Effects

Rather than detailing your behavior, I shall instead list here the effects of your behavior and let you guess about the causes.

1. It is 7:30 and Mommy is on glass #2 of wine.

2. At 5:15pm you were in your highchair, facing toward the T.V. instead of the dinner table, eating cheesy noodles and watching a PBS cartoon show called Word Girl while Daddy and I mindlessly stuffed bad Chinese food into our faces.

3. At 5:30pm I gave you a fortune cookie. At 5:32 I realized that the fortune itself had disappeared. At 5:33 I realized I didn't care and actually had a vague hope that perhaps ingesting the fortune directly might permit a small bit of wisdom to enter your bloodstream.

4. This afternoon, I sat on the couch crying with the vacuum on beside me and my fingers plugging my ears to drown out the sound of you screeching.

5. Intermittently, I considered exactly how long you might last if I placed you snugly in a snow bank. Then I thought about jail and how much time I would have to read books in my cell.

6. I have spent the last twenty minutes googling things such as "sleep disturbance fifteen months," "night waking toddler," and "why won't my child fucking go to sleep." Varying levels of success.

7. I found washing lemon sauce and deep fried chicken bits off our dinner plates to be relaxing and luxurious.

8. I prayed for patience.

Cutlery

One of the oddest things about life with you is that some things that I never would have previously thought would be a battle are indeed a battle. Things such as: getting you to sit in a car seat or stroller, putting on your coat, changing your diaper, getting you out of the bathtub, peeling apples in the kitchen without you throwing a hissy fit. All of these things are, continuously, battles of epic proportions.

Conversely, things I would previously have thought might require training or coaxing or wrestling moves turn out to be pretty easy. Case in point: eating with cutlery.

One day, about two weeks ago, you simply decided that spoons and forks were the way to go. Now, if we put spoonable or forkable food on your highchair tray WITHOUT a bowl, fork and spoon to accompany said food item, you simply will not eat it. You are not, after all, a barbarian. You have a refined sense of class. That's why you like to scrape the wax off of candles with your teeth.

Nausea

It's been a week of nausea. Your lovely outbreak of sickness was followed by sickness for Grandma (Monday), Mama (Tuesday), and Dada (Wednesday). Luckily, all of us weren't sick at the same time. Thus, GM Ricki, GP Peter, and GD Xena were all able to come down on Wednesday (and GM again on Thursday) to offer some much needed help.

You have mostly been a clingy and whiny stinkbug. Today I had you in the morning. And we had no plans. And, though I love you, five hours without the respite of a nap when you only want to be held ALL THE TIME is kind of a recipe for Homicidal Mama. In order to defend against my growing homicidal tendencies, I brought you up to St. Olaf so that you could run around, see Daddy, pet the Christmas trees, get roasty (I mean, toasty) by the fire, etc. You refused to walk on your own. It's possible we were playing "polio epidemic" or "fun with landmines" and that's why you wanted me to carry you--but if so, you need to be clearer about the kind of imaginative outcomes you're hoping for.

Last night, however, you broke out a whole bunch of adorable. When we Skyped with GM Gail and GP Michael, you walked in front of the computer screen (and camera) and delivered--literally--a five minute lecture to them complete with finger shaking, head nods, and a flurry of hand waves. Behind you, Daddy and I were convulsing with laughter.

You have learned to blow kisses and, admittedly, that's pretty fucking cute.

Though the stomach bug has passed through our house, my nausea continues. There are many things up in the air right now, many decisions that will be made by others or by us in the upcoming weeks that could have some big effects on our lives. And yes, I'm being purposefully vague. The point is just that it is possible that you're being a miserable witch because I'm kind of a miserable witch right now too. "It seems like you have trouble living with ambiguity," said your father to your mother during their very first phone conversation. This made Mommy think that Daddy was an asshole and prompted a vow never to talk to him again. But it *may* be possible that he was a *tiny* bit right. I have trouble living with ambiguity and you have trouble with me when I'm having trouble with anything.

Oh well, I'm sure the single digit temps and impending snow storm will have us all in better moods in a jiffy.

At least I don't have trouble living with sarcasm.

Golden Delicious

Last night when you went to bed, you seemed quite well. You've had a runny nose since September and a nighttime cough for the last three weeks or so, but generally you seemed your regular perky self.

Until around 8:15 when Daddy went into your bedroom to give you some cough medicine and found you slithering around in your own vomit. All over your sleeper, in your hair, smeared across Doggie-Do and Mr. Meow, etc, etc. I lifted you up and you vomited on me. I gave you a bath while Daddy cleaned up your crib and I washed your hair and put you snugly into a new sleeper. You vomited again. On me and on the sleeper, of course. So I waited 15 minutes, rocked you a little, sang some sweet songs, changed you into another sleeper, rocked you to sleep in my arms, held you sleeping for fifteen minutes, laid you back down in your crib. And--

Yep, that's right, more vomiting. Well, by this time, more like dry heaving. But with bile. New sleeper, new crib sheets. This time I had Daddy put an old comforter on our bed and I took you in with me and snuggled you close, the smell of vomit still lingering in your hair, the unmistakable coating of vomit on your breath--and we slept--until you vomited again, and again. By 11pm the Great Expulsion of 2010 was complete and we both slept. Kind of.

Today, with the exception of two fairly lengthy naps (YAHOO!) all was back to normal. No fever, no cough, you being your usual sparkly self.

You have refused all forms of sustenance except apples. In this sense, you may share some bizarre gene with your godparents. Which is appropriate since today is the first anniversary of your baptism!

Sometimes we are baptized with water. Sometimes with fire. Sometimes with the Holy Spirit. And sometimes with straight up vomit. Amen! Alleluia! Let advent begin!

In Thanksgiving, Of Course

Yowsers. The last ten days or so have been quite the blur, Thiz. For reasons I can mention and for reasons I can't.

You are becoming this miraculous little creature. Your spoken vocabulary is murky but your known vocabulary is huge. You tend to speak a word once, usually randomly, and then refuse to ever speak the word again. Your one-night-stand vocabulary includes words such as kitty, juice, bubbles, ox, outside, shoe, car, truck, book, duck, other, cheese, water, etc. Do you use any of these words of your own volition? No. And why would you, when simply by making the "please" sign (rubbing your chest) and pointing at an object you are able to receive almost everything that you need?

Although singular words are of little interest to you, complete rhetorical arguments are of seeming necessity. You are profoundly interested in educating Xena, Ricki and Peter's dog, and during our visit this weekend, you delivered a variety of lectures. These lectures involve head bobbing, hand gestures, and clear shifts in the tone of your babble: instructional to angry to soothing and back to instructional. Your lecture usually ends with an attempt to pat Xena using both of your hands. So filled with energy is your tiny body that you look like you're banging air cymbals.

A few days ago, Daddy refused your clear request to accompany him on a walk with Luxy. Shortly after he departed I found one of his shoes in the toilet. I didn't put it there.

You received your first haircut this weekend (Grandma had to sit in the chair with you--and your hair still makes you look like a Dickensian street urchin). You also had your first dose of true Thanksgiving food.

Last weekend GM Dorothy and GP Mark drove hours and hours just to see you for a day. It was a lovely visit, filled with soup and books and frosted windows (and glasses).

I must admit, it's been too long since I've written and there's too much to say--too many details and nothing feels quite solid in my head right now.

Let me just say how thankful I am for you. How thankful I am for this particular moment in your life when you are so full of joy and curiosity and wonder. How lovely it is to sit with you for up to ten minutes looking at a single book or to watch you push all sorts of wheeled devices in endless circles. I am also thankful for what will be (I think) our last few nursing moments together. I switched back to full strength birth control and my already meager supply has, I think, completely dissipated. The last few mornings your attempts to nurse have been sweet but exceptionally short lived. It's odd that this part of our relationship--which a year ago seemed to be our ENTIRE relationship--is slipping away with so little fanfare. I will miss being with you in those liminal spaces, Thiz, between sleeping and waking, between darkness and dawn. We used to slide into each other a little bit then--but that time is over now. In part because of the nursing and in part because you are becoming a being entirely distinct from your father or myself. This is perhaps when we marvel at you most, when you do something that reminds us of no one else we know, when you are simply being you, a creature who is new to us and whom we love without bounds.

10:20pm

It is 10:20pm. Upstairs, you are coughing. A new cold, though your nose has been running continually since September. We keep a basket full of old, thin cloth diapers at the ready downstairs and swipe at your face whenever you come near.

My colleague died yesterday. He donated his eyes. Today was impossibly sad.

At ECFE you dipped the wheels of a red truck into red paint and then rolled the truck back and forth across a piece of plain white paper.

While you napped, Grandma cleaned our bathroom. She fed you kiwi and Amy's Macaroni and Cheese.

You are coughing still.

I called Michael about a cruise. He explained the difference between the first deck and the fifth.

My writing group came over and we drank wine. After they left, I put much of the uneaten food (snack mix, almonds, crackers) back into boxes.

You are still coughing.

Any time, really, could be the end. Death reminds us of this.

The next day we forget so that we can go on.

Cars and Trucks and Things That Go

Today is gray and chilly. The gray has been a long time coming and, I realized today, walking under the saggy sky, how lucky we have been this fall, not only in terms of temperatures, but in terms of sunlight too. Against the gray sky, the brown, bare branches look so much sadder and more sickly. Against blue sky they look dramatic, dark veins or a brilliant idea.

You did not help my mood today, Thiz. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of this week (i.e. the days when I am in charge), you have refused to nap in the morning. Today I sat, drinking some luke warm coffee, addressing submission envelopes with a hand going slowly shaky from frustration at the high pitched shrieking coming from your room. As though you had been battered and dipped in hot oil. That kind of sound. So finally I brought you downstairs and tried to address the envelopes anyway but you stood next to me, tugging at my thighs, wailing and bounching slightly to emphasize your frustration. Somehow, this was made all the worse my your outfit (my choice) which consisted of overalls and an orange acrylic sweater with geometric patterns in green and white. When Daddy got home he said you looked like an old woman with mom jeans. In times of extreme distress, your cuteness is the main thing you have going for you--and the fact that your cuteness was marred by an old-woman button-front sweater did not help your cause.

Today is rather out of the ordinary, though. I have spent the last week, in fact, talking about how much I love the way this age (14 months!) looks on you. You're generally happy. In the morning, you give Daddy and I each a kiss or hug before pointing toward the doorway of the bedroom and grunting. You love to read Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" and can identify such things as: unicycle, pig family, fire truck, ambulance, tank, Gold Bug, Flossy the Fox, dump truck, pickle truck, pumpkin car, and broom.

Yesterday, as I read "Curious George and the Dump Truck" (a book which you adore and I find to be only vaguely tolerable) I asked, "what sound does Curious George hear outside his window?" You very solemnly replied "qua, qua, qua." The ducks in your head are French, I guess.

You hate, more than anything in the world, to have to SIT DOWN in your car seat or stroller. Each day, we go through the Stages of Sitting: resistance, bargaining, distraction, force, submission, and acceptance. I hate, HATE physically forcing you into these seats, but if I didn't we would never go anywhere. Ever. You always look so sad and defeated once I do get the harness around you, a single tear glistening (Romance novel style) on the top of each cheek.

But mostly, mostly you are affectionate and curious and full of overwhelming excitement about everything. Here is a video (assuming it will load) of what happened when we put sunglasses on you and told you to dance.

To See Feelingly

It is lovely outside today. 62 degrees and sunny. Piles and piles of leaves still stiff enough for you to crunch through. Today you and Daddy and I walked around in the grass behind our house. It's not really our yard, more a wide open stretch of green that connects three different town home divisions. You pulled a flap of bark off a tree and chased a lady bug over the back of your hand. Across the yard, in a town home with big, low, windows, another one-year old girl pressed her face to the glass and waved at you. You toddled over (tripping once in a patch of slick, dry pine needles) and pressed your face to the other side of the glass and put your hand up to her face.

Rich, a colleague of mine at St. Olaf, has cancer. His liver is failing and on Friday he decided to enter home hospice care. This Friday also would have been his daughter's 21st birthday. She died years ago, before I moved to Northfield or met your father or had you. Rich's wife, Karen, also teaches in the English department. Last Tuesday she offered to hold you while I tried to scribble in ovals on my voting ballot. She is always dressed to the nines. Always asks how I am. Runs miles with a running group every weekend. She is Catholic. She believes then, theoretically, in God, though I have no idea what she believes right now. I don't know what I would believe if I lost a child and then had to face my husband entering hospice care.

I have been something of an insomniac as of late. I lie awake thinking about Rich and Karen or about cancer in my own bones. I wonder if I've locked the door and I try to decide what I will wear the next day. I hear you cough in your crib and imagine you've stopped breathing. And my rational side keeps my body from getting up to check, but my mind doesn't stop, continues to play out the scene, finding your blue body, calling 911, calling my mother, finding the insurance card. What else would I take to the hospital? What would the realization of your death feel like? What would it be to have my mind simply freeze? I go on and on like this, not sleeping, filled with worry. Then thinking about God keeping track of the sparrows and the lilies being clothed and all that shit. Then I lie on my back and try to take deep breaths. I imagine the color lavender filling up my body. Then I remember that my cell phone probably needs to be charged.

Daddy and I watched King Lear last night. The version with Ian McKellen. Sir Ian was talking about the play, about the character of Lear in an interview after the movie. The play doesn't have a back story, he said, so I had to invent some things about King Lear. I decided that he'd been married twice. The first marriage produced Regan and Gonneril and ended--I don't know exactly--in divorce or the wife getting run over by a carriage, something like that. The second marriage was the love of his life. But that wife died giving birth to Cordelia. And so Lear raised Cordelia on his own. This is why they are so very close.

Then he talked about Lear's relationship to the gods. This extreme devotion to them at the beginning, the way he calls on them to curse his daughters, and the progression, throughout the play, to a kind of unbelief. A reliance instead on human relationships--friendship, love, filial connection (not obligation) to understand the truth of human existence.

I hadn't noticed this shift before, somehow, though I've now read the play a dozen times. I realize, though, that this is perhaps what makes it so devastatingly sad to me. That truth and love are knit up with unbelief, that human and divine are never reconciled, that they spiral away from each other and we are left only with what mortals can offer--jealousy and resentment and greed and deeply flawed offerings of love.

Writing well, acting well, can be a powerful practice in empathy. I have been trying to think about what it means to be Rich right now, what it means to be Karen. To really enter their fear and grief and pain. And I can't. They are, of course, not characters to be inhabited, but still I want to understand, want to know so I can share this walk in some small way. But I feel wooden, feel like if I let myself really imagine that, I would crumble. You are still so new. Your absence would be an abyss that I don't know that I could recover from.

Maybe this is why I practice death and disaster in my head every night. And why I want to remember today and every day. Your small finger pointing to the pickle car in "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," my cheek pressed to your temple so that I can smell, slightly, the banana and egg you had for lunch. The accumulation of detail as a defense against death. Or so you can remember me when I go.

Om

I went away from you this last weekend, Thiz. I went all the way to Iowa and stared at balding trees in a valley low and sweet. Grandma Ricki and I got into the car with our clothes and our books and our computers and our coffee, directions scrawled onto the back side of an envelope and winter coats thrown on the back seat just in case. We drove through fields still green and fields with the corn shorn down to stiff, pencil-sized stubs. We drove a road that told us to slow down to 45 and then 30 when we passed through a town, we drove on a road mostly dark and sound and straight. We spent the night in the Country Inn. There was a fake fire in the lobby and a cookie jar with cookies crisp enough to leave a Hansel and Gretel trail on our shirtfronts. I spread out like a starfish in my very own hotel bed. We talked to other writers and drank wine and sat facing a stage, our bags leaning against our legs.

At home, I am told, you did absolutely entirely just fine. You fed Daddy Cheerios in bed at 6:30am and went trick-or-treating through the dorms in your dragon costume; you visited Carsten and slept and woke and slept again. You sat in your father's lap and read Curious George and the Dump Truck and you nibbled on crayons and then spit the waxy bits onto the collar of your shirt. You ran your peanut butter fingers through your hair and chased bubbles in the tub. And when I got home, you did not look at me with surprise or relief or joy. It was just me again.

And I have to be honest here and say that although I thought about you all the time, I didn't miss you in the way I thought I would. I was both ready to come home and ready to stay longer.

On Sunday afternoon, Grandma Ricki and I took you on a walk through the grasslands. The grass stands twice as high as you, brown or golden depending on the weight of the sun. You were wrapped in a pink winter coat, hat and tennis shoes and mittens. I caught a grasshopper and held it out to you on the finger of my black glove. It hopped away and I retrieved it again. Then we walked a while longer. It was a little bit hard, I admit, to suddenly be back in this life, the one with the baby and the husband, the one with burnt out light bulbs and grilled cheese for dinner and my black boots still in my open suitcase, unpacked.

I had ideas, there in Iowa, that already I've forgotten.

You learned to say "come" while I was away. "Om, om, om." And though I know this mostly has to do with Luxy, I like to think you learned the word you needed to say to bring me back to you again.

Zoo

We dressed you in your leopard print romper and then sent you out to greet the animals.

You ran, we estimate, at least a mile. We don't have to do the slow, barely-moving-while-our-one-year-old-dawdles walk with you because you are incapable of walking at a regular pace.

We got to see some bear training and I'm considering adopting the protocol for home use. Basically, the zoo keeper holds up a big shape (circle or star or square) and the appropriate bear then comes forward, noses at a mesh gate or sits on his haunches below a faux cliff, and is fed. It seems so simple. And the bears clear up all their scraps. They also bathe themselves and spend a LOT of time napping. HINT HINT.

Hi! Wow! Hot!

Rainy this morning after an incredibly long spate of beautiful fall weather. Now the leaves are turning to mushy brown mulch in the gutters and the smell of their last hurrah is everywhere.

You were lovely this morning. You brought me both your Thomas trains and I sent them careening over the carpet. You brought them back over and over, hurling them quite ungracefully into my lap. You have figured out how to throw now, though not with any accuracy. Your bottom left tooth (beside the two middle ones) is quite visible and your upper left is just beginning to sprout, just a thin sliver of white.

You rub your hand across your chest when we ask you to say "please" and you say "buh" for "book" and "eee" for "eat." Your three favorite words remain "hi," "wow," and "hot." This is appropriate, I think, since you are a child of exclamations not sedentary nouns. In bed this morning we practiced putting my gold barrettes into your hair and Daddy's hair and my hair. When I asked you to give Daddy a kiss, you leaned forward and pressed your soft sweet cheek against his.

It's been a busy week. We spent a few days at Grandma and Grandpa's house so Daddy and I could go away for an evening. You woke up at 5:30am on the morning we were away, but other than that, your behavior was fairly normal. Daddy and I went to Brit's Pub and played pool and darts and then drank martinis back at our motel (well, I drank a martini, Daddy wisely stuck with beer). The next morning we walked to Barnes and Noble and (because the espresso machine was broken in the cafe) had to read our books and magazines while sitting on a cold heating vent by the window that faces Nicollet Avenue. I was reading about WWII Russia so the cold seemed somehow appropriate--and my latte (scored from Panera) seemed ridiculously luxurious.

Yesterday we spent a lovely morning and afternoon with Carlo and Anjuli. You sensed immediately that Anjuli was a safe, loving, and malleable adult and so you spent most of the day bringing her truck books and waving them at her so she would read to you. Carlo was exceptionally sweet, wiping your ever-snotty nose and patiently withstanding your shoe and dog attacks while he tried to sleep. It was lovely to see you interacting with both of them and it made me sad to think about how rarely you will get to do so.

The mood in our house is a little tense these days. Your father has sent out lots of applications to various jobs--so we're now holding our breath and crossing our fingers. Your father feels the stress the most, I know. He wants to make a lovely life for you and me, Thiz, and feels like this is his responsibility (though it isn't) and so the stress of being continually untenured and untethered wears him down. The uncertainty is stressful for me for different reasons. Unlike your father, for me half of the excitement of any new experience is anticipating it. Reality is never perfect, but anticipation can be. But right now none of the jobs, none of the predictable outcomes are exciting to me. Moving to California or remaining jobless in Minnesota are both less than lovely outcomes in my book. So I'm praying for the ability to remain open to possibility, to take each day as it comes, to recognize that I might not know what is best for us, and for the energy and optimism to make the best of whatever happens. Something I definitely suck at.

Last night on T.V. we saw a preview for a movie called Unstoppable. "It's a biopic of the life of Thisbe Agnes Jothen," said your father. And I agreed. Full steam ahead.

Here Be Dragons

The title of this post refers, of course, to the areas on ancient maps that were unexplored, unknown, unremarked upon territory. The places where the mapmaker would stitch a serpent or dragon into the smooth surface of the sea.

It also refers to your Halloween costume. Since there may be more than one Halloween costume, since it might be too balmy on Halloween to dress you in the costume, since we are often looking for ways to amuse ourselves--we stuffed you into the costume a few days ago and made you run around the house while we laughed. The video should give you a clear sense of what that looked like. (OK, the video won't upload--here's a picture instead. Check back for the video later.)

The What You Do Now update consists of the following:
1. "Wow," you say, all the time "wow, wow, wow."
2. The fake cry. Ah yes, the wrinkling of the nose, the squinting of the eyes, the screechey whine. We're so thrilled.
3. Pure and shiny love of your father. He's a rock star and you're the groupie. I walked in the door after work today and you smiled at me. Then smiled again, more coyly, and hugged Dada's knee. "He's mine," your smile said.
4. The whine and point. This gesture is repeated, sometimes blindly, until Mama picks you up or gives you something that at least vaguely interests you.
5. Given a phone or cell phone, you immediately hold it to your ear. "Hi," you say, "hi?"
6. Eating fiend. Yesterday for dinner: banana, half an avocado, a mashed potato, an adult serving of broccoli, and a bunch of pot roast for good measure.
7. All things truck or vehicle related. Your love of "The Happy Man and His Dump Truck" has almost been surpassed by your love of "The Little Red Caboose."
8. You can run.
9. Two naps today but sometimes only one. Often only one 45 minute nap per day. But by 6:30 or 7:00pm you are done, totally finished, fried, wiped out, a manic mess.
10. You hair is growing thicker and darker at the base of your neck. The fine blond hairs on the top of your head cover your forehead and almost touch your eyes. Their are wing-like tufts of hair over your ears.

A few nights ago, watching you climb the stairs, I got that clutch in my throat. It never happens when its supposed to--i.e. birthdays, holidays, and other theoretically moving moments. Nostalgia and ethical epiphanies are reserved for the mundane times when you're least prepared to care. ANYWAY--you were climbing the stairs and I was thinking about the you we knew a year ago. This blob, this beast, this darling fragile thing. I was thinking about how I couldn't then possibly imagine this creature that you are now, nor can I imagine the creature you will be a year (two, three, ten) from today. And it's supposed to be a normal thing. It's growing up. It's what happens to the living things you push out of your vagina. Duh.

But what if someone else I loved (your father--or my mother my father or Anjuli or Martha or John or Dorothy or Peter or Rach or, or, or), what if one of these people changed that dramatically over the course of a single year? Seriously. What if you father picked up French, reinterpreted his understanding of himself, reestablished how he would relate to each person in his life, taught himself to surf, and unearthed an entirely new philosophy on permanence and impermanence in the course of a single year??? Would I still love him? Yes, of course. Would I be exhausted by trying to keep up with each new development, by attempting to understand his new vision of himself, by coping with the frustrations and disappointments that so much new knowledge inevitably brings? Hell yes.

So yes, it's a big deal this whole growing up thing. Staying in tune with anyone going through this amount of change would be difficult--staying in tune with someone who can't talk is really fucking difficult.

Thanks goodness for humor and grace. Thank goodness that this week you decided to poop in the bathtub on Daddy's watch instead of mine. Thank goodness for grandparents who will pitch in so Daddy and Mommy can go away together for a night. Thank goodness that watching you take shape is also awe-inspiring and beautiful and nothing short of miraculous.

You are a map and here be dragons. Here and here and here. I am so glad. No one likes a map with all the countries drawn just right. Where is there to go?

Walking

The temperature is supposed to top out in the low-80's today. Our morning walk was beautiful. You babbled happily for almost 40 minutes. I love hearing your voice ebb and flow over my shoulder, cooing and whispering directly into my ear. I asked you to point at things occasionally and you did--tree, car, house, Luxy. You don't have much range of motion from the backpack, however, so you mostly look like you're doing a little "Heil Hilter" salute--or that's what it looks like from the corner of my eye.

We stopped to listen to the wind in the trees. Because it's autumn and the leaves are drier, the trees are suddenly louder and more brittle in their rustling. "Listen," I said, "it's the sound of the wind." But it's not, really. The wind doesn't have a sound of its own; on the other hand, the leaves don't make noise without the wind. So were we listening to the wind or the leaves? And seriously, could I be any more Zen right now?

Anyway, after the wind we checked out some milkweed pods. A group of elder bugs was clinging to a closed pod, all of their little insect arms working the crease, trying to get in. A few of the pods were open so I let you wiggle your fingers into the gossamer fluff.

A half mile behind us, a train was making its way through town so we stopped to listen to the whistle.

I let you pull a red leaf from an oak tree. You dropped it just as quickly.

Then we were home. I read nursery rhymes to you--one about having a sailor for a daddy and another about not beating your donkey but feeding him corn instead. You were still wearing your somewhat atrocious pajamas (lavender, Pooh, white fur collar) when I put you down for your nap.

Now it's an hour and twenty minutes later and I'm not sure what to do--you never sleep for this long. I suppose I will pour coffee from the cold silver percolator and warm it in the microwave. While it's warming I'll move the laundry to the drier and then I'll take my mug, add cream and sugar, settle into the couch, and I will proceed to read exactly two sentences before you--

--wait, I think I hear you now. Scratch the coffee.

Nevertheless: it's a beautiful day. I love you.

Chillaxing

It's been a lovely weekend, Thiz. The first that we've spent entirely in Northfield in what seems like a long, long time. Yesterday was Homecoming at St. Olaf. We went for a long family walk in the morning. Blue skies, crisp and sunny. All the grasses brown and dry, all the trees on fire. Wind making tiny tears at the corners of our eyes. Luxy panting. You riding on Daddy's back in the backpack, white knit cap and a too-large alpaca coat. The sleeves covered your hands so all your gestures looked large and prophetic.

When we got home I put a chicken carcass in a pot with onions and carrots and parsley and salt, covered it with water and set it to simmer. Your father peeled apples from Grandpa Judy's farm and made a crisp (Betty Crocker, the cookbook with the melted cover). You napped.

When you woke we put you back into your pack and hiked over to the football field. Silver bleachers filled and more students and alumni standing on the track around the field. Black and gold sweatshirts, the smell of popcorn and hot dogs. It was half time. Four people standing nervously and coldly in the middle of the green while a disembodied voice inducted them into the Olaf Athletic Hall of Fame. We talked to Sarah and Steve and Anna; we braved the bookstore and bought you a huge black knit hat with a gold lion emblazoned on the hem; we ate cookies and drank cider and walked back home.

Greg and Carsten came over for dinner: chicken soup and dark stout and canned pineapple. You couldn't focus on eating because you were so intent on Carsten. You followed his every move.

You went to sleep just fine but woke up twice because of teething pain (we think).

Today Daddy sang "Lord of All Hopefulness" in church. You wore a velvet lavender dress, tights, and (because we have no dress shoes for you) your brown sneakers. When I picked you up from the nursery I braced myself for the nursery workers' usual thinly-veiled critiques of your behavior. "She certainly has attitude!" or "Well, she's certainly something all right!" or "She was a little needy but played fairly well for some of the time." Today there were new nursery workers, clearly highly intelligent and far more emotionally sensitive than the previous nursery workers. "She was so terrific," they raved, "she just did so well!" and "We were just talking about how if we ever have kids we want to have daughters just like Thisbe" and "We don't know what you guys are doing, but it sure is working wonders, she's such a great kid." For a while I wondered if I was inserting my own script into their mouths or if perhaps Peder had paid them off. But they seemed sincere.

The afternoon was filled with more mundane things--you peeled off the skin of a yellow onion and then proudly threw a piece of dog poop at me in the park. Then I hid bites of pancake in your wooden mailbox and we looked at a very PC book about babies from around the world. Rwanda baby! Thailand baby! Bhutan baby!

Tonight we'll have frozen pizza. Mommy will go to a book group to discuss "Little Heathens," a book she has yet to read. Daddy will stay home and watch baseball or "Mad Men" or both.

It was nice to just be together as a family this weekend. Sometimes I'm so intent at protecting my "own" time that Daddy and I end up passing you back and forth. Oftentimes the time we all spend together is harried time, exhausted time. We forget to relax together, to putter around together, to read together, to stop worrying about the next thing and who will accomplish it. It was a blessing just to be. Amen.

Keeping Score

Lots of sunniness and brilliant blue sky action this week. The flood waters are abating. Runny noses are drying up. Homecoming is on the horizon.

I spent the first few days of the week just feeling incredibly blessed. You finally emerged from this cocoon of not-yourself-ness into this vivid, drooling, hugging butterfly. You were smiling like crazy and so BUSY. As you putter around the house you truly look like you have your own agenda in your head, something like:

"Open mailbox door. Put plastic peacock figurine inside. Close door. Turn around. Walk to books. Pick up book. Carry book to ottoman. Bang book on ottoman. Toss book aside. Pick up black measuring cup. Taste. Wave around. Bring measuring cup to mailbox. Open door. Close door. Open other door. Retrieve peacock. Drop measuring cup. Abandon both. Peruse cookbooks. Pull largest one from shelf. Consider recipes. Notice wicker basket. Explore contents of wicker basket. Discover plastic bag. Taste. Grind plastic bag between teeth. Hold plastic bag between teeth while noticing pile of folded laundry. Topple laundry. Choose lavender pants. Position lavender pants on head while still experiencing plastic bag between teeth. Notice water cup on table. Point to cup and whine at Mama. ETC, ETC, ETC"

Somewhere in the midst of all of this, you'll wander over to Daddy or I and hug whatever part of us is accessible. All while smiling or babbling. You say "ot" for "hot" and "ar" for "car." You still don't say "Mama" or "Dada." Mostly you rely on pointing or bringing to us an item that represents your next activity choice (i.e. your shoes if you want to go outside, a book if you want to read, Luxy's Chuck-It if you want to throw the ball with her). You stand by your chair if you're hungry. You point to the kitchen counter if you want a banana.

You eat like a horse. Noodles of any kind are still the running favorite. You have also developed a lovely new tendency which is to run your fingers through your hair repeatedly during mealtimes. The results, while amusing, require immediate attention (i.e. a thorough shampoo) so we have taken to making you wear a winter hat while you eat.

My thoughts are not in order this week. This post clearly lacks a theme or narrative thread. What I wanted to say, I guess, is just that while the week began blissfully, it has ended not so blissfully. Rejection slips in the mail, nap protests, early wake-ups, a childcare opportunity falling through, a messy house, and the never-endingness of it all seeming never-ending rather than simply like the rewards and trials of a life well lived.

You woke at 6am this morning. I nursed you and tried to put you back down. You were having none of it. I told your father to get up with you. He was having none of it. "That doesn't seem fair to me," he mumbled. And later: "why is it that you're always the one telling me what to do?" Finally he took you downstairs. But I couldn't sleep. I lay in the dark, adding up the number of hours that each of us spends with you every week. I turned on a light and scratched my calculations on the back of an envelope.

I know in a marriage you're not supposed to keep score. But sometimes I think the person who made up that rule was a man; he knew that if the scores ever did get added up it would be clear who was getting the short end of the stick.

I'm torn between knowing, deep in my heart, that things even out eventually, that my husband is doing his best, that this kind of intensity won't go on forever--and feeling like if I don't stand up for myself no one will, that it would be easy to get whittled down to nothing, and that the rejection slips will continue to pile up unless I fight, even with the person I love the most, for time with the blank page.

Reunion

A dreary Saturday. All of us still a bit under the weather and the weather under and beneath and around all of us. In Northfield the banks of the Cannon River haven't held. The water has overflowed, crept into basements and fields, over the riverside sidewalks and the parks at the river's edge. E-mails for emergency sandbagging attempts. The radio station shut down after Excel Energy cut off their power. I took you downtown yesterday morning and by the time we headed for home all the downtown streets across the river had been closed. I brought you down to the edge and we watched the water. Dark and fast, foam cutting slivers of briny white into the churning fabric. Fast and with purpose, a different kind of river. The wind whipping around us, raising the fine blond hairs around your face.

Before watching the river we sat on a couch at Blue Monday. I fed you bits of blueberry scone and we listened to a man from Greece talk about following his dream to build Nascar auto parts. His one-year-old had open heart surgery. She was an unplanned pregnancy but in Greece, "we don't terminate" he explained. "I mean, you know, the babies." He showed pictures of his family on his cell phone.

Then we watched the river. And then we drove home. And then we drove to Minneapolis. You ate mountains of macaroni and cheese for dinner. I tried on different shirts and said things like "does this one make me look too dull?" "does this one make me look like I'm trying too hard?" "does this one suggest a more zesty personality?" "does this one suggest too much boob?" Ricki and Peter played along. Your father sat in the armchair in the sun room, reading a paper and rolling his eyes.

Then we left you and went uptown and ate a grand amount of delicious Thai food. Daddy had a beer and I had a pomegranate martini that smelled exactly like the cough syrup we've been squirting into the back of your throat for the last three days.

And then we went to my ten year college reunion. And what a homogeneous bunch the class of 2000 truly is. White and upper middle class. And I was so torn, Thiz, between wanting to look like I belonged and desperately wanting to look markedly different. Which sadly means that maybe my 31-year-old self is not so different than my 21-year-old self.

Or maybe I'm not being fair. One classmate lost a leg to the Light Rail. Steffan lost the use of his left arm to a stroke. He put down the beer in his right hand to give me a hug. Nikki used to design sets but is now training to become a landscape architect. Nick was almost unrecognizable; he's lost so much weight that a sharper, far more distinct face has emerged. In the center of the room were huge plates with thousands of pieces of cubed cheese. The side of the room with the bar on it was considerably more crowded than the side with tables.

I cried a little in the car on the way home. Mostly grief for everything that I thought I was going to accomplish by now--and haven't. And maybe won't ever accomplish. They give awards and a full page spread in our college magazine for the man and woman who have accomplished the most in these last ten years. I won't lie, of course I wanted to be that woman, I wanted a glossy photo of my face framed by a white collar, not a single slick hair out of place. But I know the man who won the award--he is teaching physics at Oxford. He has a beautiful wife. And he was drunk beyond belief. The kind of drunk you get when something crucial is missing. I know because I was that way at the five year reunion.

Which isn't to say I wasn't drunk this year. But it was a different kind of drunk. A ten year reunion is really just an excuse to grieve a little for the person you didn't become.

But there is nothing missing from my life. Sometimes I don't get around to everything that's important. Sometimes things are out of balance. But there are no dangerous and dark absences, the kind that can pull you into affairs or suicide or Kool-Aid cults.

And I have you and Daddy to thank for that, Thiz. You fill up my life with presence--the true, difficult, maddening, vulnerable, hilarious kind of presence. I haven't accomplished what I thought I would, but---well, that just means the write-up for the 25-year reunion will be that much more fantastic.

The Good Kind of Breaking

So as of 2:30 this afternoon, dear Thiz, you had no fever. No fever without the assistance of Ibuprofen or Tylenol. Your father wept. I felt like my body melted into the floor in relief. These are not exaggerations. We went for a walk altogether in the late afternoon September sunshine and the world was glowing.

Now, back home, we're feeding you bits of banana. We're letting you watch the Vikings and dial random numbers into the phone. You look a little like a burn victim now that the rash has spread to your face, but you're personality is back, somewhere behind the blotchy red and the slime-trails of snot. The Thiz is back. We're so glad to see you again.

Fever, Day Six

Still holding steady at 102.2. The rash is in full bloom on your chest and back and neck. Our sheets are spotted with spilled breast milk and Ibuprofen liquid drops and snot and urine (you like to pee when we take your temp.) Your eyes look bleary and you've got snot crusted around your nostrils. You're wearing your pink pajamas with the panda faces on the toes. While I read "The Happy Man and His Dump Truck" or "Thank You, God!" you tug absentmindedly at the panda ears or at a tuft of hair above your left ear. You don't have much interest in your choo-choo or your mailbox or your dump truck. Sometimes I can seduce you with my wallet and its dozen plastic laminated cards. But this morning you just wanted to read or to lay on the floor with Mr. Meow. I keep hoping this is the kind of exhaustion that comes with getting better. I am tired of this worry. Tired of pressing my lips to your forehead a thousand times a day. Tired of making sure I know at every moment where the Ibuprofen and thermometer are located.

Fever, Day Five

So today the doctor put a catheter in you and said, once it was in, that then your crying helped, it made the process faster. Daddy and I stood near your head. I held your face so close I could smell my own breath.

While we waited for results Daddy read a magazine with NFL on the front and you slid the face of the fireman upward to reveal the firetruck.

Your smooth bare legs are almost exactly the length of my thighs. Your toenails are small and jagged. The doctors still don't know what's wrong.

Probably a virus. But also if it gets worse we should take you directly to Children's Hospital in Minneapolis where they specialize in taking blood from the veins of babies who are toeing the death-line.

Last night we rearranged the furniture. Luxy now sleeps below a shelf of plants, giving her the appearance of a jungle animal. Then we ate spicy nacho Doritos and watched "The Young Victoria." When Prince Albert died, Victoria continued to lay his clothes out every morning. For the rest of her life, for 43 years, she did this. It makes me sad to think of all those empty shirts waiting for a body to fill them.

This morning, after we gave you Ibuprofen, you had a bit of your usual spunk back--wrinkling your nose and smiling, swirling your fingers through Luxy's water dish, attempting transport the word "hot" from the back of your brain to the outskirts of your lips. And I realized as I watched you do these things how much I've missed you this last week. I keep remembering your infant days, back when you were just a small, sweet body, back before we really knew you. Sickness brings forth these same sweet infant tendencies--nursing round the clock, falling asleep in our arms, burrowing into our necks--but now we also feel the absence of you--your sass, your spunk, your curiosity, your constant motion. Each day you arrive more fully within yourself, and with each day your absence becomes that much more unthinkable. Be well soon, darling girl.

Myth

Pouring down rain and the thunder rumbling. You, a feverish sweat-mess, sitting on my lap in the rocking chair, rubbing your nose back and forth against my T-shirt, finally falling asleep, your little furnace body pressed against my heart.

A masking tape tag with your name in black block letters on the back of flowery corduroy overalls. The woman at ECFE telling me to put my coffee on the shelf in order to respect the safety of the children. As if she knew that only an hour earlier you'd pulled Daddy's mug of hot coffee onto yourself. Your small foot below the bathroom faucet. The coffee-drenched toe of your sleeper now soaking in an ice cream bucket filled with water and Oxy-Clean. Still, I wanted to punch the ECFE woman in the face.

Poems about Leda. The rain comes and I write notes to myself for discussion tomorrow: "What words does Graves use to mean rape?" "What kind of person is Zeus in the poem?" "How is the poet reinventing the power dynamic of the original myth?"

Your father is singing in church. Joining his voice to other voices while the rain comes down.

When you are sick the power dynamic shifts. I know how much you need me. I remember that it is possible to lose you. Your body is hungry for my body in a way it hasn't been since you were small. It may be selfishness more than selflessness that makes me pull you close and rock you until your limbs grow heavy and you sleep.

When I Walked Out of the Kitchen

Today Grandma Gail and Grandpa Michael and Great Grandma Judy will arrive for a weekend visit. Of course we are very excited. And of course having guests always takes a certain amount of preparation: grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry and the like. And of course Daddy and I often wait until the last possible moment to do a number of these things. In part because we are procrastinators and in part because most cleaning is undone by you within a matter of hours and sometimes minutes.

So today, when Daddy headed off for his first day of classes, I knew it was going to be a busy first day on the home front too. I, however, was determined to meet my lengthy to do list with energy and grace.

To that end, you and I left the house at 7:15am, you in your fuzzy pink pajamas, brown tennis shoes and winter cap and me in running garb. I had you in the stroller, I had Luxy on a leash, I had a plentiful supply of Cheerios and plastic bags. And we were off! Cool crisp autumn air, early morning sunlight, your bobbing, capped head in front of me...and a small boxer-pug mauling Luxy. What could be better? I didn't let Luxy off the leash for fear of Luxy killing the other dog; I did try to maneuver away from you while also not letting myself get trapped between the warring canines. You looked on without much concern, rolling backward slowly but surely. Stroller brake be damned.

Anyway, the owner finally approached and we were off again, Luxy's ears folded to her head, Mommy's heart pounding, and you looking highly unperturbed.

We had some oatmeal and mashed banana and then I got you dressed. Notice how I waited to dress you until after breakfast? I'm sly like that.

At 9am you looked tired so I put you down for a nap. You cried for half an hour so I got you up from your nap. I brought you downstairs and began looking for your shoes so we could run some errands. Then I heard you laughing a little maniacally. I stepped out of the kitchen and realized I couldn't see you. The laughter continued. I finally realized you were sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting for me to become aware of my POOR parenting skills.

We ran our errands and returned home. I went into the kitchen to prepare your lunch. I walked out to find you gleefully holding my empty coffee mug. The rest of the coffee was on your darling outfit and the floor and the leather ottoman. More bonus parenting points for me.

You ate lunch in your coffee stained, garden-themed overalls. I took the clothes off you so I could redress you for lunch. Then I changed your diaper. And I discovered a horrible, terrible diaper rash. At 9am your butt-skin was perfect. At noon you had blisters on both cheeks. The best treatment for diaper rash is a little air-dry time. So I decided to let you play naked for 5 minutes while I did a few dishes. Then I would diaper you and dress you and put you down for your nap.

Except that when I walked out of the kitchen after washing TWO BOWLS you were standing next to Luxy's kennel holding a handful of your own excrement. There was a little on your belly and another dollop on the door of the kennel. The rug featured poop footprints. I thought briefly of that cheezy poem about Jesus and the beach and the carrying. And then I swore. And then I laughed. And then I spent the next 15 minutes picking up globs of poop from the rug and squeezing bits of poop from your fist and then bathing your tiny naked self in the bathroom sink.

Finally, FINALLY I got you clean and diapered and dressed and down for your nap. And then Daddy walked in the door. And then I realized it was only 12:30pm and that it was going to be a very long day.

Toddler Bath

Ever since you began to walk, you have refused to sit down in the bathtub. You totter resolutely from one end to the other, a jar lid or medicine dropper or travel-size bottle of shampoo held in each fist. Small butt. Round belly. Aghast at the thought of sitting.

So I decided to start bathing with you again, something I haven't done since you were small. I thought of doing so a few nights ago when I had an entire half hour long phone conversation with my friend Miriam while she was in the tub with her 18-month-old daughter, Ursula. So now I fill the water a little higher and make the temperature a little warmer. I try not to think about the hunched curve of my spine or the swells of belly fat at my waist. I lean my back into the faucet so you won't hit it with your head. Tonight I added bubbles. You were baffled. I could feel your muscles relax when some of the bubbles cleared a bit and you could see your toes in the water below. You quickly forgot about the bubbles and focused on a Dasani water bottle instead. You sat facing me, your legs pressed against my thighs, and practiced putting the blue cap on the water bottle, over and over again.

Sometimes I know, when a moment is happening, that I will long to return to it when you are grown. Like tonight. The warmth, your slick skin and dark lashes, the barely noticeable echo of our voices, the sound of Daddy finishing the dinner dishes downstairs, Luxy nosing the door open from time to time to peer in on us, the bubbles silently dispersing (a soft fizzing sound I can actually hear when alone in the tub), and your absolute focus on a small blue lid and the place you know it belongs.

Backward

Really, Thiz, as if walking FORWARD wasn't enough!!! Geez. Soon we will train you to ride small lions with crimson flowers braided into their manes or we will teach you to blow singing bubbles out of a kazoo the size of your arm. Then we will sell you to the circus and retire. Or maybe we will bottle your energy and intensity and sell it to a rural village in Transylvania. And then retire.

Or maybe we will wax poetic about this new development--how lovely it is to watch you move into the unknown and unseen, into all that empty space, without fear or hesitation. Your faith in the universe is infinite. We are taking notes. We are still hoping to retire.

Then Comes Marriage

Oh, what a weekend! So much, so much, so much--best captured in list form:

1. You turned one. We put a candle in a cupcake and sang to you. I put frosting on my fingertip and shoved it into your mouth. I thought you would be pleased. You were disturbed.

2. John and Anna got married! Anna wore a lovely dress with an ivory sash around her waist. John walked around in his fancy suit, lime green tie, matching handkerchief--and a bottle of Gatorade in his hand. They were both dear and beautiful and sincere. Supposedly, babies don't remember anything that happens before the age of two, but I wish you could keep this wedding tucked into your memory, Thiz. There were a lot of tears; there were Subway sandwiches in the church social hall; there were carafes of wine and sparkling glasses on a green, green lawn beside a lake; there was orzo and salmon and kale; there were truffles that undid themselves inside your mouth. I slow danced with you next to the band. The saxophone player held the horn out to you and you retreated into my shoulder. After you went to bed, Daddy and I drank too much and slow danced close together and stood outside and let the stars fall down around us.

3. You have been tough. Shy. Needy. Pale with a glowing red nose. On the way to the wedding, I knelt on the front seat, back to the windshield, and poured a tiny white pellet of camomilla into the cap of a tiny homeopathic bottle. I fed you the pellet, hoped it would calm you, said a little prayer.

4. You and I wore dresses that felt a little like crepe paper.

5. You received: a birthday bear from Margaret, a jacket and doll from Becca, a CD from auntie Martha, books and a darling outfit from Anjuli, a book and pail from Trevor and Angie, and crabs from John and Anna. Crabs donated in your honor to a rural village in India. Later, you will understand why this is funny.

Happy Birthday!

Your birthday has arrived and with it the cold. It's blustery this morning, drizzly and gray. You woke at 5:45, ready to celebrate.

All the cliches are true--it's impossible to believe you've already been around a full year (i.e. how time flies!) and impossible to believe you've ONLY been around for one year (did life exist before Thisbe?).

Soon I'll dress you in a fuscia onesie and flowered overalls. We'll pack you into the car along with a cooler full of hard boiled eggs, three bushels of apples, a beanbag toss game, diaper bag, suitcases, and a slick garment bag filled with fancy clothes. We'll drive to Luthercrest Bible camp in Alexandria, we'll unfold ourselves from the car, and we'll hug your Uncle John and Aunt Anna, who will be married tomorrow. Tonight we'll put a candle in a cupcake and sing to you and think about 7:45pm last year, the moment you emerged into this lit, breezy, Kodachrome world.

It's only now, one year later, that I can see how remarkably our worlds (mine and Daddy's) changed along with yours. The world we live in now is full of a kind of gravity and richness we didn't possess before we met you, Thiz. All the big words (love, grief, suffering, faith)--they mean something new and different to us now.

Tomorrow at John and Anna's wedding, I will read these words:

"You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands."

May your life, dear one, be filled with joy and peace; may you be given ample time to burst into song and clap your hands; may you explore wildly (yet carefully) the mountains and hills and fields; may you be given moments that deepen, enrich, and re-start your life the way that the moment of your birth (and the moments that followed) have deepened, enriched, and re-started ours. We love you so.

Only Glee

With all the stress (good and bad) that is quickly approaching AND to celebrate the end of summer AND to remember how supremely awesome so many A.T.* moments truly are--here is a series of images devoted entirely to glee.

*After Thisbe

Cannon Falls to Red Wing to Republicans

We biked over 40 miles this last weekend, Thiz. You rode in the Burley (a trailer that attached to a bike) and we pedaled and groaned about the soreness seeping into our rears. At the half-way point (Welch Village) there was a snack stand, some restrooms, and (of COURSE) an 82 -year-old man dressed in leiderhosen playing the accordian. After playing Edelweiss, the man was also up for talking about the difference between Jews in Hitler's Germany and blacks in the present-day U.S. "She, for instance," he kept saying, nodding his head toward Agnes, "will never be equal in this country. People think it's this way but it's not. It won't ever be." He claimed to be disgusted by racism but he also never addressed Agnes directly. So, you know, it's hard to say.

The hotel was sketchy--smoke-scented nonsmoking rooms, a drunk guy in the pool area, and no hair conditioner supplied with the shampoo (really, what could be sketchier than that?). To battle the sketchiness, we devoured German food--well, I had saurbraten and everyone else had American food served in a German restaurant. Auntie Agnes knew the bartender. They had drinks.

While the rest of the family bowled (there was a bowling alley attached to the German restaurant. Duh.), I took you back to the room and nursed you to sleep. The next morning we biked to Perkins for breakfast and then biked back to Cannon Falls. It was hot but beautiful. The trail is an old railroad bed--flat, paved, well-maintained. For the most part shaded. Farmland and forest and creeks and boggy swamps. Butterflies flitting across the path. I even got to see one of my very favorite things. Minnesota grows a lot of corn and soybeans. Farmers rotate the crops and so sometimes, in the middle of a field of soybeans, you can see corn stalks poking up and out and through this perfect mass of green. I love that. Gorgeous imperfection.

Now we are home again. Preparing for the semester and for John and Anna's wedding. I get teary every time I think of the wedding and anxsty every time I think of the school year. You've been getting anxsty too. An awful neediness these last two days. You're independent and happy with Daddy--but when I come home you wrap your arms around my legs and look up and me and sob. I take you in my arms and you arch your back and scream to be put back down. I put you down and you crawl over to me, the saddest wounded soldier, and hold your arms out as if to say, please help me, please, I'm dying here. This kind of behavior makes me shrug in consternation and then (20 minutes later) makes me want to unwind a roll of duct tape. Seriously. When in doubt, however, we resort to our favorite refrain: "maybe Thisbe's teething!"

I have no idea how we will explain your behavior once you have all your teeth.

("maybe Thisbe's on drugs!" "maybe Thisbe's having an existential crisis!" "maybe Thisbe's joined a cult!" "maybe Thisbe is possessed by Satan!" "maybe Thisbe's become a Republican!")

Some Fragments Before I Forget

You have spent today turning in a circle and then plopping down on your butt when you get dizzy.

Yesterday, you discovered your shadow.

We go on long walks. Long not because of distance but because it takes us a long time to cover a very short amount of space. You like to check out sticks and leaves and rocks. You like to pick at pits of tar and scratch at the anthills thriving between pavement slabs. Sometimes you hold my finger or Daddy's finger while you walk but most of the time you are just your own breathless force, trying to run, almost-tripping with every step but then righting your self and continuing.

You've been needy, extra needy.

You nurse twice per day, morning and night.

Maybe this is why you're extra needy.

You're still beautiful while you sleep.

You love cheesy noodles.

You like other things if you don't know the cheezy noodles are available. Once you become aware of cheezy noodle availability, you drop clumps of other foods off the side of your highchair.

Last night I made Greek stew: spinach and cheese and onion and garlic and potatoes and black olives. You liked it OK. You liked it better once I mixed in some noodles.

I forgot to say in the last post that at the potluck you were a disaster. You hadn't slept for 7 hours and if Daddy or I would walk out of sight you would burst into tears.

Your only truly consistent words are "hi" and "ay-yai-yai" although every day either Daddy or I claims you've got a new one mastered. Today Daddy said you knew "boy." And maybe you did at 11am. But not at 6pm.

Tomorrow we leave for an overnight biking trip with Ricki and Peter and Michael and Agnes. Not sure how you'll do in the bike trailer. Hoping for the best--bracing for the worst.

In the mornings I work on syllabi and think about submitting poems and stories to journals.

I have gray hairs. Did I tell you this yet? Yours are growing in blond and mine are growing in gray and sometimes the circle of life just kind of makes me want to puke.

I have terrible allergies. I am drinking pinot grigio from a box and sneezing.

Today you and I walked downtown together. You rode in the hiking backpack. We got iced coffee at Blue Monday and then checked out shoes at Rare Pair. We stocked up on string cheese and some suspicious-looking Gerber instant meals at Econo Foods and then walked back. Over the river. You were content the whole time and cried when I took you off my back.

Potluck

On Wednesday we had a potluck with the play date group. The play date group is pretty much the best group of Mamas and babies that has ever existed in the entire history of the universe. We have talked about everything from health insurance to post baby sex to homemade baby food to marital communication mishaps to carpet choices to books about circus elephants. When we first started to get together, you and the rest of the babes lay like lumps of fleshy clay on the floor while we drank coffee and ate brownies or animal crackers or grapes. Now we have to converse while stuffing grapes into your gaping mouths while simultaneously shielding our beverages from your sticky, grabby hands. In the winter, when the weeks seemed endless, their was a respite every Wednesday from 2:00-4:00. In the summer, it's been a delight to watch you guys dip your toes in wading pools and roll around on porches and attempt to poke one another's eyes out with various utensils.

I don't know if you will know these women when you are older, Thiz, but I hope you do. If you don't, I hope you are surrounded by women like them, women who are full of wisdom and patience but also honesty and vulnerability. Smart, talented women who want to be good Mamas but who admit things are going shitty when things are going shitty.

Your dad will start applying for jobs soon and the jobs will be in places far away. And while I won't be too sad to leave our town home and while I wouldn't mind some mountains a little nearer to our doorstep, it grieves me pretty deep to think about having to leave this circle of friends--my friends who have never known me without you and my friends who would never want to subtract you from me in order to know me better. We are lucky duckies.

(Note: photos totally ripped off from Donya, a Mama who knows her way around a camera)

Getting Hi

Today I was holding you in the library, browsing for books on motherhood, trying to keep you from squirming out of my arms and prevent you from disturbing other library patrons at the same time. Just behind where I was browsing a woman was sitting with her 7-year-old son, working on phonics. Quietly. Ca-ca-ca. Bu-bu-bu. You arched your back and I pressed you closer. Ca-Ca-Ca. Bu-bu-bu. Quietly, like the books were murmuring among themselves. And then:

Hi!
I ignored you. Chose a book by a mother with a PhD after her name.
Hi! (again, and louder).
The mother glanced your way. I chose a book with a woman on the back flap who looked like she was pretending to know something sly and secret.
Hi! Hi!
Finally, the woman, stationed on a plastic chair far too small for her large frame, said Hi.
Hi! you said again, emphatically, although this time to close the conversation.
We made our way quickly out of the quiet section of the library.

You have also developed, in the past three days or so, the Cutest Behavior in the World. Just one week ago, you barely tolerated having a book held in front of your face. Books were static and you were the epitome of dynamic. To, fro, back, forth, around, down, under, beside. You were just a bunch of prepositions housed inside a 28 inch frame. But now--if I say "do you want to read a book? can you bring mommy a book?" you go to your book shelf and bring it over to me and hold it out, smiling and shivering with excitement. We read the book and then you go back for another and another. I can see how this behavior, like any other, may grow annoying at some point in the near future, but for today it remains the Cutest Behavior in the World.

Grandma Dot and Grandpa Mark were here for another whirlwind visit this weekend. We walked to the park and watched baseball and ate tuna steaks and mango salsa. Grandma Dot brought you some lovely purple socks (courtesy of her very own knitting needles) and a lovely Farm Animals flap book. You displayed your new-found ability to point to desired objects with marvelous dexterity. In order to quell your interest in the salt and vinegar potato chips and the gin and tonic, I gave you a tiny taste of each. You then pointed excitedly toward each--again and again. If later in life you become a fat alcoholic, you can look back to this moment as the time when it all began.

We are trying to transition you to one nap per day. Yesterday, this worked beautifully--you slept for 2 hours and 15 minutes. In a row. Today you slept for 35 minutes. One nap, 35 minutes. At 6pm you were walking around with the the lid from the caper jar, giggling maniacally, while Daddy and I looked like we'd been run over by a slow moving bulldozer.

This is also perhaps because, after a sudden temperature shift (75 degrees and no humidity!), fall suddenly feels palpable, within grasping distance. And so Daddy and I are already growing more testy, more protective of our work time, more likely to quibble about issues of responsibility and resentment.

Usually I don't resent you, Thisbe, but sometimes I do. I say this so that if someday you feel the same way about your own offspring, you don't feel bad. I love you every second, but some days I long for the buffers of time your father and I used to enjoy. Time usually not well spent, but time that was our own, that we possessed--now I only have two or three hours a day that are truly my own. This is a gift. Some moms get none. And so I feel like those hours should be enough. That I should return, always, to the house and you and Daddy feeling satiated and present and full of self-generated energy. Some days this is true. And then there are the days when I think about turning left instead of right on highway 3, when I think about where I could go and who I would be when I got there--Horrible but Free--and then I turn right, the way I am supposed to. I return to the life I'm supposed to be living, but sometimes I'm not sure who I am by the time I get here.

Eleven Months and one Week

You are eleven months and one week old today, Thiz.

In my mother's Page-A-Day journal, her entry for eleven months and one week after my birth reads: "Today we went to Susan Still's to plan a puppet show for the PSN meeting tomorrow. Susan showed Kaethe a lion puppet, and Kaethe walked up and kissed it. Her 4th tooth, the upper left incisor, broke through."

What I love about this entry is that the breakthrough of the tooth seems so directly connected to the make out session with the lion.

It was hot today. Too hot in the shade, too hot to be outside. In the morning I drove to Mapleton and met Phoebe Joy, my friend Joleen's new baby. She was adorable and alert and tiny. I remembered, Thiz, what it was like when you were that small, when we never put you down, when you were connected to us--it seemed--at every instant. Now you walk around the house in a very business-like manner. Carrying flashcards featuring gnus and kangaroos you walk from the living room into the kitchen, down to the far end where the dryer rumbles, then you turn and enter the living room again. You stop and bend and grab hold of the door of Luxy's kennel. Or you brush your palm against the leaves of a potted plant. Or you steal a cotton sleeper from the bin of clothes next to the changing table and drape it over your head--and then you walk around, blind as a bat, giggling.

Now you are asleep. Daddy is having a beer with Pastor Charlie at El Ranchero, a supper club that is not Mexican. Instead there are checkered tablecloths and frosted mugs with dark German beer and relish trays with pickles and olives and miniature corn cobs. I am at home, listening to the whir of my computer fan and the drone of the cicadas, audible even through the closed windows. Summer is beginning its long good-bye.

It will be the last summer we spend in this townhome, I think. Even if we stay in Northfield, I think our time in this particular space is limited. And though when the time comes I will be eager to leave, I will always have a fondness for these rooms. The oven that never told us the correct temperature. The kitchen light that won't turn on in the humidity. The gray carpet that turns the tops of your feet black from all the embedded dirt. The furnace room with the boxes Daddy stacks so neatly to make space for his trains. Your nursery with the elephant rug Grandma Ricki found in an alley and the bookshelf Daddy found in an alley and the nightstand Daddy found by the side of the road. The dressers and desks and armoires that line the sides of our bedroom like monks waiting to offer a benediction. Our bathroom sink with the crack I always think is a hair. How the front door sticks in every kind of weather. How the air conditioning never offers complete relief and so we sleep with the sheets tangled around our calves, too hot to touch completely, just our fingers knotted together or my palm upon your father's chest or the back of his hand, flush against my thigh. I concentrate on that warmth, Thisbe, and fall asleep.

Tantrum

It had to happen sooner or later.

It's happened sooner.

You are tantrum-abled. That is, you have the ability to throw a hissy fit, a hurricane of displeasure, an mangled opera of dis-ease. We have moved past the days when, given a new object, you could be distracted from the old (potential to do harm and/or fragile and/or belonging to Luxy) object. No longer.

The first point of contention, real contention has been Luxy's water dish. Daddy and I have uttered versions of "no," "uh-uhh," "that's Luxy's," and "stop that" so many times that the plastic mat wherein the water resides has become a sort of ceremonial center.

Next, you moved on to Luxy's kennel. The kennel is made of metal that is flaking bits of rust. The kennel has pointy places and hinges and edges and lots of potential for disaster. You love to play with the door (open, close, open, close). This seemed deeply hazardous. Well, not deeply hazardous, not like piranhas or sharks or COW'S MILK!!! but kind of hazardous. So we shut the door. But then Luxy got anxious. She likes to go inside the kennel to relax and I don't blame her. It's her space. So then we left the door open but we blocked it open with the newspaper rack so you couldn't swing it around. Then you decided you would like to go inside the kennel. Into Luxy's sacred space which happens to consist of a skanky, skanky blanket and a sheet of metal. So we told you "no."

Disaster ensued. By disaster I mean a torrent of tears, a howling of Lear-like proportions. We tried distraction. We tried lifting you up and dropping you on the other side of the room. To no avail. This is something my words cannot capture so I shall post the video. And let me explain that the video only captures the end of the tantrum--to truly understand how long this went on, you'd have to watch the video seven or eight times in a row. And you should, Thiz, you really should. Let's practice empathy. For your parents. My favorite part is when you attempt to put just your toe inside.

Addendum: the morning after this tantrum occurred, Daddy reported that the first thing you did upon arriving in the living room was to grab your favorite book from the book shelf, toddle over to the kennel, and drop it inside. Then you turned to look at him, just to make sure he'd noticed.

Luckily, you're still young enough that we mostly find all of this to be exceptionally entertaining. In a few weeks, our reactions might not be quite so congenial.