The First Two Years: Happy Birthday, Elwood

Unsure of how I wanted to say Happy Birthday to Elwood, I found myself searching around my unpublished posts and found this, written when Elwood was a tiny baby:

Elwood,you are just a few weeks old. Such a short time to know you. We haven't scratched the surface on you. You are hardly a thing. Your demands are small, Sweet Elwood. Giving birth to you was easy. Loving you is easy.

I prepared for you differently than your sister. I was depressed and anxious after she was born. I was in a lot of secret pain. While waiting for you, Elwood, I was afraid. Scared to feel the same way, afraid to feel worse.
But when you were born all I was left with was you. 

With your sweet, fuzzy head. Your squeaky cry. Your peaceful face. And this new beginning for our family. Holding you near my heart, you are a balm. In the wake of you, I don't worry about money or how much tv your sister is watching. I don't worry about SIDS. I don't worry.

At dawn you cry. I gather you from the bassinet by the bed and hold you in my arms. Our faces close, we sleep.

Our picture was taken. And I see my tiredness, my slight sadness sitting lightly on top of everything. I see me not trying to hide anything. I see me loving you. I see me holding you, holding what I have. 


Dear sweet Elwood Woody Ellie WooWoo, you sweet boy who passes out kisses and hugs, Happy Birthday. What on earth did we do to deserve each other?

To Ramona on her 5th Birthday

Happy Birthday, Beautiful. Love, Mom

“Nothing

would be
easier without
you,
because you
are 
everything,
all of it-
sprinkles, quarks, giant
donuts, eggs sunny-side up-
you
are the ever-expanding
universe
to me.” 
― Kate DiCamillo, Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

What to do when

It's really hard to make stuff happen sometimes. I'm not the only person who's ever been there, but it's just the worst anyway. 

you know what they say...a day without book shelving is a day without reading. 

John the Rabbit

Watching rabbits hopping around my garden this morning. It's a love/hate kind of thing I've got going with them. 

"And if I live

to see next fall

I won't plant a garden at all"

- traditional African American folk song

close to two

My sweetheart Elwood (who sometimes goes by Woody, but really likes being called Ellie) is getting so close to being two years old. 

hoarding in miniature

It's really obvious to me where suffering comes from. It comes from living in a state where half the time I think I'm just too precious and simply wonderful, and the other half I'm belittling myself and soaked in doubt. I notice that I live this way. 

So, I have a new blog

The content is book stuff, library stuff, personal reading and what I'm reading with kids (my own kids and school kids). I feel great about the project, with a new focus on why I got into the business of reading in the first place.