because i haven't mailed the card yet

Happy Rebirthdayment, Dad!

In spite of the blonde hair, all my life people have remarked how much I look like you. Usually the comments go something like this: Well I always thought you looked like your mom but now that I've seen your dad, you really look just like him!

Now I get to live that from a new perspective, since apparently Bella looks exactly like Dave. (Can a mother get a little credit please? I only carried her for 10 months!)









Hopefully Bella will appreciate it for all its worth. It didn't used to be my favorite compliment, but it definitely is today. Who wouldn't want to be as cool and handsome gorgeous as you? I can only assume that people mean your personality, too. (And apparently I'm as delicious as you, too.)

And now the legacy continues. Not only does Bella have my eyes, that means yet another little person has your eyes, too. And I couldn't be happier about it. Hopefully she'll get your personality, too. (Ahem, perhaps if you move closer she'll really get your personality movehereahemmoveherecoughcough.)

Happy Birthday, happy retirement, and happy everything!

love, shawna

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spring into action!

I did mention that it was a busy weekend, didn't I? On top of that, I've been working every day. Not always full shifts, but working every day means pumping and commuting and scheduling around work every day, and even a 5 hour shift adds up. I'm looking forward to Friday, my first day off in a week and a half.

But this weekend! This weekend was a blast! After work on Saturday I headed into Seattle so that I could photograph a friend's recording session in the basement of an art studio. Talk about fresh subjects for my bored camera lens and colorful eye candy all around. I had so much fun, although I've been suffering from doubtydoubts since then. I'm not really equipped to shoot in a dark studio, so I had to get creative and hopefully the results won't suck completely. I felt like I was in over my head in every aspect of a photo shoot, from gear to set up to subjects to post processing. Especially since they paid me. Just a little, but it's a vote of confidence in me, who has never done a shoot like that ever, and of course now I'm obligated to perform in return.

After that awesome fun and nerve wracking night, I got up the next day to climb the tallest sky scraper in Seattle for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. It was a blast, and I got to register my marrow, which was something on my 101 things in 1001 days list. The 360 degree view from the 76th floor was absolutely gorgeous and I wished I'd had a camera or at least stayed longer to appreciate it. It was stuffy and I was huffing and puffing from the 20 minute climb. Did I mention I took an elevator back down?

The other thing on my mind lately? Square Foot Gardening. Anyone tried it? Since it's my first year gardening, I don't want to go in over my head in alien territory with no one supporting me. In true unschooling fashion I'm diving right in and I'll have all summer to teach me the lessons results of my decisions this spring. I've already planted a few rows of things, but there will be nine people eating out of this garden and I want to make the most of it! I don't know how open my uncle will be (since it IS his back yard, after all) to the SFG plan, and I don't think I have enough time to figure it all out on my own this year. I'm thinking about next year already, and we can put the SFG in a sunnier place since the apple trees shade the current garden placement.

Next year. Next year? That used to just be something to say. Next year was just some random time. Maybe I'd be in another grade or another school but I'd still be in school. Maybe I'd be in another home or another state, but I'd still be me, doing my job. Now when I say next year, the time line is there. It won't be My Current Life just in another time frame. It will be me, likely in the same state, hopefully in the same job, probably in the same (gardenless) apartment, but most importantly, a Two Year Old Bella will factor in. And perhaps we'll be thinking of cooking up another by then, so how can I even fathom what I should accomplish next year? Planning for that far away? Uh-uh. It's an awfully good excuse to make it happen this year.

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an okay anniversary

So today I was planning a post that I started writing well over a year ago. But, time runs fast these days and it's still not ready. Or perhaps it's me who's not ready. I have the need to share, but maybe not in this moment, when life is stressful but still sweet.

One year ago I was relieved to find Easter falling so early. A blessing, because I was so full of life and the anticipation of being 9 months pregnant and yet faced with the sad anniversary of my miscarriage the previous year. There was mingled happiness and sadness and the need to understand it all or push it away with a busy day of celebration.

This year the anniversary falls on a weekend so busy that I barely have time to think. But, it turns out I don't need the distraction. This year is so different, so distanced from what I experienced last year. A healthy pregnancy, a beautiful birth, a happy baby, writing and time have done so much healing. I doesn't hurt anymore, at least not in the way it used to.

The word miscarriage falls easily into my Story now and doesn't trip up my tongue and make my eyes burn. I've even transitioned past that time when it aches to stop hurting and just accept. Accept that the subsiding grief is only changing forms, and to let it mature is not the same as abandoning memories. Now it just is and I'm finding a new place in my heart for these feelings to live, slightly more distant from my daily life, and I'm okay with that.

Instead of bitterness in seeing those happy, seemingly unscathed pregnant couples, the times that the grief resurfaces are in moments of sympathy. Meeting another babylost mama, hearing of yet another tragedy no matter how long ago, no matter how it may differ from my own experience. It's always yesterday. My heart doesn't ache as much for my own lost baby, but keens for the loss of all the babies. One loss is everyone's loss. It's always like it happened yesterday.

The hardest part is finding a way to share, to grieve an invisible loss, to rejoice in a short life, to remember an existence in a society that is uninformed and afraid to recognize pregnancy and infant loss in the open. Grief is awkward and ugly, and as a society we are poorly equipped to comfort each other and lift one another up in times of true need. I hope by sharing, we'll slowly break this taboo, this lack of understanding. As I share mine, other mothers share theirs, and together we give our hearts openly and listen and receive one another. We hold fast to our memories and the lives we have known and validate each other.

So I will share my story. Not today as I thought I would, but sooner than later. It's just a small story, but it's mine and if it helps just one other person understand, acknowledge and support with a babylost mama, it's worth sharing.

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Not twelve

Dear Bella,

Eleven months sure snuck up on us, baby! I was starting to think that it's been an uneventful month, events barely worth mentioning, but in fact I've just been so busy it's hard to recollect all we've done. You've had an exponential increase in Daddy time, but it's been a whirlwind month (how do moms who work full time maintain their sanity?) and you're rolling with the punches like a champ. Minus sleep.

You're crawling -rather, gimping, since you never put your left knee down and instead use your foot- at lightning speed, begging us to chase you around. You say Daddy, and there's no doubt you know what it means. You're actually asking for food now, opening wide for peas, oatmeal, applesauce and carrots. It's like you've finally figured out what you were missing all this time. Now we just have to get into the habit of making food for you and taking time to sit you down to eat.

But the grouching, oh the grouching, and no new teeth to show for it yet. You're finally getting time with other babies, although we've got a long way to go with the word gently. You have hair envy, smack kids for no apparent reason, gouge out their eyeballs and eat their noses off. Hmmm time perhaps to evaluate how roughly we play at home.

I suppose I'm not surprised to find ourselves at eleven months already, but that doesn't take away the dumbfound feeling of being smacked in the face -yet again- by Time. Looking at other babies, I can gauge with ease, five months, seven months, one year, eighteen months. Each stage just has a look. But for some reason I can't possibly be objective when looking at you. You're my baby and always will be. In spite of all the milestones you've hit so far, you don't seem Almost One to me. I'm completely blind to your age. Every time I look down at you in my arms, I see the newborn girl who lived inside me for nearly ten months. I imagine I always will.

So with this realization that I just hadn't noticed you looking older comes the rising panic of The Birthday. I've always been an anticipation person. Christmas Eve is better than Christmas, the eve of vacation is better than the vacation, and apparently the month before your Birthday is more unbelievable than The Birthday itself. I keep replaying a scene from When Harry Met Sally over and over in my head. (What, darling, you don't have it memorized yet? You will.)

Sally says, crying: "And I'm going to be forty!"
To which Harry replies, concerned, "When?"
"Someday!"
"In eight years."

Sure, we have another month before you're one. Yes we have years before you grow up, perhaps even become a big sister. But it's Someday. And Someday sure comes fast when you have a kid around. Bella, Someday you'll understand.

Love,
mama

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sleep woes

I needs me my sleep and I have definitely NOT been getting it lately. I have lost the ability to settle my mind and nap with Bella like I used to, and I don't want to give up any of my daily excursions, lest I feel cut off from the non-mothering world. If this is the amount of sleep I get with one kid, I do not know how I can entertain the idea of more kids and still hope to maintain my quiet, sane, enjoyable lifestyle. I don't want to be that exhausted mom. Fatigue does not improve my parenting or social skills.

Bella has never "slept through the night", apart from the occasional 6 to 8 hour stretch that has me checking for signs of life. But lately she's reverted to a newborn waking schedule and I need tooth picks to prop my eyes open during the days. I was about to write a thread about it on a parenting forum, perhaps to ask for advice, perhaps just for some commiseration, but it occurred to me as I prepared my mental list of symptoms, that while things may not be desirable, they are predictable and on track.

Woe is me, why is my child night waking? Ah yes, let us start with the basics: bodily functions:

Teething. Oh, teeth, please just come in already. Or not. If we're already miserable, I suppose it's better to have it all at once than to ruin a potentially idyllic day in the future.

Solids. Really, this is the first week that Bella has eaten a solid every day (or "people food" as I call it). Perhaps just a spoonful, but that's a lot for such a little system to process. The night poo that we used akin to a turkey thermometer to predict bedtime (stick a for in her, she's done!) has gone out the window and she's a maybe-one-poo-a-day girl now. Who squirms all night.

Don't forget the developmental aspects:

Crawling: Almost 11 months and she only just figured out the crawling thing. Now she's got missions and errands and Very Important Things to attend to (nursing not included). I might as well hand her the car keys.

Talking: She's definitely said her first word, Daddy. Though I must write it Dah-dee to preserve the beautiful way she punctuates each syllable. She's craving words and eating them up right and left. Yes, baby, each one of those words has a meaning and you will learn them all.

And the rest can be fully ascribed to Working Mother Syndrome. Now that Dave's basically the stay at home parent, I'm picking up as many hours as possible at work. And because I don't often have a full shift, that means I'm working almost every day. A five hour shift with a one hour commute, all during social time and nursing time. I get home anywhere between 11pm and 2am and Bella is waiting for me, either asleep and ready to make up for the whole day by sleep nursing all night, or she is awake and ready to soak up some mommy, and save the nursing til that boring time of night when everyone is asleep.

In writing all this out, I realize that night wakings are bound to happen. And honestly, I don't think I have any plans to adjust them. She's not comfort nursing at night, waking up because she can't put herself to sleep. She knows how to fall asleep on her own. Sure, she needs one of us lying next to her, but she's completely capable if her belly's full and her eyes are droopy. She's waking because she's hungry. She sucks til let down and then chug chug chugs and pops off with a big sigh and flops over with her back to me. (You have served your purposes, woman. Goodnight.) Shushing her to sleep when she's actually hungry and Needs! Booba! Now! results in howling screams that make me feel bad for our neighbors. She then requires at least a half an hour more to assuage the towering temper, to see reason and decide to nurse at last (before she was too pissed) and comfort suck until the hiccuppy cries subside.

I'd rather have night nursing than night tantrums. Anyhow, this too shall pass, no? I'll just be brain dead at work and life for a while. (And the unfortunate casualty of this sleep torture today was a broken camera. Just my point ant shoot, but always in my pocket, and my only macro lens. Can I say bummed? Bummed and tired.)

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but the sun is shining

My heart is heavy the last few days, mostly thinking about the uncontrollable nature of life. I waiver between planning and avoiding, not knowing how it's possible to settle comfortably in between. I like knowing my next steps, or at least that my feet will touch ground. I've never been good with uncertainty.

Bella's mind keeps me endlessly fascinated and entertained. She's starting to point to pictures in books. She chases Bunny around with peals of maniacal laughter and begs her daddy to flip her upside down onto the bed. Yesterday instead of a string of Dadadadada she paused after I said Daddy and repeated it exactly, with intent. Dah-dee.

Just like me she can sit in a room full of people and if there isn't one single person to connect to, she keeps to herself in her own world. Studying and processing. She takes time to discover new things. Pushing a toy around with the spoon in her hand, tapping the carpet, then the hard floor, over and over again to enjoy the different effect it creates. Plucking up random pieces of crud from the carpet. (Oh please, not another bunny bean!).

And it's for all those reasons that I strive to be here for her now. How is that even possible as an adult, to separate the happiness of now from the heaviness of responsibility gone awry? She has no care in the world about tomorrow or the moment after. She's here for me, now. No concept of what-if, no internal battle that adults find so difficult. I'm striving for that balance, but at the moment I'm so off kilter, I have no idea where to even begin. So we play, and in those moments my worries fall away. Now if only I could send them away permanently.

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It's here!

My new lens came :O) 50mm 1.4 for these cloudy Seattle days. Soft, buttery and delicious for my love of portraits. Might take me a while to get the hang of it. Now I just need more subjects! I also managed not to attack our house guests with my camera today (okay, so the battery was dead). I'm trying my best to ignore both warnings of a full hard drive on my computer and Flickr, who wants me to upgrade if I plan to add more than 15 more photos. I always close my eyes and hope things will go away if I ignore them. Bad coping tactic, I know.

If you happen to follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you'll know that this week's excitement is the disposal which simply fell out of the sink. Fun, I know. And as much as I appreciate that management gets to fix it all, I'd really rather have my own home so I didn't have to wait.

Bella has really started motoring around and has taken to chasing Bunny around. Not sure which one is in for it. He can get pretty defensive, so we have to keep a close eye on them, but oh my it's funny to watch the two of them run circles around each other.

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an inch of snow fell while i added the photos to this post.

We had a great big busy day yesterday. And even survived fitting it into 23 hours instead of 24.

We've been getting snow flurries enough to remind us that winter will not be leaving any time soon. Enough to remind me that as much as March may feel like spring out here, it DID snow on Bella's birthday in the middle of April last year. This means that I have no idea when I can plant my beans that are outgrowing my window box and beg me each morning to be transplanted outdoors.

But I did social! After last week's rendezsnafu where we drove a half an hour to meet a birth class friend at a lame-ass mall playground only to steam and simmer and pace the mall and later find out that I hadn't realized the date had been changed, this one turned out much better. We hosted it at our place so we could still make it to a dinner later that night and so that we'd be sure not to mess up the time and place.

Dave and I felt like worthwhile adults again after our first week with Dave as a temporary stay at home dad (which felt more like self-enforced solitary family confinement). We're easing ourselves out of the nasty habit of speaking to each other through Bella. You know how it goes, first you start addressing each other by your parental names, then you start asking the baby if she thinks Daddy wants to change her diaper, and then before you know it every conversation is passive, especially the angry ones. That's no way to parent, let alone hold a healthy relationship, so no more!

But the best thing was that it made us get our butts in gear and finally clean and baby proof the place. (And I burned my own hand-dipped beeswax candles -not one drip, look above, how did I manage that?- so the place wouldn't smell like baby and bunny pee!) It went so well and I felt quite accomplished. I hosted a party! With a quiche! And people smiled and chatted and it's been six months and we still like each other! The only downside was that Dave moved the trash can to a new home and I keep throwing trash on the floor automatically. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.

To top it off, after several days without photographic inspiration, I now feel rejuvenated. I wish I had more subjects, for variety and for experience. I know Bella's best angle, and I certainly don't have to chase her around. (Not yet.) I had fun taking photos of other kids, although that means I was the nut with the camera. At least no one said anything.

Hmmm. Bella just figured out how to turn on the radio, so I suppose I'd better go attend to that...

PSmynewlensjustcameandi'msoexcitedandcouldhavehuggedthefedexman!

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Slacking

Well, I'd like to say that it's been a busy week as an excuse for not writing anything and not posting to my 365 project. I'll blame my computer on the latter, as I have to close down every program to run iPhoto, and don't even ask me how long it takes to download and then upload my photos. Let's just say I'd rather be taking photos than uploading them.

It's been a weird lazy slacker kind of week, this first full week of unemployment. Dave and I get up in the morning, sit at our computers, go on a walk or an outing around lunch time and then return home, at which point we go back to our living room and sit with computers (or baby-or both!) on lap. Or, I go to work. There's been a fair amount of that because luckily my managers are very understanding when it comes to a part time job suddenly becoming the only source of income for our little family.

The family time and down time are nice, but I hope this unmotivated life is not a trend that will continue because I will go out of my mind. Not that I run a tidy home, but I just can't get the same things done when Dave is sitting on his butt. My butt gets jealous and wants to keep sitting, and my mind gets vengeful and wants him to do the work since he's the one without a job. But. It's not easy on him either and it's been a long time since he had no one to report to. I'm looking at it as a crash deschooling course. Time for him to find his inner motivator.

Did I mention he quit smoking again? Something I tried my best not to bug him about more than a few times a week (or day, depending on how often I got a whiff as he passed by me) because he is the kind of person who has to make decisions on his own terms. And his terms this time? It's a waste of money that could be spent on a lens for me instead. I'm all for that!

I suppose it's been easier on him this time since he has no more smoking friends and no coffee breaks to sip and smoke. But that's being gentle. He rocks the quitting scene. I "gave up" refined sugar for Lent and, hmm, not so much on the cold turkey thing for me. (Hey, my Girl Scout cookies came on Ash Wednesday, I had to rid the house of them as fast as possible!) Even if I still partake in sugarly indulgences, it has been a great way to pay attention to just how much sugar I really consume in one day. Because it's a lot. Usually paired with a lot of white flour. Can we say overkill? My body has been telling me this for quite some time, and it's time I started listening and kicking the sugar addiction.

In productive news, my garden (which I've been neglecting because either It's too nice out to garden, let's go play! or Eww, it's too crummy to garden today) is coming along bit by bit and will soon be ready for the seedlings growing on my window sill. We also borrowed the King Arthur whole grain baking book from the library and have already made a few delicious (albeit ugly) attempts at whole grain delicacies. Since we make all our bread at home already, I've been trying to find a good bulk source, and finally this week I have. A sketchy little market (neither of us would have had the guts to go in on our own at first) run by the nicest people ever.

I also have a deadline for a knitting project tonight and I'm cutting it close. Can I call it a project? It's just a damn square, but I've ripped it out and changed it going on four times now (Bella assisted with one of those times), so it FEELS like a full blown project. As you can imagine, I have completion issues. For example, all I have to do is click a button and I will have my tickets for my east coast trip around the Fourth of July, and I have yet to do so. It's on my list. (East coast here we come!)

Lastly, I have visitors coming this weekend, so I actually have to get my butt in gear and baby proof the living room in case it rains and we can't go to the park. Who knows what those babies will get into that doesn't even cross Bella's mind. This includes putting up some shelving that I've been procrastinating for a few months now as well.

Bella! She crawls. Uhm, she gimps, actually. She tried crawling on her knees for one day before she decided that it's so much more effective to gimp around. So one knee is on the floor and one foot. She skitters around like Golem and we try our best not to laugh. Now I just have to get a picture of it to add to my pile of Bella Quirks photos.

Okay, I'm ending this now so I can't procrastinate publishing a post any longer. Whew, Bella's napping now, so off to the garden with me!

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