Woolgathering

With 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.

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.

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.

I wasn't prepared to be so sidelined, given that my first pregnancy was so vastly different from this one -- I had energy. 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.

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.

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.

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 ...

Blind spots

It'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.

"We should get an RV," D. has said more than once this week. "Seriously, we'd be able to go anywhere."

After this morning's slow progress on our plan, I'm almost tempted to say yes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"We're okay," I tell him. But I know we both need better.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Ventilation

It'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.

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.

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 write while O. naps. He calls shortly after we sit down at the kitchen table -- he has a migraine and won't be coming.

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.

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.

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.

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?

I close the file, open a blank page, and give in to neither.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

The work-nap balance

Life's been busy.

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 travel planning 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.

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 with 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.)

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 that purpose as well.

I'd sit down before the page and freeze. There was so much pressure to get something done 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.

After a few weeks of this, D. gently suggested that we try rearranging my routine a little.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sick day

O. 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.

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 now, lest the shape of the ideas erode like sand sculptures in high tide. My head feels underwater anyway.

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.

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.

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.

Still wearing him, I assess the leftovers in the fridge, none of which pique my interest. It's a mug cake 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.

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.

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'm 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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

I'll take it, I think, and I bend again to the task at hand.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Homesick for the holidays

At 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.

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. 

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.

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.

"Absolutely. But how about you?" he asks. "What would make the house feel Christmas-y for you?"

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.

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 is 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.

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.

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.

To duplicate that without my mother's presence, I realize, is impossible.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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, his 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.

O. looks to me as if to ask, is this okay?

I laugh and cuddle him close. "We'll figure it out together," I whisper, trying to reassure us both.

*

This post appears as part of a series on mother-daughter relationships on Daily Plate of Crazy. Click here to read more essays in the collection.

Those busy, busy feet

Before 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.

O. decided he was ready to walk two weeks ago.

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.

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.

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 mug cake). 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 ...

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.

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.

*

I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below.

Treats for the overbooked

The fourth-quarter time-crunch is making itself known early this year.

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.

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.

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?

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 ...

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.

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?

Leverage the power of the microwave.

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?

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.

Gluten-free Chocolate Mug Cake
Serves 1 frantically fridge-less curmudgeon, with or without germ-laden husband and teething 8-month-old

1/2 very ripe pear, skin removed, or 2-3 tbsp applesauce or leftover baby food puree, any vegetable
1/8 c garbanzo flour or brown rice flour
1/8 c baking cocoa
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp chocolate chips
1 tbsp sucanat or brown sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Several generous dashes of cinnamon

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.

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.

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.

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.

* 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.

Sanity, regained

O. is nursing.

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 supplemental feeder just over seven weeks ago, and, within a few days, he was completely off his training wheels. We are ecstatic.

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 am a different person -- a sane one -- once more.

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.

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.

But as a few days' nursing strike turned into weeks, 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 and the demands of the pump. It wasn't supposed to be this way, 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."

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 sick 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.

If only everything could be fixed so easily, I thought.

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 is a gift -- especially with a positive ending.

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.

Long-form work and I have had a tenuous relationship 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.

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.

P.S.: For those of you who have asked how that trip to Florida 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 ...

Highs and lows

Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Is this thing on? Screech of microphone feedback. Hi! We're still alive over here. 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.

Where was I? Oh, right. O. is thirteen fourteen fifteen 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.

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 ...

High: 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.

Low: 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.

High: Did you know dark chocolate has been shown to promote serotonin production? I've been leaning heavily (no pun intended) on this brand* of tasty goodness to keep the sleep deprivation from pulling me completely under.

Low: 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 ...

High: 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!

Low: 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. has managed to get his swaddle inside out and up over his head in the throes of slumber:

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.

High: 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 ...

Low: 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.

High: 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. This device, 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.

Low: 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) resources 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.

High: 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 have 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.

Low: 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 ...

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!

* 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!

Tongue-tied

Friday, March 29th, 10:55 a.m.

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.

Saturday, March 30th, 8:20 a.m.

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 while 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.

10:20 a.m.

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.

4:15 p.m.

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.

6:20 p.m.

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.

Sunday, March 31st, 5:30 a.m.

It is hard not to be consumed by the quest for answers and assistance. 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 increase milk supply. 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.

8:30 a.m.

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.

10:30 a.m.

"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 doing 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.

12:30 p.m.

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.

Monday, April 1st, 3:55 a.m.

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.

9:10 p.m.

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.

Tuesday, April 2nd, 8:05 p.m.

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.

Thursday, April 4th, 4:15 a.m.

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.

9:15 a.m.

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). Move ottoman 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.)

7:25 p.m.

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.

*

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.

Scenes from around the table, part 4: prodding

This is the fourth and final post in a series chronicling our last holiday season before baby arrives -- as they say, life is never the same afterward, so in the interest of capturing a few snapshots to remember this time, here are some jottings from moments that have lingered with me over a multi-destination Thanksgiving week.

Dr. Sis is already in bed with her iPhone docked and its music playing when I come out of her bathroom the night before the baby shower. Rolls of teal tissue, turquoise wrapping paper, and silver ribbon lean against one another in the corner amidst shipping boxes I have been instructed not to poke around in -- quarters in Dr. Sis's Boston condo are cozy, leaving few options for hiding gifts except covering them in plain sight. I climb under the comforter, trying not to disturb a second pile of boxes on my side of the bed.

The clutter, some hardly shower-related, spills into the living room in the form of shoes, books, cleaning supplies, grocery bags. In my own home, the mess would drive me crazy, but I respect that this is my sister's space and that she's a junior resident. That she can find time to feed herself is already a feat on her demanding schedule. Preparing to host a party? Unimaginable. And yet, that's exactly what she's been doing all evening, to my amazement. She and Marketing Sis have already wrapped a large pile of packages now nestled on an arm chair in the dining nook, waiting to be opened the following afternoon.

Through my homebody's eye, I see more than just gifts buried in the corners of this condo. It's a part of Dr. Sis's life, which I've lost the ability to inquire about without feeling like I'm intruding. She is, and has always been, someone who gets her joy from being around other people, usually in spaces not her own -- or maybe it's that she immerses herself in that which is outside her home because the world behind her own door is something she'd rather not steep in alone for too long. So things pile up and get left behind as she comes and goes, stopping to sleep but not, I imagine, to be still here. Whenever she is home, she runs Pandora or tracks from her iTunes account, the music, it seems, a buffer against too much rumination.

I want to be wrong about all of that. Except, perhaps, the part about joy -- if she really does find her happiness outside, out loud, out and about, more power to her. Just because I'm a homebody doesn't mean I think she ought to be.

On this night, I'm not sure what kind of mood she's in, but heart-to-hearts have been rare between us, so I don't expect to plunge into any heavy conversation. We have so little time and we both need sleep; it would be unwise to tread too far into those questions I'm dying to ask anyway. What is it to be where you are now, doing what you're doing? Who's in your life these days? What makes you tick? Basic things I thought I used to know about her.

I admit I haven't been forthcoming with the same information myself. When I have offered up those pieces of my life to her, though, I've never felt satisfied with them. The true answers to most of those questions are that I don't know, it's complicated, things are still a work in progress, I need more time to think. And Dr. Sis, an analyst by nature and in her line of work, delves deeper, harder, faster than I can regroup to get more detailed answers out. She has to be direct, efficient in diagnosing her patients. I don't like feeling like a patient when we start talking. Tell her this, and she'll likely respond, "Really. Well, say more about that."

It's like falling into a trap. A heart-to-heart shouldn't feel like a catch-22 -- and yet. And yet. I wonder if having a mind as sharp as hers is partly why she keeps her music running. I imagine a brain like that needs a regulator, to quiet its inclinations to examine, evaluate, spin. I know reflection has been a big part of Dr. Sis's medical training, but too much introspection can be more harmful than helpful. Writing has its similarities.

Dr. Sis is poking around on her laptop, so I scoot down under the comforter away from the light from the screen, even though I'm not quite sleepy. I expect her to drop off soon -- she's just come off studying for and taking a two-day certification exam on top of taking call over part of Thanksgiving weekend and hosting a Turkey Day dinner -- but Dr. Sis turns toward me, a thoughtful expression on her face, and begins prodding at my belly.

After Marketing Sis's unabashed interactions with her unborn nephew, this doesn't surprise me. I'm amused at the difference in each sister's approach, though. While Marketing Sis has talked to, laid an ear against, and even kissed the belly, Dr. Sis methodically examines it for landmarks. She palpates low, just as my OB has in recent weeks, looking for identifiers I can't name. "He's supposedly rotated downward," I say. Dr. Sis nods and continues to press and poke, her other hand now at the top of my abdomen as if to take the measure of her nephew's body.

"There's an appendage," she says as he squirms a little.

"How can you tell?" I ask. Even though my sister's focus is not in obstetrics, she has done a rotation in the field and delivered her share of babies. I'm awed that she can find a fetal heartbeat with just her stethoscope, fascinated that the random movements I feel under my skin make a difference between heel and head to her. The baby, not so much -- he suddenly kicks vigorously beneath my sister's fingers, as if perturbed. We look at each other, both a little startled, and laugh.

"I'm sorry," she says to the nephew. To me: "When those parts are next to each other but you can feel them moving independently, that's how you know." Dr. Sis makes a flippery motion with her two hands as our middle school swim team coach used to show us when we were learning how to execute an efficient flutter kick.

Then she lets the belly be, respecting its resident's protests. Too much, those kicks seem to say. For once, though, I don't mind the prodding.

For more from this series, please click here.

It's not nesting if it involves fleas

At nearly 11 p.m. on Saturday, when 30-somethings without kids are likely out and 30-somethings with kids are likely out cold, I'm holding a one-quart Pyrex measuring cup full of borax powder, swinging it like a censer over the living room carpet. The cat is upstairs in the laundry room, crying to be let out, but as long as the floors are coated in this fine, white dust that I'm counting on for salvation, my will isn't bending on that score.

It has been six days since the discovery of flea "dirt" -- the blood meal that fleas excrete like little pepper grains -- in our cat's coat, and seven since our vacuum happened to break down. Impeccable timing. While we're fortunate to have caught the problem very early -- our indoor-only cat almost certainly picked up the fleas from an indoor-outdoor cat whose house she shared while we were traveling over Christmas -- I'm still kicking myself for not having the vet treat her on a preventive level, knowing the risks of boarding her with D's friend, the owner. Never mind that said owner failed to mention that he suspected his cat's flea treatments hadn't been working. I try not to think about what we could have done differently and concentrate on getting the borax distributed evenly over the carpet. And here I was a week ago, just hoping to get the vacuum repaired in time to do a once-over on the house before this baby's arrival.

Would I call that pre-flea impulse nesting? Not really. That instinct everybody keeps asking me about is there, but only so far as the preservation of future sanity goes. Of course I want to get the baby room furniture assembled; the baby laundry washed and folded; the extra meals cooked, labeled, and frozen -- so I won't have to do it once the baby is here. But no, I'm not scrambling to organize my sock drawer by brand and color or alphabetize the spice cabinet.

In the name of making more space, I would love to purge our closets of clothes we haven't worn in several years, books from long-finished college classes that we haven't been able to resell, electronics that are obsolete enough to be laughed off Craigslist. While we've gone as minimal and practical as possible in deciding what we truly need or wish to have for this tiny person, who promises to outgrow it all quickly enough, the sheer volume of what other well-meaning friends have been sending us in the last few weeks is beginning to threaten our storage capacity. Or at least the limits I currently believe in maintaining -- yes, there is always a way to make room, but is that really a practice I want to embrace without reservations when this child will be accumulating things wherever we are for the next 18 years?

These thoughts scroll through my mind as I swing the glass back and forth, back and forth, over the room D has helped me clear of all furniture except the couches. The next morning, I will vacuum with our freshly serviced vacuum, hoping that the borax will have desiccated any eggs or fleas overnight. It's not the kind of purge I envisioned, but the irony of it is almost funny. Not funny enough, though, to keep me from asking why this now, of all things?

I finish dusting the carpet, set the heavy glass on the stairs, and massage my aching hand. It's advisable to work the borax into the deeper fibers, so I make a slow circuit of the room in blue running shoes turned gray from their coating of powder. The cat mumbles to herself upstairs, giving up on me for the night, and it's finally quiet. I've been lucky not to have the raging insomnia so many women have told me is part and parcel of the third trimester, but I am on this evening a little too overcharged to want sleep -- I'd just welcome the chance to sit. Still, the room goes on, suddenly much larger as I make myself side-step, ankle to ankle, around the perimeter, working my way back toward the stairs.

Just let this be done, I think, tempted to turn my methodical pacing into a mad grapevine. There are too many other things I'd rather be doing to prepare not just our home but my state of mind for this baby. But to give in to that desire -- to give up my controlled march so I can get some control back elsewhere -- is the paradoxical opposite of surrender. Maintaining this slow dance is the very act of yielding that I know I'm terrible at. And I'm about to bring into the world a little being who will need me to do just that -- ignore the closets, the old books and electronics, and the mental space they occupy.

So I traverse the room, step by step, carrying us both across the powdery landscape I've committed to tamping down. And I tell myself that nesting for me may be clearing out the detritus of old lives. But only so that I can take on this new one.

*
I'm linking up with Just Write this week. For more stories and essays, click the button below!

We interrupt this series

... for a small update. One that looks to weigh about 4 pounds and seems to think an early arrival might be in his future, per yesterday's ultrasound and non-stress test (both unscheduled, but I woke up with signs that indicated a call to the OB was warranted).

Holy hydration and couch-boundedness, we are so not ready for this baby yet!

Everything to do with the baby himself looked good at the perinatologist's office -- he happily performed his little breathing exercises for us to see, wiggled and squirmed with abandon, and kept his heart rate at a thoroughly reassuring level through contractions I was apparently having fairly regularly but could not yet feel. Today -- well, I can feel them, but some of that is surely from heightened awareness.

I'm home for now with strict instructions to be a lazy slob -- the perinatologist's words, not mine! -- all weekend. Since we'll be at 35 weeks on Monday, my regular OB won't stop labor if it starts in earnest at this stage of the game as the research indicates infants of this age do better out rather than being forced to stay in. So D is running loads of laundry and helping me cook some extra meals (I season, he does the heavy pan lifting). Both tasks were in the plan for the weekend already, but now it feels extra important to make progress on each just in case ...

Time to refill my water glass and go focus on something else. We'll be back to our previously scheduled program shortly (I hope!) with part 3.

Oh and um, Dr. Sis? Marketing Sis? That shipment of baby stuff from the lovely shower you threw me in Boston -- I'd send that sooner rather than later if you can swing it. Please and thank you ...

Scenes from around the table, part 2: the job

This is the second in a series of posts chronicling our last holiday season before baby arrives -- as they say, life is never the same afterward, so in the interest of capturing a few snapshots to remember this time, here are some jottings from moments that have lingered with me over a multi-destination Thanksgiving week.

Dinner is over and Marketing Sis and I have sent our mother up to the game room for once to play mahjong with Troubadour Dad and the boys. Usually, two of us girls must play with Dad and D while she cleans up, but this year, with N at the table, we have enough leverage to convince Mom to take the night off and leave the mess for us. "I'm not comfortable with this!" she calls over her shoulder as we all but push her toward the stairs. "This is Mom's job!"

"We're going to have sister time!" we tell her. She exhales forcefully but can't budge our united front.

We tackle the pile of dirty dishes, voices low so we can try to monitor the conversation from the other room. It's the first time we've ever left our men alone with our parents, and we can't help eavesdropping a little. Nothing much drifts down at first, but soon Dad's customary heckling and a few good-natured retorts begin to carry over the clack of the mahjong tiles. Marketing Sis and I exchange grins. They're doing fine.

"It's nice that N offers to help in the kitchen," I say -- he's been in and out during the day-long preparations, which, I've noticed, has kept Mom a little calmer than her usual self during major holiday meal assembly. Not that the extra hands have reduced the burden that much -- Mom's not the best at multitasking and delegating -- but the presence of this new person has tamped down some of her testiness that ordinarily emerges, particularly when she's dealing with the challenges my food allergies present for her. The presence of D, no longer a novelty, doesn't force her to be on better behavior anymore. I wish in some ways that it did, but I suppose it's also a sign of acceptance into the family that my mother doesn't keep her company face on around him as much. I also wish my mother were just less high-strung, but I've learned over many holidays that that's just not who she is.

"N's good about that, making himself useful," Marketing Sis says. "He knows it's easier on me." She doesn't say it directly, but I know she's referring to the family dynamics, not the cooking. When our parents are happy, the rest of us can be happy. If that means preventing Mom from getting overwhelmed in the kitchen, so be it. I'm certainly relieved that the day's culinary feats are over. While my mother has insisted on making as much allergen-free food for me as possible, the extra stress it causes her puts me on edge the entire time she's at it. There have to be clean zones and cross-contamination prevention measures and recipe alterations, all of which make her ill at ease. If she makes a few mistakes, she suddenly gets defensive and begins tossing off comments about how difficult or inconvenient my food limitations make her process -- even though I've insisted that she doesn't have to include me in the meal plan since I'm perfectly able to cook for myself.

But again, it's Mom's job, my mother insists as she assembles the next day's menu.

The control freak in me understands, though just barely. She needs to feel she's taking care of me, but her taking on the task creates more risk, which runs counter to her intent. If only she could understand that, I think to myself as the dish pile slowly dwindles.

The boys have helped haul out the Christmas tree, so we also plunge into decorating while Mom is occupied. Normally, we're not home to help until practically December 25th, if not after, and the tree remains bare or Mom has to trim it entirely on her own if she doesn't want to hear our cries of mock distress when we see the naked plastic branches upon our arrival. I reach into the first of many boxes and come up with a tray of tinsel puffballs that could almost pass for cat toys. Their strings for hanging have long since fallen off -- the ornaments are older than my sister -- but we aren't deterred. Each armed with a handful of the soft, nearly weightless sparklers, we launch them overhand at the tree, where they happily lodge in the branches.

Marketing Sis flings a puffball with particularly mischievous gusto, and I am reminded of how we are still, despite our taking over for Mom, the kids in the house for a little longer, with our own variations for doing what Mom would. Next year, we'll be trying to decorate the tree with a ten-month-old underfoot -- a little boy who will be old enough to crawl and possibly even stand, hands reaching and grabbing for everything. What kind of mom will I be then? I wonder. Not one like my own, I imagine, but not totally unlike her either. I won't be throwing ornaments for sure, lest the baby get his hands on the more fragile baubles and try to follow our example. I can just hear my mother scolding us for giving him the idea -- or is it my own voice in my head, warning me off before she can? I can't tell. But for now, I shrug the question off and enjoy the game. My best shot hits its target from a distance of six feet.

A shout comes from upstairs followed by groans -- someone has won a particularly good hand -- and then my father calls down for one of us to bring him a peeled orange, his usual evening snack. When my mother asks for one too a moment later, I know we've done good work -- she's let go enough of her Mom mindset to let us do what she ordinarily would, instead of abandoning the game table to take care of the request.

I assemble a tray for the players, leaving our own entertainment to step into my mother's role once more. I'm glad to do it -- and glad for this in-between space, where I can still shift from Mom to daughter to mother-to-be.

For more from this series, please click here.

Calling all savvy shoppers

I know, I know. I said I'd be more active now that I'm feeling better. It wasn't a total lie, but yes, much of the activity has been more elsewhere than here. I suppose if you could have seen the state of the Troubadour house at the end of 17 weeks, you too would have wanted me to deal with that mess first. So that's what I've been doing in the last month (when not also planning four major trips for weddings and holidays that all have to happen before we get to 36 weeks, but that's for another post).

Fortunately, I had some help with the cleanup. Our laundry room has a new resident -- a much-needed washer to replace the cantankerous 15-year-old one that came with the house, one that refused to drain every third use and would only take loads half its capacity because it was so badly unbalanced (broken ball bearings may have been the culprit). In one day, I did five rounds of serious laundry that would in the past have amounted to thirteen -- ten initial loads plus about three rewashes for the ones that didn't empty during the rinse cycle. And we wonder now why we didn't make the replacement sooner ... ! Forgive me for going on about this, but I'm in love.

The baby gear industry, I suspect, would like me to fall equally head over heels for about 10,000 other products it's been informing me of daily. (You don't want to see my inbox.) When the influx of ads and offers began, we'd already started the process of researching the items we'd need to have ready for February -- a place for baby to sleep and a car seat are the only large-scale absolute necessities -- but the lists of other stuff the industry would have us believe we can't live without are a bit overwhelming. I'm doing my best to ignore the propaganda, but I do take recommendations from anyone who's actually a parent. What did you find was really worth having around in those first months? What, in the fog of sleep-deprivation joys of new parenthood, did you love/swear by/thank yourself for buying?

Feel free to go into as much detail as you'd like. Of course, the name of the product with a simple thumbs-up like the one we got from our baby at Tuesday's doctor visit will also suffice.

Knitting therapy

The scene: the living room, hour unknown. Balls of yarn populate a plastic bin and wicker basket within arm's reach of the sofa while an assortment of knitting needles -- some metal, some bamboo, and even some plastic -- poke out of the bin at various angles. Scattered over a nearby coffee table are empty Jolly Rancher wrappers, the only sign that a human has been in the vicinity. The only other sign of life is a white cat with black patches who sleeps at one end of the couch on top of a pair of scissors, a two-pack of large tapestry needles, and a tape measure that bears her tooth marks.

A small pile of knitted garments in soft unisex pastels lies at the other end of the sofa, camouflaging a larger heap under a blanket. Slowly, the pile and blanket shift, disturbing two infant-sized sweaters, a hat, and six tiny pairs of socks. As they tumble aside, one Troubadour peers out from beneath it all, the beginnings of another sweater clutched in her fingers.

Is it safe to come out yet?

Okay, it hasn't actually been this bad, but it's been close. One cannot eat pie all day to counteract 24/7 nausea. (Or you can, but I suspect it would be only so effective.) So for most of the last 16 weeks, I've been -- you guessed it -- knitting like a woman with a yarn obsession.

I didn't expect it to be as helpful as it's actually been. But, with the occasional Jolly Rancher to help stave off the worst of the morning sickness (less calorie-laden than the aforementioned alternative), knitting, which I can even do lying down, has worked. At least it's kept me from thinking about throwing up while feeling like throwing up. Anything for relief, right? The psychology of nausea is half the battle, I say.

I'm happy to say the green haze I've been seeing and smelling through has lifted significantly in the last week. Life before pregnancy hormones -- or something like it -- is there, just over the horizon! I can't wait. And, I suspect, neither can D, who has been trying extremely hard to get me off the sofa for my own good. "I'm supposed to encourage you to exercise," he reminds me every so often. I think I laughed at the idea the first time -- and then gagged.

Now that I'm on the mend, I am actually of a mind to get more active -- here and elsewhere -- so stay tuned! I've missed this space. For now, though, I'll leave you with a picture of our kitty, who has been taking full advantage of my company. She also seems to like my knitting -- I promise this shot wasn't posed.

It's not dessert if I eat it for breakfast

They say the first trimester feels the longest because you're dogged day and night by morning sickness.

They weren't wrong.

But they also say it's a good sign of your baby's health. So here I am, just past the 10-week mark, still feeling quite green but happy to say it officially: we're going to be parents.

We still have a few weeks to go until trimester No. 2 begins (and hopefully with it, some relief from all the nausea and a stronger sense of security about the baby's well-being), but after Monday's ultrasound, my OB reassured us that all is well. So Monday night, we told our parents and siblings our good news, which means I can now share it here. And apologize for being completely absent for all of June.

The living-room couch has been my best friend for the last month; the kitchen stove, not so much. Poor D has been resorting to microwaved hot dogs as a primary source of protein for work and occasionally dinner. Until just last week, every time he'd light a burner to do more, the cooking smells would overwhelm me. Fortunately, some odors are slightly more tolerable now, so we're creeping back toward more nutritious fare. This is all relative, of course. You're reading the words of someone whose staple foods have been gluten-free shortbread, sunflower-seed butter, and brown-rice pasta since the beginning of summer. Maybe some strawberries too.

Our wedding anniversary fell during a week when I was still fairly averse to much kitchen activity, but I was determined to make something to mark the day. What, given the generally beige trend in the acceptable menu, does one prepare as an appropriate offering for such an occasion?

Peach pie.

All of the women in my family adore this dessert, whose original recipe comes from a friend of my mother's who served it to her early in her pregnancy with my youngest sister. It was, as my mother puts it, one of the first things she can remember being able to eat in spite of her morning sickness.

Pie crust is like shortbread, right? I thought, running the flavors through my mind. And strawberries, peaches -- both had that sweet-tart ambrosia thing going on. This could work.

Of course, the original recipe for my mother's beloved pie was not gluten- and dairy-free, so I had to come up with an approximation of it. The one below is more like a tart (i.e., a pie with no top crust), adapted from Flying Apron's Gluten-Free and Vegan Baking Book by Jennifer Katzinger.

Open-faced peach pie

Crust:
1 1/2 c brown rice flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 c plus 3 tbsp palm oil shortening
3 tbsp agave nectar
1 to 2 tbsp cold water

Filling:
4-5 peaches, peeled, pitted, sliced into thin wedges
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbsp tapioca powder
1/3 c agave nectar (can be cut in half to reduce sugar if desired)
1 tbsp lemon juice

To make crust, stir together flour and salt in large bowl. In another bowl, stir shortening with large spoon until softened (should not take long as palm oil does not need refrigeration and will already be at room temperature). Add flour mixture slowly, stirring until incorporated. Add agave and water, mixing until soft dough comes together. If dough is dry, add additional water 1 tbsp at a time until dough is smooth. There is no danger of overmixing since this dough is gluten-free and will not become gummy.

Dust portable work surface, such as a large cutting board, and hands with brown rice flour. Turn out dough onto board and dust with more flour. Roll dough into 11-inch circle (or larger if your pie dish is of greater diameter).

Turn pie plate upside-down on top of dough. Invert board so that pie plate is now beneath the board and crust drops into pie plate. Press dough down, shaping accordingly to fill completely. Fix tears by gently pressing or pinching dough together. Par-bake crust 15 min. at 375 F.

To make filling, combine peaches, cinnamon, and tapioca, tossing gently until peaches are well coated. Add agave and lemon juice and toss a few times more. Place peach slices in very tight concentric rings over crust. Pour any remaining liquid over fruit.

Bake on bottom rack of oven at 375 F until filling is set and peaches completely cooked, about 45 min. Check pie at 25 min. for browning and tent with foil as needed to prevent burning. Cool slightly before slicing.

Makes enough for a week of breakfasts (now my go-to choice for starting a queasy day off right better), plus a slice or two in there for an excited father-to-be.