newborn
I held my friend’s newborn today. so tiny! Was my daughter that tiny? Indeed, two pounds smaller, actually. Hard to believe. I barely remember it.
I dont’ know how to think about whether to do it again. My mom’s group moms are all either pregnant, or trying (except for the moms with two already). I feel blessed, and wonder how two, added to the mix, affects my life.
We both agree we feel kind of cheated (but hey, life isn’t fair) that everyone else has a nice candlelit dinner, an uneventful 9 months. Me? I have to marshal twenty grand, at least a dozen people, not including doctors and nurses, and at least nine thousand miles in the car. For months. It’s grueling.
But I said it would not be the last time. And I said it would be the last time. So whatever it it will be, I said that is what I’d do.
Damn. Life isn’t fair. I know this. But i just want to smash my fists and wail against the injustice of it. I’m wistful hearing my friends talk about beerfests that got them pregnant, and I think, would you? If you had to inject yourself twice a day for a year, an IV every month, a conception that is not intimate, but planned, clinical. Surgery. bed rest. gestational diabetes. I’d be kidding myself if I said we could do this easily. It’s like childbirth, I really don’t remember how hard it was.
Filed under Everyday Life | Comment (0)grandpa and grandma reunited
My grandfather died last night. He and my grandma are reunited. I wasn’t that close with him – he was, like many men of his generation, the stoic, silent type. But he and my grandmother had a warm, loving relationship that you could see, even up until she got sick and died 4 years ago. But they are reunited, and that, at least, makes me feel warm & fuzzy about his death.
I pondered that concept – death is not the end. After all, that’s the basic tenet of my faith (and many, if not all faiths). It’s called faith for a reason – none of us really knows what happens when we die, until we get there. But I believe they are together, happy again. Maybe even at some younger point in their corporeal bodied life too!
My mom is doing well, considering. I can’t imagine how it must be to not have either of your parents. Granted, she’s had some time to adjust to her mom being gone, and I think this will be easier because she knows her dad was not happy without her mom. But I worry for her, sometimes. My uncle and aunt will take over the property, as expected. No doubt there will be divvying up of his remaining ’stuff’ in the coming years.
I think about the continuity of life – how my baby’s life has just begun, and how my grandfather’s has transcended into a new phase. My daughter will likely live to 2108 or at least see the new century. What will her life be like then? Will her granddaughter and daughter be there for her? I like to think so. I’ll be gone by then, for sure. That thought saddens me, but hey, I can’t live until SHE is 100 (I’d be 138, that would be crazy). But she’ll have her daughter, and granddaughters behind her, and the cycle will continue. This is exceptionally deep and making me a bit teary. I felt, rather than saw, the generations unfolding like a ribbon of fabric. That’s what it is about motherhood, in many ways. Though I’d grieve for not being there for her – much as my mother’s mom probably looks down upon her daughters, I hope it’s at a point in her life where she’s older herself, maybe with grandkids, and is ready to be without me.
I promised I’d never leave, and by hell or high water, I’ll keep that promise. God go with you, Grandpa. Send us a few butterflies and let us know you and Gram are reunited.
Filed under Everyday Life | Comment (0)hubs is off again
He’s off to a race weekend to meet with drivers for our bike ride. I just don’t see how I’m going to be able to corral a busy toddler for four days at the bike ride – not to mention a seven-hour, one-way drive. I think it’s unrealistic and I may be staying home. We will see. I hate to miss it. on so many levels it is what we ‘do’.
Baby’s fast asleep in the pack, just slipped off the nipple to quiet sleeping, and it’s just now 8pm. That’s very, very early. If I can get her in bed (shortly, she’s not quite ready yet), I may go cut those shorts that have been sitting on my dining room table for weeks. I need shorts and a new diaper bag, and I feel I ought to sew both.
It’s been months since I’ve needed my diaphram. So I have to do something about this – maybe Sunday morning? When baby’s asleep but hubs isn’t? We’ll see. It’s a problem, but both of us are so busy we’re not willing to work on it. yet.
Baby and I have a busy weekend – tomorrow at 10am is mom and toddler at the park. Then, perhaps, if she naps, a trip to my fave secondhand store for more shorts. I’m desperate. Everything is too big. But you know, when I think of ways to spend an hour, it’s not shopping. So maybe I’ll stay home and sew or knit. That seems like a far superior idea.
we’ll see. I don’t want to shop, but I do want to shop, if that makes sense. I want to just have fun shopping, but need to have shorts, which isn’t exactly all that exciting. Last time I went I came home with three things I did not need.
It’s a quiet evening, I’ll make some herbal tea (my own chamomile and lemongrass from my garden), once I get the babe in bed. Which is pretty soon, I can feel her getting heavy with deep sleep.
Today as I nursed her at day care I thought of how little time we have left of this. A year, probably, or less. Maybe a little more. But in just a blink of an eye, she’s gone from a tiny newborn to a busy toddler. Looks like little girl, not infant. And this special nursing time we have will go away. That’s the difference between my SIL and I, I look at it as a relationship, she looks at it as a feed. That’s why I’m so reluctant to give it up and she is not. I guess I never thought of it that way before. No wonder she’s a six-months-and-wean mom, she’s just looking at it as food! And an obligation she’d rather not deal with.
So back to this special time – I stroked her strawberry blonde head as her dark lashes fell to pale pink cheeks. I wanted to soak up every minute of time we had together, quietly nursing in our day care providers’ family room. Just the two of us, midday, a respite in a world of busyness. She greeted me with the sign for nursing. I love that. This beautiful child of mine, nurtured every day by me, how can I give this up? She has to grow up I guess!
Filed under Everyday Life | Comment (0)milk and honey
this morning, I have a lapful of milk. Somehow I never notice (because the milk is at first, warm) that the bag is tipped and leaking all over my lap! GRR. Oh well, it’ll dry, I’ll send the pants to the cleaners tomorrow. it leaked all down my leg into my lap. eeuw. Oh well, it could be worse. They ARE black pants, at least (the white ones would have been a trip home for new pants).
But that brings up another point – I have only a few pairs of pants that fit and they’re almost always at the cleaners, since hubs goes once a week at best. He rides his bike, I realize it’s a hardship to have to carry cleaning on your bike (read: impossible).
So anyway, I’m pantsless for the remainder of the week. I will, at least, wear a skirt.
And we looked at the house – a honey-do list 10 years long. All that burden rests largely on hubs, too. But on the flipside, we looked at NEW houses (yes, in East Lansing – and they weren’t 2 car garages with attached single family homes either). They’re not cheap, $250,000 (it sounds much worse to say “a quarter of a million dollars” because then I think I’m not worth it.) But we are worth it- as hubs says “we save a crazy amount of money” and we always have. But I don’t think this house is excess either – it’s 3br, 2 1/2 bath, 2 car garage, a living room, a study, a dining and kitchen. A full basement. Not too bad, not over the top either. So we’re pretty serious about it too. It would be a lifetime house for us. Close to school for E. and maybe a future baby
And that frees us up from the honey do list for a while, something I think my husband needs. He does so much for us. I am rarely as grateful as I should be, too. And this week I’ve been super crabby – we’ve all been sick, we have lingering congestion, the baby is cutting molars, and has been velcro baby.
Today after lunch I’m meeting a client at a knitting store. Yeah. But she wants to learn to knit, so who am I to object?? I’ll go find inspiration for the Misto wrap and also pick up a magazine or two. But NO YARN! I’m out of space. But I am almost done with the baby shrug. So next up is a baby poncho for later this summer/fall from yarn i bought in France. then a few scarves/hats for both of us for winter.
Filed under Everyday Life | Comment (0)two worlds
This afternoon, late, I was at Bailey park with E. and the dog. There’s a day care there, and parents were arriving early to pick up their kids. A mom, about my age, perhaps younger, was picking up her 4 year old and younger baby about E’s age. She was dressed nicely, skirt and wrap top, and I was in a tank and shorts – clearly doing the SAHM thing. I wanted to shout out “on every other day, I’m a working mom too!”. But I don’t recall that she looked at me with disdain, maybe I just projected this onto myself. Perhaps she was wistful that I was off with my child.
I put E. in the pack at just after 8:15 and she’s out like a light, ten minutes later. Sleepyhead. I’ll wait a while before transferring her to the bed.
So back to the situation. It was interesting, observing my reaction to what I perceived as her consideration of me. If I had any doubts about my intended direction in life, this would quell them.
My friend L. stopped by with her week old baby. Oh how I forgot those tiny squeaks and grunts! and just how tiny she was (and she was two pounds heavier than MY little peanut at birth!) It was amazing, I was afraid to touch her! And L. didn’t seem keen on me doing so, for whatever reason. I lent her a linen sling, with promises to get her fabric and make her one of her own. And I returned her Boppy pillow, though with a Csection scar, she can’t do much with that now.
I guess I don’t miss newborn life. Not yet, anyway. Maybe I won’t and we won’t have more children. Or maybe we will. In any case, it’s not within my current field of vision and therefore, I’m not looking for it.
I am concerned about my stress though – the strange soles of feet and palms of hand eczema breakout last week (and subsequent acne break out this week) have me troubled. It’s the single strongest breakout I’ve had in two years, since I was being treated with IVIg.
So, I need to look into yoga classes again. Alas, no one has a lunchtime class. I think maybe I’ll have my own lunchtime class at work with my video! That’s an excellent idea, actually. Nowhere to go, just change, do 30 min, and feel better.
Filed under Everyday Life | Comment (0)la bella figura
I was browsing the 2007 issues of BWoF that I had found while cleaning out some things, and ran across the WSJ article about ‘what to wear in italy’ that I clipped and tucked in an issue of the magazine before we went to France. It’s why, for the first time, we took jeans – dark, fitted jeans – to Europe. And I think too, that I have too much stuff and nothing to wear. that’s not true, at all. La bella figura is about putting together a good outfit, not just tossing on what ever is in the pile to wear. Thinking about how it all ought to go together. I do this, regularly. And in that sense, I do have that Italian style sense. I need to do more with handbags, but the rest, I’ve got it down pat, I think.
And it doesn’t involve a trip to a store either – it is mixing things, but not making it too outlandish. It’s about being fit and wearing fitted clothes – probably more fitted than I’m normally used to.
I’m swayed by a pair of delicate flat strappy sandals that would be perfect for touring Europe in the summer, except I’m not slated to go there, and I don’t really need said sandals. I’ll wait for fall. There will be more shoes then. Oops (hand slaps over mouth) did I not just say it doesn’t involve a store? Well I do have a shoe store credit to use up…
Filed under Everyday Life | Comment (0)Beautiful moments
The other day, my dad was walking my daughter down the beach. Her tiny hand in his, walking gingerly on the sands, shifting beneath her tiny feet. THIS is what I wished for, back in December of 2006, when they stitched me closed, hoping to save this child’s life.
It brings on deep emotions, I can’t keep the tears back. But it’s a beautiful cry. This child who is, by a miracle – or rather a series of small miracles – here at all. And so perfect!
Yes, she’s active, in to everything, will be a very big handful as she grows, but she’s perfect. And she’s mine.
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