like a curmudgeon. Isn't this when I'm supposed to be getting excited? Baby's first Halloween? Turkey Day? Christmas?<br />
<br />
I'll get there. The fridge is finally working as of this morning, after six weeks' hiatus. Hooray for no longer living out of a cooler and being done with twice-daily ice pack changes, no thanks to the repair service's obscenely backed up bookings. As if there wasn't enough changing going on in this house ...<br />
<br />
What holds stress at bay for me is carving out time to (1) read, (2) write, (3) knit, and (4) bake. Given the demands of most of October, (1) has been occurring in the middle of the night after O.'s 1 a.m. feeding -- fifteen minutes before I make myself get back in bed -- and (3) has been an intermittent affair where, if O.'s playing happily by himself, I steal ten minutes to knit one row of a sweater I'm making for D. while keeping an eye on our busy little man from the couch. Obviously, (2) has received short shrift, though I've gathered plenty of ideas during the morning walks D. and I have been taking with O. -- that half-hour before D. leaves for work is essential check-in time for us and a built-in brainstorming window. Maybe, just maybe, now that our fridge insanity is over, I will get a few precious minutes back in my day to put text on the page.<br />
<br />
As for (4)? Well ... it's hard to bake much when you can't store large quantities of milk (alternative or otherwise) and eggs or their substitutes. What's a girl with cake-lust to do? <br />
<br />
Leverage the power of the microwave. <br />
<br />
Several months ago, I stumbled upon a recipe for single-serving mug cake on the internet. You put the ingredients in a mug, stir, zap, and voila! Dessert for one. The version online used the aforementioned refrigeration-required ingredients, but I figured out how to tweak the concoction and get rid of some fruit that was going to go bad without a good chill. Double bonus! It's the small victories, no?<br />
<br />
I'm sharing because this little five-minute treat got me through the last month and a half. If you like your chocolate dark and rich, this is all kinds of molten goodness. And if you prefer your cake on the vanilla side (or apple-walnut, carrot-coconut, ginger-peach, cardamom-pear, blueberry-cinnamon ... I could go on), I have adjustments. Just ask.<br />
<br />
<b>Gluten-free Chocolate Mug Cake</b><br />
<i>Serves 1 frantically fridge-less curmudgeon, with or without germ-laden husband and teething 8-month-old</i><br />
<br />
1/2 very ripe pear, skin removed, or 2-3 tbsp applesauce or leftover baby food puree, any vegetable<br />
1/8 c garbanzo flour or brown rice flour<br />
1/8 c baking cocoa<br />
3 tbsp water<br />
2 tbsp chocolate chips<br />
1 tbsp sucanat or brown sugar<br />
1 tbsp olive oil<br />
1/4 tsp baking powder<br />
1/4 tsp salt<br />
Several generous dashes of cinnamon<br />
<br />
1. If using pear, cut into chunks and heat in mug in microwave with olive oil for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir to mush. Otherwise, place applesauce or baby food puree in mug and proceed to step 2, no heating required. Seriously, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, green beans -- I've used them all. No fridge, remember? I couldn't let that stuff go to waste.<br />
<br />
2. Add all dry ingredients with exception of chocolate chips. Add water and, if not already used when heating pear, olive oil. Stir well, then add half the chocolate chips to the batter and distribute throughout. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips over surface.<br />
<br />
3. Heat in microwave for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes, depending on the wattage of your machine (ours is pretty weak). If you like your cake really molten, err on the lesser side.<br />
<br />
4. Dust with additional sweetener if desired (I found the chocolate chips were enough to carry the rest of the cake). Enjoy, preferably in a location where neither husband or baby can distract you for five blissful minutes. It's worth every second.<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>* Despite all the complaining, I am enormously grateful that by some miracle, neither O. nor I caught whatever D. got. It really is the small victories.</i></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-41783889079815466022013-09-17T18:36:00.000-05:002013-09-17T19:00:13.573-05:00BedtimeTucked under my arm on his back, O. arches and wriggles vigorously until he is prone. He knows we're not in his room, in the <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/04/tongue-tied.html">easy chair</a> we'd <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/08/sanity-regained.html">finally started using</a> for nursing just six weeks ago. We're on the guest room bed, light from the halogen bulbs in the adjoining bathroom stabbing into the dark with an almost palpable edge. My attempt at drawing a soft glow through the cracked door for this feeding hasn't quite worked, and the attractions of an as yet unexplored environment are too much for O. to ignore in favor of sleep.<br />
<br />
He pushes up on all fours to look at the closet doors, the ironing board left at the foot of the bed, the stitching on the comforter. His mouth forms a tiny <i>O</i>, the expression he wears in moments of discovery. Brows knitted in concentration, he crawls toward the edge of the mattress and is ready to plunge headlong to the floor, but I scoop him up first, carrying him back to his room across the more gently lit hall. "Huh," he says in a tone that mixes surprise and disappointment. He's over it in seconds, looking to see what new territory he might investigate.<br />
<br />
I return to the easy chair, which, of late, has been growing too small for the two of us. O. is a long baby -- all torso, with powerful legs that love to kick the back of the seat or its arms, no matter which way I turn. Nursing when he's not already sleepy is sometimes an athletic exercise. I've managed to stop him from biting since his first teeth started coming in, but kicking? We'll work on curbing this -- teaching nursing manners, some call it -- but the day's been long enough with a dead fridge and a repair man who's missed his appointment here for the second time in two weeks that I haven't been inclined to interrupt each feeding repeatedly to get the message across. <br />
<br />
Tomorrow, I tell myself. It's just another boundary O.'s revealed that we need to enforce. Not that he understands limits yet -- that won't come for another few months. For now, we're just doing impulse management. Last week, O. figured out how to flip over mid-diaper-change on the bureau by raising his arms and grabbing the edge of the changing pad above his head for leverage. It took several days' consistent interference to discourage him from making it a habit.<br />
<br />
Now, O. is wide awake, but I hope that in the dark, in my arms, he'll settle down and begin to drift off as he usually does when I nurse him here at bedtime. But he presses the soles of his feet into my lap, bouncing like a jumping jack. So I let him stand, holding his sturdy form close, and wait. I press my cheek to his and breathe in his babyness, knowing these opportunities are numbered.<br />
<br />
It is the first time we've sat together this way, in his room completely unlit. Normally, when he needs to be put down, I walk the floor with his head resting on my shoulder -- if he will rest it there. He is all energy these days, eager to stand with help from any piece of furniture and itching to take his first steps alone. It's all too soon for me. O. is barely seven months old, but like D., who walked at eight, he's been early to seek ambulatory independence. I'm not ready to relinquish the baby who was once content to be cuddled for this new wiggle-worm who protests being asked to lie still, even to eat.<br />
<br />
As our vision adjusts, I watch O.'s gaze, dark eyes searching as they do when he wants my attention. Can he see me? I wonder. He must be able to -- I notice his mouth is no longer rounded in wonder but neutral. I am not something newly discovered, or at least his perception of me, indistinct as I may be in deep shadow, is familiar. It is no accident that he reaches for my face with both hands, fingers closing with purpose, and grabs at my cheeks, my nose. I gently move his hands aside, but not before he gets in a good pinch, legs still flexing all the while.<br />
<br />
And then his bouncing stops. His eyes have found mine. I give him a smile, which he normally returns readily, but tonight he just gazes back with a look that seems serious and penetrating. Or is it that he really can't make out much in the dark? I can't be sure. In that moment, I see wisdom in those soft, liquid stars reflecting their light at me, a peaceable security in O.'s understanding of the world as he knows it even in this shadowed state. <br />
<br />
I'm tempted to ask him what he's thinking. I know he can't answer, but lately, he's been babbling to us as if we are fluent in his language. His unusual silence, then, feels suddenly powerful, almost uncomfortably so -- I'm catching a glimpse of an old soul, one I didn't know existed within O.'s wiggly exterior. To speak -- and elicit O.'s coos in response -- would be to scare this other presence away that lightlessness has revealed. I don't want that, as much as I also yearn for the sounds that reassure me that O. is still no more than a baby.<br />
<br />
So I stay silent. After a minute or two, O. reaches once more for my face and brushes his fingers softly over my skin, then plunges his head into my shoulder. He's ready to sleep, even if he isn't falling asleep. We rise together from the chair, his limbs tightening ever so slightly around me against gravity until the familiar firmness of his crib mattress replaces the security of my arms. Without protest, he curls up roly-poly-style, as if nothing unusual has transpired, and I step out of his room into the light.<br />
<br />
<center>*</center><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2013/09/16/just-write-102/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
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<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg"/></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-24761097111932346172013-08-05T12:27:00.001-05:002013-08-05T12:45:03.897-05:00Sanity, regained<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UfTTk7WlCNk/Uf1Dk4T2hZI/AAAAAAAABdw/14crJXk8mnI/s1600/WP_002171.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UfTTk7WlCNk/Uf1Dk4T2hZI/AAAAAAAABdw/14crJXk8mnI/s320/WP_002171.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>O. is nursing.<br />
<br />
At five months, he finally -- finally! -- figured it out and is now able to get what he needs from me without causing either of us trauma. We started giving him the opportunity to nurse without a <a href="http://www.fingerfeeder.com/">supplemental feeder</a> just over seven weeks ago, and, within a few days, he was completely off his training wheels. We are ecstatic.<br />
<br />
There have been a few bumps along the way since that first day entirely free of the pump -- some frustration on O.'s part, heat waves that have thrown his appetite off, plugged ducts from having to adjust to less frequent feeding demands -- but that's been nothing compared to the brutal routine of juggling so much nursing equipment in the preceding months (see photo). For the first time since O. was born, I've been able to sleep more than two and a half hours at a stretch. This may go without saying, but I have to write the words because I've wanted to for so long: <i>I am a different person -- a sane one -- once more.</i><br />
<br />
Sleep has meant the return of coherent thought. Instead of falling asleep while pumping -- not something I recommend, by the way, as the pump doesn't quit when it's full -- I've had the gift of quiet moments to reflect on what the last five (almost six!) months have been. O. is easily distracted these days, so there's no catching up on Netflix while he's eating. He'll even turn a nursing cover into a toy, so we keep to his room, lights down, for most feedings. He grabs at my hair, my shirt, my hands. And I sit, thinking in twenty-minute stints about the road we've traveled. <br />
<br />
For the first two months of O.'s life, I felt robbed. Not of the breastfeeding relationship some books tout as sacred -- believe me, we didn't have any holy notions about my providing nourishment; in fact, we deliberately steered clear of any conversations with well-meaning people who were self-proclaimed boob enthusiasts because we didn't want to get into debates about lactation philosophies and politics. We just hoped breastfeeding would work and we could check it off the list of things to learn to do, like burping and diapering and giving the occasional bath.<br />
<br />
But as a few days' <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/03/at-four-weeks.html">nursing strike</a> turned into <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/04/tongue-tied.html">weeks,</a> I felt my ability to handle the expected abnormal of having a new baby leaching from me. I had no emotional energy left to love O. with. What I would have traded just to have fragmented sleep and unstructured days only from an infant's erratic waking, not his middle-of-the-night cries <i>and</i> the demands of the pump. <i>It wasn't supposed to be this way,</i> I kept repeating to myself, even though I knew it wasn't helpful. I'd look at O. in his rocking seat and dread the next time he'd rouse himself and then feel guilty that I couldn't enjoy him when he was awake. Every interaction we had was too fraught with the frustrations of getting him to eat, figuring out why he wouldn't eat, allotting precious time I could be using to bond with him to contact doctors who could help us help him eat. Eat already! I wanted to scream. "If it weren't for that damned risk of food allergies," I repeated to D. over and over, teary and spent, "we could just stop the insanity and give him formula. I don't care about the rest of the stupid benefits of breast milk. This is crazy." <br />
<br />
But the risk was very real because of my family history. And putting ourselves through a few months of pumping to avoid a potential lifetime for O. of eating the way I have since we discovered what was making me <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2010/10/and-then-things-got-ugly.html">sick</a> was worth the heartache. Or so I told myself at my lowest points, when I wanted to quit and said so to O. in no uncertain terms. Fortunately, he understood none of it. He'd grin at me while I mumbled obscenities through gritted teeth, a smile plastered across my own face to disguise the misery I was feeling. I was scraping bottom then but still determined not to let him see or hear it after slipping just once on the phone with D. D. was held up at work, I was on my fourth pump-and-feed of the day (flanges attached, bottle and baby also in my lap), and I was fighting what I didn't realize was a nasty breast infection. "I just need you to come home," I all but wailed at the phone, balanced on speaker mode on a nearby table. At the sound of my agitated voice, O. burst into tears -- not a cry of hunger or tiredness, but alarm. I picked him up immediately, apologizing into the impossibly soft crook of his neck as he rested his head against my cheek and sighed a shuddery half-sigh.<br />
<br />
If only everything could be fixed so easily, I thought.<br />
<br />
As these recent weeks have brought a new rhythm to our days and nights, I've been drawn to the idea of putting O.'s story into a more formal body of work. Partly to process it all with the tempering effect of distance, partly to reclaim and recast some of those early memories in a way that I couldn't when we were in the midst of the chaos. Hindsight <i>is</i> a gift -- especially with a positive ending.<br />
<br />
I don't know what this project will become. Maybe some of it will appear here; maybe it won't. I've learned more than I ever wanted to about making decisions for the life of someone entirely dependent on my good judgment when I was the least objective mind in the room. I know, I know -- this is just the beginning, you say. But had I had the words of experience to hang on to from someone who had once been in our position, I think I would have felt just a little less hopeless at the worst moments. That is a reason, if any, to write all this into something coherent.<br />
<br />
Long-form work and I have had a <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2011/02/wordless.html">tenuous relationship</a> in the past (think: the MFA thesis that almost wasn't). But the story I was writing then had no resolution. O.'s does. I'll take it as an auspicious sign that I've actually acquired nearly two dozen books from the library just to read what's already out there for mothers who face what we have. There are a surprising number of resources from those shelves that provide information on what we had to learn the hard way or gather in fragmented fashion from so-called lactation consultants. Interestingly, all of the books I requested were readily available -- no waiting lists for holds -- unlike the majority of the popular pregnancy and childbirth books in circulation. I may be jumping to conclusions based on our experience, but I suspect they're hanging out in the stacks because no one knows they exist -- or knows to go looking before they're needed. I certainly didn't.<br />
<br />
I hefted my finds into two big canvas bags at our library on one of the hottest days of the summer, wearing O. in his carrier as I bent to remove each title from the holds shelf. He squirmed against me, eager to be free of his constraints or just hungry; I wasn't sure. But he was motivated and so was I. So I'm putting whatever this is -- brainstorm, project, as-yet-formless cloud of inspiration -- out there to give it weight. Matter, in its many senses, because it does matter. And I'm actually a wee bit convinced, dare I say it, that I can carry it for a while.<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: small;">P.S.: For those of you who have asked how that trip to <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/06/positive.html">Florida</a> went, it did indeed get postponed -- and relocated. Stay tuned for our first plane trip coming up in September, as we fete Troubadour Dad's 60th in the Texas panhandle ...</span></i><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-22471350258940256452013-06-27T18:15:00.000-05:002013-06-28T20:02:16.432-05:00PositiveIt is one year from the day the pregnancy test comes back with a YES+ on its little liquid crystal screen, and we are not, as I'd been planning, about to get on a plane to Florida.<br />
<br />
To clarify -- I didn't decide upon learning we were going to be parents that I wanted to observe the first anniversary of said news by hitting the beach. It is sheer luck that on the morning before our trip, I happen to be scrolling through the pictures of O. on my phone, looking for a recent one to e-mail to a friend while I wait for the breast pump to do its business. I notice how long the photo stream has gotten, images predating even <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2011/05/things-i-can-no-longer-ignore.html">the Great Elimination Diet of 2011.</a> Time to clear out the clutter. But then the picture of that YES+ flashes by and I pause. One year tomorrow. <br />
<br />
I remember taking the picture, not out of sentiment but out of a need for proof. I knew the battery in that digital dipstick would die long before I'd believe that we were really and truly going to be a family of three, so I snapped the shot and filed it away like a secret. During that shaky first trimester, I let it whisper its promise to me <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/01/scenes-from-around-table-part-3-needles.html">when I worried O. wasn't going to make it.</a> Yes, it's real. Yes, you can handle this. Not just yes, but YES+ you will get through whatever may come.<br />
<br />
One year later, I'm making a mental game plan on how to space out the pumpings en route to Troubadour Dad's destination birthday celebration so I don't completely drain the pump battery before I can find a wall socket on our layovers. Life before O. is practically unrecognizable.<br />
<br />
I notice the text message from my mother after I've finally chosen a picture to send: "You need to call me right away if u can." I brush aside my momentary irritation with the random shorthand pronoun in the otherwise normally typed sentence. What's this about? I tap the phone's screen to dial my mother's cell. Dread mixes with the feeling of hunger in my gut. I'm always hungry these days. But the thought of granola and coffee (quarter caf) slips down the list of priorities as I wonder if something has happened to my father.<br />
<br />
There is no reason to expect such a thing today. But the alarming lack of detail in the message leaves me fearing the worst. You don't text someone the news that a loved one has suddenly taken ill or become victim to some other misfortune -- you call. But we're two time zones apart, and it's barely 7 a.m. in Seattle. I imagine my mother, worried about waking us up but also trying to manage whatever it is that's so serious it can't be conveyed in writing. I wait for the first ring at the end of the line in Texas, eyes scanning the half-packed feeding supplies on the kitchen island. Disassembled bottles and nipples and cleaning supplies wait to be sorted into various carry-ons. I'm hoping they'll all fit. But is my father all right? Was there some kind of accident? Stroke or heart attack?<br />
<br />
No -- just a wannabe hurricane raining on his birthday plans. <br />
<br />
I'm simultaneously relieved to get this news from my mother and thoroughly exasperated. <i>Couldn't you have just followed up your message with something along the lines of "change in travel plans"?</i> I think to myself. I check the time on the text. It was sent a half-hour before I received it. Plenty of opportunity to add some clarification.<br />
<br />
We chat about Tropical Storm Andrea while I make the coffee and toss oats, nuts, a dash of oil, and lots of cinnamon into a bowl. I stick the works in the microwave on half power, fingers flying over the buttons on autopilot. My mother wants to reroute everyone to another destination so we can at least observe my father's birthday as intended. It won't be the same, of course -- my father's been looking forward to heading out with the same sea captain he's been fishing with almost yearly since I was in high school -- but it's the gathering of the clan my father wants more than anything else. And even I can't say no to him, despite all instincts screaming otherwise. O.'s feeding problems make it nearly impossible to get five miles from the house, much less three thousand.<br />
<br />
"Yes, I'll take a look at the options," I say to my mother. "Yes, I'll get back to you when I have more information."<br />
<br />
Yes, yes, YES+. I have to laugh at the message in that photo, tossed into this alternate context. In truth, I'm not sure which gears to shift to make a new plan work at this stage of the game. It's certainly magical thinking on my mother's part that we'll be able to find affordable tickets, but having strategized on the level of a military maneuver to get O., the pump, and me to Florida and back, I'm not about to pull out of trip-prep mode until we are sure there's no way to convene, whatever the new location. Chez Dr. Sis and Marketing Sis in Boston? My parents' place in Texas?<br />
<br />
I'm not an optimist by nature, and if I ever was one, the <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/03/at-four-weeks.html">events</a> of the <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/04/tongue-tied.html">last three months</a> have certainly had their chance to turn me. It's less crazy-making to consider what might go wrong with O. and plan accordingly than to tell yourself the other shoe <i>has</i> dropped already and to stop worrying, to expect some kind of relief. <br />
<br />
But it could always be worse. At every stage of the game when things <i>have</i> gotten worse, I've reminded myself that I should have been grateful for what was working. Maybe this is why I still believe we're going to get on that plane to somewhere the next day. I still have my plan -- it just needs some tweaking to accommodate a new destination.<br />
<br />
<center>*</center><br />
<i>I'm linking up today with Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below!</i><br />
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<center><a href="http://www.mamakatslosinit.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac331/mamakatslosinit/workshop-button-1.png" alt="Mama’s Losin’ It"/></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-55109292441880769622013-06-21T21:01:00.001-05:002013-06-21T21:01:41.314-05:00New standards in multitasking?On the days O. wakes up early from his afternoon nap, I'm not inclined to give up my plans completely -- nap time, when I'm not pumping or running errands, is for exercise and/or doing a little something exclusively for my own pleasure in order to maintain my sanity. How to build that into baby-entertaining? Witness this four-point intervention:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2krKfgpQuFA/UcUEonfD_VI/AAAAAAAABdg/Zg8AxmeQwbU/s1600/WP_002079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2krKfgpQuFA/UcUEonfD_VI/AAAAAAAABdg/Zg8AxmeQwbU/s320/WP_002079.jpg" /></a></div><br />
1. That knitting project you see in the foreground? I've been working on it while pumping in the middle of the night. Turns out it's also doable while ...<br />
<br />
2. Ellipticizing. Sure, I'm not using the handlebars (you can see the yarn draped over the left-hand one), but my arms are getting <i>plenty</i> of toning at other times of day from hefting ...<br />
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3. O., who is holding my ball of yarn (and also pulling it apart), while I talk to him -- they say you know you're exercising at an appropriate intensity if you can still hold a conversation. I can't say my chit-chat is scintillating, but I'm pretty sure he <i>is</i> fascinated by the movement of the machine, which is a great device for ...<br />
<br />
4. Getting O. to turn his head to the left. We had his 4-month check-up last week, where it was determined that all's well -- he's grown another 3 inches since his 2-month visit! We are now, however, supposed to work on evening out the asymmetrical flatness to the back of his head. He favors lying with his head turned to the right, hence the pediatrician's recommendation that we interest O. in all things on the opposite side.<br />
<br />
I think I'm going to call this a decent compromise for all parties involved. Or at the very least, something I can look back at and laugh about someday.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-70714269287215256542013-05-30T11:46:00.000-05:002013-05-30T11:46:50.276-05:00Highs and lows<i>Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.</i> Is this thing on? <i>Screech of microphone feedback.</i> Hi! We're still alive over here. <i>Surreptitiously nudges door of bedroom closed to hide ground zero: perpetually full laundry hamper; half-unpacked suitcases; stack of unread magazines and library books; and spit-up rags draped over portable crib, infant rocking seat, and end of (still) unmade bed.</i><br />
<br />
Where was I? Oh, right. O. is <strike>thirteen</strike> <strike>fourteen</strike> <strike>fifteen</strike> almost sixteen weeks old, a good bit past the halfway point to the day we can start introducing him to solid food. (In the name of all that is holy, that day cannot come soon enough.) I'm still pumping up to ten times in a 24-hour period to get him fed, which, per our calculations, is about 7 hours attached to the machine, plus time cleaning pump parts in between each use. Which means this is literally a second job -- the first being to feed the same milk to O., do his oral therapy, change his diapers, play with him, get him to nap, and, of course, love the heck out of him.<br />
<br />
Attempts at essay writing have been laughably fragmented, kind of like most mental processes I assail with the grace of a zombie these days. But to provide an update, I thought I'd offer some high/low entertainment for the few who are still checking in here to make sure we haven't completely fallen off the earth. (By the way, you all mean the world to me and the shadow of my former self who misses this space more than I have words even on less sleep-deprived days to use to express my gratitude.) So, for those who've been asking how we're doing ...<br />
<br />
<b>High:</b> O. is turning into quite the social little guy. He discovered the world at around ten weeks old and started cooing at everything. Somewhere between an owl's hoot and a dove's cry, his little invitations to converse go out to people and inanimate objects alike, and when he gets a response, his delighted smiles are so enormous that they almost don't fit between his ears. That's made introducing him to others hugely rewarding -- and it's motivated me to keep making lunch dates with pre-baby friends, even if getting out of the house requires precision organization and timing as well as a good bit of luck to make it to an engagement and back before the next scheduled pumping.<br />
<br />
<b>Low:</b> Pump schedule anxiety. As you get off by a few minutes here and there throughout the day because you wanted to go have some social time or run errands that you'd otherwise have to depend on your husband to do (which means he'd have to do them after work, depriving you of any time together before you have to go to bed), you're suddenly out an hour or more of sleep because you have to shorten the time between pumping intervals overnight to play catch-up. That sentence probably makes no sense whatsoever if you've never had to do pump schedule math, but just trust me when I say it sucks (ha!) to have to choose to give up even more sleep time, when you already get so little of it, or accept the alternative -- living in near-total isolation five days a week. Hard to say which is more detrimental to one's general mood since the former continues to deplete serotonin, which you need proper sleep cycles to make, while the latter just makes for a very lonely existence. And no, listening to your husband snore in blissful oblivion in the same room while you pump does not count as time spent together.<br />
<br />
<b>High:</b> Did you know <a href="http://www.pregnancyandbaby.com/the-hatch-blog/articles/965511/fight-postpartum-blues-food">dark chocolate</a> has been shown to <a href="http://www.babycenter.com/0_best-foods-for-new-moms-mood-boosters_1458835.bc?page=3">promote</a> serotonin production? I've been leaning heavily (no pun intended) on <a href="http://www.enjoylifefoods.com/chocolate-for-baking/">this brand*</a> of tasty goodness to keep the sleep deprivation from pulling me completely under.<br />
<br />
<b>Low:</b> I've been leaning heavily (pun intended) on the aforementioned chocolate. I don't have much baby weight to lose, but it's not going anywhere as long as I'm going through a few bags of these morsels per week ...<br />
<br />
<b>High:</b> O. has discovered how to bring his fists to his mouth and keep them there, which means he can self-soothe for much longer periods of time. Hello, three-hour naps!<br />
<br />
<b>Low:</b> O. is only successful at self-soothing when he's on his tummy. Putting baby to sleep unsupervised on his front is a big no-no until he can roll over. Enter three-hour sleeping baby-watching sessions. I have nightmares about infants who find creative ways to asphyxiate (self-strangulation with swaddle blanket, among others) the moment someone takes an eye off them. While this is not nearly as great a threat in real life, O. <i>has</i> managed to get his swaddle inside out and up over his head in the throes of slumber: <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UGEfZ935vzs/Uad59nqTsNI/AAAAAAAABdM/53gj4i5ILrc/s1600/WP_001589.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UGEfZ935vzs/Uad59nqTsNI/AAAAAAAABdM/53gj4i5ILrc/s320/WP_001589.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Note too that he was aligned with the long axis of the crib when I put him down and was able to rotate 90 degrees on his back (how?!) also while asleep. I hope this doesn't mean he's going to be a sleepwalker.<br />
<br />
<b>High:</b> Two Skype accounts + two laptops + USB camera = instant video-equipped baby monitor. Skype even puts a video window on your computer screen when you've minimized the application but still have a call in progress. Guess what I'm watching right now as I type. Indeed, I can now take some advantage of O.'s developing nap schedule to do things like exercise. Yes, the laptop is perched on the elliptical at this very moment -- we're big fans of multitasking these days. I wonder if I can also pump while working out on this machine ...<br />
<br />
<b>Low:</b> Protecting the nap schedule means even less opportunity to go out. Disturbing your baby's daytime sleep on a regular basis can supposedly lead to poor sleep at night, which is the last thing we want to encourage, and already we know O is much more difficult to get to sleep whenever he gets overtired. Of course, O.'s longest wakeful period happens to occur right before rush hour traffic begins, and you really have to want whatever it is you're going out to get if it means you risk being stuck away from home for way longer than you'd anticipated. Lunch dates may soon give way to afternoon coffee dates. See pump schedule anxiety.<br />
<br />
<b>High:</b> Since O.'s become more successful at getting his fists to his mouth, he's done some good work on his jaw to loosen up the muscles. We're now getting him to latch much better, even though he's still not efficient enough to take a full meal on his own. <a href="http://www.fingerfeeder.com/">This device,</a> which has a reservoir he can drink from simultaneously at the breast, is helping us. Recently, O.'s occupational therapist increased our "homework" from two nursings a day with the feeder to four, with the goal of eventually doing every nursing this way until we can wean him off the feeder as well. There is hope! I can't believe I can say this after so many weeks of feeling that there wasn't.<br />
<br />
<b>Low:</b> More frequent nursing = erratic, delayed pumping + clogged ducts + more nipple damage. We're forever trying to walk the line between getting O. more nursing time and not injuring me to the point of increased infection risk. Unfortunately, we're battling what we think is thrush. I'll spare you the details, but if you're fighting the same fight, there are some decent (though scary) <a href="http://kellymom.com/bf/concerns/child/thrush-resources/">resources</a> available on what you're working with -- consider yourself warned if you really want to go looking. Latching is, to the say the least, way more painful with all of the above going on. One step forward, two steps back. We now log additional time running pump parts through the dishwasher (three cycles daily) and sterilizing every set by steaming it in the microwave afterward.<br />
<br />
<b>High:</b> Out of sheer frustration with the limits of being attached to a pump 7 hours a day plus all the extra cleaning time, I've gotten shockingly adept at pumping in unusual places and situations, even with O. in tow. I can now set up and use the pump entirely on my own in a public location (with the help of two nursing covers) as long as there is a flat surface I can set the apparatus on and a safe place to put O. so I don't have to hold or wear him (assuming he's amenable to that in the moment). I have also figured out how to nurse and pump simultaneously to address, at least some of the time, the conflicting demands of maintaining milk supply and getting O. more latch time. I feel like a one-woman circus every time I have to do either of these things, but I'm also weirdly proud that I <i>have</i> developed working solutions to get around these rather sizable situational obstacles. A car adapter even makes it possible to take the show (literally) on the road -- we managed to have our first road trip as a family over Mother's Day weekend. It was just 200 miles to Portland to see some good friends of mine from college, but it might as well have been twice the distance, as it took twice as long to get there with our various stops to dig out or put away pump parts and milk storage supplies. Fortunately, after a few rounds, we started to develop a better system, but it still needs some streamlining to be space-efficient. I think the pumping equipment occupied more of the seat than I did for most of the ride, which won't work for longer trips.<br />
<br />
<b>Low:</b> Speaking of which, we have been somewhat arm-twisted into going to Florida for Troubadour Dad's destination celebration in honor of his 60th birthday next week. Feting this occasion will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, which we certainly consider to be a good thing. Working out the logistics of said trip, however, has been a nightmare. There is that whole problem of space limitations when pumping on a plane (and we thought the front passenger seat of a car was a squeeze!) while simultaneously juggling a lap child. There is also the fact that breast pumps, as medical equipment, are subject to certain FAA rules and individual airline policies. The hospital-grade model we had rented isn't permitted for use in flight because it only works when plugged in. Because our airline does not wish to be liable for any passenger's medical needs because of power loss or failure (the outlets on planes are sometimes turned off by the pilot at certain points during flight, according to our airline's Special Assistance desk, which handles queries from folks like us), I had to spend the last several weeks chasing down a hospital-grade rental with a battery that could be recharged and would last for more than a single pumping. I found one after a lot of research (hey, what is overnight pumping time for?) but its battery had been run down so badly that it wouldn't hold more than 15 minutes of charge when I tested it at home. Which meant I had to find more time to take the whole mess back to the renter and have them send it to the manufacturer to exchange for a new pump. See pump schedule anxiety. Oh, and let's not even think about how we're going to make that schedule work across two 14-hour travel days ...<br />
<br />
So there you have it -- apologies that it's taken a month to write. We are zeroing in on our departure date with alarming speed, which means I should be using this time to deal (further) with trip logistics. Tips for air travel with an infant and/or taking a baby to the beach are very, very welcome! (Please ... forewarned is forearmed.) I have to say, as the ringmaster of this Cirque du So-Lait, I never thought things could get this crazy. The silver lining, I suppose, is that when O. either figures out how to breastfeed well or he's old enough to get his nutrition in other ways, getting through a normal day, with or without travel, will feel so much easier. At least, I'm counting on it!<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>* The experts recommend that you consume dark chocolate that is at least 70 percent cacao, and I haven't determined if this product qualifies as such, but given my food sensitivities, this was the only option available to me. If you're dealing with postpartum slump and can consume something clearly marked 70 percent cacao or more, do it!</i></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-81596209371296646142013-04-30T09:07:00.000-05:002013-04-30T09:07:06.254-05:00MisjudgedIt's the day of our weekly parent-baby class at one of the local hospitals, and I am running late as usual. Not that it matters -- it's a casual group for new moms and dads with babes-in-arms (or strollers or carriers or whatever works for your particular infant), and people trickle into the meet-up as they're able to. But I'm late, and before O., I was rarely ever, and I haven't yet reached the point of not caring.<br />
<br />
Despite numerous car trips with O. since his birth, I'm apparently also still not used to using the rear passenger doors to get him in and out of his car seat in tight parking spaces. The clunk the door makes when I open it, hitting the SUV next to us, startles me. <i>What the hell?</i> I think. <i>How did I so badly misjudge --</i><br />
<br />
"You have <i>got</i> to be kidding me," a voice says. The driver's door to the SUV has opened, and a woman with a deep tan, enormous sunglasses, and a suit that hugs her buxom figure leans out. "Did you scratch my car?" she asks in a tone that implies that she's sure I have.<br />
<br />
I gape and look because it's reflexive. With relief, I note that the black finish is clean, save for some pollen on the surface from the flowering trees that are everywhere, but the woman doesn't pause after her question. "Look what you did," she says, running a manicured finger over the metal. I look again automatically and see nothing but the track she's left in the dust as she continues to berate me for my carelessness, shaking the honey-colored highlights in her perfectly layered coppery brown hair. Do I touch the door to see what she's talking about? Or will she get angrier if she thinks I'm calling her assessment into question? I can't get a word in as her scolding rolls on, disdain dripping off every syllable.<br />
<br />
I can feel myself shrinking into the folds of my sweater and yoga pants, suddenly hyperaware of my barely kempt appearance -- bare-faced, hair badly in need of a trim, ragged cuticles from constant bottle washing and treating all manner of stains in O.'s laundry. That I could even fit into my pre-baby clothes at this point after O.'s arrival felt like an accomplishment before I left the house, but now this woman is leveling a kind of contempt at me that I've never encountered before. And this, I realize, is what she wants me to hear. She's used to looking down on people, I suspect, as she wears her attitude like a favorite, broken-in pair of designer jeans. <br />
<br />
<i>Make it stop,</i> a desperate voice whispers in my ear, the voice that's felt powerless in the face of motherhood with each day of <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com/2013/04/tongue-tied.html">struggle to get O. fed.</a> I don't have the wherewithal to process anything else, least of all being talked down to. <i>Do whatever you have to so she'll just go away,</i> the voice begs.<br />
<br />
"I'm so sorry," I say -- and it's true, I am. But I'm not above playing the pity card to shut down the harangue that's gone on for way too long. I gesture into my back seat. "I have a ten-week-old baby and I'm completely sleep-deprived."<br />
<br />
"Oh, like <i>that's</i> any excuse," the woman spits, the acid in her venom so sharp that my eyes sting. But, as if she knows it's pointless to dig her stilettos any further into my dignity, she gets back into her car and slams the door. Sits there as she was when I first pulled in. I hope against hope that she'll start her engine and go, but she remains. I'm half tempted to knock on her window and unload a few choice words instead of letting her have the last ones in this way, but I'm too stunned by what she's implied: <i>Motherhood? Counts for nothing.</i><br />
<br />
Not that the attitude is one I've never encountered before, but I was never on the receiving end of the insult until now.<br />
<br />
Reeling from the near-physical force of her words, I gingerly slip into my own car, unbuckle O., wrangle him into the floppy cloth carrier I've wrapped around my torso and then ease us both out again. I open the front passenger door with even greater care, trying not to imagine the woman's scornful gaze boring through her sunglasses into my back as I squeeze the bulky diaper bag out. And then I walk away, praying that my tires won't be slashed and my windshield broken when we return.<br />
<br />
I don't start crying until I get into the classroom. I try to hide it, looking intently downward at O. as I wrangle him back out of the carrier into my arms. I press him to my shoulder and bury my face in his little neck, kiss his downy-soft hair, tears dripping all the while. He bobs his head, looking around, and coos. It's a relief to hold him, to feel his solid body nestling against mine in complete trust, to know that nothing else has to matter to either of us in that moment.<br />
<br />
As the initial flood of emotion finally begins to ebb, the voice in my ear returns. <i>She can't possibly be a mother,</i> it whispers, trying to comfort me. <i>Otherwise, she would have been more understanding.</i> But even as this thought bubbles up, I bat it away. <i>You shouldn't judge her on that basis,</i> I counter. <i>Doing so makes you no better than she is.</i><br />
<br />
Because that is what I was doing when I made my bid for mercy, wasn't it? Because I sized her up too, assumed she wasn't going to understand, and in a way, let her know I had more important things to worry about than her damn paint job. I'm suddenly ashamed. I'm not sure which to feel worse about: being denigrated by this woman or discovering that I'm guilty after a fashion of dismissing her too. <br />
<br />
O. wriggles, trying to pull his fists to his mouth. I take him off my shoulder and settle him on my lap, soaking up the baby-sweet innocence in his gaze. It's too late to go back and change my half-assed apology. But I'm aware now of how easy it is to be drawn into taking the measure of someone else -- how parenthood has suddenly put so many more of these traps before me. <br />
<br />
Mother versus mother, mother versus not. There just isn't enough space to maneuver between such narrow terms without risk of a slam, intended or otherwise.<br />
<br />
<center>*</center><br />
<i>I'm linking up with</i> <a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/2013/04/29/just-write-83/">Just Write</a> <i>this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.</i><br />
<br />
<center><a href="http://extraordinary-ordinary.net/just-write"><img border="0" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6144223072_aba44084aa_m.jpg"/></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-70470495202921596982013-04-04T22:41:00.000-05:002013-05-16T15:59:30.060-05:00Tongue-tied<i>Friday, March 29th, 10:55 a.m.</i><br />
<br />
Today is D.'s first day back at work after his month of paternity leave, and it's just the two of us, O. and me, in the bunker of our bedroom. A pile of clean laundry sits on the unmade bed and random receipts and invoices from the last few weeks, most of them for medical care, are stacked on the floor and the ottoman to the nursing chair I don't use for nursing. Instead, I sit there solely to pump these days, every two hours. O., asleep in his rocking seat just within arm's reach, is snoring to the rhythm of the pump motor as I type.<br />
<br />
<i>Saturday, March 30th, 8:20 a.m.</i><br />
<br />
I could write this as if it were one continuous post, but the reality is that I can only put down words every so many hours, when O. doesn't happen to need feeding <i>while</i> I'm pumping. I've rigged a hands-free flange holder from a strapless bra that always threatened to slip down whenever I wore it -- there was little for it to grip. It's serving its new purpose with much better success. Even when I'm holding O. in my lap, his powerful little legs kicking in protest when I take the bottle away to burp him, the bra does not yield when his foot swipes the collection containers dangling by his toes. Brings new meaning to the mother of invention indeed.<br />
<br />
<i>10:20 a.m.</i><br />
<br />
We determined, after seeing a lactation consultant and an occupational therapist who specializes in infant feeding problems, that O. was born with a tongue tie. The ligament under his tongue was too tight and couldn't allow him to nurse properly, even though he made a remarkable effort for the first three weeks of his life. I had no idea he was struggling -- I just knew he was chewing me to pieces, but I thought it was normal. Breastfeeding is supposed to be painful at first, the on-call pediatrician who saw O. for jaundice said when he was three days old. I accepted that -- I'd planned to breastfeed unless there were extraordinary circumstances preventing it in hopes that O. would be better protected against developing the kinds of food allergies I have. I assumed the blistering would eventually toughen me up. As it was, O. was gaining weight at twice the average rate once we got through the initial postpartum weight loss every baby experiences. <br />
<br />
<i>4:15 p.m.</i><br />
<br />
But then O. hit his first growth spurt and couldn't get the milk he needed, despite all the clamping and gnawing he'd been doing to compensate. Once we discovered the tongue tie, it was clear we had to get it clipped -- he was making himself gag too often when he tried to pull his tongue back and he couldn't stick it out far enough to form a proper latch. So we took him to yet another person who could do the procedure. It's a quick one, but I could not watch. The last I saw of O., drunk on the sugar water he'd been given before the frenotomy, was his tiny body swaddled in a hospital-issue blanket, his large, dark eyes gazing up at the nurse who would hold him down. And then the nurse practitioner who performed the clip was pressing gauze into his mouth and dancing from foot to foot with him in her arms while his face turned pink with his silent scream.<br />
<br />
<i>6:20 p.m.</i><br />
<br />
We are 10 days from that afternoon and O.'s attempts to nurse are no better, at least from a nutritive standpoint. He no longer leaves me bloody, but he can't get a satisfactory latch, even though we both try so hard. We are now being sent to a group of occupational/physical therapists at Seattle Children's Hospital -- it seems there are more issues with O.'s mouth that we won't be able to address until he has an oral motor evaluation. The residual sensitivity he appears to have -- namely, that hyperactive gag -- is preventing him from being able to suck effectively.<br />
<br />
<i>Sunday, March 31st, 5:30 a.m.</i><br />
<br />
It is hard not to be consumed by the quest for <a href="http://www.mobimotherhood.org/MM/default.aspx">answers and assistance.</a> It feels as if for as long as I've been stuck in this seat to pump -- the entire month, as of today -- I've been making appointments for O. and looking for recommendations on the most effective ways to <a href="http://kellymom.com/bf/got-milk/supply-worries/low-supply/">increase milk supply.</a> As he began to have more trouble nursing, I stopped producing as much milk because he wasn't extracting it well. Now we're playing catch-up. D. has a spreadsheet going for the data -- volumes, time elapsed between pumping sessions, time of day. Yes, we're geeks. But if charting will tell us whether we're actually gaining anything, then I can decide whether the hours I'm investing are worth what I'm losing in sleep and, more importantly, time with O. <br />
<br />
<i>8:30 a.m.</i> <br />
<br />
Of course, O. doesn't understand this when all he wants is to snuggle on my chest, flanges be damned. It's my heartbeat he wants against his cheek, to lull him to sleep when he's tired and to be comforted in his alert moments. Try as I have, I can't find a way to hold him in that position, so we are stuck at best at arms' length, which for both of us is an enormous disappointment. O. knits his little brows, throwing fists in all directions in search of something, anything, to pacify himself.<br />
<br />
<i>10:30 a.m.</i><br />
<br />
"Talk to him," D. suggests. But I'm a mediocre conversationalist with the non-verbal set. I feel ridiculous narrating what I'm doing -- really, I'm not <i>doing</i> anything, just waiting passively for the pump to finish its business -- so that's out. And I sense O. is smart enough to know I can do better. D., an extrovert through and through, just has to stick his ever expressive face in front of O. to fascinate him; chit-chat is a bonus.<br />
<br />
<i>12:30 p.m.</i><br />
<br />
So I practice my Cantonese on him. Very basic things, as my own retained vocabulary from childhood is scant: the words for parts of his body or a narration of what he's looking at. I follow with the English equivalent. Nothing like doubling the time from one sentence to another when you don't know what to say to replace the language of touch.<br />
<br />
<i>Monday, April 1st, 3:55 a.m.</i><br />
<br />
Does he really recognize my voice from his time in utero? I wonder. For D.'s month off, I've had to spend so much time tied to the pump that D. has been O.'s primary caregiver. Bottle-feeding, changing, playing, walking him around the living room in the middle of the night -- it's no wonder I've had trouble finding a connection to this intense little soul now that I'm all he has during the weekday. For the last two weeks, when my face has been in front of his, he's stared past me into my hair. I tell myself it's because he's attracted to high-contrast things, but I worry he's forgotten who I am.<br />
<br />
<i>9:10 p.m.</i><br />
<br />
It's also amazing the difference a day makes. Today was our second on our own with this pumping schedule, and for most of it, O. made eye contact with me. And he smiled.<br />
<br />
<i>Tuesday, April 2nd, 8:05 p.m.</i><br />
<br />
We've been given exercises to do with O. to help loosen the muscles of his mouth and increase the range of motion of his tongue. He hated having our fingers in and around his mouth right after the frenotomy -- no surprise -- but I've figured out how to make that more, shall we say, palatable. I wait until he's looking at me and then do one of the lip stretches with my fingers on myself while making an interesting noise, such as clicking my tongue, in rhythm with the left-right motions -- we have to push and pull the upper and lower lips sideways. Then I do the same on him. He thinks it's a great game as long as I stay on the outside of his mouth -- he opens it almost as if to laugh and makes cooing sounds. He still doesn't like my touching his gums or tongue, though. He used to welcome having a finger to suck on for comfort, but now he grabs our hands and forcibly pulls them away when we go for the exercise where we have to press on his tongue to encourage him to form it into a trough (it'll help him maintain suction at the breast). I did manage to get him to take my finger briefly when he was sleepy today, just for pacification. It's as if regaining his trust is part of his therapy too.<br />
<br />
<i>Thursday, April 4th, 4:15 a.m.</i><br />
<br />
Tomorrow we'll have made it through a work week. I've measured the hours until D. returns each day by pumping intervals -- five, on average, before I can have his help again with O. I consider it a victory if I can feed myself and accomplish one other task in between sessions if O. is asleep: folding laundry, paying bills, anything that can be done not seated in front of my laptop, which is where the pump is set up. I baked bread yesterday. Two beautiful, springy-centered, golden-crusted, gluten-free loaves. I'd mixed the dry ingredients Monday afternoon and was never able to get enough time until 48 hours later to add the wet and then put it all in the oven. But I anticipated that. And I even mixed two extra rations of dry ingredients and bagged them for next time.<br />
<br />
<i>9:15 a.m.</i><br />
<br />
I've realized after these simultaneously long and short days -- long when you can never get more than three hours' sleep because of pumping demands, short because there is never enough time in between to finish tasks that you used to count on being able to complete in one attempt -- that a to-do list is laughably moot. So I've renamed it the Wish List. I jot down what I'd like to get done on it and impose no time limits. It gives me the sense that those things still matter, that it is okay to prioritize the time for them, even if it means an entire day's scattered free minutes have to be used to get one wish fulfilled. The bread was worth it. It also keeps me from forgetting the little things that would otherwise nag at me every time I'm reminded of them while I'm attached to the pump or have my hands full with O. (sometimes both). <i>Move ottoman</i> was one of today's wishes, the one that came with the nursing chair. I've wanted to get it out of our bedroom for the entire month as it's not usable at the moment. (Never lean back while pumping unless you really do want to cry about spilled milk.) <br />
<br />
<i>7:25 p.m.</i><br />
<br />
I won't say I've accepted all this as the new normal yet. But we're surviving it until the next turn in the road. We'll see the occupational/physical therapy group in just under a week, and then, who knows. At least we've proved to ourselves that some form of life as we once knew it can continue -- only in discrete chunks. O. is worth it. I just can't wait until the pump is no longer between him and me.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x2aKx3yAJIk/UV5BnRPw_GI/AAAAAAAABco/I6ipPjHqyw8/s1600/WP_20130322_003.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x2aKx3yAJIk/UV5BnRPw_GI/AAAAAAAABco/I6ipPjHqyw8/s320/WP_20130322_003.jpg" /></a><br />
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*</div><br />
<i>This post happened to coincide with a prompt from Mama Kat's weekly Writer's Workshop. Check out more stories and essays by clicking the button below.</i><br />
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<center><a href="http://www.mamakatslosinit.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac331/mamakatslosinit/workshop-button-1.png" alt="Mama’s Losin’ It"/></a></center><div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7356184928339139776.post-28847896788987726102013-03-10T14:03:00.000-05:002013-03-10T14:03:18.816-05:00At four weeks... you are feisty and fierce in your demands, little owl. You've kept us on our toes since mere days after you were born, with jaundice that required in-home nursing care. You finally learned how to latch to the breast but then refused to nurse two weeks later for reasons we can't explain. That mild fever you had the same day? A change in the musculature of your mouth? We're at a loss. Thankfully you've gained weight on our alternative measures -- round-the-clock pumping for the bottle feedings we swore we'd only rely on until we got your nipple strike figured out. You'll latch now, but only briefly, and you draw blood sometimes before milk.<br />
<br />
You're learning at last how to bring your fists to your mouth to comfort yourself when we are not enough, which feels like it has been every day since March arrived. Your cries break my heart even as my own impatience to find answers takes away any confidence in my ability to choose what to do next for you. Keep you alive, yes. But there are so many avenues we've gone down, trusting the guides -- pediatricians, lactation consultants -- who were supposed to help but only compounded our problems.<br />
<br />
I've jotted down parts of the story of your arrival -- also complicated and fraught with decisions I wish we hadn't had to make, but there we were and here you are. I remind myself that you are still safe and whole. Even as we continue to find ourselves against these hurdles no one ever talked about or prepared us for. (And why would they have, given how unusual your circumstances seem to be? No sense scaring expectant parents further.) Every time I go to write about you, thinking we've finally cleared the latest obstacle -- <i>now</i>, now <i>we can report with some distance and relief that all is well</i>, I tell myself -- something else catches at our heels and threatens to throw you from our grasp.<br />
<br />
But now you're bundled skin-to-skin with me inside the fleece jacket I've zipped around us both. We huddle against each other, tear-stained but not at odds for once. And while you sleep, I can hold off on deciding what we should be doing next for you, for me, for all of us on this wild course that seems to have no end. What I would give just to remain this way, in this quiet hour holding you, and not have you wake again just yet, hungry.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Copyright (c) 2007-2011 <a href="http://thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com">This Ro(a)mantic Life</a></div>This Ro(a)mantic Lifehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09324882155203905958noreply@blogger.com6