The Newest Addition to the Community

Labor is a tricky thing - unless you've scheduled a c-section, you have no idea how long it's going to take. Jordan took forever and a day, the only thing that kept Sawyer longer than two hours was the tricky positioning he switched to midway through. So I had no idea how long I had to get to Seattle. My heart was already there from the moment she called. Luckily labor wasn't rolling but excitement was keeping her awake and she hit the internet to find me a flight - miracle of miracles the cheapest and fastest was just down the road, leaving from the Eureka Airport in two hours. Only, the Eureka Airport isn't in Eureka, travelers: be warned. Although the ticket and the website say Eureka, the airport you want is the one you passed twenty minutes earlier in Arcata, not down here on this desolate strip of bare earth that sports one dirt landing strip on a desolate military base. And there are no online reservations if it's less than six hours 'til your plane leaves. 

Finally arriving at the airport with pajama clad children and a trailer and smelling of campfire, I leapt from the truck and found disappointment - the flight to Oakland was available, but nothing was available any longer from Oakland to Seattle. Oh, and getting just to Oakland was $600 instead of to Seattle for $170. Luckily, the airport had a good internet connection. This being spring break, you could literally watch seats on flights disappear off internet reservation sites, so I booked a Sac to Seattle flight leaving in seven hours. The Trinity alps and I5 ahead of us, it was going to be tight: a turtle carrying it's shell moves slowly, and carrying our little home away from home slowed us down as well. 

Thanks to a portable DVD player, wonderful children, a fantastic driver of a husband, free coffee at the gas station an hour into the mountains, and pb&j's made on my lap, we made it exactly an hour before departure. I ran the kids up and down the escalators five times each way and they headed for home. It was so hard to say goodbye having already robbed them of their last day of the road trip, but since TOm makes every day a vacation for them, I didn't feel too bad. 

My mother had arrived before me and my brother Matt in Seattle was acting as birthing partner for Allison. Her doula Lindsay was there. Matt's partner Scott picked me up at the airport and we headed straight for the hospital. Allison looked like a million bucks - her contractions began in earnest a few hours after her acupuncture appointment at 12. She was her usual, graceful, calm, smiling self, giving herself totally to the contractions and laughing between them. Things started to pick up and the doctor checked her after a half an hour of particularly strong ones. "Five", she said and although Allison looked somewhat disappointed, five to me sounded right on. Things were happening. She laid on the bed and gave in to the contractions and some rest while one person massaged each of her hands and feet. After a while she got up to go to the bathroom.  And then things really happened. I'm pretty sure it was right around then that the little one decided on a major position shift and all of a sudden Allison had tunnel vision. Ah, back labor. Not recognized by the doctor until she was an hour into pushing, the entire experience had shifted. 

My mother hadn't particularly enjoyed watching me give birth (nor had she planned on it - the long labor lasting through the eighteen hour drive and full night's sleep somewhere on the AZ/CA border), and here she was again. And thirty nine years to the day after giving birth to both of us in the hospital. And this time I understood, having a daughter I didn't like to see in pain and witnessing my sister in so much pain as well. But there we all were. Midnight as the day slipped into our birthday, that amazingly thin veil between life and death that can only ever be felt at a birth. 

It's completely wrong to have to go through labor, two hours of pushing AND a c-section. Honestly, one or the other should suffice, thank you very much. But no, Allison got the double whammy. And knocked out totally to boot thanks to the one in 20,000 insufficient spinal. But at 2:41 I was an aunt to one of my own siblings' children - finally! The nurses brought him out and there he was, evidence of his failed attempt at a sideways entrance into the world evidenced by the jaunty angle of his typical newborn's conehead.

Being knocked out, my mom took Allison duty while my brother left for a shower and change of clothes, and I got to hold my perfect little nephew for two hours while she woke up. Thank goodness we're identical twins - he looked straight up into a face identical to his mom's, and full of love. Those two hours were incredibly special and I sang to him, told him about his journey, his dad, all the amazing things that had finally brought him here to this place. At a quarter to five they wheeled a groggy Allison into the room and she got to hold and nurse her son. I have no idea how she made it on the hour of sleep we got between 6 and 7, but that was the hour that the first nurse came happily charging into the room to inspect and measure and test and poke and prod. It's a bit vague, what happened over the next 24 hours although I know I got to hold the little one when Allison was sleeping and I left for a shower and a change of clothes, shocked at how powerfully I still smelled of campfire smoke as it rolled off of me in waves of  soap and water. And I know we looked a bit like zombies, my mother and I, as we ate a delicious dinner that night.

A C-section really is just a brutal experience, especially when for the next few weeks you have to sit up every couple of hours to nurse. It was easy for me to get up to help the next two nights in the hospital, to prop pillows and fill water glasses and to sleep with my nephew when I got the chance. So sweet to sleep next to him in the huge bed he shared with his mama and smell his sweet milky breath and lift his small body into his mama's arms. And it felt cruel of me to leave, except that I left them with the lady that had managed to get us to adulthood. I am amazed by the entire journey Allison took in getting Hayes Ryan Brooks into this world. From the years of putting off conception in order to care for her husband and her final leap into doing it instead of waiting, to losing her husband just when the tiniest bit of a bump was beginning to show at ten weeks, to going through all the mourning, the therapy, the months of working and working and working while growing this being inside of her.

And she amazed me with the birth, how perfectly she progressed, how strong she was through all of it, and how she clearly processed and made peace with the c-section and the struggle with it all in the days afterward. She is so truly the embodiment of grace, and her joy in her son is so radiant and apparent. 

Welcome little miracle. Your aunt loves you.

Spring Broke - Part Two

It must be the hugeness of the trees that the waves and beaches of Humboldt County feel they have to meet in size and scope. It's a breathtaking place to be - look out one window of the car and you're staring at the powerful vastness of the Pacific, then turn your head the other direction and it's the redwood forests, rolling green hillsides, endless lagoons that roll past your living video screen. Turn your head a little further and there are the kids in the backseat: Sawyer just about to hurl and Jordan halfway through her eleventh chapter book of the trip.

After breakfast we headed a little ways North into the Redwood National Forest and Humboldt State Forests for a peek around. We came first to a perfect mile long loop at the Ladybird Johnson Memorial Grove. Turns out Nixon actually did some good in his time as president, responding to the new environmental awareness of his constituents and delegating protected areas of wilderness. This lovely grove dedicated to Ladybird Johnson's environmental work was a perfect path for our two sprites with plenty of huge trees to walk into, hiding places, wildflowers, and twists and turns. It was also a morning of sibling rivalry and dueling, but with plenty of distractions to keep the parents sane.

It is a stunning sight, those trees, and confounding to think how they were possibly logged before there were cars - or helicopters or cranes or logging trucks. Human resourcefulness is an amazing thing, and somewhat staggering as well: how quickly we could remove a forest that took centuries to grow. Jordan and now Sawyer are still deeply engrossed in games of "pretend" and here they were little bears we were adopting. Occasionally JOrdan will want to play "family" (which is kind of hilarious - like what are we doing when we're NOT playing family?), the great part of which is that we get to pick not only our own names but also our own ages. TOm's and my profound enthusiasm for this element of the game has caused Jordan to instill a new rule: that we chose a number as the parents that is greater than twenty. Which still gives Tom a bit too great of a twinkle in his eye when he hears me say "My name is Julianna and I am 23." He's got a great knack for coming up with names that crack me up. Magellan and Ferdinand and Butch and the like.  

Renamed, we left our little grove of fantasy and headed to Redwood Creek at the park entrance that boasted a trail and a lovely picnic spot. While the three of them had lunch I ran the trail that led to the "Creek" - this time of year a gorgeous steel colored river we hear is a perfect two day Class II family trip. The trail continued across the river, but the seasonal bridge had not yet been erected and so I ran up the rocky beach and dreamed of another family trip within a family trip: just me and Butch and Posey and Diamond, a pair of twenty-something parents on an idyllic float trip in spring down a gorgeous river. 

Tom ran the trail after I returned and after accidentally swatting each other in the head with the plastic baseball bats still loaded in the truck bed, we decided to head toward the beaches once again, having promised the kids another look at the Camel Rock caves. We took a detour down another park road and wound through dense wet forest and past signs informing us when we were entering and exiting tsunami safety zones. We wound up at more serene and endless beaches - gorgeous waves patiently waiting to crash to shore, surferless. Going back (and hitting every puddle we could find along the way), we stopped and marveled at the elk - deer aren't quite big enough for Humboldt, it's gotta be elk. The weather on our trip was completely idyllic - the kind of year-round weather I'd choose to live in, if it existed - sunny and warm, but not hot, just enough to keep the plants green instead of brown - throw in a weekly rainstorm and I'd be thrilled. 

It's a long rock and cut earth staircase down to Camel Rock beach, giving you a feeling of entering another world. We spread our blanket (kind of a token move since no one ever sits in this family) twenty feet from the incoming waves and as Tom stared at the surfers, the kids quickly stripped off their clothes and hit the tide pools. We brought sand toys, but I am always amazed at how quickly a game or another reality is created by the kids - they work so hard, so faithfully on whatever it is they are creating or building and take no notice of us or anyone else around. Their abandonment of our world and escape into their own reality is so complete, and clearly so freeing.

I walked up the beach to check a cache of rocks rolled in on a high surf and discovered the rotting carcass of a whale along the way. As we were edging toward five o'clock the kids wanted to check it out and were non-plussed by the discovery. Jordan is definitely creating a clear internal scorecard of things that are gross vs. things that are not. We got back to our blanket just in time for a local woman dashing past to let us know an incoming wave was a doozy and we'd best relocate before it hit - sure enough, we lifted our belongings just in time to be ankle deep in the rising surf.

Up top, Tom decided to bike back up to our campground. The kids and I drove and went straight into one of those delicious campground showers where the quarters may as well be gold pieces for the perfect warmth and cleanliness the shower provides. I think we spent $.75 for a blissful ten minutes of decadent warmth and cleanliness and were amazed when we emerged to find Tom already back and making dinner. 

Since it was late, we decided to put off the dutch oven cake for one more night. Tom put the kiddos to bed without their latest installment of the story and I headed to the beach for a walk with Austin. It was a gorgeous night, such a beautiful place and I was wary of the quick rising surf from earlier in the day, so the single rogue wave that came up and stole the clothes and shoes of the teenagers also at the beach didn't get me - the lack of light did. I couldn't find my shoes when I was ready to walk back to the campground and I had two routes available: the trail by the lagoon which involved a bit of climbing through and over tangled tree roots and branches, or on the road. I chose the road and a third of the way there was wrapping my feet in my t-shirts. The teenagers ahead of me were pretty verbal with their exclamations of pain due to thorns on the side of the road and rough pavement on the road itself. Pretty weak feet for a girl who was known for going shoeless in highschool. We were debating whether to stay at the campground for one more night or to start to head back and spend a night somewhere between where we were and Lotus - such a bewilderingly free feeling to have time and ability and no internal compass - I wanted to go everywhere and not just for a night, but we were also in a pretty heavenly place and so why leave? These are the good dilemmas, the standing in a train station with an open ticket and a board full of available destinations. My version of a candy store. 

The next morning the kids started wiggling early and just when I'd convinced them to try to sleep a bit longer, my phone rang at 6:30 and I knew immediately: Allison's baby was on it's way! Before I'd even finished the conversation, Tom was out the door and packing up camp. Allison's water had broken at 2:30 am and although contractions hadn't really started, we knew her doc would want the baby out within 24 hours. So now, we had a new train station dilemma: which airport? By 7:30, the kiddos (still in their jammies) were in their car seats and we were headed down the highway once again. 

Spring Broke - Part One

Our original plan for Spring Break had been this: drive the Northern CA and Oregon coast to get up to Seattle, ideally corresponding with the birth of my sister's child. If our dates didn't work, a quick trip to get me to the closest airport was plan B. 

And then March happened, as it always does: a dangerous drop in the bank account and lots of expenses on the horizon including taxes and rafting season start-up costs. Living on a massage therapist's part time recession salary wasn't going to get us to where we needed to be, so we had to cancel. But break for the kids wasn't cancelled. When this began to be glaringly obvious on Sawyer's last Thursday of school, we began to talk about maybe going somewhere, just for a few days. 

I had already poutingly put my name back on the work schedule and was suffering with low grade depression: I love our life in Lotus and all the time it means we have with the kids and each other. But I also like some of my creature comforts: the gym being a particularly large expense (not that chocolate doesn't sing sweetly to me in my darkest hours). And the lifestyle we've chosen doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room in the finances for big wants like landscaping and my gardening and Tom's surfing and kayaking  loves. Not accruing debt is hugely important to us, as is making deposits into our retirement plans and the kids' college plans. And having a safety net. So April vacations are first on the scratch list. And it made me sad. Every March I question the choices I've made to not become a doctor, lawyer, marketing executive or Wall Street banker. And the poppies and lupin come out and salute me from the hillsides, the emerald of the spring grasses more tantalizing than the cold green of cash, and I am conflicted.

I had promised my sister and myself that I would be there for the birth of her child. Even without the loss of her husband in September this reigned a definite plan. The folks handling reservations where I work were ready for the last minute cancellations if need be. Now it looked like we'd be working a bit around the house and nursing our mild seasonal sadness while the kids complained of not having anything to do or anyone to do it with. So it was on Friday when we awoke and while making breakfast started throwing out ideas of where we could go for just a few days. And by 1 pm after three frantic hours of packing and campground searching and mapquesting we were on the road. Heading north. 

Chico has always appealed to me as a close vacation spot but no one else was hearing the call three hours in and so we continued to our northern pick: Humboldt County's beaches and redwood forests. 

I'd been once to the Redwoods, running a marathon with nothing to do for 26 miles but try to keep my sick and mildly hypothermic sister going the last 13 miles while staring at beautiful fricking tree after beautiful fricking tree. The beautiful part stuck with me, and the appeal of going further, just a little further down the road. We made it to a rest stop somewhere just before reaching the Trinity River for a dinner of cereal and a bike ride for the kids who were thrilled to be just exactly where they were while their mother tried to heave off her melancholy. We drove a kid's video length down the road and pulled in for a night of sleep at the Burnt Ranch National Forest Campground, really just a small depression in the side of the road but perfect for our needs. It's so lovely to just park and brush your teeth and tuck the children into their cozy bunkbeds and fall asleep not really knowing what you're surrounded by, just the promise of adventure readily accessible while still being cozy in your own little space.

When we woke up, the lushness of the forests this far north were a new adventure and we were quickly on the road. 

In Arcata a few hours later stopping for gas, a man approached my husband inquiring about the ARTA logo on our truck and saying he'd fought against the Stanislaus Dam decades earlier with a bunch of ARTA folks. They chatted and Tom thought to ask him for the insider's tip on camping and what to do and five minutes later we had an itinerary and a plan. The camping spot, Big Lagoon County Park, was one of the most gorgeous we've stayed at. And if the real Humboldt experience was one of the warm sunshine we were blessed with for three days, we would probably never have gone home. 

Big Lagoon is a huge, long lagoon separating our camping area from the crashing big wave pebble strewn beach lining the Oregon coast. The lagoon presented a perfect nature walk trail for children leading to the beach and an opportunity for the frigid spring splashing my kids are known for without the terrifying undertow of the ocean. The beach itself had wonderful rocks for collecting and a gorgeous view and the perfect soundtrack for sleeping. We spent a while exploring our beach and Tom went for a run, meaning to get to the ocean-side mouth of the lagoon and running for a straight half hour in one direction without seeming to make progress. The kids froze themselves in the lagoon, getting layer after layer of thier clothes soaking wet before removing them. We changed and  packed up to explore some of the beaches nearby we'd been told about. 

Camel Rock Beach was another children's paradise.  And a surfer's. And here was my husband with time, inclination, sunshine, head-high waves and no wetsuit or surfboard in access. He stood and stared at the waves, having his own Spring turmoil over toys and gear and money and lifestyle. It didn't take the kids long to soak themselves again in wonderful, warm puddles left over from the surd crashing onto the rock islands dotting the beach. When hypothermia began to threaten, we headed back, detouring through some fabulous caves in another rock island and cementing our need for camp and clothes and dinner. Tom and the kids dropped me at Agate beach and I spent the next hour running through the harder sand and walking through the soft sand, picking up gorgeous pebbles and beautiful, tiny driftwood sculptures. The angle of the sun was perfect, the roar of the waves, everything.  I stopped to ask an older couple if they knew what an agate looked like and they handed me a baggie with five or six lovely specimens to keep. When I arrived at camp, the kids were dressed and dinner was just about ready and all was well in the world.

S'mores would likely taste unbelievably terrible in your own kitchen, but something about the combination over a campfire, the most critical chef would have to adore. The kiddos rode their bikes around the campground, showing their complete and total exhaustion on the second lap, and we were off to bed. In the trailer after stories Tom or I will often tell the kids made up stories with characters they choose to join them in the adventures. Jordan has chosen one or more of the Strawberry Shortcake dolls for the last year or two, as well as one of her stuffed animals. Sawyer has had Diego come along lately. This trip I made the story a "To be Continued" every night, and sent them to sleep this night with the promise of heading to see the world's biggest trees and the supposed (in the story) birthplace of the two stuffed bears grandma had given them in real life. Tom played his guitar, I read, and we fell asleep to the wonderful sound of waves and the exhausted breathing of our children. 

Home is Where the Trailer Is

(Hmmm. It just occurred to me how literal that statement is for me all the time...)

We headed to Santa Cruz in our cozy little trailer last weekend for a Thursday to Sunday trip. Perhaps one day we'll be better at this or have a trailer that's permanently equipped with everything we need to make a speedy departure easy, but for now, it's not quite lickety-split - although it's a lot better than it was at Christmas! And lest it sound like I'm complaining, it simply appeals to the constant wanderer in me to be able to go at a moments notice. Bruce Chatwin was a hero of mine for a long time - back when it was easy to read the words and separate them from a flawed human writing them. But he spoke to the wanderer in me (and the anthropologist - and apparently, the fiction writer as is known about his work). When he pointed out that "Yet, in the East, they still preserve the once universal concept: that wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.” - (from The Songlines) he seemed to know my soul.

Now that we're a family of four and growing, it's a bit more involved to just hit the road. But I wouldn't have it any other way. What Bruce didn't point out was that traveling with children or husbands who bring other passions along introduces you to a great many details of the journey that you'd have missed without their eyes and ears. It's not so easy to dip down to Patagonia with a family of four, but it's pretty easy to find contentment in a campground bordered by the Pacific on one side and strawberry fields on the others when your idea of adventure includes (without being limited to) cliff hikes, bug watching, bike riding, hill running, surfing, campfire singing, sand castle building and exploring all that which is within your immediate vicinity.

It can be easy to forget that the road is not only what lies ahead, but also what lies under your feet right now. Perhaps this was part of what Buddha was saying when he spoke of not being able to travel the path until you became the path? Given how dirty Sawyer gets - and how quickly - his is an even more literal take on this philosophy. And that is part of the joy. There is pure bliss in his face when, the moment his feet touch the sand, he runs kicks of his shoes, runs forward with arms open wide until he falls, rolling in every direction, sand running through his fingers and toes, pouring into pockets, blending with his hair. Jordan goes immediately for the blessing of the ocean: there is a dance she does that is beautiful to watch and is all about her silent commune with the sea.

The dirt goes deeper and involves the smoke and ash form the campfire, the ketchup from the dinner, the tree sap and the chocolate dutch oven cake. Emerging from the camp showers on the second day is a fairly heavenly experience. Given the long runs up and down cliff paths and along miles of pristine beach I got to do this trip, I'm sure it was especially heavenly for no one to have to smell my ripeness anymore. Tom got his usual surfing baptism in, but nothing special so it was a Friday only affair. We decided to not go anywhere on Saturday and with a visit from Mikey, one of our river guides, we explored and rode bikes and built sand castles and had a monumental day of doing nothing and everything. Sawyer learned all about his brakes on his bike, and Tom took Jordan on rides full of "challenges", all of which she met with ease.

Saturday night the world outside our trailer got its own baptism, howling wind and rain cascading in torrents over our little tin can home. We of course stayed watertight and snug although it sounded like the beginning of Noah's storm outside. I had a hard time falling asleep, but sometime after two (having woken up my husband to see if he also couldn't sleep) I fell into blissful dreams and awoke to a sky scrubbed free of clouds, and sunshine melting like butter over the neon greenness of spring. We packed up seamlessly, the kids riding bikes companionably around, and headed home somewhat early, still no surf to be had and a strong wind spring cleaning the beaches. I loved the feeling of loving to go home as much as I had loved to be hitting the road. It felt like the kind of balance one might strive for all their life.

I still want to go, just go - still dream every single day of taking these wild creatures to bless beaches in Africa and climb mountains in Asia, to bike along roads in Italy and run rivers in Iceland. I want to see each one of the United States alongside them as their section of US History, to delve into Canada and sink into Mexico, to know that wherever they are is just where they are meant to be. I want them to taste different foods, hear different accents, to love the feeling of an airplane taking off, and the promise of a full tank of gas. I want it to be too cold, too hot, too dirty, too crowded, too empty, too wild, too tame. And I want them to always be balanced on the knife's edge between wanderlust and the contentment of home.

“Courage is the price that Life extracts for granting peace
The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things;

Knows not the vivid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.

How can Life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare

The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the restless day,
And count it fair.

Amelia Earhart

Little By Little (Or, When to Toot Your Own Horn)

Every now and then you strike real gold at the library - a random book that just resonates and connects you to an author and their wonderful world, or a children's book that resonates with them in a way that teaches them something they just are not able to hear from a parent. We are either our local library's dream come true or worst nightmare depending on perspective. I suppose for those who shelve books we're the latter, but for meeting quotas or showing a healthy community need for the library, we're at the top. 

The way Jordan devours books (two chapter books and a long children's book today - and we weren't at home very long) and I try to work variety into Sawyer's nighttime reading list (the same book from our shelves night after night just makes me cringe), we're pretty dependent. I get a wonderful stream of good literature from my mother, but often need the thriller/mystery as brain candy. I am a heavy user of reference books as well, from massage to gardening, pregnancy to parenting. Tom is forever in search of the next greatest autobiography or sports journalism book. I am eternally grateful for our library's wonderful website and for the ability to log on and reserve books online. Our library is one of four in the county and as our county takes two hours to drive end to end, going branch to branch is not a possibility. 

We have two tactics at the library: I go online and reserve books for me and the kids that I've come across on a blog or that are part of a series that Jordan's devoted to. Then I bring the kids in and give them some arbitrary number of books that they can choose from the shelves. Usually it's between 8 and 12. Before Christmas break I think it was twenty. And almost enough. I usually augment with a selection I find appealing as the reader/listener. Three weeks ago one of us put a little book called Little By Little into the stack. It's a sweet little book about a little boy otter (named Otto) who has an older sister and a fear of swimming. We've renewed it once. And we may have to buy it. In the book Otto has a list of things he can do, which is quite extensive, and a list of things he can't do, which is one item: swimming. After much parental encouragement, his older sister finally tells him that the secret is to start off small, and before long, Otto is finishing big - jumping off the Biggest Ever Rock into the Deepest Ever Pool and doing acrobatics underwater.  

The book resonated with Sawyer, to say the least. And at a flyby lunch visit to the library last week I picked up a couple more swimming-centered books that helped as well. Today at the gym he let go of the death grip he usually maintains on us, and was swimming over and over from the edge of the pool to the lane line and back again. We had to forcibly make him take breaks. 

Jordan is almost always "playing a game" that involves her being some kind of baby animal, often a kitten, with a new name and color change a few times a day. Sawyer almost always joins in, usually the same kind of animal as his sister, always named Posey. Midway through his swimming extravaganza I asked him if he was an otter or a boy. He turned his head just before launching himself off the wall for another mini lap and said with a smile, "otter." 

Putting his jammies on, he asked why his shoulders and back were sore. In bed (having just read Little By Little again, of course), he said with his eyes at half mast before descending into that wonderful dark pool of sleep, "I did it little by little, too."

Here's a poem I wrote in the fall: 

Book Binding

My daughter

Has my addiction:

I can see the need thrum

in her veins:

Books.

Like drugs or coffee or new love,

no doubting the

narcotic effect.

Did she inherit it from me?

Or in providing her

the recommended 

daily allowance

of childhood reading

Did her need take root?

I know, I know

I use the word need:

"We NEED 

Food, Water and Shelter,"

Her father likes to say.

But still.

She is five

And I feel her need

for the written word

viscerally:

In the car,

In the between moments

At school. At home.

In childhood

Reading was both

My escape

And belonging. 

In childhood. Ha!

Is.

I know her life is less

A maelstrom

Than mine at her age.

I hope she does not find

The same affinity

With the sadder characters,

Does not long for

The more graceful life

As I might have.

But who can know.

She escapes,

And this sudden gaining

Of ability

Forms her wings:

I feel more a leaving now

Than I did when she exited

My body.

Perhaps this is why 

My mother

Has always given me books:

To give me the journey

And the freedom -

But to know

Where I have gone.

Books are a shelter,

Sustenance for the soul,

Quench a thirst more deep.

I am not a perfect mother

(Have only read about them)

But I have given her this:

The ability to sate herself

With words.

11/08

Pro-Creating (Or, That New Oven Came Just in Time)

We've gone and done it again.

I couldn't even call my mother when we found out - since it was Tom's idea and generally just all his fault, I had him call her. I actually had a hard time uttering the words for the first few days. It's not like it wasn't a planned pregnancy - it just seems like such a roll of the dice in general: you're trying not to for years, or you're desperately trying to for years. Usually one right after the other. Not a whole lot of needing to try for us. I had to be able to talk about it pretty quickly, though - Tom's fourth week Facebook post about deciphering the pink lines on the HPT wasn't subtle enough to get past many family members. And so, we're baby bound again. 

I think it's hilarious when people ask you during your first trimester (if it's not your first child) if you're tired. Um, I'm always tired! I'm a mom! I'm excited, too. And although it took me a long time to get past the thought that two was the limit on the number of children a socially and environmentally responsible family should bring in to the world (never mind fiscally...), so many of our purposefully childhood friends have told us we can "have theirs", I feel good about it on all counts. If I wasn't 38 (and was even more insane than I now feel) I might even consider a fourth. Given how many people randomly asked us if there were twins in our family or if I knew that being a "more mature" gave me a higher chance of delivering twins, we only heard one heartbeat on the doppler at our first midwives appointment. I was honestly slightly disappointed. As I said, the fourth is not in my future, and so getting two for the pregnancy of one sounded actually feasible. Which evidences how much hormones can mess with your brain. 

Joy of joys, my own twin sister will deliver my first niece or nephew on my side of the family soon and I am beyond excited. My younger sister is doing her best to provide me with more nieces and nephews and my gratitude is abundant. a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdLozcwj9aBzqNqmplWKzI3nmyDwvSw4SdUyrl9Zi1y0s9TapO6xzRXSuRmMrcy9yLtJZGFc6PG97GiL3tuk0Goej4i3UOuhT_5HDoW0YRyPAI8ucZoh6WjbzaUoQlCcZEIzJZr1XcU0x/s1600-h/DSC_0022.JPG">

My wonderful mother in law gave us a new oven for Christmas in 07 - a gift I didn't take her up on until the week before Thanksgiving in 08. A Thanksgiving we were hosting. We'd been without a working oven since late February and, being a bread baker, I was so excited about the new arrival. Or arrivals. We got a double oven, and much like twins, it is twice the joy.


We don't do cakes in the oven. Cakes are Tom (and the kids') territory: they are always cooked in a dutch oven on hot coals outdoors. And are always perfect. But we do bread, with recipes handed down from my mother. Like gardening and running, the process of making bread, especially the kneading, is meditative. And Jordan and Sawyer love baking - most of their snack days at school have involved baking something. It's science and family responsibility lessons all in one. And the sense of accomplishment they get, pulling something homemade from the oven, is priceless.

Being a walking oven, especially in this stage of pregnancy, isn't that exciting. I do love being pregnant. I don't love changing out the wardrobe, desperately trying to find something to wear in the closet that makes me feel even remotely comfortable or attractive. But given how much I adore those first two kooks, what a wonderful father they have, and what great siblings they will be, there is far more excitement than trepidation. I adore my siblings, cherish them and feel the greatest gift I can give to these children I already adore is the gift of a sibling.

Don't Let Go of Me, Always.

It's Sunday afternoon. Sawyer and Jordan are out on the porch earning stickers for their sticker charts by sweeping the front porch. Christine and Brian from next door come over to chat. Brian owns a Professional Interpreting company. Any language. I ask Sawyer to count in German for Brian. "Eins, zwei, drei, vier," he grabs between his legs and starts jumping around while counting, "funf, sechs," and then Jordan joins in, "Sieben! Acht! Neun! Zehn!" While Jordan continues in Spanish, I turn to Sawyer. "Sawyer, it's time to go potty." "I don't has to." "What's your body telling you, Sawyer?" "That it doesn't has to go potty. (jump, jump, jump)." "Are you sure that's what it's telling you, Sawyer?" He runs inside. Later, he's grabbing and jumping again. "What's your body telling you, Sawyer?" Pause (jump, jump). "Sawyer?" (jump, jump) "That it needs more jellybeans."

We're pretty sure Jordan is part fish. We get this from her constant desire to "play Mermaids", her innate ability to swim from an incredibly early age and her comfort in the water from birth. Sawyer is incredibly comfortable in the water on the shores of a river. He is more of the sucker fish variety in the swimming pool. (Unless he has his "purple floatie".) He grabs on to you with arms and legs and hangs on for dear life. He'll look at you directly in the eyes from this position and solemnly say "Don't let go of me, always."



Maybe there is some magical link between water and language. Jordan seemed to find her comfort level in both from an early age. Not to mention her comfort level with keeping water of the pee variety in it's appropriate place (the toilet) from an early age. It's a joy having two children so remarkably different, and to have them be so close. We can get frustrated occasionally with how Sawyer may copy Jordan, but really, he's carved his own path. Part of why they are so strongly individual at such an early age may be (and may not be) due to their early exposure to Montessori education.

Most children, I believe, as long as they have the support of their parents, thrive in a Montessori environment. "It has been shown to provide children, during the earliest and most impressionable years, with a sense of security, a positive self-image, excellent social skills, habits of concentration and creativity, and a level of physical and intellectual development previous thought possible by only a fortunate few individuals." Montessori educators see the children as the leaders in the process of education: if an environment is provided with resources for the child to explore, the child will essentially teach themselves through this exploration. The teacher interacts one on one with the student as needed, but there is also quite a bit of mentoring/modeling that happens between the students. We were incredibly grateful when Jordan began in the standard public education model this year. Her self-directedness and ability to focus was what got her moved from Kindergarten to First Grade. She was more challenged in this environment and we were happy with her teacher, but stunned at the difference in the school day. When asked, Jordan said she missed most the individual work, didn't like always doing the exact same thing as other students.

When we got a phone call at the exact midpoint of the school year that a Kindergarten spot had opened up in the charter Montessori we'd applied to in the spring, it was a painful choice, but one we knew we had to make. "The mission of the California Montessori Project (CMP) is to offer a quality, tuition-free Montessori education to every child in the state of California."It's a public education, but a whole different ball game. Jordan can be a bit of a loner and we were a little concerned about another transition - especially since she came waltzing out of what was supposed to be her last day of school at Sutter's Mill holding the suitcase that meant she'd been chosen as Student of the Week for the following week. She had her last day on Monday and her teacher graciously let her fulfill Student of the Week duties that day, and she didn't complain or fuss or seem to worry at all about the transition. I think being in a Montessori environment is a comfort to her.

Her classroom is as fabulous as any Montessori classroom should be, full of wonderful items meant to be touched and used. She has three turtles living in a wonderful aquarium in her class, three teachers working with the 38 K and 1st graders, and kids both older and younger than her. Her main teacher, Ms Charmaine, is from South Africa and has a lovely smile. Even halfway through the year. I was so relieved that on her first day other students showed her where to put her lunchbox, her jacket, how to line up. There is such a sense at a Montessori of that connectedness. In her first grade class, an inordinate number of the students had teenage siblings and it showed. Jordan's desire to play puppies or mermaids was often met by an "that's for babies" attitude, but at the new school a few kids jumped right in. It's a little sad for us to not have that morning connection with the other parents, but it's honestly such a huge relief to have her in the Montessori environment again. She was thriving at Sutter's Mill, but it was a whole different world. At CMP, she gets to be a Kindergartener again and we can relax about sending her to college to turn 18 halfway through her first year. She's reading at our beyond a fourth grade level, though, and so she gets fourth grade level books and reading assignments and homework rather than the "See Spot Run" books she was getting. She takes her math jobs from the first grade shelves and will soon be able to go beyond that, and she hasn't said she misses her old school at all.

I watched Sawyer in his German lesson at school a couple of weeks ago. The woman who teaches looks to be about as old as, oh, the hills. She was singing a song in German with the kids who were all enthusiastically singing along with her. I speak not a single word of German but was laughing as these three year olds were twirling, falling to the ground, playing asleep and jumping up in perfect synchronization and with huge smiles on their faces. It's a much different environment from the previous Montessori the kids were at, but it seems well suited to Sawyer. He says he doesn't want to go to school some days, but I think it's more that he'd rather (and I see this as a positive) hang out with either Tom or I, that he enjoys his time at home. And like any child, I'm sure he assumes we spend our days when he's at school having the kind of fun we try to provide for the kids when they are home: trips to the JellyBelly factory, board and card games, puzzles, bike riding at the park, swimming, playing racquetball or tennis, baking. When we get to school to drop him off, he never looks back, always has a huge grin on his face and beelines straight for the door. His teachers seem to genuinely enjoy him. We have much less of an idea of what he's learning as both of us spend a lot less time in his school - Tom was with the kids every day for a year at Madrone - but when he counts to twenty, identifies his numbers and occasionally even a letter, or randomly dishes out an impressive fact or two, we're sure there's something valuable going on. German might not be the most useful language to learn in the new global economy, but it's good to be prepared for anything. He can learn Mandarin later, when he's a little more skilled at speaking English (not to mention interpreting the messages his own body is sending him).