worst thing I can imagine

I went to Target with Jonathan today and as we were strolling through the isles, I noticed that there was a woman craning to look at Jonathan. I stopped and she said "He is beautiful. How old is he?" I replied that he was almost 10 months and she said "I thought so. My baby just passed away. He was 10 months old"

I didn't know what to say; I don't know what I did say. She said "Enjoy him. He is precious"

The entire conversation probably took 20 seconds, but I have spent all day going over it in my mind. I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose Jonathan. I don't think I would be able to get up off the floor- ever. And here this woman was looking completely normal and pulled together. She smiled at me and cooed at Jonathan.

Half of the time I want to go back to the conversation and hug her and cry with her. I want to find her and ask her to tell me her story and comfort her (as if there is anything I could do to ease her pain). The other half of the time I want to hide my face in a pillow and have someone hug me and tell me that its OK, that I don't have to worry, that Jonathan will always be OK, that everything will always be OK, that nothing horrible will ever happen.

I've felt shaky inside all day. I know there is horrible, unimaginable pain in the world. But our culture makes sure that it is always so far removed from us and our lives- until it is not and we see how flimsy our day to day worries and cares are compared to the things that really matter.

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

Since I've been perusing scads of parenting books online lately, I thought I would share another one that I found to be wonderful to read and super helpful.

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

Ina May Gaskin

There are a few books that I have read on this whole mommyhood adventure that I would deem indispensable. This is one that a wonderful friend of mine gave me pre-baby. It was by far the best book I read on labor and delivery.

Pre-pregnancy my main source of knowledge about labor and delivery had been sitcoms and horror stories- both of which will scare you to death about how horrible childbirth is. They make it out to be this awful, unnatural, barely-survivable experience. So, once it dawned on me that I being pregnant meant that this was going to be an unavoidable event, I was terrified.

This book was amazing.

It is written by a midwife and so obviously makes the argument for natural childbirth. But it does so in a way that makes you excited about going through labor- not paralyzed with fear about all of the possible complications or the side-effects and dangers of medical interventions. Her take is that giving birth is a completely natural, normal and wonderful thing. Women have been doing it for as long as there have been women. So labor is not a medical ailment that needs to be treated, it is a natural process that our bodies are designed to do! She does talk about the dangers of some of the current medical practices- c-sections, induced labor, epidurals, etc- but doesn't dwell on them in the scary way that some books do. I am not sure I totally believe her chapter on "orgasmic labor", but my experience with natural childbirth was completely wonderful (yes, of course, painful at points, but overall totally doable). I would do it again! (And probably will someday)

Sleep Lady SUCCESS!!!

At the risk of jinxing everything, I am going to report the Sleep Lady Shuffle a success!! Jonathan protested liberally during our first night- but it was bearable because we were right there with him and we knew we had a plan that was going to be better for all of us. The next night (Tuesday) was the best night of sleep Jonathan had ever had he semi-woke a few times and fussed lazily for less than 10 minutes. And every night since then has gotten successively better. Last night he slept for 12 hours straight. Let me type that again 12 HOURS STRAIGHT!!!! I heard him roll over and grunt a bit a few times, but nothing really resembling crying and nothing that got me out of bed. Amazing!!!

This was the best $17 I've ever spent. I only wish I'd bought it earlier. This is one of the most helpful baby books I've read and a must read for all mommies!!! The Sleep Lady is warm and personable, she is reassuring and simply wants to help, AND she knows her stuff from child (and parent) psychology to sleep science.

sleep lady shuffle

We decided to try the whole teaching Jonathan to sleep through the night thing again. It didn't go well before, but I am convinced that he won't pick this one up on his own if he hasn't done so already and I am dying to sleep for more than a 4 hour stretch. I am hopeful that this attempt will be more successful than our last wildly unsuccessful attempt. For starters, we have a good plan. Last time the plan was mainly pieced together tidbits from the random advice I'd received from who knows where combined with guilt, exhaustion, and frustration.

THIS time, we are following the advice of the "Sleep Lady". She advocates a gentler version of the "let them cry it out" method called the "sleep lady shuffle" were you are present (not letting the baby sob alone in the dark), but not allowing yourself to be a crutch for the baby to learn to fall back asleep. Her keys are consistency and eliminating intermittent reinforcement of all the ways we enable Jonathan not learning to sleep on his own. It is based on research, psychology and sleep science and makes a lot of sense to me. PLUS I can tolerate crying for longer if I know he isn't alone in the dark. I am excited for this to work, but admittedly it is getting worse before better.

Last night was our first night trying her system and Jonathan was NOT a fan of having to fall asleep on his own and not getting to nurse at night. We went up to his room at 8:25, 10:20, 11:15, 11:40, 12:15, 12:55, 2:50, 3:30, and 5:15 and spent a total of 2hrs and 10 min sitting on the floor next to his crib as he cried. But we followed the plan and I am still hopeful that it will work.

So, Jonathan, if you are reading this, tonight we are looking for more of this

and less of this

triple black diamond

Becoming a mother has been amazing and wonderful and has pushed me to grow in so many ways I never really imagined. I have learned so much and have become relatively accustomed to making split second decisions without really having a clue what the "right" thing is. But every once and a while I still find myself looking into the future and totally panicking. I suddenly feel like I am at the top of a triple black diamond looking down and wondering how I will make it down alive, but knowing there is no other option but down.

A few days ago it dawned on me that the days of simply smiling and cooing, snuggling away tears, and "you can't spoil a baby" are coming to an end. Jonathan now understands "no no" and when he heads for the dog's dish or an electrical cord does so with burst of speed in, what I can only imagine, is a race to get there before I redirect him. The world of discipline is terrifyingly unknown to me. Sure, I know some catch phrases, but I feel like I don't have a sense of an overall vision for what needs to be taught and I am clueless about child psychology. I know there are a million different philosophies of child-rearing, but I don't even know enough to know what they are. As a teacher I know how important it is to scaffold one lesson onto the next: It is crucial to know what skills students will need next month and next year in order to adequately lay the ground work now. And this is what scares me the most. I have NO CLUE about 2 year olds, 5 year olds, 10 year olds. So how will I prepare Jonathan?

Like all of these ledges I have faced so far, I am sure it will be OK somehow. I am sure there is a lot that will be more intuitive than I think it will, a lot that I will learn by error, and a lot more time and leeway than it seems right now. I just don't see how. I just really want to do this right because I love Jonathan so much that sometimes it makes it hard to breathe.

in the wild

Before we had a baby, Jim and I used to muse about how our dog would survive in the wild. How, we would wonder aloud, could this creature who cannot find food that falls to the floor right in front of his face and who refuses to go outside in the rain lest he get his feet wet, how could he be a descendent of wolves?

I now have similar musing about the baby. Yes, I know, babies were never meant to live in the wild on their own like wolves. But I wonder how babies survived when their parents lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Where did they sleep? What did people do before diapers? The papoose-wearing-your-baby thing made sense to me to a point. But did babies learn to crawl/walk by rolling around in the dirt? At what point could children wean from milk to, hmm, to what, exactly? How could putting everything into your mouth be an evolutionary asset?

I often find myself watching Jonathan and trying to imagine raising him as a nomad. It always makes me wonder in awe at those courageous women.

Big Girl Meal

After the past few weeks of snow days, Jonathan being sick (so Jim and I playing tag-team parent), planning and then unplanning to be out of town, and general hecticness I have been craving schedule and normalcy. I haven't had the forethought or creativity to cook anything that I've been excited about for the past few days and resorted to a frozen dinner and peanut butter toast last night. So tonight I decided that I would have a full big-girl dinner despite the fact that I was going to be the only adult present. So I did. And it was glorious!

I sauteed roasted beets in orange juice and coriander and put them on top of spinach with toasted almonds and and roasted onions. Then I sauteed some mushrooms with wine and butter and cooked them with an egg in puff pastry shells. Aahh! Would have been better with some goat cheese on the salad and a little white sauce for over the mushroom thingys, but since making white sauce still scares the pants off of me and we didn't have any goat cheese, I went without and it was great. Exactly what I needed tonight!

Baby in bed. Wonderful food in tummy. Time for grading some papers!

Nurture Shock

I finally finished this great book! (thanks to Jonathan's 2 hour naps today).

Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children

by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

My husband is crazy about this book and thinks everyone on the planet must read it. I think it was great. Bronson and Merryman have collected a ton of recent scientific research about how we develop as people. Taken individually the studies are interesting; as Bronson and Merryman have woven them together they are fascinating and incredibly relevant. The book covers topics from language development in infants to teen rebellion and lying to racism and challenges what our culture has taught us about the "right" parenting decisions with ideas that simply make sense. I will be rereading a lot of these chapters over again in the next few months/years!

I love the Winter Olympics.

I love the way it inspires me to get my tail out the door and start to train for that 8K coming up.

I love the way I give myself permission to veg in front of the TV to watch the Olympics with no residual guilt.

I love the cheesy personally invasive stories about the athletes.

And most of all I love spirit behind them. The winter games even more than the summer games because in addition to international friendly competition and collaboration, I find the winter sports so much more compelling. I think it is because Nature plays such a dramatic role in all of the events. The athletes are all out there in conditions that are natural and perilous and beautiful. The sports demand skill and the respect given to the natural world simply to be survived, and more to be won.

Bring it on Vancouver!!

the difference between boys and girls

Today I was teaching my AP physics class and I did an activity that I've done for years in my advanced physics classes where students plot points on a poster with markers and draw arrows to indicate the amount of force they have calculated. This year, my class is small and 4 out of the 5 students are girls. They spent a full 5 minutes coordinating the color scheme of the dots and arrows to make sure they didn't have clashing colors and that the finished product would have a coordinated look. They pressured the sole male student to abandon his orange marker because it broke the color scheme. No such thing has ever happened in my boy-dominated classes.

sick

Jonathan is really sick for the first time. He's had sniffles, runny nose, and scratchy throat before- but he got a fever on Monday and has had one off and on for the past few days. Poor little guy. I took him in for his 9 month appointment today and he doesn't have an ear infection or strep so no antibiotics- just lots of rest, milk, tylenol and TLC.

I feel sorry for him, and want to hold him while he is sleeping and make everything 'ok', but I have surprised myself in that my reaction is more along the lines of "poor little guy" and not "omg, omg, he's not gonna make it!!!". I am amazed at how I'm not (knock on wood) totally freaking out. When he was a newborn, I could not imagine what I would do if he got sick- he seemed so little and fragile. The fear of disease kept me up almost as many nights as the fear of SIDS. Now he seems more substantial (though the Dr says he is in the 10% for weight), but more substantial in terms of both mass and spirit. He has determination and stubbornness (mostly exhibited when trying to play with the dog's bowl against Mommy's wishes) that I can imagine translating to fighting sickness. Or maybe I'm just more confident that there is a little leeway in this whole parenting/growing-up thing- that one bad turn of events doesn't (usually) ruin the entire growing-up process.

I did, however, just devote an entire blog entry to me not freaking out about this. So maybe I'm not out of the woods on obsessing about him being sick just yet...

9 months and lovin it

if pictures don't seem to quite capture the little man anymore... a video seems more suited to the task

9 month birthday

Today is Jonathan's 9 month birthday (it drives Jim nuts to call these month-days birthdays, so I'm doing it as often as possible). Every month I've taken a photo of Jonathan next to his giant alligator toy on his "birthday"- I thought it would give some perspective to his growth over the months. And it has been going great until he learned to crawl. This month I have a lot of pictures that look like this:

(here he is heading for the dog's dish- an ever popular 'no-no')

He has developed a strong sense of independence and is interested in any one thing for a total of about 10 seconds (just long enough for me to get the camera positioned and then to crawl away before I get a shot taken). So here is what I managed. Happy Birthday little man!!

Animal Vegetable Miracle

Every time I pick up a good book lately, I am struck lately by how much what we read shapes how we think and act and who we are. With that said, I thought I would share a few of my favorite recent reads that have been banging around in my head. I'll start with my current read:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

by Barbara Kingsolver

In this book Barbara Kingsolver chronicles her family's decision to eat only what they could grow themselves or purchase locally for an entire year. My garden never does super well, and I don't really have as much space for it as I would like, but the idea of a garden that could sustain a family of 4 for a year fascinates me!! I love reading about food: eating it, growing it, cooking it, whatever. I've been totally inspired by this book both in terms of gardening and eating. Reconnecting the food I eat to some notion of where it came from has been a fascinating journey for me. Maybe someday we will live somewhere I can plant rows and rows of carrots and have some chickens... Until then I'll settle for trying to shop locally and planning to muddle through another season in my garden with some new crops

bedtime

I no longer take medication for my depression and I no longer see my therapist. And for the most part I am doing really well. Through the past few years I have struggled to be able to eliminate some really destructive thought patterns and develop more healthy ones to take their place. I have built the confidence to say what I need to say to stand up for myself and be honest to myself; I have learned to anticipate my needs and take them seriously before it is too late; I work on living in the now. But evenings are often really hard. I keep finding myself feeling really down as I get into bed. I can't shake the notion that I have squandered the day- 24 hours of my life are gone forever and I'm just not sure I've spent them well. I can never really pinpoint anything I would do differently, but I usually can't pinpoint any dramatic successes either. And so I can't shake this nagging suspicion that I am messing this thing up and I'll figure it out too late. In the morning this seems irrational, but at night it seems too true to shake completely.

snow!

On Friday night and all day Saturday it snowed here- about 4-5 inches. It was a beautiful slow-falling-big-flaked kind of snow that was wet enough to make perfect snowballs, snowmen, snow forts, etc. The whole world has been covered in this beautiful pristine blanket now for 4 days. And for 4 days everything has been essentially on hold.I grew up in Minnesota, but have lived in this region for long enough to expect and understand this reaction to snow. Truth be told no one in this house owns boots, we don't have a snow shovel, and we share an ice-scraper between our cars. School has been canceled for the second straight day and while I am enjoying the time with Jonathan, I am going stir crazy with no where to go and nothing to do. I am loving the beauty of the snow and the sense of peace that looking out on a new clean white snow gives me. But I am dreading the make-up days that are either going to cut our spring break short or delay our summer break. I am trying to focus on the now: the joy of being with Jonathan all day, of having no plans, of having a chance to just BE. But those pesky anxieties and annoyances keep creeping in. I have to keep looking out on the snow and remembering to breath slowly and deeply and relish this moment.