It's hard to fall asleep while the world keeps spinning

I'm propped up in a bed in a motel with I40 through the Navajo Nation in Arizona as the soundtrack to the constant replay of images and thoughts in my head. I lie next to my eight-year-old daughter and marvel at how she sleeps, for she is like me. I used to lie awake in bed at night, one thought leading to another and another and then the world and the universe and the solar system and how small we are and how large and unending the universe, and what lies beyond the universe, and the stars, and then beyond.
Usually, she lies awake for a minimum of an hour, eyes steadfastly open and brain visibly whirring in the beautiful ocean storm of their depth, but tonight my daughter sleeps while semis roll by outside our room. She surrendered quickly tonight, her strong and vital eight-year-old body exhausted by a small and violent war with a stomach and respiratory bug. Ever the resourceful mom, while she was barfing into an (empty) produce bag in a small and run down Safeway down the road from our motel with her brothers witnessing in their pajamas from perches in the shopping cart, I was readying an offering of baby wipes and ginger ale I had yet to purchase but was already claiming as my arsenal. We'll use whatever we have, us moms: spit and a kleenex usually, as detested by me in my youth as it is by my daughter in hers.
She lies sleeping, and to my left her brothers are splayed in questionable sheets, protected by over-loved teddy-bears and wooden trains. I am awake, and amazed. These are my children. We are in the Navajo Nation because I am driving home to California from Santa Fe and a visit with my parents and the city they raised me in, and my sisters and their miracle children and pregnant bellies and worrying husbands and the beautifully cruel reminder that we are all getting older much, much faster than we bargained for. When did it change from growing up to growing older? It's only a difference in semantics, as far as I can tell - in so many ways I am still that girl looking at the stars through the crack in the curtains, feeling my size and insignificance in the universe. And yet. If we are so insignificant, why does it hurt so much when one of us goes?
I love where I grew up. I love where I live now. I am so, so lucky to be lying here next to my beautiful children, missing my husband, reminding myself to breathe and not just wait in fragile suspense for the next piece of glass to shatter. I am holding in my heart the memory of my beautiful friend, Stephanie who died just two nights ago, and having to remind myself to breathe: that it is not me watching over my children in a hotel room on I40 at night that will protect them from harm. Just as it was not me keeping one hand on each of my sisters' beds at night in our small bedroom that kept us all from spinning out into the universe and beyond. It was enough then to imagine my brother safe and with us in his bedroom, so I will imagine them all safe now and hope, believe it is enough, at least tonight. There are stars, and streetlights, and headlights outside these curtains. I want to protect these beautiful creatures inside from the pain of loss they already have had to trace with baby fingers, but I know it is futile, and they only way to keep them from the pain would be to restrict them from love in equal measure and there is no possible way or desire to keep such perfect creatures from that.
My parents amaze me, and I see how in it's spinning the world just cycles us back through the understanding of what they felt for us, and we now feel for our children, and feel identically in our parents getting older. I want to hold my breath and know that nothing will ever change, that I can stop my parents from their cycle, but I want even more for my children to know the joyride that is life on this beautiful, spinning planet. In the Navajo Nation I remember my highschool friend, Travis, who is, or isn't, somewhere in this spinning. In my father's house I remember his second wife, and in my beautiful nephew's eyes I remember my sister's first husband. In the questions of my children holding up a photograph I remember my parents' first son. A beautiful tiny girl named Ella, my grandmothers, Aunt Virginia, a prayer flag of names unfurling in the wind. There is no shortage of loss, though in just this one hotel room it's effects are far outpaced by joy.
Stephanie, my dear friend, we raised our children these early years together and I am taking a deep, deep breath and believing you are somewhere in this marvelous, cruel universe laying a loving hand on our mattresses to keep us from spinning out into the stars, as I am keeping a hand on your boys' heads, and my own childrens', while I tell them a story of you.
It's time to close the laptop, to surrender myself into sleep that will ready me for whatever onslaught of illness or adventure or joy tomorrow offers. I give myself up to the spinning, so tomorrow I can steady myself and move us forward into our journey. I will always love you, sweet friend, I am grateful to remember all those who are gone, and all of those with whom we still have time to live.

Our Santa, Who Art in Nebraska

Come Christmas morn, someone’s going to have a lot of explaining to do. My two oldest children’s letters to Santa read like a laundry list of all the things they’re not, ever, going to get as gifts.

Jordan, my nearly 8 year-old first-born is perched on that tenuous ridge made by the convergence of the slippery slopes of imagination and, well, the dawning understanding of real life. Her enthusiasm at the existence of Santa and the possibilities Christmas holds is ruthless as she gets older and reality knocks ever more insistently on the door to childhood. Her list reads like an inventory of Dr. Doolittle’s household: a horse, a chocolate lab, another kitty (that won’t take a joy ride in mama’s mini-van engine compartment and bail out somewhere in the wilds of our county), a snake, a mouse (not in the same cage, I presume), a hamster, a guinea pig, an egg about to hatch into a fluffy, cuddly duckling or chick, and the fencing, houses, warming lights and so on to go with them all. In case live animals can’t be wrestled into Santa’s bulging bag of toys, she’s also included the four most expensive items from the American Girl catalog, a tome on par with the damage potential of the Tiffany’s catalog.

Sawyer’s list is even more difficult to fulfill. He starts it off with these three little doodads: “I want us all not to die. And not get sick. I don’t want any bad dreams.” Santa’s pretty much already Mr. Grinch as he draws his empty hands out of the ol’ satin sack on those requests. Writing Sawyer’s Santa letter with him I was able to fulfill a few of his wishes, finding odd toys and swim medals he thought he’d lost but I’d put in their appropriate place. “I’d like Santa to find that stuffed snake Autumn gave me last Christmas,” he dictated, followed soon after by the exclamation, “So that’s where that’s been!” as I pull it out of, where else, a basket full of stuffed toys. Because he still has big-sister worship he also wants American Girl dolls, but boys, which only come in twin sets to the tune of semester of college if you get the beds he wants with them as well. Clearly, I need to have a chat with my children about Santa’s budget in a recession.


Clavey's desires are clear, oft voiced, simple and easy to fulfill. They are, in this order, "Book. Ball. Cat." Check.

Sawyer’s certainty in Santa’s ability to deliver us from evil is indicative of the stage he is in. I remember well when Jordan was in it – there’s a lot of talk about death, and about who made things like air, water, and the earth. There’s this rising awareness of the world around them and this need to understand it, to find our place in it from early on. Time is slowly becoming less vague through heart-stopping questions like “Will I be alive next Christmas?” followed by the revealing, “How old will I be then?”

We’ve not raised our children with organized religion. We haven’t hidden religion from them, or disparaged anyone’s beliefs, and we welcome the study of all religions at school and in talking with friends and reading the amazing diversity of library books. We have explained the origin of the earth from the scientific perspective, which I find infinitely more miraculous than the seven days it took Him in the Bible, and we answer the questions of where flowers and birds and snakes came from with a watery explanation of Darwinism. It’s challenging as a parent to shift from reminding someone to wash their hands after using the potty straight into answering questions on where we go when we die.

I was raised Catholic for the first twelve or thirteen years of my life as it was the religion my mother was raised and has since questioned, adapted and reformed her views of. While I am grateful for the lessons in morality it gave me, I found virtually no solace in its notions of heaven and hell and felt there were far too many inconsistencies and contradictions in it for me to be able to simply BELIEVE. I don’t consider myself in any way atheist, science and nature being so miraculous as to inspire faith in there being a web that connects us to the smallest organisms of our world. But I am seeing now that religion gave an answer, albeit temporary, to these questions my son is peppering me with. The simplicity of understanding the world through religion allows for a believable explanation to an imaginative five year-old’s question about who made air.

I think it’s that need for understanding that guides my son to believe in the omnipotence of Santa. The man in red is, according to Sawyer, the only person who won’t die, won’t get sick, and can grant us absolution from our failings. When we guide Sawyer to a cursory understanding of the big bang theory, however, it’s my hope that we instill in him not only the beginnings of awe at the miracle of nature and web of life, but also the beginning seeds of empowerment, of knowing that he is ultimately responsible for making sense of and finding purpose in his own life.

Christmas is celebrated in our house not as a religious holiday but as a time to celebrate family and friends. It is at its roots a religious occasion, and we've explained the story of Christ's birth and the origin of the holiday, and we sing the carols. Hence, my daughter knows who Jesus is. She and I were in Seattle following the birth of my nephew 20 months ago when on a walk we came upon a fountain featuring a statue of a man and a boy. "I think I know who that is," she said. "God and Jesus."

On a bus bringing a jolly post-wedding party back to my sister's house we passed the same statue. My sister pointed it out saying "Look, Jordan, there's the Jesus and God fountain." Clearly Sawyer had been listening, and in some mysterious way processing. We hit a bump a few minutes later and Sawyer explained emphatically, "That was Jesus."

Over the last few years, my husband and I have had a few phone conversations with Santa in front of the children, answering his purported questions regarding our offsprings’ questionable behavior. This year, the kids bugged and pressed me for Santa’s number after our first threat of “you’d better watch out”. I first claimed I didn’t know it, then that I wasn’t allowed to divulge it to children, and finally, I simply Googled it. I discovered that Santa charges a mere $17.95 for the first four minutes of a phone conversation with your child and will pen a reply to their Dear Santa letters for an equally astounding sum. Googling again the area code given for setting up these appointments with His Jollyness, I discovered that one of the miracles of Santa is that he, while living at the North Pole, receives his calls just outside Omaha. Miracles abound.

Jordan was at Tae Kwon Do class tonight and I headed to the hospice thrift store next door where I killed time with a 14 month old who has no respect for the dojo and a five year-old needing distraction. Christmas is easy at the thrift store. I found Jordan a 54 cent angel for the top of the tree to replace a shattered one she’d been mourning. Clavey found two balls at a dollar apiece and was immediately in heaven. Sawyer hit the motherlode, finding a stuffed Diego doll only slightly smaller than himself that he was immediately enamored with. As it looks like Christmas from Santa might be a little disappointing this year, I ponied up the $4. He’s going to need a shoulder to cry on. It's not looking good for cookies next year, big guy.
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The Bully in Me, and in You

There’s a playgroup I’ve been a part of since my middle son was just about a year old. It started as a group of four or five families with kids right around the same age and has, in the four-plus years since, turned into gathering large enough to warrant an Excel spreadsheet of contacts and a lifesaving rep with monumental proportions.
With about a month left before the last presidential election, I was at playgroup at the house of a woman I’d grown close to over the last three-plus years. I’d shown up at her house when her dad passed away unexpectedly, and we’d shared a lot as our sons passed through toddlerhood together.
Launching into a discussion on the election, I’d made the automatic assumption that she, like me, was a Democrat. She’d shared enough about her past, her early adulthood, her life now that I obviously felt safe in the assumption, but she quickly steered me in the right direction. She was a registered Republican. She wasn’t sure what that meant anymore, but her parents had been staunch Regan Republicans and the identity had stuck.
What happened next was really kind of awesome: I had the best conversation since my college days about politics. She confessed to having downloaded the entire platform of both Obama and McCain and was diligently making her way through them in order to come up with an educated and informed vote. I vowed to her to do the same, and coming home from that playgroup got promptly on the internet to do just that. This was after a long, heartfelt conversation in which I was given the gift of really being asked to define, explain and justify my political position. I learned that I was not a knee-jerk Democrat, that I had been listening, that my passion for this new candidate came from a position of being informed and not just party-centric.
I credit my mother highly with this: in her house, we had dinner as a family and we each had to bring to the table current events. You had to have a news story of the day that you could summarize and explain why it mattered, and you had to understand it enough to explain it in detail. You also had to have a backup – with four kids, chances were excellent that someone would spill your chosen story before you got there and so you had to have a second story in your pocket in case this happened. I still read a few newspapers every day with that kind of negligible intensity – enough to make a few stories count but not enough time spent to make me really, truly informed (For that I depend on NPR).
What was really important about what I took from that playgroup was the eradication of the assumption that I could assume that because I liked someone or respected them as a parent or was comfortable in their house, that I could assume that I was politically aligned with them. What this took away from my assumed comfort zone first was the inane one-liners that give us that sense of clubbiness: the pot shots about a village in Texas missing their idiot or a instantaneous scoff at anything that came from Palin’s mouth. It made me a better Democrat.
What it also really made me aware of was the necessity for civility in how I chose to discuss politics even with those I considered close.
Lately, the issue of bullying has come front and center in our media. Thankfully. A problem of monumental proportions that defies politics, gender, race and religion (or perhaps, rather, it fails to exclude anyone based on these and many other factors), bullying is a new hot-button topic. Parents, school officials, community leaders claim uncertainty as to the origins of this growing problem.
To me, it’s obvious. The emergence of the tea party illuminates it more than ever: the way we identify politically is no longer civil. As a parent, married to an educator and involved intimately with how children learn and grow it is very clear to me that it’s all in the modeling. We learn how to behave, what is appropriate from our parents and, secondly, from our peers.
Never have I been so grateful to not have television at our house than this year., in this political season. The few times I was exposed to what is constantly broadcast in an election were the few (and I do mean few) hours a week I spent at the gym with seven televisions on full-time closed captioning blaring soundlessly and relentlessly with their constant political messages of hatred, lies and vitriol. It was nauseating. The political attack ads are unbearable in their acidity and rudeness. The one-liners from the parties on posters and especially on bumper stickers are cruel.
A parent with a “This is my peace sign” bumper sticker featuring a gun sight image wonders why his son is being called into the principal’s office for blatant disrespect of another student. This election I saw so many “I hate liberals”, “ I’ll keep my guns, money and freedoms, you can keep your ‘change’”, “NObama”, and so many stickers in that same vein it made me nauseous to drive down the road. I felt guilty for laughing at the “Somewhere in Texas a village is missing it’s idiot” stickers of the Bush era.
None of it is okay. If we’re going to have Democracy, let’s have it based on it’s own merits rather than this horrible bullying that’s going on. I’m disgusted on Facebook to see Michelle Obama referred to as Chewbaca and for the abject glee referenced at the introduction of new scandals on either side of the divide. Democrats are often ridiculed for passivity or for taking up a path of individualism but I applaud that after what I'm seeing this presidential go-around. Not that the Democrats aren't to blame as well. It's time each party started lauding its merits and accomplishments rather than the vicious lashing out at the other side.
A wonderful group called Sojourners has led a movement towards civility in politics that is astounding to me. Raised Catholic for a good part of my youth, I wouldn’t now consider myself a Christian, simply youth-educated in the teachings of Christianity. I signed up to receive e-mails from Sojourners because I wanted to be able to counter the radical religious right with this open-minded and loving Christian perspective on politics. I find it incredibly disturbing that religion has been co-opted by politics in this country and felt I needed to keep on my toes for the debate. I receive Sojourner’s daily “Verse and Voice” e-mail which offers a daily bible verse, and have been humbled and awed by their movement for Truth and Civility in politics (which of course necessitates an end to the disgusting and unbelievable legality of attack ads).
That simple message of truth and civility is one that, if heeded, brings an end to the scourge of bullying.
I believe there is bullying in religion: that the polarity in politics is seeping into so many churches and that for those who identify as Christian the pressure is on. A professed Christian friend who lives in Florida revealed that he's being constantly barraged with messages that Obama is a Muslim, that he doesn't have a birth certificate, that he's not a true Christian. Everything I learned in catechism points me away from this kind of vitriol and towards a belief in loving your neighbor and treating them as you'd like your children to be treated.
The message of truth and civility doesn’t require that we believe the same things or vote the same ways, but it necessitates that we allow the existence of one another, and acknowledge the pure and simple right to simply be and to believe.
The fear mongering – questioning our president’s citizenship, loyalty and even religion is dirty. We are teaching our children to discredit others based on their citizenship, religion, race, and politics. We are teaching that fear trumps truth. It’s not okay.
When the presidential election was happening, my husband and I taught our children in simple terms what it was about and why we were choosing to vote for Obama. We didn’t teach them to disparage McCain though they could root for Obama as loudly as they wanted. They know the Pledge of Allegiance and insist on singing It’s a Grand Old Flag every time they see an American flag flying. Patriotism is a part of who they are because of their parents’ dedication to the political process. We take them with us to vote. They fight over our “I Voted” stickers. They respect the role of the military in our country and speak proudly of the fact that their dad served as a Marine. They know we were against the war in Iraq and that we show gratitude towards every soldier we encounter and that the two are not in contrast, as the Marine and Obama stickers on my husband’s tailgate illustrate.
I don't think I'm alone in feeling personally attacked every time I see a bumper sticker that is insulting, that implies that Obama isn't patriotic or that it was a mistake to elect him (I really dislike that OOPS sticker in particular.The implication that what we did as a nation was akin to knocking over a glass of milk at the dinner table.)
I have huge gratitude for having had that conversation with my friend across the imagined political divide. Reading the statements of both Obama and McCain was necessary homework and reminded me that I can’t ever rest on my political laurels. I don’t know if my husband ever tires of hearing me talk back at the radio but he’d never try to quiet me. I get into political discussions on Facebook though I try not to, and my rule is always to model respect and civility, which to me leaves plenty of room for passion.
We are so divided politically, so entrenched and so impotent because of our rigidity. More importantly, we are less and less civil in our partisanship and we’re teaching our children to be less inclusive and more derogatory in their world. The results are showing up: for children and teens we call it bullying. For adults, we call it politics as usual. For all of us, we need to dedicate ourselves to making it right: Truth and Civility. I pledge my allegiance. Will you? Please?

'Tis the Season

I can't remember if I have always felt on this much of an up and down carnival ride at the holidays, or if this is a particularly special year. Not remembering bit is pretty darn indicative of another phase I know I've been in for a while but can't, um, remember how long. I'm guessing it corresponds with the pregnancy or arrival of number three - and that a lot of the up and down is tied into that as well.

He's beautiful, my third. So squeezably full of joy and good cheer and sweetness that my heart and jaw ache with it. Giving away the crib after #2 was done with it showed some foresight into how difficult a third might be, but giving in to having #3 was even easier than giving away the baby things. What was surprising to me is that opening the door (so to speak) for having that third and now knowing that he's my last makes me breathtakingly sad. The reasons for not going beyond three children have mostly to do with barely keeping up with three and how quickly, at forty, my age now seems to be catching up with (or overtaking) me. Like my minivan with 215,000 miles on it, things are starting to break, fall off, and make strange noises, and the gas mileage is nowhere near what it used to be. And there are dents. Lots and lots of dents.

Being a parent challenges me everyday. Challenges my sense of control, of reason, of purpose. What is most staggering to me is the infinite beauty juxtaposed, near instantaneously, with the infinite difficulty and helplessness in raising these three beings. Going to sleep last night, Sawyer roused himself from near sleep to remind me to remind him to add to his Christmas wish list "that we not die." And a few moments later, "that we not get sick." I'm doing my darndest with the latter, but the former is inevitably going to come and kick all our butts. And there's nothing I can do about it, no way I can protect these three perfect beings from that un-fairytale ending. No matter the marvelousness of your partner (if you are so lucky as to have one), they are equally useless in this regard.

There is this grave futility in so many things we do, and in how we do them. Or so it can seem. When my daughter woke up this morning it was clearly on the very, very wrong side of the bed. I wake up and am, for five minutes, Mary Poppins, singing the children out of their beds, inspiring them with talk about how lovely the day will be, cooking their uber-fresh free range organic happy chicken eggs, packing their preservative-free lunches. And when we are going on five, then six minutes late out the door forty-five minutes later I am all fangs and venom and screech. Although I am trying with greater consciousness while my patience is being tried. When my daughter had her all-out breakdown this morning after my sixth attempt to get her to dress, I tried to be the mama I would want her to remember, the mama I would want to spend the rest of the day being. Which was supportive and patient and still - nearly - on time.

I am trying to be more patient with myself. I am trying to be in each moment of the chaotic morning rather than just trying to be one step ahead of the chaos. And to enjoy the moment. I am trying to let go of the to do list and still feel productive for the sheer fact of raising loved and appreciated children. I am trying to accept this body, this job, this path without going by the societal accolades of success or the media yardstick of parental worthiness. I am trying to succumb to the spiritual awareness of what richness my life has evolved into rather than panic at the drumbeat sound of time that is an inevitable soundtrack to the ongoing movie of watching your children grow. Thankfully, it is merely the metronome for the real music that if you pause long enough to really listen, is what was most important all along.

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Ladybug, Ladybug

So Jordan was going to run away today. She got her Hello Kitty suitcase out and halfway packed before I coaxed her into a bath, my water pixie. She'd poked her brother, hard, and gotten in trouble for it and was wailing that it was too hard to be a big sister, she wished she and Sawyer were twins.

Hmm, run away, huh? Now Mama's gettin' ideas.

Last night was a rough one, Clavey's tum was really hurting, he was arching his back, wailing, not wanting to nurse but hungry. From about 1am until 3:30 am we were awake, completely unrestful until all the massaging, medicine, and finally nursing worked. Until 6:15. So I'm going on fumes right now, and the poking, fighting and crying are making it really difficult for me to be the peaceful, centered mama I'd like always to be. Which isn't to say that it's been a miserable day at all - Jordan and Sawyer used to be best buddies and when they hug each other, share laughter and embark on projects together it brings me great joy. Until someone gets poked.

I used to think baths were a great way for me to relax. I still think they are, but not necessarily with me in them. After the poking incident led to the packing of the running away bag, I put Sawyer in one bathtub and Jordan in another. I plopped Clavey on the bed and he does something neither Jordan or Sawyer ever did which is to fall asleep unassisted. Smart boy. I ate my three hours old breakfast (we've been baking all morning and the cleaning never ends) while reading e-mail and facebook posts, visiting each bathroom every few minutes to distribute water and kisses, check on Jordan's ear infection, peek in to see if Clavey's erupting tooth or bad cold has him restless.

Sawyer got out of his bath, putting away the seventy or so bath toys that had just joined him on some fantastical journey. Jordan got out of hers, putting down her book (she gets that from me for sure - bathing with a book) and asking for a cuddle. I sat down and took her in my arms, so much more of her spilling off every time - she's this huge person now in every way. All my children are so substantial in size, in personality, in joy. Funny that, with such minimalist parents.

Now I've got a baby in my lap and two peaceful children in the living room, paintings drying an the table, bread baking in the oven. My husband is on his way home and when he arrives there's a part of me that will want to run away - to sleep if nothing else, and to not pick clothes up off the floor and wash another dish, but most of me will want to stay as I don't see him enough as it is. I'll want to stay and watch these naked little beings be and grow right in front of my eyes - little loaves rising in the oven of our home.

Mother of the Year

Well, I'm out of the running for that one. But I've actually been out of the running since I think 8:45 am on January 1 which is when the first injury or argument or something happened - we were camping so it probably involved an injury of some kind.

There have been a few incidents since then (few - ha ha) that keep me out of the Also Ran category. Some favorites from the last month and a half: Jordan asked one morning if she could wear a light blue leotard to school as a shirt. "Sure," I said, "it's a little tight though - if you don't mind an all-day wedgie, go ahead." The next day at school her teacher said she had a funny story to tell me. At recess the day before, the playground monitor looked over in shock and said to Ms. Eileen "Is that Jordan? What is she doing?" Jordan was no longer wearing her skirt, just the too-small powder-blue leotard while playing with a hula hoop. "Jordan, where are your clothes?" "What?" replied Jordan, clueless as to what she was talking about.

"What are you wearing?"

"What?" responded Jordan, as if to say "What could possibly be wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"Jordan! That's not appropriate clothing for school!" said Ms Eileen. "Oh." she replied, as if confused by these ridiculous adults and their meaningless rules, and went to put on her skirt.

Part of me thinks this puts me back in the running for mom of the year - I have a 7 year old daughter who doesn't care if she's cool, doesn't care if she's doing what the other kids are doing. She's busy quite literally dancing to the beat of her own drummer, immersed in the world of her own imagination. (For the record, today is "crazy hair day" and she doesn't really want to get TOO crazy - just a couple of pigtails put into buns.) She dresses just like her mama did at her age, lost as I was in a world of my own invention.

On the less potentially optimistic side of losing mother of the year contest, a couple of nights ago I called the Poison Control Hotline for the first time (already had it in my phone, so I don't lose the round entirely) when I found Sawyer just before bed pouring an entire bottle of a Hyland's homeopathic remedy into his mouth. This is a little boy who could easily develop a sugar addiction and here he was, feeding the monster -the tablets are basically little sugar pills. “Oh, Hyland’s?”, the man at other end of line said, “We love those - he could have three whole bottles that stuff and be fine.” So Sawyer lost his stories, Jordan got freaked out by my telling him what cold happen if he took too much medicine a different kind, and I got freaked out when I saw him swallowing the whole bottle - had an absolutely horrible flash forward to imagining him as a teenager or adult liking pills way too much. I’ve been cavalier about leaving medicines within children’s reach because I’ve always told them how serious it is. It makes me wonder if I’m failing in some way or myriad ways with having less time for him with the new baby. How easy it is to find fault with oneself as a mother!

And Clavey, little Clavey, beating on my breast as I nursed him yesterday afternoon, wanting more milk that wasn't there. He clearly hates rice cereal. We'd been given leftover babyfood from friends and so he tried - and liked - bananas. So much for veggies first and only a week after rice cereal and so on and so forth. His big sister fed the rest of the bananas to him this morning while I made lunches and breakfast and I peeled the dried remnants off his face while nursing him an hour or two later. So I just spent $50 on Organic babyfood at Safeway. I'd like to cook, puree and freeze it from scratch like I did for Jordan and Sawyer, but I haven't yet unpacked from a trip we returned from five days ago, and so little jars it is, at least until I am back on the dry land of finished laundry, healthy children, and the many projects stashed in corners throughout the house.

This morning after Clavey woke up happy as a clam at 5, I heard Jordan and Sawyer fighting in her bed at 6:30. "YOU'RE PULLING MY HAIR!" I went in and Sawyer was crying, still half asleep - "I'm not pulling your hair, I'm squeezing orange juice." He'd made orange juice himself a week or so ago, theraputically twisting and squeezing the oranges into defeated little orange shells. He'd gone there again in his sleep, apparently. Five minutes later he was accusing his sister of smothering him with a pillow. So five minutes after that when, while folding laundry, I heard raised loud voices coming from my bedroom, I got my serious, deep, loud, no-nonsense, don't mess with me voice on and went preaching into the bedroom. I saw two sweet little faces looking up at me. "But Mama," said Jordan, "Sawyer was only saying 'tickle tickle tickle' to Clavey." I stopped and laughed and looked my children right in the eye. "You think I'm a little bit crazy right now, don't you?" I said to them. They half-laughed and smiled at me, and I thought to myself that these are the moments that will possibly bookend their childhood memories. I'd better choose carefully who I want to be in the chronicles of their past.

Over the five days we were in San Diego, we went to Sea World where Jordan fell in love with Shamu and the idea of being an orca trainer. She wanted nothing to do with the water rides, but if you'd told her she could jump in a tank with four killer whales, she wouldn't have hesitated. She sobbed when a trainer told her she couldn't pet Shamu. And all weekend she played Shamu in the swimming pool with any adult willing to toss her in the air, push her through the water, help her do tricks. It tickled me and touched me to see my mom in goggles and swim cap attempting to swim through my daughter's legs underwater, laughing and giggling with her. My mother's got a good sense of humor about our childhood memories when my siblings and I get together and poke fun at her, and it gives me hope that I'm not earning them a permanent spot on a therapist's couch with my own parenting.

I'm thankful for great role models. And a great co-parent. So I'm not mother of the year, but I think my children will love me all the same.

A Year in the Community – The Trailer Retrospective

So much can change in a year. And so much can stay the same. We came close to pulling the trigger and buying a bigger trailer last month – close enough to accept a counter offer from a dealer who was then too lazy to dig the one we wanted out from behind another two on his lot, thereby losing the sale. Perhaps a sign: what we have is enough. So we’re driving down Highway 17 into Santa Cruz, three car seats in the back of the truck instead of just two, and two dogs in the same trailer instead of just one. Some things still the same, some significantly different.

In my mind I’m already remodeling our little trailer - I love the size of it and want to fit in it but a year ago yesterday little Clavey was conceived, emerging into the trailer community three months ago. Already we can’t remember what life was like B.C.: thinking about our two-week trip last Christmas I tend to insert him into the memories, such is life with a newborn. Remodeling my memory along with our lives and eventually, our trailer.

I have a little bit of guilt that since our day at the soup kitchen last Christmas we haven’t volunteered at homeless shelters, built homes with Habitat for Humanity, planted more trees. I’m a laptop activist instead this year, signing petitions online, writing to my congresspeople, shopping for Christmas gifts on the Hunger Site and the Breast Cancer Site. But it’s about balance. I haven’t had a whole lot more to give as far as energy goes: we’ve chosen jobs that are meaningful in a way that can be looked at as being altruistic – watching my husband’s first year as a teacher and the amount of time, effort and supplies he’s “donated” and how that’s involved sacrifice from all of us gives me a sense of absolution from the sins of not doing enough. We donate a lot through our rafting company as well, and we work hard at being good community members. I feel as good as I think I can about how we live, knowing always that we can do better. Striving for balance.

We had a good run in the trailer this year. We drove home January 1, fulfilled from our trip and excited to travel more. Just after we found out that we were expecting, the trailer housed river guides who flew in from far distances for the memorial service for Brooke, a fellow guide. We did a long weekend at Sunset Beach in Santa Cruz in the spring, then drove north with it for spring break, having decided that morning to leave and that first night loving the convenience when we pulled off the highway into a tiny campground in a forest, parked, and the kids climbed back into their beds and were asleep within minutes. I felt like we were an enormous turtle or snail, self-contained and at home on the road. Four days later I felt slow as a snail towing the trailer at a max speed of 65 heading for an airport, trying to get to Seattle in time for the birth of my nephew. The trailer didn’t fail me.

We did one last trip as a family of four, escaping for a rare river season work-free weekend to Santa Cruz where my sister joined us at the KOA for two nights. As winter campers we got a taste of why it’s worth braving colder temperatures for smaller crowds, but loved the escape from the dry heat and the chance to change our scene for a little while. John and Angie camped in the trailer at Max and Willow’s wedding at Camp Lotus, needing a better bed at 8 months pregnant than a tent and a paco pad would provide.

Ever since we found out we were pregnant we’ve thought about getting a bigger trailer to accommodate our bigger family. We expanded by another dog as well, so we’re a significantly larger community than we were a year ago. But as the famous quote goes, perhaps a change of self is needed more than a change of scene. We’ve never used our kitchen sink, used the stove two or three times, and we’ll never use the shower, so there’s our extra bed: some work to remodel, but quite possible. And cheaper than a new trailer. Tom’ll be off the floor and the dogs can have their space back – I hope we’ll be overcrowded with two dogs for a long time. We’ll figure out the awning for the rain, fix the lights and the electricity eventually.

Tom spent the three days prior to this trip putting laminate flooring in our house. If we weren’t going away, he said, he needed a home project and this one’s been on the top of my list. One three-day project and it looks like a whole new space. So now I’m dreaming of putting the leftover flooring in the trailer, painting the trailer walls when we paint our kitchen, and using the old couch covers to make new curtains. It’s not at all that I’m unhappy with the trailer – I just envision how it can be better. Same goes for me – I’m planning on another marathon in the New Year, rock climbing again (if we go with another adult who can watch the baby), publishing something (as a goal to write more regularly and to get it out there), and as a family volunteering more so I can instill in my children and myself a sense of gratitude for all we do have, and empowering us by serving those in need. I’m happy with who I am, but I know I can be better.

So now we’re in the car on the way to Santa Cruz and then Half Moon Bay. Megan and Gordon will join us tomorrow. No matter where our little trailer takes us, as long as there are people I love around me, it’ll be paradise. Happy New Year

11/24/2009 – Into the Fold

The community we live in regularly, the Coloma-Lotus Valley, has been a wonderful fit for us - full of like-minded people with similar values and mores to our own. Who better to have join us, then in the trailer community? Camping is much more than a pastime for us: we are camping enablers – dealers, in fact: we essentially sell camping as a part of our rafting trips – the fewer amenities, the higher the price – we call it an “upgrade”.

It’s just a little bit funny that we live 400 yards down the road from a campground people travel to. We’ve chosen to camp there for birthday parties, holiday gatherings, etc. Not to mention living there for the first four years in the community, and in a tent for four of the first six months of Jordan’s life. For many in our Coloma-Lotus community who spent much of their early adult lives as river guides or kayakers or rock climbers, camping is almost a more natural way of life than one of mortgage-paying, lawn-mowing regularity.

Tom offered up our trip to Santa Cruz on Facebook. We had plenty of takers. A friend planning on Thanksgiving with her mother-in-law in Santa Cruz signed up first, camping offering a great respite from the stress of staying with two boys under seven in the near-pristine abode of a single older woman. (Same irony – her home was just a little further from the campground in Santa Cruz than ours is from our local campground.) Two more families were game so it was four sets of parents, six boys between four and 7, a 6 year-old girl and a two-month-old.

What we all do together on a camping trip isn’t all that removed from what we do together at home in Lotus from the kids’ perspective: ride bikes, dig in the sand, fight, get over it, fight some more, play endlessly. For the parents, though, it’s a world of difference: there’s no work, no carpets to vacuum, no bills to pay. There’s surfing, mountain biking, and best of all, community meals and cleanup. It’s not necessarily an easier way of life as having children automatically means you’re working: feeding, cleaning, making fires, keeping the kids safe and providing opportunities for play, but it makes its own argument for cooperative living. It’s pretty sweet to share a cup of coffee over a morning campfire while having a discussion about which surf break to hit that day and whether there’s enough brie, wine and marshmallows for dinner that night.

On the flip side, there are raccoons. You’d think a bunch of raft guides would have the whole prep for disaster thing in mind, but given the cumulative losses to the masked intruders, you wouldn’t be impressed. As raft guides, some of us way too organized and some of us with a wing it attitude, we split the difference on dinner prep. For paying passengers we would have paid a lot more attention to presentation – for a family camping trip we focused on getting food into the kids’ bellies, keeping the beer cold and keeping it simple. Luckily with this group simple meant salmon, rice pilaf and broccoli with a starter course of pot stickers with a dessert of homemade marshmallow s’mores. We’ve got kids with expensive tastes, apparently – no hotdogs for this group. Everything was done at the same time and the amounts were perfect. Best of all was cleanup – quick, efficient, and in no time everyone was back around the campfire with a beer.

It’s pretty fun taking a bunch of river kids to the beach. (It’s pretty fun taking a bunch of river kids anywhere.) Wave jumping, sand-burying, shell collecting while half the parents were off surfing was pretty great. The water was cold enough that the surfers only lasted a few hours so there was plenty of parent-child interaction for everyone.

I’m always grateful for my community, but seeing them on the beach and in the campground, being great parents, getting dirty, wave jumping with my kids, letting it all go, holding my baby, toasting marshmallows reinforced my appreciation for them all over again. I think it’s pretty normal to occasionally wonder what it would be like to live somewhere else, to buy in to the grass is always greener fantasy, but these people are a pretty nice anchor.

Mourning on Facebook

Who could have guessed that one of the best outcomes of the social networking phenom could have been it's ability to connect us with the past, the time when social networking happened at the bus stop or soccer field or on the plaza - and thus was somewhat limited in it's breadth of connection (but was perhaps better in its depth).

In the year and a half or so since I've been on Facebook (forced there by the organizing forces of my highschool reunion), I've been more and more of a believer (although I am hoping to author a Miss Manners web book of social networking and really hitting hard the parameters of oversharing). A huge part of becoming a believer came after losing a friend. I'm from a generation who goes to school in a place their parents didn't grow up, flying or driving long distances to visit relatives - and then we split, leaving for college somewhere else where we establish intimate friendships, leaving next for grad school or jobs or foreign travel, establishing pods of friends in each new place and then leaving them for something new. And this constant motion takes time - and we don't spend it staying connected although we meant to - which doesn't affect the space in our hearts that's occupied by those friendships. When a friend who wasn't a very close one but was very close to many with whom we are very close passed away, it was wonderful to be able to connect on Facebook, and to hear stories, see pictures, share grief or memories.

This week a friend who was one of my closest in highschool died unexpectedly. My highschool class was small and that created an intimacy that was both positive and negative - but extremely familial. Another highschool friend who wasn't really friends with this guy was nonetheless one who got the ball rolling on starting a blog of remembrances about him, motivated by that familial feeling.

"The fact of the matter is this - Travis and I were not close, but you spend 4-6 years with everyone and a death hits you between the eyes because we were sorta like siblings, all of us, with rivalries and fights and good memories and a lot of fine support that we forget about it until we stop and think about it.... despite all the BS of high school, we, at the Prep school, were indeed like family, and I feel as if I have lost a brother, (my own brothers and I are not that close, so you can see where I get this idea ;-) I am 39 - I imagine so are all of you or thereabouts - and with 40 looming large on the horizon as some milestone of uncertainty - at least for me - the idea that someone as robust and clear-headed as that fellow (compared to myself) is dead was just a bit of a shocker.

In all honesty, I want to honor his death and his life in some way, but I am just not close enough to him to offer any funny anecdotes or touching tales. All I know is this - for four fucking years I saw this guy every day and he was my peer, even if he wasn't my pal, and I am sad for him and his family."

Before Facebook it was tough to stay in touch with someone who used to be a huge part of your life and isn't anymore, but who hasn't been excised from your heart. I was shocked at how special it was to go to my highschool reunion and to remember who I was then - how that person led me to be this person. It was actually nice to go back and revisit that, to have the ability to be kinder to that person I was then, more forgiving, more understanding, and then to offer the same to those I knew back then. For the grieving, it allows those closest to them to sort through the grief and remembrances in their own time and from a lot more people. We can't go to every funeral because we know too many people from to many places, but we can go online and be with mourners from all over the world and feel connected.

I'm so grateful to be able to keep in touch this way - to see what old friends' kids look like, to hear the joys and trials, to celebrate and mourn while still saving the big chunks of time and emotional energy for those friends and relationships that are in the here and now.

Mama Scouts

There are mothers out there who drive me crazy. They brush their hair before dropping their kids off at school in their undented minivans. They smile sweetly while bringing over an amazing meal on their way to Infant CPR class in preparation for adopting child #2. Luckily, I'm friends with lots of these moms, so I know that something's gotta give in one area in order to fit something else in. Your hair is brushed at morning drop off? Likely your kids ate lukewarm toaster waffles in the car for breakfast. You ran five miles three times this week but only made dinner twice. Your car has no crumbs inside, but you haven't seen your kitchen counter in six weeks. It's a good thing I have this perspective, else I'd be hiding from my parental insecurities with a bar of chocolate and a People Magazine in my closet.

I had a parenting breakthrough this month and feel like I earned a new badge on my Mama Scout sash: Crafty Costumes. This was a major breakthrough for someone who is hit by the craft bug only about once a year. We own pipe cleaners and yarn and all that crap but I'm clueless as to what to do with it. Halloween gets closer and I break out in a cold sweat hoping someone will offer up a costume that my children will want to wear. And since Halloween lasts for two weekends around here what with school carnivals one weekend and the real deal the next, I have to be doubly prepared as one costume doesn't usually hold their interest across the span. Last year we got lucky with the darling clown costumes that were my husband and his siblings' 37 years ago. They don't fit this year. Sawyer was handed down an awesome lion costume that I think might work for both weekends. It's a cross between the Cowardly Lion and, as Tom pointed out, Rod Stewart.

Jordan is more difficult: she's sensitive to how a costume feels, how hot it'll make her. She's done with the princess thing although still somewhat taken with fairies. She loves animals and wanted first to be a skunk. But wearing black pants and a long sleeved shirt was more than she could fathom. The tears and whining were beginning. And then I had the sudden flash of inspiration: she could be a flamingo! She had pink shorts, a pink t-shirt, a pink boa to pin around her shirt, pink wings, bare pink legs... She could make a beak from construction paper. As she waited 'til the last hour, she wound up looking more like a pink fairy as she opted for a leotard rather than shorts and a t-shirt, and had no interest in a beak. Still, I was proud of my idea and think with another two boas, a couple of hangers for better wings, and a beak, she would have been a convincing flamingo. Perhaps it's wishful thinking for a 5'3" mama to believe her offspring could pass for a long-legged bird, but at least I'm not short on imagination. (Since I'm also an actress mama, she's lucky I didn't take her to the zoo and make her study the physicality of the birds as well.)


Sawyer's homemade costume came to fruition when he and I joined some friends for a visit to the annual Renaissance Fair (it just irks me to write Faire). His friends had costumes long-planned but he didn't. In retrospect he probably would have been quite fine wearing the perfect turquoise gown in just his size that's still in the costume box, but I wanted to give him a boy option as well. Helplessly staring into our girl-heavy costume box, I pulled a felt hat and macrame belt left over from his renaissance-themed graduation a year and a half earlier. And then turned pajamas into leggings, and a dry-clean only Saks Fifth Avenue gold lame shell handed down from my couture aunt into a tunic (forgive me, Sally). Viola! He looked absolutely adorable and Renaissance-y! Imagine how devastated I was when just after parking the car Sawyer pulled apart his felt cap. Redemption came in a $2 knight's helmet given to him by our friends. The gold lame really set the copper tones in the helmet off. Quite striking!
The Renaissance Fair is such a trip. I am always blown away by just how dedicated people get. There are apparently a lot of women who yearn through 51 weeks of the year while trapped in subdued mother clothes and office-friendly blouses to rip open their bodices and prop, tremulously, their bosoms atop a tightly laced corset. There is a goodly amount of loose flesh at these fairs, I've found, and in equal measure the geekiest of the geeky male teenagers who transform themselves though costumes and customs into the in-crowd in this world. By the end of the day I honestly can't take another person addressing me as "m'lady" or speaking to me in stilted speech with healthy numbers of "ye" and "perchance" thrown in. But it's great people-watching. Despite the inflated state of my own bosom, I was without corset, preferring instead the sanctity of my nursing bra and certain that I'd flash enough of it's contents through constant nursing to fit in appropriately. I was blown away by my friends' costumes, great nods to humor and creativity that I would have felt threatened by had I not also been embraced by that humor and witness over the years to their own challenges as parents. We do a good job of learning from each other about discipline and so on, I just need to ask for a little help in this area.

Now if I can just remember how to thread the needle to get the damn badge sewn on to my sash, I can start working on some other badges. Sewing is not one I'm close to earning, sadly, but I must have five or six already (including a master badge for childbirth, yes!) and if I can remember where I put them while working diligently towards a housekeeping badge that may never be attainable, I'll really start to look like I know what I'm doing. (I can just imagine the scoutmaster - as I think I've finally cleaned my whole house, she goes over to the table I'd cleaned hours earlier, running her finger across it and holding it up saying, "I don't think so, girlscout! Wait you never graduated from Brownies, did you?" Thank goodness I've got eighteen more years to fill the sash up - my father the Eagle Scout will be so proud!

Why the Daughter of Doctors and a Nurse Birthed her Children at Home

I knew the moment I got pregnant. It wasn't that we were trying - more that we'd stopped trying not to and were letting the karmic chips fall where they may. A little kernel of certainty just popped into my being and that was it. In daylight I laughed it off, thinking of all the people who take years and fortunes to conceive but was still unsurprised when my period didn't come two weeks later. It was confirmed a couple weeks after that when my sister brought an EPT and a bag of Oreos over after I'd told her on the phone that I was "late". That certainty of the pregnancy had rooted at conception as had my own certainty that this was perhaps one of the "rightest" things I'd ever done.

The daughter/stepdaughter of an RN, dermatologist and anesthesiologist, I was all set to go straight into the hospital and dial up my epidural - the "unnecessary" pain I'd heard so much about - no thanks! But then at twelve weeks I had my first visit with the group of female OBGYNs I'd signed up with. Five minutes in a room with a distracted, rushed woman who seemed as excited by my pregnancy as by the texture of the ceiling tiles, she told me to send my typed list of questions to the office administrator as she was out of time. Two weeks later I was herded into a room with twenty five or thirty other pregnant women, handed a copy of the most simple minded pregnancy book ever written, and treated like I had no more sense than a third grader in what was supposed to be my first pregnancy class. I was thoroughly insulted and completely offended. This "miracle" I was in the midst of was being treated as a commonplace illness - I could've been at a flu education seminar. I was severely disappointed in my care and turned to the first place I ever learned to go (beyond my parents) for information: the library. I read Naomi Wolf's Misconceptions and was shocked into action.

A friend three months ahead of me in pregnancy was going the midwife route and encouraged me to meet with them for a chat. Uncertain, I called them up for an appointment and about halfway through my pregnancy Tom and I went to meet them - two women who worked as a team and called their business "One Heart Midwifery". We sat down, they sat down, looked us in the eye, and spent over an hour with us answering every last question we had (again, a long, typed list). The only answer I didn't like was the one about pain medication - none available at a home birth. They weren't militant or defensive about it or in the least judgmental about my nervousness at the fact that it wouldn't be available. But I was absolutely willing after that meeting to go without drugs if it meant that I would be the one in charge of my pregnancy, that I would be treated as an intelligent person, that my husband would be respected and treated as a partner, and that my pregnancy would be treated as a joyful miracle and not as an illness. The midwives didn't think I needed drugs and I needed the midwives - not choosing to birth with them after that meeting would have been like not choosing to live in Paradise after being given a choice between that and Bakersfield.

The difference in care to me was so profound: I had been raised by health care providers who loved their professions, who were truly healers, and who treated all people with profound respect. I'd rarely needed medical care outside of their abilities and when I did was usually treated by a colleague with similar values. This experience with the mainstream women's birth center and my exposure to the statistics of birth in America through Naomi Wolf's book - and the countless other books and articles I read afterward floored me - this was not medicine how I knew medicine to be from my family. I'm not now, nor have I ever been a drug taker or one who shied from pain. If I needed narcotics I generally cut in half my doses and weaned myself off in half the expected time. I went years between doses of acetaminophen or ibuprofen and had been trying to get my parents to embrace herbal and homeopathic remedy teas for years. But my head had been so filled with the notion that pain in childbirth was extreme and unnecessary that it was pretty much all I knew about birth before becoming pregnant and it had me afraid. My new exposure to childbirth through the midwives' patient answering of my questions and the wonderful books on homebirth and natural childbirth allayed my fears. Thanks to my library I know knew enough to be more afraid of hospital birth than homebirth - the statistics were in my favor.

I didn't look back once from my decision. Not forty hours into my first labor with my daughter when I not only asked only half jokingly if they really did have drugs in their medical bag and if not if anyone had a line into some heroin at that moment. You can do this, they told me, and I knew that I could.

Each of my births was complicated for a number of reasons - a petulant cervix each time, a 46+ hour labor with a 9 lb 5 oz girl the first time, a sunnyside-up 9 lb 2 oz boy the second time, an acynclitic 10 lb 11 oz boy the third. All with incredibly large craniums. The midwives told me quite factually, that I'd have been given a c-section had I been in the hospital for each one. I was shocked. They were difficult births, yes, but by no means impossible or dangerous or frightening. If I had only one word to characterize each it would be empowering. And disempowered is how I felt with the mainstream medical route. I'm by no means saying that experience is typical: I'm quite aware that my reaction was more than half the cause of that emotion. There are amazing doctors out there (I should know, I was parented by some) and some terrible midwives and vice-versa. But never did I feel at risk. My midwives need no extra drama in their lives. They are not immune from our litigious society and they need no bad press or shabby safety records. If I or my baby had been in danger at any time it would've been off to the hospital at once. If I had expressed a desire to go to the hospital at any time they would've had me out the door in a flash. Instead, they trusted me. And because they'd taught me to trust my body, my baby, and the fact that as a woman I was quite literally made to birth babies, I trusted in myself and the process and had three amazing home births.

It's not an easy job for them. I in particular make them work. It is not an easy job. My midwives agonized over a recent decision to allot 45 minutes rather than 60 for each and every pre-natal visit for each and every client. They travel to homes all over the area - homes over an hour away, homes of all kinds, clients with every ethnic, educational and financial background there is. They don't have the support of nurses, administrators, on-call OR staff. If it's a long and difficult labor they don't get breaks (except what they give each other), and I require both of them in a hands-on (and in) full court press each time. They come back the day after, then three days after, then a week after for the same lengthy post-natal checkups. When the woman who birthed after me had twins, one of them essentially moved in to the home to assist with breastfeeding and care for the first 48 hours. Can you imagine your typical OB doing that?

I'd dreamed of having a birth that was peaceful and easy - three pushes and into the water comes my baby. I figured the third time around I was due. Instead, the third time was by far the hardest. The pain I'd felt in the first was a fraction of the back labor from the second. And the third blew that one out of the water. I tried to explain to my mother that if I'd known ahead of time how much it was going to hurt - if pain were quantifiable, I would have opted for a c-section. Because you can't choose pain like that and be sane. But I'm so, so glad that you don't know ahead of time because you can always handle so much more than you think. I worry that stating that people might think I regret not having a c-section and the opposite is true: I suppose I need to edit that first part - that if I knew how much it would hurt I'd have chosen a c-section, unless I also knew that I could handle the pain. Pain is unquantifiable (despite the happy face to agonized face scale of 1 to 10 pain charts at the hospital) and our ability to handle pain is equally unquantifiable. We are so, so much stronger, capable of so, so much more than our current medical model allows for.

I would never, ever judge a woman's decision to choose hospital birth over home birth, c-section over natural: birth is incredibly individual and it takes a lot of faith and a lot of education to see past how birth is treated in our country. Above all else we are taught to fear

birth rather than to welcome it, to endure it rather than to celebrate it. I feel so empowered to have been allowed to birth free from fear. It is fear, I believe, that is the great hurdle in the way we birth in our country. So many times I've been told by women "Oh, I couldn't have had a home birth: I had to have an emergency c-section at the last minute because of ..." A myriad of reasons why medical intervention of one kind or another was deemed "essential" by the doctor. I was with my twin as she labored so amazingly through back labor and an incredibly acynclitic positioning of her baby. She did it with a doula, my brother, my mother, me, and her own faith in her body. After three hours of pushing she was sent for a last minute c-section. She's positive that committed, dedicated midwives would have been able to promote a vaginal birth. And I'm not saying it's the doctor's fault for not doing more as I know insurance companies severely tie physicians hands behind their backs which is shocking seeing as I know first hand how necessary it can be to have midwives willing to be extremely hands-on (and in).

I believe the most important outcome of birth should be a healthy baby and mama and that any birth that results in that is a successful birth. But the second most important outcome of birth should be an empowered mother. Parenting is by far the hardest job in the world and there is no room for self doubt in it. But the last thing we are told by our doctors and our drama-addicted media is that we should trust ourselves and the process. We are instead taught to fear. I watched a number of those birth story shows and the hallmark of each is drama. There's got to be a life and death, do or die moment in each one. Another mother of a child in my daughter's class had a baby a week before me - two hours of labor and one push - and I know they could have made that a life or death drama. We need to individually and as a society wean ourselves of the need for crisis and fear as a way to define our worth or quantify our suffering.

None of my births were easy. Easy birth isn't a guarantee no matter where or how you choose to deliver. Ironically, this last birth I had was pretty dramatic. But not scary. I've told the dramatic details to friends and family but I worry that it seems to have been blown out of proportion in its retelling within the community. Or morphed out of the framework in which I see it: yes it was dramatic but it was a huge success and a huge joy. The result was a healthy baby, and a healthy mama who while she is recovering from a heck of a physical ordeal isn't recovering from surgery. It was by far the hardest thing I've ever done but also one of the best. There are three others in the best category. And since I've done it and earned it (and don't have to do it again) I wouldn't change it. My first two children got to witness their brother's entry into this world. They cut his cord and they witnessed some of the labor that got him here. I believe it has made their acceptance of him so seamless, eliminated jealousy and inspired the constant kisses and hugs. They were never afraid either, because we weren't.

I love birth stories. I love hearing women tell the stories of their labors and deliveries from the funny to the tragic and everything in-between. I believe the more we bear witness to the accomplishment and power of our births the more we can own those stories, learn from them, choose our paths from the truths they offer us. We empower each other through the telling and listening. My friend Jenn attended this last birth with us. At my first birth my mother and sisters were present and that was wonderful (although my mother does not cherish the memory of seeing her daughter in pain). My brother was at the birth of my first son and there is a wonderful joy and bond from that. Jenn had her last two children with these midwives and is my longest and dearest friend from this community of ours and my children know and love her so we asked her to attend this birth and be their support. Her trust and faith in home birth and in the midwives and in me was essential in this birth because of its intensity and its drama. Her faith, humor and smile was steadfast. I can't imagine a more perfect person to have present and I'm grateful for the depth it has added to our bond.

My husband has been on board with home birth from that first meeting with the midwives. It's always been simple in his eyes. In fact his faith in me and the process made him state that he thought we could do it solo the third time. I don't know if he was kidding or not or if he knows if he was kidding or not but I know that the midwives were essential because of their vast knowledge and expertise with birth. It was entirely hands on. The most important thing in all three births was his unflinching faith in me and in the process of birth. He never exhibited fear, doubt, and shockingly even impatience (eve after three and a half hours in a tub of water). His commitment to the team we are, to being absolutely present and open and steadfast was essential to the success of the births. Although I would expect no less and am unsurprised by this, my gratitude is endless and my certainty in my choice of a life partner, husband and teammate constantly renewed.

I opened a package from my midwives yesterday: a beautiful silver necklace in a simple outline of a pregnant woman's torso. In the belly a hollowed disc with the word HOMEBIRTH stamped around it, and hanging in the hollow that represents the womb the birthstones of my three children. I've heard of women receiving diamonds or emeralds form their spouses as birthing gifts but this simple treasure is far more valuable to me: it says "I chose this path and I trusted it and myself and we will reap its rewards each and every day we live." My gratitude to those two women is lifelong and bottomless.

Clavey Brooks Freer is a sweet, sweet boy. My love for him is boundless. Although mid-labor I was testing names for him that included "Tank Motherfucker Freer" for the pain he was putting me through, I realized immediately upon his arrival that it had been a difficult journey for him as well. (Which is a good thing given the explaining he would've been doing about his name all his life.) As my husband said a day afterward "Already life is unimaginable without him - it's like he's always been here and I can't remember what it was like before he came." His siblings and grandparents all adore him and his community has welcomed him so effusively. The meals delivered to our house have been lifesavers each time. I'm so saddened it will have to end and I'll have to cook each and every day again. It does take a community or a village - and a team of kickass midwives. I am cherishing each time he nurses, his love of eye contact, the way he curves into our bodies and needs us so completely. He is a miracle, a gift, a treasure and I can't wait to see who he will become at each and every step of his life. Welcome, my love.

I just now read this article titled A Woman's Nation: Reclaim Your Right to Birth Right and written by Christiane Northrup MD appeared today in the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christiane-northrup/c-section-or-natural-birt_b_323422.html

Rock on!