Happy New Year...
I started the year off with a bang: in the hospital for a fluid drip after getting severely dehydrated from the most intense food poisoning/vomit/unmentionable sickness EVER. It struck in the middle of the night, after a demure and pleasant dinner out with friends. Way to start the year off with a bang, no?
Small good things:: Part 1
Small good things, right now, this morning as I'm eating toast & jam with damp hair and bare feet a the center island:
* Watching the chickadees dip and dive to the bird feeders out the dining room window.
* The heat of the wood stove and bare feet.
* My skin smelling like yummy new ginger sugar scrub.
* My Ruby Loves necklace--a gift from DH.
* New Years plans with only adults.
* Crisp green granny smith apples.
* A plan to go shopping this morning--by myself.
Our holiday in photos
I keep wishing that my thoughts could somehow be automatically transcribed here so that I could record all the good and delicious moments that have happened over the past couple of days. I am hoping a handful of photos will serve for the thousands of words that I could write, were I to be inclined (but am not.) Firstly, here is the Advent Box I made for Bean this year. Remember the one I made last year? This one was significantly smaller and at his height--so that he developed the ridiculously adorable routine of waking up and running downstairs first thing (dragging his blanket no less) to find out what the Advent Fairy brought. I made a note with a tiny little envelope and a vintage stamp for every day that came along with a small gift or treasure. Some major hits were: a Chinese Yo Yo, a small wind-up bulldozer, heart shaped post-it notes, a single large sugar-coated gummy candy, a music box that played The Pink Panther theme song, and a sparkly yellow pen with a little fluffy duck at the top.
Next, I achieved the unimaginable this year--and baked, from scratch, an entire gingerbread train--something Bean saw in a magazine and swooned over. All three of us decorated it together in the kitchen, getting frosting on our fingers. DH and I kept harping on Bean about eating the icing--but then we looked at each other and realized, who are we kidding? It's Christmas and the kid is decorating a freaking gingerbread train. He's going to eat the icing. DH made the heart out of candy canes on the caboose.
Bean got sick a few days before Christmas. Woke up with a blazing fever, and spent the day on the couch feeling rather miserable. Still, we did end up going out and cutting down a tree, and decorating it made his entire day. The way he oohed and squealed as he unwrapped each ornament made it almost as fun as Christmas morning. Then he quite artistically clumped all the ornaments together in arrangements of twos and threes on the lower portions of the tree.
Christmas morning Bean woke up later than usual. We were expecting not-even-light-out early, but he slept until about 7:30 and then came into our room (dragging his blanket again) for a snuggle before sitting straight up and asking, "Did Santa come?" We made him sit at the top of the stairs while we went down & turned on the tree lights. When he came downstairs, the look on his face was wide-eyed. I think it's the first year he's actually really gotten the idea of Christmas. We let him open his stocking while we went about preparing coffee and fruit salad and dried cherry scones to tide us over during the real business of unwrapping once the grandparents arrived. (Note his awesome pink bunny slippers--as per his specific request.)
By afternoon, we snacked on imported dried salami, fresh mozzarella, and aged vinegar and lounged. Bean was more than content to spend hours with his new remote control fire truck, which was his number one request from Santa.
I was also more than content to play with my goodies. DH was beyond generous and lovely this year, and spoiled me rotten. Soo many fun goodies, including a little Olympus Stylus 1030SW so that I can have a camera with me at all times. Not even close to replacing my beloved Cannon EOS20D, but fantastic to slip into my pocket and take along on trips downtown, or to document impromptu sledding adventure.
All in all, it's been such a good couple of days--and I'm off for several more, which thrills me to no end. I am nesting. Washing baby clothes and setting up the crib.
How was your holiday? What are five things that you loved?
Right Click
Trying to figure out how to use my new MacBook Air. Everything about it is so pretty I cried when I got it. It's as thin as a piece of toast; fits in my purse. Love it. Still--I have yet to figure out what to do instead of right-clicking on everything. I had no idea how much I relied on that feature. Mac lovers out there, help, please. :)
More to come, once I figure that out.
Getting back in the groove
Happy that the snow is falling.
Hanging garlands and Christmas lights.
Planning to make a gingerbread train with Bean.
Writing.
Making photo albums.
Feeling more like myself than I have in months.
*** What are you doing? I've missed you.
Big questions, small boy
Will the sun burn out?What about when we die, will it burn out then? Will our truck and our house still be here when we die? Is Rudolf real? Is there someone inside the computer that makes it do what you want it to do? How did the baby get inside your tummy?
*** Anyone have any ideas how to answer the last one in particular? I told him I'd get back to him tomorrow...
Thanksgiving
Thank you all for being here and listening and filling my days with little shreds of wonder and kindness and encouragement.
Happy Thanksgiving.
What would really like to know...(and perhaps too much information.)
Does going to the doctor actually makes you better? I mean this in the most innocent, unsarcastic way.
See the thing is I grew up with homeopathy and have, as an adult, veered towards for the most part. I like the route of least intervention. I like the idea of treating the whole person, rather than just a specific set of symptoms. I like the idea that your body can develop it's on strong defenses to most ailments. And in general, I've experienced that it can...
And I've also experienced some rather negative encounters with traditional doctors who mostly seem to be prescription writers for antibiotics... (again, this is just my experience.) I've discovered from these encounters that a) I get righteous and horrific yeast infections the minute I take any kind of antibiotic and that b) the doctor's solution is to then prescribe Diflucan which I am apparently violently allergic to (last time my lips burst out into blisters within hours of taking it and my chin and cheeks went numb.)
Not to mention, when I fell pregnant I thought I had a virus picked up in Spain so I went to my GP who told me she thought I had IBS. (Ick. Look that one up.) I sort of rolled my eyes and cocked my head and said, "any chance I could be pregnant?" to which she declared with much bravado, "Absolutely not."
So you see why I'm a skeptic?
But now, well, I'm in a bit of a predicament.
I feel like my natural immune defense is not winning anymore against the tide of germs coming my way from school--twenty odd kids with germy hands and Strep and Pneumonia and everything else they've been passing around...plus whatever Bean has been bringing back from preschool (which has resulted in his first ever double ear infection.) I've kind of reached my limit in fact. I've been sick to varying degrees since September. And before that I had morning sickness... so basically I've been affected by some form of malaise for the past 6 months and it's kindof affecting my will to do anything other than bury my head under several pillows and sob.
So I want to know: what do doctors actually do these days--other than prescribe antibiotics? Is there anything they can actually do to help me that will help as much as my mom stopping by to rub my feet and feeding me chicken soup?
Do you 'believe' in your doctor?
Orbit
Tonight my orbit is the cat's purr; my finger's contact with the ENTER key, the space bar, alphabet twirling.
Tonight my orbit is my sick son, now asleep, before in tears simply because the day was too much.
Tonight my orbit is the roundness of my belly where kicks disrupt my thoughts, where space is at a premium now, and over which I pull new woolly sweaters.
Tonight my orbit is the circling of my thoughts, dogging each other, nose to tail; feeling like gradually I've lost touch with my creative self, allowed myself to sink deep into a dreamy no-mans land of day to day.
Tonight my orbit is the scattered disks thoughts about tomorrows plans; a thirst for fresh water, an eagerness for bed and a longing to feel right now, the warmth of my husband's skin.
Hibernating
I've been curled up under the eaves in my studio on the couch, listening to the rain fall and perusing all the delightful blog links you left in the comments of my last post. Such delight & inspiration. Thank you, thank you for dosing me with your good taste and fabulous finds.
Everyone here is sick with one thing or another. Bean with a double ear infection, DH with a cold, me with a possible sinus infection. We keep passing these germs around like sandwiches, apparently, so we're all lying low, staying put, and generally eating soup and bread and keeping to ourselves.
Today DH bought a new truck out of necessity and in celebration of a new month. Okay so we're officially half way through already. Still. October sucked. Long story made short: the day after our friend died, the our plow truck gas tank fell out on the road, followed the next day by our septic backing up. Followed shortly thereafter by 2 of our 3 geese getting eaten by coyotes. Yes. It was a month. Anyway, the truck had irreparable rust damage--it was used to begin with--and so we sold it and bought a new one.
We spent most of the day driving about in the rain through some neighboring towns, stopping for sandwiches at a general store; lattes at a bakery; poking into little toy shops; stopping at a train station; and listening to music low on the stereo. Just the three of us, content to be half sick and with each other in the small circumference of the cab.
What did you spend Saturday doing?
A house of yo-yos
I keep trying to be here more regularly. It makes me so happy to write, to respond, to hear your comments and share my art and small snippets of my days... but lately my days have been one thing: EXHAUSTION. I catch myself curling up with the intention of reading, and then all I do is stare out the window.
My days are long and by the time I get home I've given all the little fragments of myself that I can give away. I cry easily. I'm snappy and snippy and short fused. It sucks.
I kind of remember it being this way with my first, with Bean, but the difference was: I didn't have Bean. I could go home to my house and cats and chill. Dinner could happen anytime. We could head out for coffee at 9pm if we wanted. Life after work allowed for some decompression.
Now, well, not so much. Not at all actually. And poor Bean. He's going through some kind of phase of being at once stubborn and sensitive, fragile to the quick and emotional and tempermental and oh so needy. As in he wants to be on my person all the time. That, or throwing himself on the floor in diagreement.
We're a house of yo-yos. Extremes. Fragments. I keep trying to snatch up moments that I love to fill me up: watching the sunset from our bedroom window, my cheek on DH's chest; making play dough with Bean; the warmth of the fire; the first flakes of falling snow... but I am not quenched, the tiredness like a drought, spreads through my bones.
I need inspiration.
What are 4 of your favorite blogs right now?
What is one good book you've read recently?
What is your current favorite magazine?
What is your newest food discovery that you love?
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Sometimes he still looks so small to me...
***
Holding my breath, watching the election results.
*** President Obmama = awesome.
Stubborn
What do you do when your almost four year old refuses to: A) EVER blow his nose under any circumstances, especially when he desperately needs to and is suffering from a head cold
B) Wear a sweatshirt/sweater even though it is already in the thirties here and COLD
C) Eat anything offered to him including any and all foods he used to willingly eat
Because right now Bean is doing all of the above, and it is making me crazy.
A week in the Life: Wednesday (on Friday)
In the morning, first thing, snow coated the ground like sugar. Then it melted, and a soft rain started to fal, rinsing the remaining orange and yellow leaves; making them fall in wet heaps to the dark ground.
Every day hinges around these simple things: dishes stacked in the cupboard, food prepared, then put away. Each day I try to succumb more gracefully to the essence of these tasks.
After work I put fresh paint in Bean's pallett and let him go to town. I love his abstract lines and the way color and shape become things after the fact, after the paint has been smeared across the page.
Bringing fresh water for paint, I have my camera with me and snap a photo. This is life documentary: catching the bubbles swirl in the glass and the water running down the drain.
Evening, before bed. A circle of lamplight in our blue bedroom.
A Week In The Life:: Monday
Morning blur. All of the pictures I took today have this blurry quality. Such an apt reflection of my Monday. Here, Bean giggles in the covers as I get dressed. He's such a big kid now--sleeping every night, all through the night, in his OWN bed. I still am marveling at this. It's such a big deal for him--the boy who is impervious to sleep.
A skeptical self portrait. From this angle I hardly look pregnant. Must take a side angle photo tomorrow so you can see how truly huge I am.
Work bag on the floor at the end of the day. The house is cold when I come home.
I curl up on the couch to check email and savor the quiet of ten minutes when no one needs me.
Dishes. Laundry. These small things. I try to give myself over to them, being wholly in them, letting all else but the moment slip away.
Bean lives his whole life in the moment...although he is beginning to get the concept of future. To him the future means one thing: toys he can ask for for Christmas this year. He's taken to marking with Xs all the toys he wants from every catalog that arrives at our door.
A Week In The Life:: Sunday
Drying my hair. Hating maternity clothes as much as I did last time. This is not a good start to the morning.
Breakfast = best part of the day. DH made biscuits (he makes the best.)
Yummy lemon curd to go with flakey, dreamy biscuits.
Then an insurmountable list of everything to do. I dropped the couch on my foot while moving it to vacuum. I started to sob. The rest of the day pretty much felt like a bruise. Thin skinned doesn't even describe it.
Everything feels on edge. Precarious. Fragile. Dramatic. Technicolor.
After Bean is asleep, I sit on the couch in the living room writing lesson plans and wondering where I'll find the energy and enthusiasm to face 22 second graders tomorrow. The house is quiet & clean. I lit a candle on the windowsill. The light falls in yellow flickering circles.
A Week In The Life:: Saturday
Morning light.
Shower.
Unmade bed.
Drying my hair.
Breakfast = broiled grapefruits w/brown sugar; croissants, soft boiled eggs; lattes.
Empty table.
Letting the geese out.
On the walk...
Inevitably the geese join us. Bean always bikes--in his bright yellow helmet with thunderbolts.
The frost has turned to dew.
Back inside, doing laundry I notice my mismatched polka dots.
Bean draws in the kitchen while us grownups whirl about the house tidying. Then we take a trip to town: lumber at Home Depot; lunch; a stop for bread; and a stop for some new sheets.
In the blink of an eye the light is already slanting towards twilight.
Bean twirls while I sit in the leaves soaking up the last rays of golden sun.
How I love weekends.
Am thinking of doing this all week. Inspired by Ali. All too often the fragments that make the mosaics of my days go unrecorded...
And then there are days that are perfect crap.
Like today. When all I feel like doing is crying for no reason. When I come home from work and feel like I can't give anything more to anyone but I have to, because DH has guitar lessons and it's the mama show for bedtime routine and dinner tonight. It rained all day. Maybe that was it. Or maybe hormones. Or maybe I'm lonely or tired or hungry or some stupid combination of those three. Some days just suck. Even with the perfect orange leaves, wet from the rain, and the sun falling in angles, and the sound of Bean's voice rising and falling in the living room where he excitedly narrates a story to himself.
It feels like I'm submerged, but unable to swim, like a rediculous dream. Does anyone else ever have days like this: where you see how irrationally moody you're being, but cannot stop, cannot shake it off, cannot break into a grin no matter how much you know that you should?