Aubergine

I love her full tilt

My fingers are cold.  The back of my neck is cold. My toes are cold through my fuzzy socks.  My sweater's sleeves are pulled down past my wrists and my legs are curled up beneath me but still the chill of this house creeps in.  

I crave tonight the ability to focus on one thing but my mind is jumpy and electric.  It is listing for me things I need to get done before the contractor starts work on our bedroom next week, the list of topics I'm narrowing down for queries, the format of the magazine I was studying earlier today, the schedule of my busy day tomorrow, and telling me I really should get up to get another of those yummy heart-shaped cherry jellies I brought home from Whole Foods this evening.  In the space I can wrest between those thoughts the sound of the monitor flows in.  I hear the hum of the humidifier which has become our white noise machine but my ears strain for sounds of rustling or cries.  The baby is sick and as much as I have things I need to do on my computer tonight before I go to bed, the length of the house feels too far away from her.  The audio thread keeps me just enough in the room with her to let me keep working away at my list for just a little longer.

The LHM texted me tonight to tell me he had posted and then pulled a photo of our Bean joyfully eating a birthday cupcake from Facebook because one of his friends had just posted that his nephew had died after surgery yesterday.  "How, exactly, does one observe the period of mourning on Facebook?" he asked.  I don't think I would have pulled down the photo, were I in his shoes.  I have lived enough life to have felt the continuum of it, from heartbreakingly beautiful to heartbreakingly awful, often enough side by side. Somehow it seems fitting for even my Facebook news feed to reflect that ebb and flow.  My heart breaks for the grief of his friend (more for that child's mother), but my first response to the news was to pull my daughter close and look again at how beautiful and miraculous she is.  I would not wish to rub my joy in my daughter's life into the would of that family, but my joy is fierce because I know how much I stand to lose.  I know how easily I could be destroyed if anything were to happen to her.

I knew something was not right with her all day today.  There wasn't any one particular thing she did, but I kept looking for clues.  Twice she pulled on her ear, and several times she lost her balance and bumped her head.  She has wanted to nurse much more today than is usual and she hasn't wanted to range far away from me in her play.  Over and over she would pull up on my legs and ask to be held, ask to nurse.  And then tuck herself in to me, far less squirmy than usual, and gaze up at me with drowsy eyes. When we were out running errands this afternoon she was drowsing between each stop, which is unusual.  In the grocery store she stayed tucked in to me in the carrier and still, just looking out quietly over the edge of the hood.  Once back in the car she feel asleep before I even pulled out of the space.  These things are not normal.  I knew there was something wrong.  When I took her temperature tonight I was almost relieved to see it was a bit high.  Finally, some proof of my intuition.  But also, the prickle of fear knowing that something is wrong with my baby and I don't really know what or how long it will take her to ride it out.  Always the fear that it will turn dangerous, that we will need to rush her to the ER for help.  Always I imagine that the worst will happen.  Not the worst - even in my imagination my fear stops me short of the actual worst.  But the worst I can imagination, that I have imagery for.  Always I go there right from the start.  

My child has been healthy in her first year.  She has had a couple of colds and only one with a fever, but even then the fever was not so high and acetaminophen brought it down quickly.  We have been lucky.  I know mamas who have been though much more with their little ones, walked much closer to the edge of despair than I have had any reason to.  Because it is such a fine line we walk.  Babies are so small, so fragile.  So much can go wrong.  So many things can hurt them.  And I have lived enough life to know that many things will, whether they leave visible scars or invisible ones.  And it is not possible to love our children less to protect ourselves.  I love her full tilt.  I would not love her any less. 

And so I sit here next to the monitor, straining to hear her soft sleeping breath over the hum, and know I will soon give in and go curl up next to her to keep vigil over her sleep.

10 links on Tuesday

Things I've been reading around the web recently:

1. I found a great Pinboard last week with fun crafty and educational activities to do with toddlers.  Wait, what?  You aren't on Pinterest yet???

2. Over at The Motherhood blog at the end of January there was a chat on Making Tech Work For You with Carley from Digitwirl.  Even if you just read the summary notes like I did, there are great suggestions for very useful web and device apps for busy mamas (and non-mamas!).  They list several that I use and love, including mint.com, HootSuite, and the Read It Later tool in Safari on iPhone, though I don't see Workflowy in their list!

3. I found this article on the Daily Beast about the new generation of homeschooling parents fascinating.  I have more to say on this topic - look for a longer post about it soon.

4. I have terribly mixed feelings about letting Facebook too far into my life and data, but this is kind of a cool thing - an Etsy gift finder that mines your Facebook friend data and matches their preferences with products on Etsy.  Cool or creepy?  I can't decide.

5. Interesting article about Keeping Your Voice when blogging.  I've been struggling with this.  How do I write what is true to me while also making it universal?  How do I grow my blog audience without falling into the trap of sounding just like everyone else?

6. On the heels of that musing, I found this e-workshop on Telling Your Story from the wonderful Jen Lee.  I love this: "The Story You Are Telling With Your Life Is The Most Important Thing About You."  Have any of you done this workshop?  I'd love to hear about what you thought of it!

7. Because I'm not all deep thoughts all the time, here's a link to a beautiful little softie bird mobile.  Individual birds would make great ornaments, too!  I like the idea of making this for a baby's nursery.

8. And speaking of baby's rooms, check out this amazing, Montessori-inspired space from way back (2009) on the Sew Liberated blog.  I love the bed on the floor.  You can also see her interpretation of the bird/branch thing here.

9. And while we are talking about making things I don't really have time to make, I love these Wee Wonderful dolls.  How do you crafty mamas do it?  I'm talking to you, Soulemama!

10. Now making Instagram photos into magnets is the kind of craft more my speed, even making it DIY instead of using the StickyGram service linked here.

What have you been reading this week?  I'd love to hear about it!

To my little bean on her first birthday

At this time last year I was in labor.  I had been in labor for over 60 hours.  I was hurting, tired and just a little bit scared.  And as it turned out I had most of a full day yet to go before you were finally born.  I should write the story of your birth for you.  I should write the story of my pregnancy for you.  I should write out the story of the love between your father and I.  I should tell you the story of your name and how long we took to decide on it.  There are so many stories I want to tell you, to capture for you.  I want to make sure you know your history, who your parents are and how much you were wanted.  How much you are loved and were loved even before you were born. 

But I'm not really ready to tell those stories yet.  For now, only these fragments: 

You were conceived on a night that was both hard and wonderful. Something happened that night that made me realize your father was going to be there when things got tough and that I could depend on him to be my rock.  My rusty old heart creaked open a bit that night, and you chose that moment to enter.

My pregnancy was both hard and wonderful.  I have never felt so beautiful as when I was pregnant.  Also I was often sick and had a very painful period of back issues. But I loved feeling you move inside of me.  I loved having your companionship in my body. I spend a lot of time wondering about you.  Who would you be?  What would you look like?  What was my life going to be like with you in it? 

Your birth was both hard and wonderful.  It did not go as I had planned, hoped, or imagined.  It hurt much more than I expected.  You were not born at home as I wanted, or in water like I wanted, but birthing in the hospital was far better than I had feared.  There were only short moments when I was scared for your safety because I had the best birthing team I could have hoped for.  Feeling you move through and out of my body was primal, magical.  You were delivered into a room full of people who loved you the instant they saw you. And when they laid you on my belly and you looked at me with your big dark serious eyes, I was so amazed I could hardly catch my breath. I made you.  We made you.  And you are so beautiful.  You are so perfect.

On the eve of your first birthday, I am still in awe of the fact of you.  I MADE you.  I grew you inside my belly and here you are, this little person with a personality, opinions, a sense of humor, an ability to show delight and love.  You are exactly the combination of your father and me.  Your eyes are the shape of mine.  Your upper lip is the shape of his.  You have his long toes and long legs and my short torso and light hair.  You are cautious like me and physical like him. From both of us you inherited a deep curiosity and desire to figure out how things work.  Your blue eyes are all your own, a quirk of genetics that I'm so grateful for. You are amazing.  So beautiful.  So perfect. 

Just in the last month you have gone from being a baby to being a toddler.  You got suddenly so big and tall.  You are no longer long, but tall. You are not yet walking (though when you decide you are ready, I think you will just get up and walk across the room), but you cruise around confidently and crawl really fast with your hands slap-slapping across the floor.  You stand up straight now - no more bowed baby legs.  You are lean and strong.  I can see the muscles in your thighs, your arms, across your back.  Your body is so beautiful - I love witnessing your unselfconsciousness in the way you move and I hope that lasts for a very long time.  You are very vocal.  You have a sound to call us, a sound to direct us to get you something or take you somewhere, a sound of greeting for the cats, a sound when you are excited to nurse.  You babble to yourself when you play, you practice syllables and the back and forth of conversation with me while we eat or shop or play together.  You say "num num num" when you are eating food you particularly like (blueberries and bananas this week), and in the last couple of days you have been saying, "ma ma ma" to everything around you but me.  You laugh when I say, "That's me!" so I'm pretty sure you know what the sounds mean. You have learned to shake your head "no" though only sometimes does it really mean "no." You are practicing to see when it fits.  I ask you a rhetorical question: "Stella, did you drop that cup on purpose?"  You shake your head no.  I give it back and you very purposely hold it off the edge of the table and drop it again.  You shake your head no.  And then grin that toothy grin at me.

You have all eight of your front teeth and in the last two weeks grew two more – a canine and your first molar on the bottom right side.  You were surprisingly mellow about the molar, though it took a chunk of gum off as it came through and must have been incredibly painful.  But you are always mellow. 

You have learned to hug this month.  You hug me, you hug your father, you hug the cats.  You discovered baby dolls when we were visiting our friends in Australia and you hugged them, too.  I admit I bought you a stuffed koala bear in the airport on the way home because you pointed at it and made your "I want that!" sound and when I picked it up and let you see it you cuddled it.  Instant mama puddle. You are still hugging it at home, too.

You also learned how to negotiate steps while we were traveling, practicing up and down and up and down the one step into the room where we slept at Jo’s house.  Now you can go up and down the two into and out of my studio like a pro.  I sit nearby and marvel.  You are so confident. 

You are an incredibly happy child.  This is what strangers comment on the most.  When we go shopping we are stopped every few minutes by people who want to tell me how beautiful you are, what a wonderful smile you have.  That you are the cutest baby they've ever seen.  In restaurants you charm the wait staff and usually end up in their arms before the food even arrives. Yesterday at Trader Joe's I let you sit in the front of the cart (such a big girl thing and you were very excited about it).  As we were standing in line, a woman maybe in her 50s looked over from the line next to us and you bestowed your magical smile on her.  "Thank you!" she said to you.  "You just made my whole week!"  Your favorite part of riding in the cart is when I push you over the bumpy bit between the door and the parking lot.  I thought it would scare you the first time, but you laugh and laugh. 

When I write you these letters I am so aware of all that I’m leaving out.  How much I’ve forgotten already each month.  All those tiny things you do that I’ve already lost track of.  I wish I could hold all of it, each little wonderful moment, but they slip though my fingers so fast. Instead I try to hold on to the cloth of the moments all strung together, the tenor of our days.  It has to be enough.

This year has been an amazing journey and I'm so grateful for it.  I am so grateful for you.  Happy birthday, my little love.