Requisite holiday blog

The holidays have always made me, like many people, kind of sad. For a number of reasons, at this time of the year, my expectations are always a little too high, my loneliness a little sharper, my nostalgia a little more distinct. "That's a part of getting older, Candace," you might say, but you'd be wrong; it was worse when I was younger.

I think, for me, Christmas has always been a symbol of the kind of life I wanted, but didn't have. I spent much of my youth living with my Grandmother, who, though she loved me more than anyone in the world had a right to be loved, didn't understand the chemical signals in my head are all messed up. Who did?

So, I'd get deliriously happy when I'd see little white twinkling lights sprinkled out over the world. Blankets of snow, the red Salvation Army kettles, the bells, the way your breath feels heavy on the first frosty day, the smell of evergreens, the warmth of looking into my Grandmother's home from outside on the porch, where I would always end up...

And really, that image is what sums up my holiday melancholy: I have always been out on the porch, bundled up in my favorite red dress looking inside at my cousins and their moms and dads and my grandparents and siblings and they always seemed so genuinely happy...and I wanted to be happy there with them, but I was still there, alone, on the porch.

This is my first Christmas away from that porch, and it's a lot more difficult than I anticipated. Andy and I have started this amazing life together. Two kids, moved away to the land of prosperity. We've got friends and family here...people who love us and care for us and who make us want to reciprocate. And isn't it interesting to note that I've never, not once, felt like an outsider with them. I don't hide from these people...my family and friends. I don't hide from my husband when I'm sad. He knew I was broken when he asked me to marry him, to spend my life with him. He keeps me inside the house.

And our friends, our beautiful friends, who compel us to be better people every day: they also know I'm broken, and they love me anyway. I think my family would have, had they known that I needed something more, had they known that my holidays were spent out on the porch, but I never gave them the chance. And I'm sorry for that, because the time has slipped away from me, like time is wont to do, and I cannot get it back.

I hope that I've loved them the way that they needed to be loved, but I cannot be sure. So, please, let me ask you to spend your holidays paying attention to the people on the fringes...sometimes you don't know they're there, but they are. And they need you.

up to capacity (or, the world's biggest pity-party)

Let's just start this off by saying, I don't need/want your sympathy. Commiseration? Sure. Good conversation? Bring it on! Sympathy? You can give that to someone else; find a blind/deaf orphan. There are people in the world who are starving, literally, to death. My problems? Way smaller. Nonetheless, my problems are my own and I'm allowed to talk about them.

There's this saying, right? About how, no matter how hard life gets, God isn't giving you more than you can handle. I'm calling bullshit. Those people must have bigger, better faith than I have in their own capacity.

I'm not knocking God, don't get me wrong. I'm talking about inner strength here, people, and my apparent lack of it.

The back story:

We set out on this adventure called moving-across-the-country-with-two-kids-and-no-money-and-one-job-for-two-people about four months ago. It may or may not have been the best idea, but with my PhD getting done in Arkansas and science jobs being in short supply, we didn't have a whole lot of options. So, we packed our things into a Budget truck and took off for the Triangle area in North Carolina. No looking back. And it's WONDERFUL here. Terrifyingly big, maybe...and often frustrating because of this terrible economy. But it's great. And I think we both still think we've made a good choice. There are trees, and good schools for when the kids get older, and lots of art and music and good people. Some of our best friends are here, and Big A's Dad and Step-mom. So, we've made the right decision, we think. But Big A CANNOT FIND A JOB. No matter what. He's put in hundreds of applications. Literally. No, he's not Ivy League educated, but he's smart and funny and personable and he works his ass off. So, I blame George Bush...see my previous rant on that.

So, we've got $$$ problems. Who doesn't? Cry me a river.

Well, it stems from growing up watching my Mother try and keep a bit of food in our cupboard, probably, but I feel like grown-ups, which we pride ourselves on being, ought to have some savings, and a 401k, and the dough to, you know, EAT. And we do, but we aren't taking care of business and building our credit like we were and it's frustrating.

NOW...I've been living in a state of limbo these days, too. Not knowing when my ACTUAL PhD will be granted (In case I need to look for another job). Not knowing when my ACTUAL job might get ripped out from under me like one of those cartoons from the 80's when no one cared if kids grew up thinking that it was cool to drop big-ass rocks on small animals. Not knowing whether or not I'm going to be funded...it's all just limbo, and I don't DO limbo. I'm a concrete sort of gal. But, you know...que sera and all that.

So, I've been doing a little jig of Pollyanna, trying so hard to be positive. I listen to happy music and concentrate on how great my kids are and how much Andy and I have grown closer to one another because of this move. I focus on how we have food and good friends and we've got places to go and people to see and so what if we don't live quite like we used to and have to budget every penny. I stay POSITIVE. And I am telling you right now, IT IS REALLY HARD!!!

But I've been doing it. I've put away the emo kid and the cigarette smoking hardass liquor swigging chick and I've been DOING IT.

And I'm about to break right into about a million pieces.

Because right before we got all pregnant and then moved across the country, we went through possibly the most difficult time of our pretty short relationship. My grandma died. My life's blood, the glue that held my very family together. She DIED. She seemed immortal to me, and she DIED. And so what? People's grandmas die. But she was my Mother for a long time. And she knew how to fix anything. And she was eaten alive by cancer and then suffocated in the plasma that leaked from her body into her lungs. No, it was not pretty. It was inhumane. There are laws about euthanizing racehorses in this country, but we let our octogenarians wither away and suffer like some sort of worm on the concrete after a summer shower. It's sick. But more on that another day.

And now, Andy's grandma is dying. Like right now. This minute. In hours or days, but not weeks, we will be driving to Kentucky to say our goodbyes. And I've got to find a way to explain this to Aidan and find a way to cope myself that doesn't involve thousands of dollars of diagnostics to diagnose a panic disorder...and I have to find a way to be there for my dearest Big A. Because he is my ROCK. People. He is the strongest man I've ever met EVER and his sweet, kind, perfect Grandma is going to die. And don't misunderstand me, Ruth is one of the MOST AMAZING women I've ever met. Raising 6 kids alone in the Kentucky wilderness with no car. Growing her own food. Managing an estate. Managing a LIFE. She and I share a birthdate and should I be able to count my contributions of goodness to the world the way she can? I will have lived a successful life.

And Big A is ill. REALLY ill. With what we are 90% certain is H1N1 influenza and he can't get out of bed and I constantly fret about him becoming a statistic and he needs me and the kids need me and I'm needing to be putting 65 or 70 hours a week into lab right now and I need to get the house clean and call creditors and explain things and brew the coffee and make the soup and give the medicine and keep the kids healthy and remember the doctors appointments and think about how I should have just insisted Andy be on my insurance because he's not on my insurance because it's so expensive and I wonder if Obama is going to fix this and the birthdays and think about Christmas presents and all the while pretend that everything is okay because Aidan is old enough to know that things aren't okay and my milk won't let down because I can't relax and I can't sleep because I'm afraid Big A is going to stop breathing and it just goes on and on and on.

And so I need to breathe.

But before I do that, I need to tell you that I don't really think that God is all that invested in this. I think he loves his children...I do...and I consider myself a child of God because I love Him right back and I don't think this is his fault. And I'm not the only one in the world with problems, or even with THESE problems. But it IS hard. And if He weren't dealing with all that famine and war and pestilence and stuff, I might be inclined to ask for a little help. But I won't. Because I know He's busy. But that whole not giving you too much thing? Bullshit.

Grandma Ruth would know what to do.

I have a warm, gooey center.

This is me now, with 2 of my 3 favorite men ever....Mini A, in the chair, and Little A in my lap.
This photo shows me, (with my finger in my mouth) in high school at a drama competition
with my good friend, Mindy, circa 1999.


I spent the better part of this day working in my lab "rocking" out to my very favorite tunes. Pandora makes me happy. I have the MOSTPERFECTPLAYLISTEVER...it consists of a quickmix of my The Fray/Kelly Clarkson/David Cook/Glen Hansard/Debussy/Sugarland....so, basically, a schizophrenic mix of songs to put on your favorite wife-beater, call an ex-boyfriend and tell him he sucks, then kill yourself to after your dog drinks your last good Merlot. I'm quirky. Deal with it.

I only realized that my musical leanings might be revealing too much about me when my lab mate, Audrey turned to me and said something like, "You're just a big softie, aren't you?" And I said, "Hunh??!?" and then turned down the music. She repeated, "You're just a big softie, all this music." or something like that. I think I may have blushed. I can't be sure.

Because, folks, I pride myself on being kind of badass. I am the chick with things in control. I have kids who eat vegetables. I keep my car and house clean even with a 3 year old and an infant doing their best to destroy them. I have a perfect husband. I do involved and precise research. I write. I often forget to brush my hair and/or teeth...but whatever. I'm AWESOMELY! (in my head) in control and I take no prisoners. I am scary and mean and tough and no one breaks me.

So, for the cutesy adorable Audrey to accuse me, ME! of being a softie? I must be losing my edge.

And then I had a look at myself in the bathroom mirror after lunch.

Jeans, flip flops, white T-shirt, heather gray short sleeved sweater, scarf, braided hair, no makeup, bags under the eyes, bad skin, men's watch, splash of perfume...wait, what???

I was emo before emo was cool (not that it is ACTUALLY cool). I wore all black and wrote in leather journals with quill tipped pens. I was accused (by teachers, even) of practicing witchcraft in high school. I was teased. I was ostracized. I was fringe. I was absolutely miserable. And I have forgotten what it is to be absolutely miserable. Thank God.

I'm happy. So I've lost my edge. I've got time in my brain to think about things like a national health plan and whether or not Obama is going to be the President I hoped/voted for. I have time to care and think about my family and how they're doing and even to admit that I miss them. I have time to care about whether my family is going to be okay through the flu season and whether I'll actually ever get a job doing what I love and being well-compensated. I have time to consider my husband and his fine ass and whether or not I am making him happy. Happiness...it's a double edged sword.

So, I care about you. I care if you read this. I want to take away your pain and make the world a better place. I want to make everyone around me happy. I love my kids and my husband and my family and my friends and I even love those people who hate me and have since I rocked the emo. And do you know what? It feels right. It feels good to know that I'm still growing and not just sitting in my cynical, superior corner, sipping wine and talking about what a stupid, fruitless world this is and how much people suck.

People DO suck. I am annoyed by the whole lot of you, sometimes. I cannot understand greed and intentionally inflicting pain. I am baffled by WHY people can't share their wealth with the homeless and the indigent. I am confused by why people believe anything they're told and don't seek out information. Why my generation considers it perfectly valid because WIKIPEDIA said so. In fact, it makes me IRATE to think about my peers, sometimes. But I still love them. I still love you! I want to make you grow and show you how different the world might be if everyone found it in themselves to give just a little shit.

I was told once that I had to take care of myself first and that the older I got, the more I'd realize that I had to look out for "number one" and tell everyone else to "go to hell". Well, I'm 27, almost 28 years old. I have three gorgeous men to care for. I am a grown up. And I STILL choose to try and help others. And while it is sometimes practical to ensure my and their safety first. I will NEVER intentionally put my own comfort over another person's. Ever. I find humanity to be cruel and unforgiving but also merciful and fearless and I want so desperately to contribute something worthwhile to them. To you!

And that's why my music is schizophrenic. It reminds me of where I was, who I am, and who I hope to be. I like being gooey. I suspect I may also be sweet. So suck on that!

Geore W. Bush ruined my career.

So, I begin too many sentences with the word "so". It's a habit. Sorry. I'm not going to change. If only the scientific world's editors would accept my sweet little stream of consciousness flavor of writing, I would totally be working in a posh lab at Duke Med instead of getting quasi-fired from my NC State post doc.

So, let's talk about NC State.

I've never been anywhere...let alone a college campus (in a metro area with many college campuses) that has 50,000 people on it on a given day. Fifty thousand. You didn't read incorrectly. And it's beautiful and sort of poetic in this unassuming way. See, State is an ag/vet sort of place...in point of fact, my building smells like the ass of a chicken has lit a cigarette and broken wind at the same time. Right now, it smells like someone has cooked the chicken with the cigarette and the gas...but whatever. It's downtown, so there's an urban feel to it, but the students are fresh-faced and genteel. There is a sense of history, of rural class. It's great, State, and I'm going to miss it.

"Why are you going to miss it?" you say. I'll tell you why: BECAUSE GEORGE W. BUSH ruined my life. Because he gave the greedy bastards who run the money in this country carte blanche and then declared war on both science and intellectualism. Make no mistake, his wars aren't wars of "freedom" or any other buzz word he wants to put out there...they're wars on the "other" and science, to him, was other.

I digress. We didn't get funded. It was always a possibility, so that isn't the problem.

The problem is this: I didn't expect to fall so in love with the folks I work with, with my boss and his silly awesomeness, with my boss' ex-wife who is awesome in a totally different way...with the techs and the grad students and even the undergrads. These people are quality, intelligent, quirky, worthwhile folks and I cannot imagine a world where I get to have this sort of gift twice. And so, I am angry. When I get angry, I try to fix things. I cannot fix this. Funding dates are too far gone, money sources tapped out, etc. etc. etc. I am the breadwinner in my family right now; we moved here because I wanted to. What happens when this turns out to have been a mistake? I am not the sort of person to shy away from blame.

So, I've been putting in applications. It's a hard thing, to put yourself out there again and again and again and hear no a thousand times. It's even harder when it's scientists telling you no, because we are a group of the most socially retarded people on the planet. We say things like, " We think you are qualified and would fit in the position, but we'd like to have someone who has a more team-oriented perspective." I.e. "We want a man from India and/or some other country where people are often politically forbidden to ask questions to work in our lab for 75 hours a week and do our bidding with no questions and no ideas of his own. We think you are bossy and loud and awkward and have little to no interest in answering your questions or making you a better scientist. Know your place, woman."

Make no mistake, quite a large chunk of the people I have met in my field are absolutely the most progressive group I've ever met...seriously, to paraphrase my good friend J, they literally wouldn't care if you're purple, if you do good science. But, come on, I don't think I'm the next Marie Curie or Linus Pauling, but I'm good at what I do! I'm fun! I swear a lot! I make the coffee! Give me a job!!! (Seriously - give me a job)

One way or another, something will give. Until then, I'll be putting in as many hours as my lab (and my stay at home husband's sanity) can take. I love science. Even when it doesn't love me back.

112606 - Poop

I was once an pedantic and sometimes eloquent know-it-all. It's shocking how quickly the humility of motherhood will knock the wind right out of your sails.

Little A is pushing a year old. I feel the swelling chest and the slaps on the back impending. I've almost managed a WHOLE YEAR without somehow irreparably damaging my son. Bring on the DRINKS!

But as I sit here, basking in the gloriousness that is my parental accomplishments, I am transported back to the first time I didn't know what to do with my kid.

Now, I took child-rearing classes. Big A and I had all the books, learned how to properly do this thing...Additionally, I'm the eldest of SEVEN children...of course I know what I'm doing...so imagine my surprise when I realized that I had to become a licensed chemist to interpret the goings-on in my son's diaper. At 2 days old, I gazed into his diaper ready for the "seedy, yellowish, sweet smelling" poo that the parenting books all told me a breast feeding mother sees. I was shocked and dismayed to find not sweet smelling seeds, but a tar-goopy substance that wouldn't leave his cheeks for all the rubbing in the world.

"Ahh, this is meconium," I say to myself, the prepared mother. I know this. It's supposed to happen. It's bits of amniotic fluid being excreted via his digestive system... But how the hell do I remove it? Mind you, this was back when I was still loathe to touch Little A with more force than a tap. So, four-hundred wet wipes later, the meconium was off, and he was pooping again.

This continued for about three days, then the "sweet" smelling stuff started. Now we're on to real people poop and I mean, it is stinky. These are the things that fill my mind day after day. If you have kids already, you know how I roll. If you don't, be sure you realize you will no longer have discussions about world peace and the ramifications or antiquation of affirmative action should you ever actually become a breeder. You'll chat about poop. And you'll like it.

011707 - Super Human Mommy Strength

At some point, you will face disaster. You will face it as a Mother and you will triumph over adversity...or at least, you will prevent any bodily harm from happening to your bean while simultaneously sacrificing all dignity and probably exposing yourself to lots and lots of pain.

Picture it:

Hobby Lobby parking lot. I and Little A are going into the store to peruse all things wedding. It is windy. It is cold. He is bundled up nice and toasty with so many layers he can't move his arms. I have forgotten to even brush my hair, much less wear a coat.

I've put him in his stroller, because it has one of those lovely little holders for cheerios which you will oneday love and need. I've put cheerios into the container, which he stares at longingly because, again, no arm movement.

As I flip flop along, pushing my bean in his super-stroller, I gaze both ways to ensure no oncoming traffic could endanger my little guy. In doing so, I take my eyes off the ground, a hazardous thing for a person with Mom-reflexes to do. I plummet, tripping over my own damn feet, and instinctively grasp the stroller to balance.

Now, most of you know, a stroller with a 22 pound child is no match for the monstrous post-partum weight of his Mommy...so the stroller tips.

While half-lying-half-sprawling on the ground, I right the stroller, and say "Wheeeeeee!!!!!" to prevent any therapy-meriting trauma to my bean. He giggles. I am shamed when I see the curious faces of the Hobby Lobby workers peering out at the klutz and her adorable little abominal snowman in the parking lot. Little A grabs at his Cheerios.

As I walk in, the 700 year-old lady who greets/checks says, "Do you need any help, honey?"

I sigh.

"Only if you have the power to restore the shreds of my dignity."

She looks at me like I'm a crazy person.

Cheerios are so important. This is the message to take with you.

012607 - Aidan's First Birthday

We'll be having a party tomorrow, but for today, I feel compelled to share his birth story. It has been such a ride. I feel so grateful to have Andy and Aidan in my life. They make me the person I always wanted to be, and make me strive for greater things. So, here we go...

We went into the hospital on Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 at 5 p.m. to begin taking cyto-something...cervix softener/ripener. I got a dose at 5 and another at 12...Had some visitors, yada yada...at midnight I started having some REAL contractions...5 minutes apart, 1 minute to 1 1/2 minutes in duration...real bitches, those...but they wouldn't get any closer together. At 5 a.m., got super duper nauseated and called the nurse for a basin, she, being the angel she was, gave me a little shot of nubane and some anti-nausea stuff...at this point, I was embracing the relief because I STILL wasn't dialated past 2.

My doc comes in at 6:30 a.m. Thursday, checks me, and says the anesthesia man is on his way. I get all teary because I really wanted to try to do it without medicine, control issues, blah blah...SOS. I sucked it up, figuring I'll do whatever I've got to do to get the kiddo out. The epidural isn't awful. Not being able to feel my legs was TERRIBLE for me, but the relief from the pitocin induced contractions was not too bad. I labored, while sleeping off and on, for 5 hours when a nurse came in to check me. We all figured I'd be still pretty closed up. Imagine our suprise when she uncovered my legs to a fully dialated, fully effaced, kid's head showing birth canal. Immediate fire works as my suite is converted to a delivery suite...doc is called, he says try a "test" push. I do, the baby crowns...I am one HELL of a pusher! The epidural has worn off enough that I can feel stuff!!! YAY!!!! Doc arrives in 3 minutes...takes a look, asks me to push. I do. once, twice, the head is out. Doc asks me to stop, suctions, says push again, I do once, twice, three times...breathe, once twice, three times...baby is out. Literally, five minutes of pushing. I have a small tear, because my doc wisely didn't do an episiotomy and it's healing nicely. I feel so surprisingly great! (NOTE: I wrote this a year ago...the day we came home from the hospital...before I'd become brave enough to touch the SIX stitches I had from end to end. This was not a small tear. This was a MONSTROUS tear...but it really didn't hurt that much.)

You know how there's that saying, to make God laugh tell him your plans? WELL...my type A self plans everything, and God ROLLED ON THE FLOOR of my delivery room. Emalyn, my lovely girl, came out AIDAN, my astoundingly beautiful son. I had an entire world of pink for him. HEE HEE HEE...He was 8 pounds flat, 21 1/2 inches, blonde hair, blue eyes, looks like someone to everyone. He's amazing. Good eater, good sleeper, sweet as pie. I couldn't love him more if he were made of dark chocolate.

And just for the record, for any expectant mommy reading this. Aidan was my first. I'm VERY type A, I had everything figured out and knew exactly what I wanted. I didn't get any of it. Literally, even the sex was backward...but because my doctor and I had a great rapport, because Willow Creek is such a spectacularly well staffed women's hospital, because I tried to be flexible, and because my son is the most amazing thing I've ever done, I'm fine with nothing going as planned. You'll be fine too.

So there we go. A year of plans, shot to hell. My whole life revolves around my little bean, and I love it. Here's to more years

030307 - Parental Bootcamp

So, fellow Mamas, it's been quite a week. Little A has been ill with what I can only describe as the most accurate interpretation of the Exorcist that I have ever had the priviledge to witness.

I am crippled, often and heavily, by the fact that I am in science. As a child and well into adulthood, I imagined that I would become a surgeon and so groomed myself in such a way that I would make a good one. Well, life seldom does what one wants it to do, and I am, currently, not a surgeon. I will soon be a doctor, but one of microbiology and cell and molecular biology, meaning, I am NOT a physician. I have enough information to be terrified of MRSA and know the shape and preferred environment of the bug that has infected my boy and to diagnose my progeny, but not enough to treat him.

Okay.

Monday: Aidan's school calls and informs me that he is a little under the weather, has a temperature of 101.2 and is not eating very well. Well, babies get fevers...and I'm not so worried so I pick him up a tiny bit early and head home. Once there, we play and goof around and have a little dinner. Which he promptly up-chucks all over me and I stupidly attempt to catch in one hand. Big A is a little baffled at such a display and so after I yell at him, goes to get towels to be rid of the muck. I assume that this is just a 24 hour bug and will now be over. I am so so very wrong.

Tuesday: Morning. I figure things are getting better. Off we go to school. I attempt work only to be called by Aidan's school with the news that his diapers are exploding with a volume of liquid usually reserved for lakes and swimming pools. I leave early and take him home. He poops, vomits, laughs, plays, poops, eats, drinks. All is well. I am in control. He teaches with me on Tuesday night...my students are all "OHHHH...he's so sweet, I want a baby, I need a baby...blah blah." I explain that there are any number of reasons that babies and college are an impractical combination. They nod and ignore me as usual. We make it through the day. I call Andy, who is out of town working, to explain that I am beginning to be worried. He comforts me and tells me he'll be home soon. I adore him.

Wednesday... the world falls into pure chaos. I take Aidan into school, hoping to be able to make it through my seminar because I've missed every obligation so far this week. School calls, exploding diapers...world is ending. Lakes of poop. I pick up the child, who, much to my dismay is in some sort of baby isolation in the school office, playing with his favorite teacher. I am so so ashamed that I have my poor, sick child out of the house. I've abandoned him to WORK of all things...I hang my head and go home, knowing that this cannot be good.

Thursday. I've let Aidan sleep in a t-shirt, on towels, so that when the diaper explodes, and it will, I won't be juggling poop-filled jammies in the middle of the night...I get poop on myself at his 3 a.m. insistent cry...I change him, comfort him, delirious now from sheer lack of sleep due to worry, I am sure that I smell. And I do not care. Later that morning, Andy, who is now home, buys 3 kinds of Pedialyte, Pedialyte popsicles, medicines, jello, bananas, rice, apples, toast...we try to give Aidan all of it. He is pissed. Having none. We discover that if I sing B-I-N-G-O to him while using a medicine dropper to feed him Pedialyte, he is content. I sing until I am hoarse. He is hydrated. I am LOSING MY MIND. I have to teach again. The instant I leave the house, Little A vomits all over Big daddy A. I teach. Come home. We are worried. I wake the boy to give him liquids and medicine. He seems less lethargic. I worry. No sleep again. More vomit. More poop.

Friday: Today. I have to judge a science fair. Much improvement in the boy. He takes liquids, food, throws up only half of the time. Poop is showing signs of becoming semi-solid. We begin to have hope. Perhaps life will no longer be measured in droppers of liquid. Perhaps we are good parents. Perhaps we might make it through this week...

In short, there is nothing more frustrating and hopeless than knowing that your baby, your angel, is sick and you cannot fix it no matter what you do. You are only a bystander, aware that there is very little in this world you can control and you'd wade through a river of shit and vomit to get to the one thing that will make your kid feel just a smidge better. It passes. Everything passes. You will do the things you need to do, and you WILL make it through the week.

Good luck!

041307 - missing things

There is something very painful about watching your child shift from baby to toddler. I remember sitting in my rocking chair with Aidan. His feet kicked into my ribcage while his head was nestled just above my heart. I would stroke the tops of his feet, marveling that I actually grew something with feet inside of me. I was certain that nothing could be better.

Then he got older.

His feet, seeking solid ground, would point out the toes and try to capture the arms of the chair, head still tucked right below my collar bone. I'd tickle his feet, watching delighted that he had FEELINGS and could find something ticklish.

And now; his feet hang over the arm rest of the chair, dangling impatiently while I sing to him before bed time, getting what touches of the feet he will allow. He's clever enough now to realize that if he moves them, I'll stop tickling.

He is still peaceful, still content to rest his head in its comfortable home, but the time is slowly passing and I am finding him more and more apt to fall asleep on his own, with no persuasion on my part. I no longer nurse him. Those days are far behind me. I give him a bottle, then kisses from Daddy, then a short song or book and off to dream land.

While the autonomy of children is our goal as parents, it is still so hard to watch happen. I see him walk around, discovering things on his own;

"This table is hard and makes tremendously fun noises when banged on with all the educational toys Mom and Dad have bought for me. I think I'll see how many times I can hit the Baby Einstein sunshine on the table before that Mozart guy shuts up."

"Pumpkin the cat is terrified of me, so I will gleefully chase her around the house while screeching like a panther."

"The grape that fell off my high chair this morning is no longer as tasty at 6 p.m."

"Wow, my Mommy is really a lot bigger than I am. I wonder if my butt is ever going to be that big?"

"Hey! If I yank on my diaper long enough, it'll come off and I can look at what's inside! I DO have a butt! And it's got stuff on it! I wonder how that tastes…."

And so on.

Ah, the brief deliciousness of a clean child; the sugary scent of a newly washed baby. It's so fleeting. I understand now why old ladies always want to smell him. Just that hint of the newness and the youth that they have almost forgotten…revisited through the Johnson and Johnson's that you don't realize, one day, you will miss too.

060507 - concrete

I took a poetry class years ago, one in which the instructor (a brilliant, published, bitter man) forbid us to write certain words. "Grandma", "beauty", and the big one...."Love". Now, Heffernan had the foresight to prevent us from making the gaffes of novice writers. He anticipated the insipid and trite words of the affected masses and was trying to force us to put our love for Grandma and beauty into concrete words. I failed as often as not...and I only just realized why this moment.

Stay with me.

I went to my cousin's funeral last Friday. We lived next door to one another for years, were practically brother and sister. In fact, the casual and un-dramatic nature of our relationship was EXACTLY like a brother and sister's. He attended my wedding 8 days before he was hit, riding his motorcycle, by a lady driving a truck she had no business driving. He was dragged by the trailer attached to the truck and died on the scene. It never occurred to me, at the wedding, to pay any special attention to him. Had I known how suddenly he was to meet his maker, could I have changed my level of attention? Unlikely. And so, at his funeral, upon seeing the once broad and lively man sunken into a small and lifeless body, I could only think of how he faced what all living things must face and I hope he faced it with integrity.

That loss of power, the unexpected and unyielding nature of death, is to me, the only thing more frightening than falling in love...which I only just did not long ago.

I read poetry and prose every day telling me of the dramatic and beautiful parts of love...the grandma's love...selfless and charming, the lover's love...chaotic and passionate...the friend's love...effortless and fun...but none of it is meaningful because it is still inside your power to love these people. You can choose not to.

Andy's love hit me like a truck. I didn't want it. I didn't deserve it. I didn't need it. I sure didn't face it with integrity. I could have existed, angry and dark, my whole life, and lived a pretty full existence. I had my petri dishes, my booze, my smokes...I had it all. Red lipstick and Janis Joplin...what more could a girl need?

A girl needs concrete. A girl needs more than a metaphor. I sometimes, stupidly, pine away for all the lost nights of drama and lively conversation at Denny's with who ever might have been there at the time...and then I wake up next to a man who breaks his knees, sacrifices his body, devotes his thoughts and his life to me and the son we created, and I realize that all the late nights with coffee jitters and tobacco stained fingertips, while artsy and edgy, were Grandma compared to the truck-force of the love of this man. My husband. And this love, like childbirth before it and death beyond it, is something I can't control. But I breathe deep and tell myself that all living things face this. I can make it through because I must. Lesser have faced it, and greater have faced it. I can face it too. It might destroy me in its sheer FULLNESS...it overwhelms me daily, but I face it.

How could I have ever written anything abstract?

02007 - clarity

There are stolen moments in my day; brief and oh-so-guilty moments when I forget I am a Mother.

Little A becomes more independent daily, and with his new-found 2 hour nap, I have a whole gap of time in which I might give myself a pedicure, have a glass of wine, call an old friend, or even get some work done. In those moments, I am not the one and only for a toddler, I am not the do-er of laundry and the cleaner of floors...I am a woman. A true and honest person with feelings and needs and desires. I remember to want my husband and comb my hair. I remember to change my clothes and put on some eye-liner. I am still, somewhere hidden deep behind the bags under my eyes and the decaying girlhood that I posses, still yet a child. One who loves flowers and shiny things. One who devours poetry and books. Someone silly and dare I say it? Shallow.
How I miss being shallow. The opressive stink of the severity of a new mother...trying so desperately to not forget something important that might damage her child for life overwhelms and clouds the mind... but in these stolen moments, I get to ease the lines on my face and smile...not the wide open, joyful smile that breaks through when I look at my son, but the shy and contemplative smile of someone remembering a fond memory; a lost love, a moment of shocking clarity. Those are the breaths that make me both cherish the many hours I have with the joys of my life and long for the next moment of youth.

073107 - old poets

Before I was a boring mother and wife, I was a lover of words...mostly my own. Here are a few.(And by the way, I was nothing, if not self-involved. You were warned.)

Loud to the teeth, a proclivity for the dramatic, she strutted into the pub off the street. Apparently lonely again, she wondered if perhaps melancholia was her perpetual state of mind. Guinness in hand, she sat to stare out the pane glass and write.

Roses had never been her thing. More the blood color on the canvas of her face pulled her into the chasm of empty she sought so diligently to fill. The iris, to her, had always seemed the most fearless of flowers, painted a solemn purple, stamen out in the open for anyone to bruise. She admired the iris, but saw in herself the moonflower. Guarded and in constant retreat, flowering only in the cover of night; moon comubsting the dew on a faded petal, setting aflame the bloom, as apt to wilt away as to stagger with the nectar, with the ecstasy of an opening.

She is broken, pulling herself time and time again into the facade of a love in hopes of filling the blank where her won heart should be. A whore of affection...seeking only satisfaction. Though rings nor touches, nor homes can fill an empty space in a wild thing, emptiness nourishes and pain feeds the flames of a lawless passion. She has left scattered and wrecked loves behind her, never thinking of the inevitable failing when she begins, never remembering the beautiful beginnings when it ends. A Guinness and a pen are forlorn things on a Sunday dusk.

And then, some more...

When delightfully flawed, a woman will pull away from the comforts she has known. There are hundreds of romances put onto page with less than ideal heroines, just none I've read. The grime and slips of a human past are blots on the surface of a life, and often, this page looks black. Luckily, the most precious talent I've cultivated is that of reinvention. A living eraser, I can polish away days of waste and rub out the errors of my youth. I am older than I appear, the lined face of a forty-year old is the one I see in the mirror, and years of violence have left me a shell of the girl I once was. I wrote once, in my youth, of making daisy chains and living in a Pollyanna world. My days are darker now, tainted with the hurt I have wreaked on those around me. There is no solace for a person like me. Yet perfection reaps boredom, and I am nothing, if not the antithesis of boredom.

080307 - Things you'll hate yourself someday...

Skinny jeans, smoking, getting addicted to anything, being too naive, being too jaded, having too much sex, having too little, eating too much, not enjoying the things you eat. Blue fingernail polish, unflattering haircuts, being unkind, being disinterested, being too cool for anything. Hating high school. Hating math. Hating anything. Being too passionate to moderate your words. Claiming you are definitely anything. Being mean to your parents, not being mean enough to people who deserve it. Being preachy. Being proud. Not being humble. Forgetting most of your life. Forgetting to live your life.

Or maybe that's just me.

121107 - No Crack Like Baby Joy

I think it only gets harder.

Honestly, the older I get, the more difficult it can be to handle the awful truths of every day life. The shit in the floor I just mopped, the messes, the little, imperfect things that totally piss me off and make me want to pull my hair out. They just start building up like this giant tower of bullshit that I'm never going to get rid of...and with my OCD and the tendency I have toward bitch...I sometimes feel like I'm going to lose it.

On those days, more than any other, I stop and hug my child. Like a meditation. I throw what ever meaningless thing I have in my hands away; dishes, dusting, homework, books, journals, bills, I put it away literally, out of sight and out of mind, and I hug my kid, while sitting in the floor. Even if he's the thing making me want to fucking punch something and go outside and smoke 11 packs of cigarettes that I so desperately want and do 9 shots of the best booze I can find...I hug him, and smell his hair, dirty, clean, whatever, and I think...would what I'm pissed about matter to him? The innocent, perfect, guileless, joyful kid I created...and if it wouldn't, I leave it until after I've sat in the floor and played and given him enough of my time to satisfy me that he's sure I love him and am not angry at him...and by the time that happens, I'm usually feeling pretty fucking good...because, I'll tell you...there is no crack like baby joy. There really isn't. With my hubby out of town 3 nights of the week and school and research on top of mommyhood...I'm finding more and more that in mommyhood, I've found my zen.

012408 - Grandmothers

Any of you reading this clearly read my blogs and know that I am a somewhat morbid person.

My grandmother is dying.

She is the giver of all the life my giant family possesses. She is shockingly tough to the tune of: she delivered all of her children without the care of a doctor, two of them in a cotton field, one on the way to California to pick grapes. She buried a husband and continued with their farm for 25 years. She waited until she was 82 to stop raising cattle because she didn't think it was respectable any more for a lady of her age to drive a tractor and bale hay…she is remarkable…in every thinkable way she astonishes me with her strength.

She raised me for many years, became my Mother when my own Mother couldn't be there. She is perfection, but has always thought she was ugly. She possessed this inner light that couldn't be stifled no matter what atrocities she witnessed…and she witnessed so many. She is a devout Christian and a simple woman. She isn't a "thinker"; she's never read Proust or learned a Romantic language. She played the fiddle once…by ear, just because she thought it was beautiful…she told me. She slept with a Colt 45 at the head of her bed and knew how to use it. She worked so hard in her life that her hands were as rough as sandpaper and it is that, not the buttery softness of skin that I associate with my Grannie. She made cornbread of such fine quality that everyone fought for the corners to get that crispness and lightness of food prepared with intense love. She grew corn so high that I swore, as a child, I could climb up and sit with God. She grew things; trees, cattle, kids, corn, beans. She IS home. There is no other for me. There can't be. I don't pray as often as she would like, I'm sure, but when I do, I pray for the strength that only her blood in my veins can give me. The ability to give and love so deeply that not even death itself can scratch the surface of my memory

Every Christmas I've been alive, and many before that, our family have gathered in her home. This year, for the first time, she couldn't summon the strength to cook. So we all cooked and cleaned for her. And all the while, she lay on the couch in the family room. She looked defeated. She, goddess of hearth and home, she lay there with no energy, jaundiced and spent. I asked her not long ago if while she lay there it occurred to her that she had created all of us. That she was the nebula from which we, her sprawling family had sprung. It had never occurred to her; though she is proud that she raised 5 children with 9 children of their own and 9 children of theirs. We are a strong and loving family; varied in strengths derived from her. Magnificent in the ability to love unconditionally which, on the whole, has been so deeply fixed in us by her willingness to give everything she ever had to us. In that way, more than any other, she is with us always and will continue giving guidance, love, and comfort long after her body is gone.

And now, she is dying. And I can't be sad for her. Because when I was a child, young and unable to sleep, she would talk with me and tell me stories about her youth and her girlhood and how much she loved her life and her strength and she never wanted to not be strong. She is no longer strong. So while I am certainly going to miss her, I am not sad, because she lived her life the way I'd like to live my own. In her ability to seize her life and give it all to us, her motly crew of kids, she lives on always.

I am so grateful my son has met her; that I have photos of him with her. That he will some day know from what strong folks he is born.

022708 - Faith

Lately, I've been doing lots of thinking about my spirituality or lack thereof. Andy and I have done some talking about churches and such...but I decided to widen the net. The following is a letter I sent to my very good friend Lori about my current beliefs and issues with churches...I know that it isn't something people in our (me and my friends/blog-readers) demographic typically sit around and discuss...but I think it should be. So please read at least part of it and give me some feedback. In light of the recent NPR report that more Americans than ever are free-floating through different faiths, I feel sure I am not the only one who feels some void in my life where faith should reside.

I have maintained an enduring faith in God and in Jesus. I've never inwardly doubted the presence of these...I've prayed, abided by the commandments, and tried to be good to mankind...my beef is with the bible.

I have exhausted myself trying to get someone to show me proof that the bible is verifiable words of God. Now, I don't doubt that God WOULD have said some of it, maybe even did...but so much of it is written by men as an historical record and a code of law to help govern a very difficult group of citizens. I find the bible falliable and the common threads of all religions that also appear in the book to be infalliable...the golden rule, no false idols, no disrespect to elders, respect and sacrifice, honesty...those things are as omnipresent as the idea of a creator. They ring true. What doesn't is the idea that a loving God, to me, the wisest and most powerful scientist, would make his greatest science experiment...mankind...then make rules that are wildly contradictory to the instinctual behaviors of his creations.

I know that the idea of Satan plays in there, but I am unclear on whether the idea of Satan is a tangible manifestation of temptation and urges to be ugly to one another...I think sometimes that the writers of Revelation were doing their very best to use fear to control political/social rebellions and came up with the scariest of images.

My problem is that there is no way to know. I have faith. By definition unprovable...that there is a kind and just God...it's the accessories that I'm unsure of. Organized religions have turned into big business and I am unwilling to put myself on a big machine if I don't know who's driving. Perhaps I've grown so accustomed to interpreting literature that the bible has lost it's sacred nature. I do think it is a generally good set of instructions...but all of the "literal" interpreting churches I've been in (and there have been many) have cherry-picked the verses to which they want to strictly adhere...that is, all of the restrictions on food they ignore and call outdated...well...those were functional rules...don't eat fish on Friday...it was a sanitation issue...don't wear short skirts/pants as a woman...help control the wilder of the men and prevent rapes by taking away the temptation...so if we have to adhere to the bible's message...why do we not also adhere to those rules?

It's all very confusing. I don't mean to sound argumentative or agnostic...I am very much a believer...and with respect to some things, I know and accept that we CANNOT know and maybe are not intended to know...but I will no longer blindly believe anything. I have gotten myself into too much trouble doing that in the past.

I know that for many of you, this is tiresome and you haven't even read this far...but please, if you have opinions, I'd like to hear them. Questions of faith and belief are so taboo lately...I think an honest discussion about God/Christ/faith is desperately rare. I am so limited in my scope in some ways...I am truly interested in your thoughts/experiences.

112008 - Grown Ups are Over rated

So, I've become un-fun. I married a man who never knew me when I lived from my car and only possessed books and fabulous shoes. I married a man who has only ever known the super-stressed-ultra-organized-nazi-bitch of a woman who is incapable of actual joy because it's too messy. I've become the opposite of my mother and that was, of course, the point.

And now I have to un-do it if I'm going to save this thing and actually enjoy the perfect little world I created.

I have a laundry list of men (and women) who knew me then. I wish I could get them all together to tell me the best and worst parts about me and have Andy present so that he could hear them too...and then I'd want his, for those are the most important. I never left a relationship without knowing more about myself than I knew going in. I took and took and took and now, now that I want to be the giver...giver of a lovely house and clean and happy children...hot food and a kiss goodnight...it seems that what I actually need to be giving is the thing I have forgotten how to be. Fun. Happy. Lovable. It used to be so easy to captivate people...make them fall in love with me and stay with me for some time. I carefully locked away the real parts of me that longed for the life I currently have and convinced myself that suburbia was boring and the bohemian life was all I needed. And it was never an issue, saving a relationship, because I just left when things got dull or too intense.

I have spent the last year thinking that my loss of that spark has to do with the death of my grandmother and the newfound appreciation for life that I have...I blamed the rest of it on the sad shape of both my body and the shambles of a wardrobe/beauty process I have left...but the truth of it all is this: I lost my joy. I'm not sure how...I'm not sure if that is requisite for growing up. I do know that if I can't get it back, we're doomed. I'm driving him away and I just don't want to do this without him.

How do we grow up and be responsible and still love one another and make time for fun and joy and each other? How!? I've got no answer. Do you?

021909 - Death of Art

I dated this poet, once, and he wrote about me. About my hair and how I never brushed it, about the curves of my body when I lay on a bed writing, about my temper and my smile and my eyes and all my bad habits...he wrote a lot and he wrote well. Once he wrote about my silhouette in the closet as I picked out my clothes for the day. He was an hyperbolic, alcoholic, pseudo-intellectual who fancied himself far more brilliant than he actually was and who was far more talented than he realized. But he wrote about me. He took photos of me. He found me interesting enough to inspire art...or what passed as art in those days of gin and lucky strikes. I say that, to say this...I often feel I've lost that ability to inspire. Like I spend my days taking care of people and of myself and that's all I really have to give. I fool myself into thinking that the ability to keep a beautiful house and get dinner cooked and bake cookies and cupcakes and kiss my sweet child and devoted husband goodnight make my days fulfilling...but it doesn't sometimes. There are days when I'm fulfilled. When I devote all of my time to just enjoying my family or my work or a good book or a meal...when I throw myself into something with all my force...usually the creation of something new, a poem, a cake, a baby...is enough to satisfy. But there are days when I miss being able to move the earth for someone. It is glorious and almost holy to care for my family and to do it well. To love them more than anyone else will ever love them. To know Andy inside out...to know what will make him smile...to know what he needs and be able to give it to him. To anticipate things that will bring joy to Aidan...to seek the things that make him giggle out and bring them to him. It feels special, right, beautiful. I am the giver of happiness to the two most important things in my world...and yet... And still...I inspire no one. I am so busy doing the things I feel I must that I no longer have energy or time to be the sort of person who could inspire poetry. It's a terrible thing, growing up. I wouldn't, couldn't change it...it's the price of motherhood, of the early years of marriage, the self. But every once in a while I look into the mirror and wonder if I can ever get her back. Because I miss her, the muse in me, immature, impulsive, angry, and selfish, she was still, often, more interesting than this Stepford shell I have become.

082809 - WhyJulia Roberts can suck it.

I have a problem with panic. It's been diagnosed. It gets better then worse then better. I am often afraid that I will die in my sleep, and so, I make it a point to tuck in and kiss all three of my guys before bed every single night. No exceptions. Period. It is a compulsion and, luckily, one that isn't quite as debilitating as, say, online poker or methamphetamines. Nonetheless, it is slightly unhealthy that my good night rituals center around a fear of not waking in the morning.

I tell you that to tell you this: Andy is going out of town for a weekend in T minus 2 weeks. For a wedding. For approximately 50 hours. He will be going to the airport on a Friday a.m. and returning on a Sunday afternoon. Fine. Okay. Except that I'm going to be all alone with the kids.

Now, most Mom's would be concerned about how to entertain the kids, keep the house clean, keep their sanity...but oh no, not me. I'm concerned that I will die in my sleep or have a stroke or another sort of embolism and the fire department won't be able to kick in my door because I'll have the fancy brass door lock thingy engaged. So, it's a war in my mind...do I engage the lock for safety to keep out predators and door to door bible salesmen? Or leave it open so that the imaginary police/fire rescue/paramedics can enter my house and find my screaming children horrified at Mommy not getting out of bed. Morbid? Yes. I am aware. Healthy? Assuredly not. But the ability to write about this, my old therapist would tell you, without the crushing need to race to an ER and be evaluated, is healthier than you know.

So, that scene, in Steel Magnolias? The one where Julia Robert's character is all slumped over in a diabetic coma and her husband comes home to find her toddler all screechy and red-faced? That's the image I have of myself for the coming weekend. It ain't pretty, folks. The contemplation of mortality that Moms the world over face when they stop and think.

Now, mind you, I have lots of fears about the actual death part. My life is so amazing, I'd be so sad to leave it early. But it is truly the fate of the kids that concerns me most. What does it say about me that I don't want my imaginary death/major stroke to inconvenience anyone? How sad is all this?

So, I told you THAT to tell you THIS...I am seriously considering imposing on my dearest and best friends who are camping in another state that weekend. I am seriously considering traipsing out into the woods and forcing these good and kind people to tolerate my children and myself for the weekend so that i don't have to be alone....if you know me at all, you know how dire the situation is for me to be considering camping. CAMPING. I don't DO outdoors. Bugs, peeing on trees, weather, blowup mattresses...it's all just so...idk...out of my realm of expertise and so out of my control and so difficult for me to handle. I like the outdoors...I do. I like stars and trees and fresh air, all in theory...but I just don't know. And also, that whole..."Oh yeah! Come with us!" in a sort of a ....oh geez, this could be bad voice...if I had something to contribute to the expedition, it might really be an option, but I fear we'd be the freeloading city folk wondering why Dora the Explorer isn't jumping out of the bushes to point the way to the ROJO BANA.

The second, and more likely scenario, is that my bestie, Rachie, will be calling me before the beginning of and after the conclusion of her graveyard shift at the hospital in Little Rock. Should I not answer, she will be calling 911. Now, I'm sure we can all see where this might go horribly wrong.

I will certainly not be sleeping well, and so, am likely to not hear the phone when Rachel calls in the a.m. Should this, in fact, happen, and she calls 911 and they show up...I'll be horrified when I answer the door in my underpants all wondering what's happened and THEY'LL be POed to have been sent to the house of the crazy lady who is incapable of being alone with her own children.

My friend, Audrey, is allegedly bringing her cutie of a daughter over for a girl's night to stave off the onslaught of insanity on Friday night, so we'll see. But I'm just saying, I blame Julia Roberts for this.

083009 - Being in the circle.

After some particularly compelling conversation with friends this evening, I found myself putting away the dishes from dinner and poking around at the details of the night’s topics. I stumbled, as I am wont to do, upon the real common thread that binds my “circle”.

To know me is to know that I have a widely diverse group of people whom I affectionately refer to as “my people”. They range from beautiful, happy, shallow waters to deep, still, and murky. They are people who make me better in some way, make me more than I could ever be alone. They’re MY people. And I always thought, till this evening, that what bound them to me was, in my friend Vicki’s words, the “fringe” factor. I had assumed, wrongly, it turns out, that I gravitated toward this weird group due to some innate instinct to seek people who have felt ostracized or outcast at some point in their lives. Left of center, if you will. They really are, by and large, fringe, my people. Sloppily thrown aside as un-categorizable or easily boxed in by a society who cannot compel a single linear thought over the course of an hour’s conversation. A society who, because one person or another doesn’t fit adequately into some high school label or, conversely, fits squarely, deems these folks not fit for further investigation.

These things are true, but they aren’t the thing that binds.

In fact, every single person in my circle is nonchalantly heroic. The sort of people who save innocent animals from pain and neglect. People who would, literally, give hours and hours of their precious short time on this planet to keep a kitten or puppy company. People who protect the weak and do not expect praise or thanks, but do it because it is right and true. People who give and give of themselves to others who often do not understand the level of sacrifice being mounted. People who protect the moral nature of logic and understand how rare and precious the rational approach to life really is. People who will answer a question, no matter how difficult, candidly. People who don’t care to misrepresent themselves to you, BECAUSE they are your friend and BECAUSE they know it will make your bond stronger to disagree and still continue speaking. Mature and kind and selfless people who will share a meal with you and help clear the plates. People who know all walks of life and are genuinely engrossed in the things that you say and are not just waiting on their turn to talk. People from whom you want advice and thoughts. They are pithy and empathetic and they know better than to make sweeping judgments of others because they themselves have been judged.

These are my people. I am so privileged to have married a hero. To count NUMEROUS heroes among my best and truest friends. To find heroes in my own family. I cannot fathom a world in which I deserve such company but I am grateful for that world. And I am grateful that these people, my circle, are in it.

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

So, let's see...the mind plays tricks on a person, so I'd better get this all down before I forget. We got to the hospital yesterday at 6 a.m. I had the sweetest and most amazing nurses bar none. I was pre-registered so they put in an i.v. which almost made me pass out (what IS that? I can push a whole person out of my body, but I can't handle a tiny little needle in the forearm?!). They started the pitocin drip, which, for the uninitiated, is the hormone that causes the contractions that move the baby into position and get things crack-a-lackin'. The dosage kept being upped for some time, contractions got more intense...anesthesiologist

came in about 10:30 a.m. to do my epidural which, let me tell you, folks, is not a laugh riot, but isn't NEARLY as awful as it could be. So...now I've got clear tubing in my arm feeding me hormones, a contracting uterus, and now a clear tube in my spinal column feeding me delicious drugs. An aside: When I had Aidan, I also had an epidural, 11 hours after beginning contractions/pitocin. Those contractions weren't fun, but they, as it turns out, were NOTHING. When that epidural went in, I felt nothing. My legs were numb, my pelvis was numb, I slept until Aidan was almost out of me waking every 30 minutes or so to say pithy things and smile at the 27 people in my room. This was NOT the case this time.
I digress: I got my epidural, nothing was numb, but it was working, the sensitivity, the PAIN in the lady bits was gone...but I could still feel my contractions and most everything else...legs still worked, all that. What I did not realize was that things were about to get, uh, interesting.

About 1:30, I started FEELING the contractions, that is, they started to be painful enough that I couldn't concentrate on anything but breathing through them. Still okay...about 2:30, they started to get bad enough that I kept getting nauseous when they'd spike. Now, again for the uninitiated, a contraction feels something like a cross between the worst foot cramp you've ever had and the worst stomach flu you've ever had... if those two cramps combined and ganged up on your entire pelvis, that would be a contraction. That's without an epidural...WITH this epidural, I could only feel the contraction in on spot in my pelvis, but the pain would shoot down my legs a la previously mentioned foot cramp. They were a minute or so apart, 30-45 seconds long and coming rapid fire. Not fun...but...idk...relieving because I knew the pain was FOR something.

Now, once again. I never really FELT what this all was when I had Aidan. So I never really felt the urge to push. Let me tell you folks, it's intense. It's not something one can control. It's like you're helpless. So, about 2 hours after the real contractions started, the awesome nurse Barbara transformed our sweet little room into a birthing suite, flipped on the kleig lights, I pushed for about 15 minutes, hit my doc in the face with a splash of blood (which TOTALLY disconcerted Andy), and there he was. I felt it all...it was amazing and painful and one of the most impressive things I've ever done. Biology is fascinating.

Many stitches (I tore again, another thing I got to FEEL as I was stitched up...yipes!), a shower, some housekeeping, and a 1/3 of a Braum's bacon-cheeseburger later and I feel great. I'm waiting to go home. I'm sore, I'm happy, and I'm ready to finish my dissertation. Half my summer goals down, half to go. Thanks to all of you for your sweet wishes. I'm sorry to have been so cranky these past weeks and I hope we'll see you all soon.

P.S. It only took 4 months for me to remember to write down that the umbilical cord was wrapped around Archer's neck and no one told me while I was in labor. What is that about? Seriously. Demand full disclosure from your doctor, all you pregnant people. Because otherwise, you're gonna feel a little bit out of the loop. Or pissed. Or both.

062309 - Music Moves Me

Music has always moved me, in fact, many things affect me in a visceral sort of way. I love intensely. I speak passionately. I've never done much of anything halfway. I cry easily but I seldom cry in front of people. I have mastered my emotions but I choose to be blatant about pretty much everything. In short, I feel too much but I show very little of those feelings.

When I was growing up, I talked to myself a lot. I grew up in rural Oklahoma, with no one around for miles. Those people who were near were geriatrics or were pre-pubescent boys who had little to no interest in the thoughts of a girl who was quite younger than they. So I talked to myself or I talked to the willow tree in my grandmother's yard. It was a young tree, likely no older than 10 years or so. But it was big enough to support me and so I would often lie cradled in it's smooth branches. I would take the occasional book to read...I favored Anne of Green Gables or Gone with the Wind. But mostly, I would lie in those branches and think. Dream. Toss the facts of my then short life around in my head like a racquetball. I didn't know I was lonely...I had wonderful stories in my head of a life that I wasn't living. Usually, in these stories, I was a victim of some horrible thing...abandoned by my parents or captive in a life of drudgery and solitude...stories close to my real life, but far more intense and dramatic. In my head, I was always rescued by a prince or a kind gentleman and I'd be taken to "the city" where I'd live a glamorous life of high energy work and love.

These stories shaped my life for many years. For too long, I wanted to be rescued. I wanted someone to come along who could fix me and my disheveled past. You see, my life was not all bad. It truly wasn't. But it was enough to break me in some ways. Those wounds...abandonment, abuse, pain, solitude...they molded me. Worse are the coping mechanisms I developed. I hate being alone, so I surround myself with people and make them need me so they won't leave...effectively infantilizing everyone I know. I am closed off...so much so that I cannot bear being touched by the opposite sex unless I know them very well. And most insidious, I am shockingly self-reliant but desperate to be cared for. I CAN do anything I need to do. Cook, repair, change my oil, hang a shelf...but I WANT someone to insist I shouldn't have to do anything. A hero, if you will. A gentleman.

I am not alone in my need for a hero. I see it all around me. The desire to be saved. Young women across this country, and possibly across the world, are so self sufficient...so brave...but they do want someone to do things for them. Recall the movie "The Breakup". There is a quite funny scene where the woman character is admonishing the male for not wanting to do the dishes. He tells her to just ask him and he'll do them...she replies she wants him to WANT to do the dishes, she doesn't want him to do them. OF COURSE this makes no sense at all. But I understand, the scene is resonant and funny for a reason, and I daresay many of you relate too. We've very efficiently trained ourselves to be prepared for anything but deep down, we sometimes still want someone to take it away and do it for us. We want to be rescued.

And so I come back to music. I am often teased for my taste in dramatic and possibly emo music...but these songs, these lyrics, they allow me to feel without being judged. To cry with no consequence. To emote with no fear of being overwhelmed. I often hear a song during my days that I want to share with someone...hints of the feelings I have for them and want so desperately to convey...and if they aren't right there with me, I can't. And even, in Andy's case, sometimes he is there...but the feeling I'm trying to share...the moment I want to get across to him is too ephemeral, too fleeting. And so, I'm left with just notes in my head and a breaking heart at the intense love I can often not show.

042409 - 10 things to not say to a woman in the last weeks of her pregnancy AKA things that have been said to me in the past month. Ever.

This may read like a pity party and I don't care...people should know that pregnant women aren't public property.

10. Are you STILL pregnant?
9. Are you just keeping that baby inside to annoy me?
8. God, can you get any bigger?
7. You look like you're about to pop!
6. How's our baby doing? Ready to come out?
5. Hey! Your feet aren't really all that fat!
4. Why are you still out and about?
3. Oh I just can't wait for you to have that baby!
2. You must really be sick of maternity clothes...I mean...ew.
1. Go have that baby so I can spoil it!

And the quiet responses I didn't give, because I know that even the rudest of these people were well meaning.

10. Yes, I am STILL pregnant. I STILL am miserable and in pain and you are making it worse.
9. Yep. You caught me. I'm clamping my cervix down like Fort Knox just to piss you off.
8. Yes, as a matter of fact, I gained 50 MORE pounds with my first kid, but thanks for making me feel even more unattractive than I already do.
7. I am about to pop. Literally...you, in the face. I'm going to cut you. Go away.
6. OUR baby? I'm sorry, I didn't realize that your uterus was involved.
5. Yes they are. And they hurt, rub them or fuck off.
4. Because I, in addition to being a baby-maker, am a human being with a job that I love that requires I finish manuscripts, train people, do work, and remember that I am valuable for more than my reproductive skills.
3.You can't wait, hunh. Yeah. I bet you're just on pins and needles and it occupies every neuron in your mind.
2. Yes. I am sick of maternity clothes. They're hot. They itch. They're absolutely unsexy and they don't stay put. But because you're a MAN you probably shouldn't comment on them.
1. Please don't talk about spoiling the thing that isn't even out of my body yet. I can only concentrate on being annoyed about one thing at a time, and this one is all consuming.

There are lots of things people say without thinking, and most of them come from a good place...I've said the stupid wrong thing LOTS of times...but people...really...the only thing a REALLY pregnant person wants to hear is something along the lines of...hey..."I know you must be really uncomfortable. I'll bet your baby is going be perfect and your labor and delivery will be easy. AND you look great. Really. Good luck."

This may read like a pity party and I don't care...people should know that pregnant women aren't public property.

10. Are you STILL pregnant?
9. Are you just keeping that baby inside to annoy me?
8. God, can you get any bigger?
7. You look like you're about to pop!
6. How's our baby doing? Ready to come out?
5. Hey! Your feet aren't really all that fat!
4. Why are you still out and about?
3. Oh I just can't wait for you to have that baby!
2. You must really be sick of maternity clothes...I mean...ew.
1. Go have that baby so I can spoil it!

And the quiet responses I didn't give, because I know that even the rudest of these people were well meaning.

10. Yes, I am STILL pregnant. I STILL am miserable and in pain and you are making it worse.
9. Yep. You caught me. I'm clamping my cervix down like Fort Knox just to piss you off.
8. Yes, as a matter of fact, I gained 50 MORE pounds with my first kid, but thanks for making me feel even more unattractive than I already do.
7. I am about to pop. Literally...you, in the face. I'm going to cut you. Go away.
6. OUR baby? I'm sorry, I didn't realize that your uterus was involved.
5. Yes they are. And they hurt, rub them or fuck off.
4. Because I, in addition to being a baby-maker, am a human being with a job that I love that requires I finish manuscripts, train people, do work, and remember that I am valuable for more than my reproductive skills.
3.You can't wait, hunh. Yeah. I bet you're just on pins and needles and it occupies every neuron in your mind.
2. Yes. I am sick of maternity clothes. They're hot. They itch. They're absolutely unsexy and they don't stay put. But because you're a MAN you probably shouldn't comment on them.
1. Please don't talk about spoiling the thing that isn't even out of my body yet. I can only concentrate on being annoyed about one thing at a time, and this one is all consuming.

There are lots of things people say without thinking, and most of them come from a good place...I've said the stupid wrong thing LOTS of times...but people...really...the only thing a REALLY pregnant person wants to hear is something along the lines of...hey..."I know you must be really uncomfortable. I'll bet your baby is going be perfect and your labor and delivery will be easy. AND you look great. Really. Good luck."

Your wife is exhausted, even if she says she isn't. And if she isn't, she will be soon. She is trying to maintain tiny bits of sanity as they are chipped away by her hormones and all the 7 million people who have opinions about what she should and shouldn't be doing. She is constantly in pain. She is constantly battling tears because her hormones are stupid. You should be figuring out how to do little things to make her happy, to surprise her, before she becomes a mom either again or for the first time. You should be treating her like a lady, no, like a princess. You should be loving and patient and understanding. You should do anything that required bending, lifting, cleaning, standing, or emotional toil. You should be holding her at night even if you don't feel like it. You should not be trying to have sex with her because she is physically, mentally, emotionally, and potentially even literally unable to feel sexy, fun, spontaneous, or aroused. You should remember that this is all temporary. You should remind her that you love her even if she hasn't shown interest in anything but her doctor and the 57 pillows that are scattered on your bed in months. You should be telling her that she's beautiful, even if she hasn't touched her hairbrush in months. You should be rubbing her back before she asks. You should be thinking about how terrified she might be about the changes that are happening. You should be remembering that she wants to be everything to you and your kid(s). You should remember that even if this time is hard and you would like nothing better than a vacation from her with some hot young thing, that there will be a day that you miss this and miss her pregnant and miss life before kid(s). You should remember that it's going to get better...it really is.

041109 - Dear Future Self

At this particular juncture in your life, you have finally begun finding a way to defend yourself against the constant stream of self-hatred that spews from your mind. That being said, you have gotten into the particularly nasty habit of counter-striking this caustic river with the constant struggle to achieve perfection. This is not possible and you might find yourself alienating those you love most if you don't stop it. It is okay to have a house that is merely clean, not pristine...it is fine to ask for help, it is no reflection on you or your value if the people you once made swoon no longer light up when you walk into the room. You are still worthwhile. To your children, you hang the moon, literally. You are the teller of stories and the holder of favorite toys. You are the preparer of yummy tortilla sandwiches and the fixer of owies. It will be okay. They are going to grow up and you can't stop that from happening. They will grow to the point where they don't need you and that is the goal. You will remember to always let them make their own choices because you will have given them the ability to make good ones. You will remember, when they bring home young girls who will become fiance and wives and eventually the mothers of your grandchildren, that you ARE NOT in control of their lives any more. You will still remember their tiny little voices asking for one more story, song, or kiss. And it is these things that will define you, not your dishes or aching back. Not your laundry or your unkempt hair. It is this love and its never failing patience that you will give them and that they will remember. Do not be afraid of the passing time...it isn't the enemy and it is literally the one thing in this world that you will never be able to control. Love the minutes you have and remember to breathe.

012809 - My Aidan is 3

My son is three. New facets of his personality
emerge daily...he runs fast. He sings along with me when I sing to him at
bedtime...he knows the words and won't sing the wrong ones. He calls broccoli "baby trees".
He likes his room neat. He smiles like his dad. He's empathetic and kind and he shares better
than most toddlers. He's prone to throw things when he is angry. He's mellow.
He's a miracle.

I spend most days now wondering if I'm doing things right. Am I too structured?
Not structured enough? Am I failing him by working outside the home? Is it
really better for his immune system to be in a school/daycare or is that
another in a long list of rationalizations I'll use to make myself feel better?
I am constantly afraid of failing him...of not giving him the tools he needs to
seize his life and make the world a better place than he found it. My son has the capacity to be heroic...like his dad...like I try to be.

He's afraid of going to sleep at night...I sit in the living room with his Dad,
fighting the urge to go hold his hand until he sleeps because I truly believe
that it's important he be able to comfort himself. I TRULY believe my only
imperative as his Mother is to make him not need me any more. I want him to
WANT me...but not need me. I want to be a source of comfort and joy for him,
but I want him to be able to do it on his own. I want him to not be as afraid
of everything as I am.

I live in constant fear, you see. I am the bravest person on the planet. I'm
afraid of everything and I do all those things anyway. I am even scared that my
fear will rub off on Aidan...all the more reason to fake fearlessness. I refuse
to cripple my children...to make them incapable of existing without me. Every
single night and every single morning I thank God for the time I'm given, the
new day, the day that has passed...and I beg for many more. The longer my
little one is here...the more impending the birth of Archer...the happier I am
and more secure in my marriage...the more terrified I become of having to leave
it all before I'm ready. I want to live to see many more
birthdays...50...60...if I could live to see Aidan with his own grandchildren,
I'll be satisfied. So each night, after my little one has battled with
sleep...I wage my own war.

And it's hard and it's mercilessly beautiful and I
feel blessed to see his sweet face each day. I consider it a privilege to be
able to see any days of his...to be his mother, to be Andy's wife. I wake each
day to the kind morning and if I'm still tired...it's fine...if I'm sore from
growing another baby...it's fine...I love my life too much. And I love this day
especially because it marks three years of his joy and little triumphs and I love
knowing that more are coming.

011006

October 10th, 2006

So, I've spent almost two years now with Andy, either being pregnant or being a Mommy, and while my life is more fulfilling now than ever before...I sometimes miss my throw-down, wake of broken hearts, all booze and smokes days. I feel like this makes me a bad mother somehow...like my life is something less and simultaneously more now that I am no longer hell on stilettos.

I know this is likely a normal thing, and that it's part of growing up...but maybe I don't want to grow up. Maybe I'm just tired of being the fucking responsible one. You know?

I do a lot of writing...

And most of it is really terrible, but it's all important to me and sometimes is useful to others. So, my task today is to import all of my old Mommy blogs from back in the day and consolidate to this site. That is, I'll be taking all the things I've written from Facebook and Myspace and I'll be putting it all here. Along with some photos and new entries. I hope you all enjoy.

Thanks for reading!
Candace