nesting

Saturday morning I remembered we were having a baby. Soon. I opened my eyes and my first thoughts were of tiny baby laundry and deep cleaning. I remembered that despite all the other things we need to do, we really should get ready for our baby.

The crib skirt I ordered came in the mail yesterday. This morning, I asked Brian twice if he wanted to come see it. He did not. My feelings weren't that hurt, because Ramona really wanted to see it. We ran in together and she admired it with me. She asked if she could get in her baby brother's crib. I said no, but did she want to open all the packages of blankets with me? We really needed to get our shoes on, we needed to get our hair brushed and get out the door for school, but instead we stopped and played baby. We opened the blankets, picked out our favorites, spread them all over, and made plans to wash and fold them together tonight. 

"Mama, my baby brother is going to be so precious to me", she says. And of course, I cried a little. Because of her sweet heart. Because I'm excited too. Because she is so precious to me. And because he will be too. 

Things are different this time. When I got ready for Ramona, everything was perfect. I washed her things so carefully and treated them with reverence. This time, I know these pretty blue and green blankets will be played with and removed over and over again before he is born. They will be folded into lumps and maybe walked over. Hopefully with clean-ish feet. 

6 more weeks until we meet the precious baby brother. 

precious weekend

A few weekends ago Ramona, my mother and I spent a weekend with my grandparents. It was a very good weekend. It was quiet and comfortable. Ramona was not shy as she sometimes can be, and we all just enjoyed the company of each other. My grandpa listened to my stories. He told me he enjoyed the time we spent talking. and that we just didn't do it enough. 

This was three weekends ago, and now everything somehow suddenly changed. He is sick and probably not to return to his home with my grandma. 

I'm naming my soon to be born son after him. He won't really understand who my son is. Somehow these things happen. 

But we got that very good weekend together. Somehow these things happen too. 

My friend tells me this is God working his way in my life. I nod, because yes,that good weekend was my good Karma ripening.

I have a little tree in my room with gemstones twirled around in it. It is called a Wish Fulfilling Gem Tree. It's a Tibetan Buddhist thing and there is a guided meditation that goes with it. Ramona and I talk about the tree, because she asks about it. She calls it a Christmas Tree and also a Gem Treat. I tell her how when I see the gems on the tree I am reminded of all that is precious to me. When I see the tree, on a low branch, I see that weekend.

My grandpa is alive, I feel very strongly about not eulogizing someone who is still alive, but I hear from family he is very different. But just three weekends ago he told me how he enjoyed the time we spent talking. And that we just didn't do it enough. 

as evening fell, we cleared the already clean air

Last night I came home so tired. I taught nine classes and then stayed late moving piles of books around. My plan was to come home and pass out, but when I walked  in the door my sweet family breathed new life into me. We celebrated our Friday by going out for hamburgers and ice cream. Ramona showed us how she can ride her bike with the training wheels and then Brian and I sat in the back and watched her pick flowers and talk to a caterpillar.

I put my arms around Brian. "People are getting my blog posts about you wrong. My mom is worried about us. She's worried about me", I fret. 

He said, "I know the difference between you just being yourself and you trying to hurt me. I know you love me." 

And I relaxed. And enjoyed the light and the air and our sweet little girl. Because he trusts my heart. So I can too.

Writing it while it happens opens you up to disaster. This life made of loving people has so many folds to it. I think I don't want to get it wrong, but more than that I want to feel the entire thing with my heart. I don't want to be afraid. Afraid you will get me wrong. 

a love letter, sort of

I had a small wedding and while it was a very nice day, it wasn't the best day of my life. The best might have been the day he discovered my heart was broken and went about fixing it. How often does someone take the time to stop and fall in love with you? To stop in their tracks to fix you?

I will confess that about 30% of the time I could really go for an affair. Sometimes I'd chew off my arm to escape my life. I yearn for the time before I had so much to lose.

How can I keep from bashing him on the head with a bag of oranges? How can we live this sometimes boring, awful, loveless life? How can we do it? How can I make it through my thirties without blaming him for it all? How do lovers remain?

I listen to The Violent Femmes as loud as I can and remember the way he was before I ruined him. Before I piled the house and kids on him. Before I convinced him my happiness was to be chased at all cost. 

Somehow it is not entirely his goodness that keeps me. The way he is an excellent father. The way he comes through when we are broke. The very good man he is. Somehow I know it's something else. It's something else.

wish you were here

I've acquired quite a taste for a well made mistake - Fiona Apple

This morning, as I was driving to school, I had to confront the fact that one of my most tangible memories did not actually happen. I think of it periodically, always during a touch of heartbreak. I crossed the back of the fine art building of my college. You were walking from the street. I see exactly how baggy your clothes were fitting you at the time. You wore a blue hat. We ran to each other, I am not kidding. And it is not exaggeration to say my heart exploded.

This might not have happened. I think I stood there alone. Making you up.

The summer I got married, I re-read all the Little House books. Now, I'm pregnant and while I wait for my baby, I've been reading The Savage Detectives and last week I read Just Kids by Patti Smith. These suit a craving I have, a craving for angst. And a deep craving for the past. Reading about these young poets reminds me of reading On The Road when I was a teenager. Then, just as now, I had no nightlife. No freedom. I can't get over how brief the period of freedom is for a woman. It's such a short time where you have your adulthood, before you become a mother and it's gone. Does it return? Does it even matter when your youth is gone? Countless times in the last few years I've regretted the careful way I manicured my twenties. Accumulated degrees, remained mostly safe, stayed home.

So, I recall the things I read and the boys I loved. I crave these things, the same as I do hamburgers and olives. I admit I dream about old loves nearly constantly. Sometimes I just dream I am walking around my college, and wake up with my broken heart. Do not shake your head at a 31 year old woman mourning her youth. You know as well as I do it is gone.

I crave a mistake. A good mom gone bad. Don't worry, it's not real and it will pass. I was made to do right.

before you were born

When Ramona was born, I was speechless. I've never been so silent in my life. The nurses handed her to me so proudly, as if to say, Look what you made! Look what we delivered so well for you! Rejoice, she is wonderful! But I greeted her with no words. I knew a pronouncment was what they were looking for. Words were not what I had for her. Words just wouldn't do.
The miracle is not that you give birth to a baby. The miracle is the love. How it comes from nowhere. How without worry, without doing a thing, it arrives right on time.

This is a trust I have in the universe. Before they are born we know nothing of them but the things we place on them. You are a boy. You kick. You are the right size. You are my second child. But I don't know you. I know nothing of you. But this time I'm not worried about the place of my heart,because I trust in the universe. I trust that I was chosen for you. I trust that you are my path.

14 more weeks to go.

science

We had a sonogram a few days ago, and despite my belief that all sonogram pictures look the same and belong in medical texts, this one is sweet to me.

Ramona is beginning to believe the story we are feeding her about there being a baby in my tummy. And she's drawing conclusions.

Last night she was inspecting the growing tummy, and turns to me in shock and asks, "Mama, is my baby brother PEEING in your tummy??"

I believe this is the smartest thing she's ever said. My mind was blown at how my small girl could construct such a rational and scientific conclusion. Then I shocked myself by explaining that, yes he is, but he's really little and it's just a little bit of pee-pee and it actually isn't gross.

One time a first grader asked me what drugs were and I said I don't know. I used to skip the part where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered with a shotgun while he stood on a balcony. I didn't think six year olds needed to know that. I've been uncomfortable with the hard stuff since the beginning of time.

But now I have my own small girl firing questions at me. Confusing and interesting questions I may or may not be able to answer intelligently. But I'm committed to telling the truth. I'm also aware these are softballs and to expect the questions to just get harder.

I can't help it. Isn't my daughter smart? Isn't my baby cute? Aren't humans kind of built to be wonderful? Let's just marvel together at nature for a bit.