Ahhhhhh

Yesterday Matthew (essentially) finished his semester. There is one class left, a review class, but tests, papers, and presentations are done for the summer. He will have nearly three full glorious months to work and be with us before he starts his student-teaching in the fall.

AHHHHHHH...

Apparently I've been, unconsciously, looking forward to this for some time. Because the feeling in our house last night was one of mild and quiet jubilation. Here's what a celebration looks like in our house these days:

chatting in the kitchen, while cooking dinner, Dory running around us
one of us leaving to do something with Dory
Dory nursing for a bit from all the excitement
eating said dinner
spending most of dinner trying to explain to Dory she may sit on the table, during said meal, but may not stand, jump, walk around, or squat on table
cleaning up dishes
not so subtle attempt to coax Dory to bed
Matthew getting in bed, in said attempt
Matthew falling asleep at 8pm
Dory and I playing quietly in living room, with Thistle and Shamrock radio show playing in background
Dory and I in bed, her falling asleep while we read, as she says, The Yor-yax
Dory asleep, Matthew rolls over, around 9:30, says "so tired..." commence more soft snoring
I close out the night by taking Georgie out to use the bathroom, turning out the lights, and reading a bit of Chickens magazine

We are wild and crazy guys.

And speaking of wild and crazy, here's our adventurous girl, doing a little tree-climbing at Baby M's house (where I nanny) this past Friday. She very much likes climbing trees. I imagine being one to two feet off the ground must be invigorating to the three feet and shorter crowd...









Is she beautiful or is she beautiful?

Seed Starting

(Dory on her John Deere)

Is it March that comes in like a lion? February left like one and March still growls a little. Yet new growth, life and adventure is on the horizon. We started seeds two Sundays ago.

Taking what feels like a lifelong collection of cardboard egg cartons, we got out our seed starter dirt and got going on the dining room table. For anyone who doubts these are the actions of novices, we laid down no towels or newspapers and Dory's first action was to take out a scoopful of dirt, with her little Garfield spade, and pour it all over herself. She announced, this was her shower. I wanted to lecture, on 'where dirt belongs,' I wanted to start sweeping and cleaning up around her. I would have done, too, had not some little instinct, some little voice, called out to me, reminded me of something I already almost forgot- this is supposed to be fun! Dirt is not meant to be tidy, clean, and I expect keeping it to 'where it belongs' is almost impossible. Shower on, little one, shower on.






This was a two step process, playing with dirt with Dory and then actually starting the seeds on the floor of our living room, on a picnic blanket, long after she had fallen asleep, while (talk about getting back to the land!) the Oscars played in the background. We are your modern, homesteading family. In progress.

For the first days my confidence was high, but lately its flagged a little as we see no evidence of growth. Surely its coming. They're in the windows, they're working, surely its coming.

Do we need one of those heat lamps, people? This is my concern.

It's Started...

We ordered seeds Tuesday night. In Friday's mail we found...




Included was a free seed packet for wildflowers and also a note apologizing for any delays as they were swamped with orders. Tuesday night order, Friday morning delivery. Concern about delay in delivery? That is good service.

On Saturday, we went to our local nursery and what an experience. Being afflicted with Budgetus tightus and so shopping very little, I've discovered walking into a store can be sensory overload. This is true especially for little ones. Dory has been to Target a handful of times in her life and the last two times, she looked around in wide-eyes wonder, and said, "Mommy, yook at all dis stuff!" I either want to flee, overwhelmed, or I want to start buying everything (its so cheap!) and so must flee, to protect our hard-earned and carefully rationed budget.

Walking into Stanley's however, was, well, lovely. It was well lit (naturally, from a durable glass ceiling), the air felt clean and clear (from the tables and tables and tables of plants), the sounds were soothing (from the many outdoor fountains, yes something ornamental, to buy, I realize). And their employees weren't just helpful, they were eager. Passionate. Excited to help.

And for someone, such as myself, who knows nothing on this matter of gardening, except what I've recently read or gleaned from conversation, this was of tremendous value. For instance, when you're filling your own beds with dirt, you need lots of dirt. LOTS. My expectation of four or five bags- I was a little off. A cheerful, knowledgeable employee, a woman, in fact, I'd seen at our downtown library's storytime with her two boys, informed me, we need a 'scoop'. She directed us away from purchasing at their store and pointed us towards two different mulch companies where we might get our scoop. The Wow-factor is high with Stanley's folks. We bought a few bags of organic compost, to complement the scoop, a bag of seed starter dirt and (here was my impulse buy) a small impatiens to tend in our window until its warm enough to transplant. That is one draw back to starting with seeds; there's no immediate green something in the house.

Grandpa Mojo kindly and generously donated time and energy into preparing wood for the boxes during the week. He came over Sunday and he and Matthew set to work. Magic happened. Our vegetable beds started to take shape.



The building of the boxes...

Just a few steps closer to our first, real garden, and my dream of a self-sufficient life.


(Somehow I failed to get a picture of the other two finished beds, in daylight, so this will suffice for now.)

There you go. Start some seeds this week indoors (luckily we are an egg eating family, so we'll get some mileage out of all these cardboard egg cartons I've saved). Get our scoop this weekend, mix dirt and let's see what happens.

I must stop here to marvel- this is, I hope, much of our vegetable and fruit consumption for the year. And it fits in a yellow manila envelope and costs less than $3 to ship. Even if half of our garden was a major flop, the money saved (not to mention other factors, fuel, cost to the environment, etc) is immense. We will come out so far ahead. This does not include the great amount of family time, sunshine and enjoyment I expect us to reap as we work this garden together. My only question: why haven't we done this sooner?

Actually, why isn't everyone doing this?

Off the Grid-iness

What's going on around here? Something is different..

This morning, one of our first to-do's was to take our homemade chicken stock, simmering through the night, off the stove and drain it. We left a a stewing hen's carcass, carrots, onions, celery and a bunch of parsley behind as we poured out a silky, golden stock, smelling, though I say it myself, heavenly. Bone broth, as I learned from Nourishing Traditions, a cookbook I find myself pouring over the way spiritual scholars seek out the great religious texts of the world, is "extremely nutritious, containing the minerals of bone, cartilage, marrow and vegetables as electrolytes, a form that is easy to assimilate." Mary Fallon, co-author of NT, attributes "the decline in the use of meat, chicken, and fish stocks" as a "lamentable outcome of our hurry-up, throwaway lifestyle." Few of us buy meat still in tact, "on the bone" as Fallon calls it, unlike our "thrifty ancestors [who] made use of every part of the animal." Homemade chicken stock...

At the library yesterday, after making a large selection from the children's side, we stopped off in the gardening section, only to meander a few rows over, past animal care (where Dory selected a book on hamsters), before cookbooks, there! that book! Made from Scratch: The pleasures of discovering a homemade life. An unexpected find that went straight into the bag, with great delight.

A slew of books, actually, littered around the house (Handmade Home and Coop); on hold at the library (Radical Homemakers); online magazines checked on a daily basis (Mother Earth News and Mary Jane's Farm)...

Yesterday morning, awake before the rest of the family, I sat in our living room, pouring through our seed catalogue, checking and double-checking that we had all we wanted and no more. We picked Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds for delving into the world of growing our own food. Our virtual shopping cart is now full to the point of tipping over and yet I thought, I bet this is a drop in the bucket to real homesteaders...

Homesteading? Is that what we're moving towards?

Surely not. Off to a farm forty miles from anything? Hmm... I love where we live, to me centrally located to what's most important (parents within a fifteen minutes drive, our local park and library a quarter mile walk, many friends anywhere from three to fifteen minutes away, a farmer's market a three mile drive on three different days, Matthew's work and mine easily accessible). Creating our own energy... Matthew's first question: is wind-powered satellite-television possible?

Yet books about keeping a family cow and how to raise your own chickens appeal to me.

Maybe this isn't a surprise. Moving out of the mainstream appeals to me lately, not different for different's sake, but a genuine questioning of what I value and what I hope to model to our next generation. We're already parenting in mostly unheard of way (still trying to follow Dory's lead, in co-sleeping, breastfeeding, cloth diapering until potty trained, the list goes on), so its not surprising these other worlds would start to pull me in.

I would have thought this a tiny community, difficult to find and impossible to incorporate into an everyday lifestyle, available mostly through beautiful blogs and websites. Not so. In fact if I start to look around, I can see where it's been happening around me this entire time. Mental flashbacks to my parent's garden when I was three and four and my dad's stories about me picking tiny green tomatoes far too soon. Some of our first friends when we moved home, who live on a tiny farm, with goats and sheep, she spinning her own wool, both of them commuting half an hour into work everyday. Another friend who makes her own yogurt, juice, broth, dried fruit, the list goes one, while, during winter, a supermarket and interstate sit in view behind the woods and creek at the back of her house. A neighbor one street away who used to keep chickens...

I'm curious how many of us have these longings as of late? Perhaps disillusionment with work, the government, the media, stemming from a realization the promise given won't be fulfilled by that particular establishment, that their brand of happiness just doesn't do for me. Maybe a sudden longing, as generations before us pass on, a call from the past, tugging at the fingers and heart to find the same dirt that slipped through our great-grandparents hands. Or a modern concern, an understanding we don't want to be labeled the "throwaway" society, this isn't the legacy we want to leave behind...

Check "all of the above" for me.

So something is afoot, something definitely moves through the house. I have no idea what I'm doing and, because I came of age during the dot.com boom, I mostly look to books and websites for understanding. Another something on the list, sandwiched between "find raw milk source" and "learn to sew"- talk to people. Find people! Other living, breathing humans, preferably in the same room people from who to learn.

And if any of this sounds like I am disparaging technology or haranguing how life has fallen apart since the development of the internet, let me relate this snippet from moments ago. Dory, at two and a half, just plopped up on my lap to nurse, and with the laptop open in front of her announced: "Mommy, yook! I'm having bobos and pushing buttons on da internet!"

A Surprisingly Ordinary Story

As I mentioned in a recent post, Dory and I bring home stacks of books from the library. These books go many places. Different rooms in our house, our car, to my job, Matthew's car- these are books on the move. And we haven't, yet, lost a single book. Imagine that.

Until last week, when Dory picked a book to bring with her (a book we never actually read) on a trip to the park. I, theory would have it, being better prepared to look after a book than she, took the book from her before I helped her down from her car seat. I then forgot the book in the place where many of us forget things when exiting a car: on top of said vehicle.

I remembered that book about two hours after we came home from the park. I remembered it balanced precariously on the edge of the roof of the car. I remembered, if such a thing is possible, not remembering it when we left. I resigned myself to "buying" our first library book.

During my recent solo trip, the librarian and I went through the list of books and could not find this title anywhere. Not anywhere! And I realized what had happened. Allow me to enlighten you, with this quick preface: I believe (most days, I believe) we live in a kind, benevolent Universe under the influence of an unconditional, loving Spirit (I would say God, but welcome and appreciate any word of awe and magnitude that fills that space for you). I realized, somehow, this magical, almighty Power manufactured a scenario wherein this particular book missed the check-out process, that somehow we walked out of the library with a book never borrowed and it was this very book we subsequently lost. Amazing.

I told Matthew the story and began to explain what must have happened when he interrupted to say, "Someone found it and returned it to the library? That was nice."

Um, yes. Yes. Yes, it was, wasn't it? Some person at the park found our book, identified it as a library book and then took the time to return it to the library.

I like his explanation better. And I can't help but think it still works in harmony, though on a less extraordinary scale, with my story. I think, actually, its the very ordinary niceness of it that makes his story better.

Thank you, to whoever-you-are out there, with your respect for books and libraries and mostly for your simple, kind gesture.

New Bedtime Ramblings

While naps are not entirely gone, they are mainly phased out. At two and a half, Dory can handle a good solid ten to eleven hours straight waking-time before nerves start to fray. An hour after that she goes to bed. So suddenly I have free evenings! Already I have started some laundry, emailed a few friends about getting together for lunch, eaten a quiet dinner, and found two different Meryl Streep films to alternate watching. (Julie & Julia and Defending Your Life). I don't watch nearly as much television as I once did (any guess as to why?) and it feels positively glutinous that, with the press of a "Back" button I get double Meryl. Her laugh, in both films, is infectious.

Other happenings.

I want to learn to sew. I have many friends who are accomplished sewers but only one in town. She has recently moved. I am now faced with finding time for class (difficult) or finding a book, getting out the machine my Grante Suzanney so kindly loaned me and just figuring it out. I want to be brave and bold and just do it. So tonight at the library I checked out Socks from the Toe Up. Exactly. A knitting book. I'm not ready for brave and bold sewing but I am ready, after four and a years of knitting, to learn a new cast-on. I will stay posted on progress.

The library trip merits a mention. Tonight, Matthew surprised Dory and I by arriving at work (where I nanny) and picking Dory up. They came home to play and, when I left work twenty minutes later, I stopped at our neighborhood library and... wandered. Now, Dory and I visit the library weekly. I consider her an avid reader by the number of books she enjoys having read to her. We come away with a stack for her every time we come home. Because of Dory (well, mostly- I might have had a few) I have officially hit my book loan limit and had to put books back. (How many does Knox County consider too many? Anything over 35.) I mean only to make the point, I get my library fill.

I had one book on hold to pick up. Yet to wander the shelves, even for ten minutes, on my own... temptation was too strong to dash in and out again. Just like, I imagine, anything in life, it can be nice to do it unaccompanied. I gave myself a few extra minutes and just wandered. Because of this I discovered the socks book and a new Amelia Peabody mystery that I would not have known was available had I not chosen to meander. I might also have come home with Barbara Kingsolver's , a book I've read a couple of time nows, but which I always find inspirational, especially as my fingers start to dog-ear pages of these new seed catalogs.

What a good, happy ending to a strange, bumpy month. Welcome, February!

We watched a friend's little girl today. In an effort that all we mothers constantly strive to achieve, my friend wanted some balance and so planned to take a yoga class, a little patch of time to herself. As her daughter is beautifully attached at her age, we both knew this might prove tricky for said little one. They came over early, to settle little daughter in, and after a bit, my friend left and her daughter (a lovely, lovely girl who is only a few weeks younger than Dory, is even slighter than our girl with that blow-away-in-the-wind delicacy and has the soulful brown eyes of a poet) did exactly what you might expect and dissolved into tears.

For a while she was inconsolable, sitting on my lap and crying, and saying "mama, home, mama home," in that way that could actually break your heart in half if I didn't know what's she's starting to learn which is that mama will come home again. Mama will come home, hurrying, rushing, speeding, so glad to be home and so incredibly refreshed from her two and a half hours of time on her own. Mama will come home, there is little in the world as certain as that. In about two hours. Two hours is a hard thing to explain to a person who has no concept of anytime except Right Now.

Off and on this little girl cried and I would hold her while she did (I actually held her nearly all the time- she recognized, I'm quiet sure that, my possession of breasts meant sitting in my lap put her in much closer proximity to the good stuff than, say, sitting at Dory's baby piano. Sure it wasn't her good stuff, but- it's still nice to be close.) Dory played around her, sometimes engaging me or both of us and other times just playing and occasionally shoving her friend enough to the side of my lap to get her own good stuff ("the bobos" as they're known around here). And sometimes this little girl would watch, would look up, interact, and seem to have a very good time. And then something would remind her of mama and she would dissolve into tears again.

And it reminded me of anytime I've ever seen any friend with a broken-heart. The way you sort of limp along, and then slowly start to get your step back and then- bam!- you drive past the diner you always ate at or hear that song you both used to laugh at, but secretly loved and suddenly you're weeping on the kitchen floor. We were on a little walk in front of the house, Dory in diaper and shoes, marching along with purpose (remember, she knew exactly where her bobos were) and me holding our little friend on my hip, following, talking about leaves and sticks. And this girl suddenly said "stick!" with such enthusiasm I picked one up and held it out to her. At which point she melted in my arms, sobbing, "stick, mama, stick," in a way that said clearly, "this is just like the stick mama and I once picked up." And I did what I think most good friends do- I validated her feelings. "Yes, I know you miss mama. And maybe that stick makes you think of her. It can be tough when mama's not here. Even hearing she'll come back doesn't always help. Yes, I know. I hear you."

Off and on all morning, this was the experience. And then mama came home and it was exactly what you expected- daughter lights up, beams, than cries a little more and then it's done. The emotions are out, expressed, mama's home, she survived, and everything is right with the world again.

Mostly it made me realize/remember/get hit with that bolt of lightening- what's so bad about treating our children the way we treat our friends? If you go to a friend and say, "I've experienced this loss that I'm not sure I'll pull through or even how to start..." would your friend reply "oh, it's fine, get over it"? Or "stop crying! he'll be right back!" The emotion is the same for them as it is for one of us when we've been romantically wounded, only, I expect it's much worse. They don't yet understand permanence, impermanence, a run to the store, time to one's self. Yet how often do we dismiss their hurt because we (big, wise, moon-faced grown-ups that we are) can logically see the other end? Maybe its not treating our children as our friends (though that doesn't seem so bad either) but treating them like our friends that might make these relationships run a little smoother. And letting them know, they're worth the same respect as someone more than three feet tall seems like a good place to start.

POV

Dory is asleep and this is our living room right now:



And instead of doing anything about that, I'm going to direct you over here to check out two new Dory videos- one of her and her dad, the other (and pretty darn interesting, I think, though you might attribute that to me being her mother) is a little video she took when I (please don't tell my husband) let her carry around our Flash recorder yesterday morning.

I can't remember if this is the one or not, but if I'm singing in the background, forgive me. And if Matthew asks, she overpowered me, stole the camera, figured out how to work it by herself and that is definitely, 100% not me singing in the background.

Open Doors

This morning, while using the bathroom, I heard Dory bust into a wail and a chorus of "mommy-mommy-MA-AHmee!" I, many parents with toddlers understand, had the bathroom door open (oh, yes, not-yet-parents, there will be a time, no matter what you might say now, when you poo with the door open- just wait) and could hear her clearly. So I called to her, coaxingly, "Mommy's in the bathroom! Can you come in here with me?"

There was a brief pause in the cry, and then a moment later it was taken up again, with even greater gusto. This wasn't the all-out, full-lungs, lusty yodel of a newborn baby, but more along the I'm-exasperated-with-you cry, or I-really-expect-better-service-than-this cry. So while I sensed the need wasn't urgent, (this wasn't an "a piano just fell on me!" yell or, more likely, "I've shut one hand in a book and with my other hand am squeezing it closed because I don't yet understand the physics of the situation!" yell) I found myself hustling to get to her.

I found a very sad-faced baby standing in front of the other bathroom, the half bath we almost never use, where the door was, in fact, closed. And, even after she saw me, and I picked her up, she insisted we open the door to make sure, I assume, I wasn't somehow in there still...

I wish a good Sunday to you all! And here are some Easter pictures from, oh, only a month ago, where I can't help but think she looks like she wandered off the set of The Sound of Music...

Sunny Days

I thought I would share some pictures from last Saturday... Dory, in the words of Sheryl Crow, wanted to soak up the sun.


Before we left the house that morning, for our first walk of the day, decked out in her new pink spring jacket (thank you Grandma Cindy!)...


Dory, by her own choice, carries the poop bag, for cleaning up after our doggie. Of course, the bag was empty at this point...


Me: Are you ready to go home?
Dory (points the other way): Nope.
(I like the fact you can see my shadow and, if you look closely, note I'm clutching a mug in my hand, as I'd brewed some really strong hot Irish tea. This gives me about a quarter of the get-up-and-go Dory rolls out of bed with every morning.)


Dory sits on a rock, at the park, on our second walk of the day. We saw another mother, with her toddler poised on a nearby rock, taking lots of pictures and trying to cajole her six year old son into posing too. I got Dory to do the same, in that she sat still for about two minutes, watching the other family. Then she was done and ready to get rambling again.


Dory, no jacket now, as this is our third walk of the day and its gone from forty something to sixty plus degrees outside. To me, her expression says: "Can we please GO? We've been inside ALL DAY."


We spotted this guy, hiding in the flowers. Dory surprised me with her stillness. I expected "CAT! Meow!" followed by subsequent kitty terrorizing. But she looked, announced, "Cat. Meow." and then on we went.


And, as all walks end, the ceremonial setting down of the walking stick... You, Child of Nature. Me, Mama who Need Sun Hat and Good Sneakers.

I Get By With a Little Help...

Well, you know the song.

Tonight was our second monthly Mom's Night Out and an even bigger success than the first. A group of us mothers, about six to eight of us, from our local Attachment Parenting Group formed a weekly playgroup a few months ago, to give our little ones more time together and ourselves a chance to visit. That idea took off and it didn't take long (only two months or so- we're a bright group) to decide another off-shoot might be a mother's night out. Our first dinner came together hastily and with great enthusiasm shortly before the holidays and here we are, not even halfway through January, with a second one behind us.

And it is such a good time. We meet at a casual restaurant (they must serve adult beverages- this is a MUST- even if those of us partaking are limited to one or two glasses) and chat, catch up, and talk about everything but our children.

Wait- no- that's some other group. We talk almost exclusively about our children. Our husbands. Our families. And the childcare books we're reading, teachers we're listening to, parenting questions we field, criticisms we handle- we run the gamut of everything child-related and I absolutely love it.

There is, I've discovered, a surprising depth to the relationships I have with these women. I didn't know a one of them before Dory. I couldn't tell you where most of them were born, how they grew up, favorite color or even their ages. Yet our children threw us into this ocean of mothering together and we have gravitated to one another. When we do get together, like tonight, the immediate familiarity is surprising and very, very comforting. We're beyond the early stages, beyond the "how does she sleep?" "when did he start solids?" type of questions. The fast intimacy of motherhood leads us to meaningful and genuine conversation that energizes and strengthens me. We are, I feel so strongly, in this together.

I have had the good fortunate of really good friendships in my life, with Matthew, my parents, people I grew up with, people I've met in other places, people with similar passions and interests. And I'm just so glad parenthood proved no different; I'm so glad I know these other women all with children born within a few months of Dory (a cosmic coincidence? I think not) who are genuine and open and relatable. I feel grounded after a playgroup or a dinner. Of any of these women, I might never learn a favorite movie, first job, or political party, but, in our own way, there are few people I will ever be closer to than this group, this tribe of amazing mothers and women I'm so glad to call friends.

Play? Play? Play?

If you happened to wander through our house yesterday, here's what you would have noticed... Upstairs, at the top of the landing, two Christmas cookie trays, with orange peels scattered on and around them... Downstairs, on the living room floor, all the library books for the week in two piles and a bag with legos... On the dining room table, a fat Sesame Street coloring book (with the cover torn off) and a big plastic baggie filled with crayons... And in the kitchen, dish towels and dishcloths scattered all around the floor.

What did all these mysterious items signify?

Well. The orange peel (from breakfast) was a game she invented, where Dory and I took turns tossing pieces onto the Christmas cookie trays. The books were from a little reading we had done that morning. We built with the blocks, but mainly we experimented with putting all the blocks into the bag then dumping them all over the floor again. For twenty minutes or so she sat in her high chair and I sat on the other side, and we colored. The dishtowels, that was from her mid-morning snack, when I asked her to get a towel out of the cabinet which I spread out on the floor like a small picnic blanket. Dory then pulled five more dish towels and cloth napkins out and spread them all around the floor herself.

That was one morning's worth of play for us. What was neat, I thought, about it, surveying, the tremendous mess we could make in about two and a half hours, was the common denominator: teamwork. Whether we used an item designated, by being large, colorful and costing thirty times what it took to make, a "toy" or a mundane item from around the house that Dory deemed a toy, we had a great time because we were using it together.

Right now feels very intense, in how much she's going, doing and exploring, all while wanting someone (myself, her dad, a grandparent) very involved in the play. In The Discipline Book Dr. Sears explains in "the time between the ages of fourteen and eighteen months... the high energy toddler wants to do everything, but he still needs mother involved 'big time.'" We are definitely at that stage. And I've realized, while I can sneak five minutes here on the laptop or ten minutes at the stove while she plays on the floor next to me, this is another time to just Go With It (words I'm thinking about tattooing across my forehead) and PLAY. There is something incredibly fulfilling about letting go (not minding this blog will take me several hours to post, based on how often I can sneak back for two minutes), getting over it (there is mess wherever we go- there just IS) and giving myself up to this time in her life. In the same way she needed commitment as a newborn to be nursed and held almost constantly, she needs commitment that someone is willing to explore this great, big, wild world with her. And as enter into her seventeenth month, I'm finally getting it- I might be a slow learner, but I do get there. So after one morning's worth of serious play, the house is mildly wrecked, I'm still in my pajamas, and haven't brushed my hair or teeth and Dory is absolutely delighted and looking for another room to trash- I mean explore. And it was a seriously good time.

I take comfort from the Sears when they write: "Hang in there through eighteen months" because your child will start to play and imagine all on his own for longer stretches of time. And when they explain "by the time your child is six... [he} will check in for breakfast, be out the door, check in for lunch, and be gone again" I try not to dissolve into tears. This parenting thing- it's a mess, isn't it?

Presenting... Presents!

Pictures I know a lot of people have been waiting for... Christmas shots!

These are highly abbreviated. This girl, between Matthew and I, our family here and our family in Texas, had FOUR Christmases. That's not a joke or the latest Vince Vaughn holiday film.

Dory had a grand day. She loved opening her gifts, they never seemed to overwhelm her and she wasn't even bothered by the constant flash of cameras going off.

(a baby grand piano- in pink)


(a rocking horse)


(a piggy bank- a wise thought in these trying economic times)


(monkey hat- fashionable and warm)


(another piggy bank, this one shaped like a Chicago Bears helmet)


(a pic of the abundance of gifts)


(stacking blocks)


(more blocks)


("Good Night Moon"- the glow-in-the-dark puzzle)


(Dory inside the chute off the side of the indoors tent- that's right a TENT- she got)


So Dory, this is your second Christmas- how do you feel about that haul?



That's what I thought.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and, I'd like to personally thank all Dory's grandparents and her great-(and cool!) grandmother for doing their part to bolster the economy. It was good work by you all.

Ode to the Library

I love the public library. I have loved it as long as I can remember. I love the simple idea that one card (once paper, now a thin piece of plastic), freely given, allows me nearly unlimited access to more books than I will ever be able to read in my entire life. I love the way a library feels and the way a library smells and I love the people who work there. I even stepped into the twenty-first century with my library and I am crazy about the fact I can put books on hold, on line, pick them up at the library of my choice and even renew them from the comfort of my living room sofa. It is a brilliant, brilliant design.

I especially love Knoxville's public library. I can safely say, of the five different cities in which I've lived, Knoxville's is my favorite. Since we've been living in Knoxville again, I've made the best use of the library I can, using a borrowed library card (thank you Mom!) and the calendar of events. We've checked out dozens and dozens of different books for Dory already and even a Pecos Bill movie on VHS her Dad insisted she would love. We go, each week, to Baby Bookworms, the two year old and under story time. And this week- this week my library out did itself.

In a matter of incredible timing and divine coordination, we went to the downtown library for Baby Bookworms this past Wednesday. While I love our little group, at our local library, the downtown Bookworms puts on a show. The librarian played songs and did a puppet board story and led dancing and for the children she passed out shakers and musical instruments and even a cut-out paper star that Dory could take home. Matthew and I were both wide-eyed over the display. Afterwards we stepped across the hall into the actual children's library and discovered Santa, that day, was expected.

What a gift to give. Parents and children- under and over two's- piled into the children's library and waited for Santa. The librarians set out juice and cookies on a little table and a chair for him. The woman who led our Bookworms crew passed out special gingerbread men to all her students, and gave Dory special star-stamps on each of her hand. For the rest of the day, Dory would catch sight of these little designs on her skin and marvel over them. She turned her palms up and down, amazed, her expression the same delighted disbelief that her father and I reserve for those dear, tiny hands.

When Santa entered all the children became kind of quiet and breathy, unsure about this tall (and somewhat gangly) gentleman in the red coat, overwhelming the small, child-size chair. The librarian explained we were responsible for taking our own pictures. (Miracle of miracles, we had our digital camera in the diaper bag- don't tell me Someone's not watching over all of us...) She then said something along the lines of (and this sent me over the edge in the love-affair I have for my library): "We just ask everyone to remember: we have all the time in the world. If your child needs to warm up to Santa first, please take your time. We want everyone to have a good time, to ask Santa for what they want and to have good pictures to show for it."

And, as these things tend to go when there's no hurry or pressure, the line went like clock-work, the children were fairly calm and easy (no wild hysterical screaming as I've heard echoing around the mall), we waited hardly any time at all, and suddenly Dory, in this impromptu experience, met real-life Santa Claus. I introduced the two, asked her if she could sit with Santa for a moment, and, when she didn't disagree, set her on Santa's knee and then crouched next to them, just out of the shot. This lasted about five seconds, and, though the librarian waved her puppet above Dory's head and I whispered words of encouragement, and Matt called her name, Dory would have no more of Santa. But, being the adept family photographer he is, Matt, also sitting in a child-size chair, snapped one shot before Dory was back up, in our arms, and ready to go.

And this unexpected, unplanned photo, somehow the more wonderful for her and St. Nick's solemn expressions, is her first Santa picture.



Thank you, from the bottom of my little literary heart, Knox County Library.

Attachment Parenting International- Live!

Before I launch into how truly amazing last Saturday was, I'd like to give a little background information about our AP beginnings (for those only here for pics of the API pioneers, scroll straight down until you see shots of these gurus with yours truly grinning away next to them- feel free to "ooo" and "ahhh").

When I found out I was pregnant, I did not know how I wanted to parent. I wanted to do it well, that was about as clear as I got. I wanted to be kind. I didn't want to shout too much or need hard drink in the middle of the day to get through it. I wanted, more than anything, to basically still be me, to still be Matthew and I plus one. I followed my typical grand plan these days: a vague query to the Universe. God, could you help me sort this one out? Just some clear, simple, easy to follow guidance that will help me be a parent, while still being me, and, in eighteen years or so, have a child with who I'm still on speaking terms. Something in written form- maybe a pamphlet?- would be great.

Many months went by. We found the birth center. We started our childbirth classes. I decided I wanted to breastfeed and so we took a class on that too. I did prenatal yoga. I kept listening to the thoughts of others.

I found The Baby Book by Dr. Bill and Martha Sears. On the surface, this enormous tome looks like a great book for handling a baby's early years, when to start solids, how to take a temperature, how to baby-proof a house. On the surface. Your basic manual. Being the compulsive Virgo I started on page one. Where Dr. Sears and his wonderful wife, herself an RN, totally rocked my world on the methods and possibilities in parenting. Compassionate, respectful, and sensitive parenting- this was their recommendation. As I read about their ideas on birthing naturally, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, responding to baby's cries, I thought: We are totally doing this. And we're not telling anybody.

I knew enough about current day parenting to realize, this ain't your mama's or your neighbor's or, unless you're like me and start running with other rebellious mothers, your best friend's form of parenting. And hard as it can be for me to fly right in the face of mainstream society, I realized, that was all right. What better time than now to start trusting my instincts?

I say all of that only to give some scope to the experience of being in a room filled with API families and then watching some of the most prominent and outspoken founders walk out onto a stage together- this was a momentous occasion. As the moderator, Lu Hanessian (a former NBC anchor and current AP-practicing mother) pointed out, this was the first time these eight people had ever been on the same stage.

So without further ado, the day in pictures:

Dory and I wrestling before the program began. Of course, API made an effort to make this event as child-friendly as possible, but in the end it's still a small theater, with people who traveled a great distance to hear what the people on stage had to say, and the under-3 crowd can only sit still for so long. Many, many mothers were in and out, giving little ones a chance to crawl around the lobby. Or, better yet, these moms brought reinforcements and took turns.


My mama agreed to be my tag-team partner and she and I, pretty smoothly I think, took turns taking Dory out to play. You'll notice here, Dory couldn't look anymore peaceful, as her Gram calmly reads her program.


Our eight speakers. Starting with the left side of the picture, the woman in the peachy-colored jacket, you have (drum roll please): Ina May Gaskin, internationally known midwife; Barabara Nicholson, co-founder of API; Mary Cahill, one of the seven women to start La Leche League International 53 years ago; Dr. Bill Sears; Dr. James McKenna; Martha Sears, R.N.; Dr. Isabelle Fox; and Lysa Parker, co-founder of API.


Meeting Dr. Sears at the reception afterwards.




And then meeting Martha Sears.





I thought I had calmed down during the program, but as soon as I was standing two feet away I got excited and nervous, a fantastic cocktail for disaster. Luckily, the place was busy, with enough people waiting to speak to them, that I had just enough time to thank them both, several times, express my gratitude over their books, ask for an autograph and then move on. Quite calmly and normally. I wish I had something wittier, a bit more interesting to say, but, even after the fact, nothing came to me. I am simply supremely appreciative of these people.

On a side note, there was a couple standing in front of us, waiting to see Dr. Sears, holding a book. From what I could tell, as the husband introduced his wife, this was a book she had written of natural something (remedies, recipes, I couldn't say exactly) and they wanted to give Dr. Sears a copy. Which he graciously accepted and then pulled a pen from his pocket and asked her to sign it for him. [Insert a girlish sigh of wonder here.]

They were all so wonderfully accessible. I asked for a picture with Barabara and Lysa and they invited me behind their table (where they were signing their book Attached at the Heart- got my copy- it's wonderful) to chat for a few minutes about our local branch of API.





We got a picture with Dr. Fox who insisted Gram Mojo hop into the shot too.



Dr. McKenna was kind and humble and enamored with Dory and her bright blue eyes.





We were able to speak to Ina May and I thanked her for the influence her book, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth had on my birth experience. Unfortunately the camera had frizzled out at this point, so no photo here.

The day was spectacular. In no way is that an exaggeration. I managed, when I was not chasing a 13 month old, to take some notes and hopefully I'll be able to put them into something cohesive to share here.

I'll be first in line at the next celebration be it in a year or ten. I would say this compares to being at Woodstock and meeting Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix, all at once, except, let's be honest, do any of those people, on a day-to-day basis, influence your parenting skills?

Woodstock doesn't have anything on the API Eight...