A Moment

I lie in the morning shadows, wishing I could hold this moment forever. The weight of your head on my shoulder, the warmth of your body tucked against mine. You look up at me so seriously, and then a small, sweet smile crosses your face as you raise an uncoordinated hand to pat my face. You are exploring my features, learning my face in a new way. Grabbing at my nose. My breath catches at the magic of it, and I wish I were a writer, an artist. Someone who knew how to capture this moment.

At Two Months

Two months. Two months. Its been a lifetime - your lifetime, specifically - and no time at all. You're a healthy, lively baby girl. Already outgrowing the smallest of your clothes and melting my heart with your dimples. I swear you're growing before our very eyes.

And we know why. You nurse like a champ. No hesitation to latch, and no question you know just where the milk comes from. The sound you make as you take to 'the milk dud' (your father's term, used just as often to describe me frankly) is part greed, part satisfaction. We call you the milk monster, and you've earned the name. You hold on fiercely, fisting my shirt in your tiny hand or gripping at my skin with your fingertips, and gaze up at me with big blue-gray eyes. Every once in awhile you smile without letting go. It kills me every time.

Not nearly so winning is your new refusal to really nap. You've taken to sleeping for half an hour or less during the day, often cat napping in my arms but jerking awake at the slightest movement. This leads inevitably to an overtired baby who whines, fusses and eventually cries inconsolably until finally, finally falling asleep at night. Some times you can't even find your way to bedtime on your own, and Dad or I end up dancing with you until the rhythm finally soothes you and you drop off. But, we're starting a new routine, you and I. I'm trying to learn to read your cues that you're getting tired and develop cues for nap time that tell you its time to sleep now. You learned the nighttime cues so quickly; I am hoping we'll have an easy time passing through this stage now that I'm recognizing it for what it is.

And it will be so worth it when we get these naps worked out. You are simply charming when you wake up fresh from a good sleep. You grin and laugh, reach out for us with sheer joy. The world is still a fascinating place, and when you're feeling good you are so very interested in it. That's the best time for your tummy time or to lay on our backs and watch the ceiling fan. You aren't a fan of being left on your own, but you'll lay there if I'm playing with you.

Boy do we play these days. We spend more time at your play mat, as you slowly gain the coordination to hit the toys and hear their noise. Its a game you find as absorbing as you do frustrating. You love 'Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes.' We play it so often your Dad has found himself humming it at work. And now we've added 'The Wheels on the Bus' accompanied by the bicycle move that helps with the gas. (Oh, the gas. You're still so bothered by this, sometimes crying out in your sleep. We've already passed the magic six week mark, when Grandma thought it would go away, and now we're waiting for three months when our friends have said it will pass. We're still hoping.) And your delighted when your Dad flies you like an airplane or I bend my knees and put you tummy down on them so you can wave your arms or bend your knees to move up and down.

But, what you love best is just to talk with us. I rest you on my knees and read books to you or tell you the nursery rhymes I now have memorized. You watch me with serious eyes and then break in to the biggest grin. Or you'll watch soccer with your Dad, earnestly listening while he explains strategy to you and simply fascinated by all the bright colors and movement. Sometimes you talk back to us, cooing and vocalizing with the best of them.

You still prefer the outdoors, though. Now that the weather is finally changing we spend most of our early mornings out under the grapefruit tree. Dad and I drink our coffee, and you happily sit with us and watch the world. Some mornings I take a book outside and we just stay there, even after Dad has left us to go to work. Or we take the dog and go for a long walk through the neighborhood, looking to see what is happening in our little world. We sometimes take two or three walks in the day, even walking down to Park Avenue to window shop or sit in the park. Your love of the outdoors makes it hard to deny you.

Its hard to deny you anything, frankly. You're alot of work, child of mine, and I rather suspect you always will be. But, its a result of your curious, alert nature and that is exactly what makes you so amazing to watch. We took our first overnight trip - to Baba and Dado's house - on the day you turned two months. You took in the new environment, the big dogs and even your first dip in a swimming pool with huge eyes and curious hands. It was a little overwhelming it seemed, and you preferred to do your exploring from my arms or your Dad's. But, your Dado won you over with his willingness to endlessly show you the wonders of his garden. And your endless fascination with it would have won him over, if he hadn't already been yours.

Just like the rest of us.

This post has been sitting in drafts, delayed by an increase in fussiness and a decrease in sleep. A trip to the doctor (for your first shots, poor thing) reveals fluid behind your ear drum. Your current trouble sleeping may be as much about an earache as a nap routine. Baby Tylenol resulted in the first long sleep you've had in two weeks. Now, if you'd just fall asleep for your afternoon nap...

Already

Already she looks less like a newborn and more like a baby. The dimple in her cheek has been joined by dimples at her elbows and knees. Her hands and feet are still oh so small, but no longer are they the impossibly fragile hands and long feet of a newborn. Now she has plump little hands that grasp tightly to my shirt, and round feet she uses to dance. She curls her body in to mine, and she is such a soft little bundle. Oh my, how fast it goes...already.

To My Daughter

You're one month old today, and already I can't remember what life was like before you.

Our family has become your very own paparazzi, and you already talk to everyone on skype. Most newborns don't start their mornings with video chats, but half of your adoring audience lives over seas. Its not all about distance, though. Daddy sometimes calls us from work, just so he can see your little face and maybe show you off to a friend.

But, its not really surprising. You're very entertaining for such a tiny one. The world is fascinating, and you are so alert. You watch us with big, serious eyes and then suddenly break in to a grin. You'll even smile at us, reacting to a playful tone of voice. I know the books all say that smiles at this age are gas or coincidence, but even the skeptics have had to agree you're smiling at us.

Some times, for no apparent reason, you'll purse your lips, open your eyes wide and stick out your neck, giving you the look of an adorable baby turtle.

You know your Daddy's voice, turning to look for him when he comes home after work... You are a Daddy's girl, already, and its so sweet to see that I can't regret it.

As long as the world stays interesting, you stay happy. I can't sit still with you for too long. You want to be entertained, and since you don't yet interact with toys I am responsible for your entertainment. So, we're constantly changing positions or locations, trying something new, and looking for ways to keep your busy little mind happy. In the last few days, you've gotten the hang of consistently getting your hand in to your mouth and started sucking on your fingers. This seems to keep you busy for a few minutes.

Don't be in too much of a hurry to make me expendable, though. I don't really mind entertaining you. Fortunately, you like almost anything. You don't protest tummy time as much as I expected, and you easily push yourself up on your arms to look around. You're so strong, holding your head up and looking around for long minutes. Really, you've been doing that from the time we brought you home, but I still can't get over it. You're pulling your legs up in to a crawling position, too, already checking out how all these muscles work and trying to get things coordinated. I'm starting to wonder if you're going to be athletic, definitely a trait you won't get from me.

Yesterday you rolled over from your stomach to your back. Repeatedly. I want to savor this time, when you're so tiny and all ours, but here you are growing before my very eyes. Its probably a good thing you're a quick learner, though. I think you may take after your Aunt Megan, because it makes you so mad when you don't have the skills yet to do something you want to do.

You love the outdoors. Whether its taking a walk, sitting in our yard or just look out the window, you are entertained. If you're fussy and need soothing, all I have to do is walk outside and you magically stop. Of course, the second I step back in to the air-conditioned house the fussing starts again. You don't seem to care that this is mid-summer in Florida.

We're grateful that you save most of the fussing for the day. Somehow, you've figured out night is for sleeping and usually can be counted on to sleep from around 10 pm to just a little before 7 am, waking up every three hours to nurse and then falling right back to sleep. You're remarkably good at self-soothing, putting yourself to sleep when I put you down sleepy. During the day is a little more erratic, and some days you hardly seem to sleep at all. Then there are other days when you do nothing but sleep, though you often insist on doing so on my chest.

Your one real complaint about the world so far would be when you have too much gas. Then you are awake day and night, telling us that you hurt with a plaintive cry that breaks our hearts. Your Daddy has become an expert at the massage that helps you deal with it, and Mama helps too, if with a bit less skill. You seem to understand, pulling your legs up to help us, and you take the gas drops without complaint, too. Grandma swears that the gas always gets better at 6 weeks, and we're holding her to that.

***

You just woke up from the nap you've been taking on my chest, and you're sitting up against my hands looking for all the world like a miniature adult. I said 'hi' to you and you grinned back up at me, showing the little dimple in your cheek. Is it any wonder I'm completely in love with you?

Morning

I want to remember.

After nursing, a drop of milk still resting in the corner of your mouth, you lie beside me on the bed. My body instinctively curls around your tiny frame. Your feet, crossed at the ankles as is your habit, rest on my thigh. Your wide eyes watch the sunlight streaming through the window above us, and your hand idly rubs against my skin. Every once in a while you stretch luxuriously, but always your little body comes back to rest against mine. Together we wake up slowly.

Nature Girl

When she's fussy, too tired to sleep or just bored, all I have to do to soothe her is step outside. She loves to be outside and quiets instantly. Sometimes she'll fall asleep, but most of the time she looks around her with wide eyes.

I try to imagine what its like to feel the warm summer breeze on your face for the first time, to look at our neighborhood with those new eyes. How does she understand those tree branches dancing over her head or the sound of the children on the playground down the street? Neighbors get a second look, but she ignores the dogs that pass us on our walk. Is it instinct that the noisy car passing by doesn't warrant her attention, but the call of the Osprey swooping over us causes her to curl protectively in to my chest? She's learning so much about her world already. I wish she could tell me what she thinks.

A Moment

We've had 24 hour a day help from family since we came home, with one family member literally handing off to another. I can't quite imagine how we would have gotten through those first days, when I could barely use my abdominal muscles and we were all very, very tired from our journey to become a family, without them.

But tonight I'm feeling much like my old self and things are slowly coming back to normal. So, we found ourselves alone at home for awhile - just the three of us for the first time. I was at the stove cooking dinner, he was on the phone, and the baby was watching it all from her bouncy chair. And then, the inevitable, the wail of a dirty diaper. We met eyes, silently deciding which parent was in the best position to handle it. (Him.)

And butterflies fluttered in my stomach. This is ours. Our child. Our life...

Venturing in to a New World

My low battery light has been blinking for weeks. I don't know where the energy sucks is, but its sure draining out of me at an alarming rate. The fatigue was the final push I needed, though, to venture in to the world of eastern medicine. Several people whose opinions I trust have urged me to try acupuncture. This week I finally did. Diagnosis: I have a kidney/liver imbalance, which has nothing to do with my actual kidneys and liver but is instead a water/wood imbalance. Yeah, I don't understand it either. I just told myself this is a completely different framework for understanding the world and you should just go with it.

I didn't know what to expect, but when the doctor had me feel the needle I was startled. It was thin and flexible, and felt more a hairbrush bristle than any needle I've ever touched. She inserted them at strategic points (the rhyme and reason to which I couldn't discern, but pretty much correlating to the spots the massage therapist always focuses on) with a little tapping motion. They just barely broke the skin and didn't hurt at all, with the notable exception of one spot on my hand she warned me would sting. Frankly I prick myself with needles and pins much harder than that on a regular basis. I didn't realize she'd leave them in so long, but soft music was playing and it was a nice excuse to lay still and just let my mind wander. I wasn't at all uncomfortable, so it was almost a nap.

About half way through, she also used cupping on my right leg, where I have the most inflammation in my muscle. I'm sure there was another explanation for what was happening there in eastern medicine, probably blocked qi or something similar. Again, I'm acknowledging this is a framework I don't share and just going with it. But, I can tell you that western medicine says that's exactly where I have alot of inflammation. It was just gentle sucking pressure.

I can't say that I feel dramatically different now, but then again one treatment is rarely enough to change anything significantly. I do notice that today, when we're having a huge weather change, my leg barely hurts at all and most of my aches are in my shoulders and spine. (She focused on my leg, because that was my primary complaint when I went in. That and the blasted fatigue, which is definitely not better yet.) All in all, not a big deal and worth a try.

Though, I was a little weirded out when she used a needle right between my eyes.

Lazy Sunday

Today has been a lazy, lazy Sunday.  The sum total of my activities for the day include: knitting, drinking coffee, eating, reading a magazine, emailing a few friends, taking the dog to the dog park, going to the grocery store and joining Facebook.  Several of those activities have appeared repeatedly through the day though.  Mostly the knitting and coffee drinking.  If you'd excuse me, I must get back to my busy schedule of knitting now.  :)

Wow it feels great to get some rest.

Just Us

This week Alex suggested a date and took me to a lovely restaurant.  We sat by the lake with our drinks while we waited for a table, talking about our day, the weekend to come and nothing in particular.  The sun was setting and we could watch a storm blowing up from across the lake.  It was a great night.  

Washing Away a Mood

I woke up this morning to the drum of a gentle rain on the roof.  Its soaking my freshly-weeded garden, cooling the air and making the birds sing with joy.  I am watching the fall of the rain over the brim of my coffee cup, a little dog curled at my hip, and thinking this is a lovely way to start a Friday.

Summer Is...

:: Barbecue and watermelon
:: Swimming with the dogs

:: Soft air smelling of damp leaves
:: A matinee on a hot afternoon

Finding my Touchstone

When I left for college, I was a small town girl. All of my memories were rooted in the same community, where I knew someone around every corner and always had family nearby. The first few weeks away were rough. I was miserably homesick and the 2 1/2 hours between school and home felt so far. Then I was walking across campus on a beautiful September day and I felt this bubble of contented happiness well up deep inside. At that moment, I knew I had made the right choice and was where I needed to be.

I've felt that bubble again over the years. Shortly after moving to D.C. and meeting Alex, it came as I was walking down the sidewalk to shop at Eastern Market. A year or two in to law school, watching the lights come on in my neighborhood on a cold Fall evening. Walking the dog around my apartment complex back here in Florida. Its my touchstone, that feeling, my signal that I'm making the right choices in my life. That the world is simply right. Not an every day thing, but a little message from myself that I hear in moments of peace.

Last week I realized I haven't felt that bubble in quite a while. Instead, I've been feeling a nagging disquiet. Nothing is wrong, but I wasn't entirely sure it was right either. Too often irritable voices have snapped out at one another, leaving bruised feelings that never quite have a chance to completely heal. Too many work concerns have followed us home, intruding and casting a shadow. Life has felt too full, too uncertain - too much. My attempts at something different have provided only momentary relief, followed by frustration when the simple task of choosing dinner leaves us in our separate corners. I've started to think again about what I would do if I left my job, what the after might be if this job I have loved is becoming a weight I can't bear. To reconsider choices and wonder if its time to adjust our plans, but with no idea what the alternative might be.

And then we spent this weekend at the beach, just the two of us away from everyone. It wasn't the clean escape I had hoped; those irritable voices managed to find us there. But, it was a chance to find our rhythm again. Lying together watching an afternoon storm rage on the ocean, holding hands as we walked on a quiet beach at night, listening to live music in a smoky bar - none of it planned but simply unfolding. The next morning I took my coffee out on the beach and walked by myself there in the quiet, alone with nature. And in that moment of peace, my touchstone welled within me. All is well.

Its reassuring, this knowledge that my disquiet is superficial. That what resides deep within is happiness. I can't be done looking for the shift that will put things in place; I know that. Superficial disquiet can become something deeper if I don't respond to the message being sent. But, it helps to know I'm playing with the right pieces.

Live Life

I was standing in line at the grocery tonight, when I couldn't help but notice the unusual progress of a cart going by.  Two little ones were hanging on the back, 'pushing' with one foot while Mom tried to push from the side.   They were adorable and I laughed out loud at their sheer pleasure in the game.  To her credit, their Mom heard me and met my eyes with a twinkling laugh of her own, clearly more amused by the antics of her kids than aggravated by the snail's pace of their progress.  Not that there wasn't a touch of resignation in that look, mind you.

I've learned that too much attention to what kids are doing in public tends to embarrass parents, so I returned my attention to my line.  But a few moments later it was drawn back by calls of "and now we bow, and now we bow!"  And there was the little girl making exaggerated, careful bows - grinning when she saw I was smiling at her.  Her brother took a little prompting, but he joined in and soon they were both hamming it up for me.  

They were so free, their fun enhanced by the audience rather than inhibited.  It was a pleasure to watch them, and I find myself thinking about them alot tonight.

Planting

The days are longer again and, though I know it is an illusion, I feel I have so much more of that precious commodity, time.  The day still has a strong hold when I get home, and there are hours before night will slip in and take over.  Today I took some of that time to plant seeds.  Pole beans to feed us, sunflowers to feed the birds and wildflowers for the butterflies.  I wandered through and counted my green tomatoes.  Spotted the first of the caladiums peeking through.  Transplanted here, weeded there... puttered.  Today I'm not working in the garden, I'm just reveling in it.  Breathing deep and free.  Planting myself in the here and now.

To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves. Mohandas K Ghandi

Quiet in the Storm

The sky is a dark, angry purple, casting the living room in to gentle shadows.  Wind chimes ring out the news of the coming storm, above the gentle roar of the winds themselves whipping through the yard.  After weeks of busy-ness, I have nothing to do but sit on the couch with a cup of coffee and enjoy the quiet that is found in the midst of the storm.  Its a perfect day for hand quilting.

Multi-tasking

This has turned in to the week that will not end.  But, since it involves lots and lots of conference calls, my knitting is growing without my being aware of it.  Sabine's quilt, on the other hand, will only be done in time for her birthday if magic little elves come in the night to finish it.  Anyone have elves to lend out?

The Ordinary

I was in my office one night recently when I glanced up from the computer and over to my left. My thoughts were immediately pulled from the document I was drafting and captured by this scene. The bright blue of the sign from the bank across the street shining crisply in the dark of the almost-winter sky. The candle, a birthday gift from my assistant, glowing warmly on my side of the window. The african violet that thrives despite the hermetically sealed environment of an office. The piles and piles of paper from a job that gives me challenge, financial independence, and immense satisfaction.

Saturday Plans

Alex has to work today, so the alarm went off at the normal time and despite my protests my internal clock insisted it was time to get up.  And then the cat (who is supposed to live outside but understands the concept of the doggie door just fine) appeared at the top of the stairs and announced it was time to get up and put her breakfast out.  What's a girl to do but get up when met with such determination?  So now it is 8:30, I've had my coffee and Alex has left and won't be home for another 12 hours.  The entire day stretches before me, and I'm enjoying plotting how I'll spend it.   

First on my list is apparently a walk with the dog.  She doesn't usually get a morning walk, but she's already informed me that she will be getting one this morning.  (How is it that this creature always knows when I have a free day?)  And then, I plan to brave Ikea to look for curtains.  I find Ikea overwhelming and usually try to avoid it, but they have great curtains on-line and I haven't found curtains I like anywhere else.

But, before I can hang the curtains (should I find them), I'll be making my voice heard with a friend and hopefully several hundred of his friends.

Wet and Muddy

It was a dark and stormy night...

Some nights you can't get that infamous line out of your head. Just this morning, I was thinking it was worthy of a post to tell you there is not a storm out in the tropics trying to drown us. I apparently forgot just where it is we live. We do not need a tropical storm to get a thunderstorm big enough to turn our streets in to creeks.

All this rain has turned our parks in to mud, too. Sunday I decided that I just had to get out in to nature for a bit. Between the soggy weather and a cold-turned-sinus-infection it had been weeks since I'd done anything more than pull dead plants out of my garden. Gwen was my reluctant partner in the adventure.
As soon as we entered the park, she got suspicious. "Mom, that water looks alot closer to the footbridge than usual. Are you sure about this?"

And she was right. Our normally lazy little creek was more of a stream with a definitive current.

The path, naturally, was mud. She managed to ford it without too much fuss, though.

Eventually, she was simply resigned to her fate. After an hour of my insisting that we cross through mud patches, she gave up and accepted that she would be wet and muddy. Just look at her standing there in the mud! I might turn her in to a real dog one of these days after all.

I came home with mud splattered up to my knees, scratches on my hands and a grin on my face. I needed that adventure in the real world, and I'm so glad we went. It might just be enough to get me through another rainy week.