Creativity required.

To begin with, Sullivan laughed today. Apparently me gnawing on his cheek is funny. He’s also such an easy baby. When I had Henry, he’s the type of baby I would want to punch parents in the face for having:

“He almost never fusses.”

“He sleeps through the night.”

“He smiles all the time.”

“Such a happy baby!”

Maybe I’m being rewarded for all the times I didn’t punch those parents. :)

I put him down on the chair today to hang out and kick for a bit, which he did, and then he did this:

So, as you can probably tell, things are better. I’m still pushing myself to do more creative things as an outlet. I started sewing aprons last spring sort of randomly. I've made five and have fabric for five more waiting for me. Here’s a few (I was seven months preggers in my pic):

And I have a few more to finish. For my birthday, my parents bought me a sewing machine because they said hand-sewing aprons seemed a little silly. My first project on the sewing machine was Henry’s Halloween costume. I made the shirt, hat and sword:

I’ve also been walking a bit (Sullivan loves being outside), finishing up some work-related projects and reading. And Monday, because I hadn’t done anything creative, in between rounds at work I whipped out a sestina. I love sestinas. I ignore the required couplets at the end so it doesn’t count as a traditional one, but eh.

Henry tells me he follows the moon,

pointing to the dark sky with markered hands

and kiwi-strawberry yogurt outlining his lips: a circle

of pink cream glowing on his face

from the blackness of the car. We were driving home,

stopped for seven minutes subject to a freight train.

“Where are the passengers on this train?”

he asks, naming the cars as they pass, the moon

blinking between them. “Are they all at home?”

I start to explain there are none, my hands

gesturing in my lap. I tilt my head to see his face

in the rearview, the blinking safety lights red circles

on his cheeks. When we drive on, the splotchy circles

pepper my vision and it’s like I’m still watching the train.

Parked, he asks for a piggyback ride, his moist fingers on my face,

the grass wet on my flip flops, the spotlight of moon

on the front door. He is heavy against me, but I need my hands

for the keys. “Hold on tight,” I tell him, “We’re almost home.”

In the dorm where we live (too many people to say home),

he asks to be let down and runs to announce himself. They encircle

him and after this greeting, he shys under their hands.

“We saw a caboose,” he yells, thudding in Thomas the Train

slippers. I let us in to a cramped living room lit by the moon

and Henry twists to take of his striped hoodie, his face

 serious with the task. “Brush your teeth and wash your face.”

I call, the words feeling more like home

than the place. In the bathroom on the stool, he moons

over the fish with their fake, blue eggs; ridiculous circles

bobbing in rocks. Henry leans over the crusty sink, his train

t-shirt polka-dotted with dirt and marker spots. “No hands

in the tank,” I remind him and, without a flinch, his hands

recoil as he smiles, his eyes looking at me but his face

turned away. He knows and in response peeps like a train

and tells me he doesn’t want to brush. “We get home,

we brush. That’s the plan.” “No deal,” he pouts as I turn him a half circle

to get at his teeth. There are no cavities on the moon.

Life after birth

You know what’s really not fun? Postpartum depression. It’s the pits. Here’s why:

·         Having baby #2 = cranky mom. Having PPD with baby #2 = cranky x 26

·         I can’t wear mascara to distract from the dark circles under my eyes because crying happens multiple times a day often at very inconvenient times.

·         It’s a challenge to feed another human when you have no appetite yourself.

·         Motivation plummets (aka, no blogging).

·         Baby #2 takes on the unattractive role of Obligation when I’d really like him to play more of Affection.

·         Baby #1 asks, “Are you happy, Mommy?” repeatedly which reminds me of why I can’t wear mascara.

·         I envy strangers who tell me how precious my baby is.

·         Fitting in therapy between getting Baby #1 to school and feeding Baby #2 while still doing my job.

·         Returning to work after four weeks of maternity leave and still feeling exposed like a grape with the skin off.  

As I write this it feels like I’m making light of it. Trying to be funny for my blog. The same way I wrote about Sullivan’s birth. But both were more than “not fun.” I have PTSD moments from his birth and PPD brings up such sadness. Something that would make a hollow sound if you could hit it. It’s embarrassing, if I’m being honest with myself. Not immediately loving the baby I housed for nine months. I compare it to going on a really bad first date (his emergency birth) and waking up married to the person. And everyone around me, even those not related to him, want to hold him and coo and tell me how cute he is. How lucky I am to have this beautiful, healthy baby.

But my body betrays me: simultaneously withholding serotonin and responding with milk to his cries. He craves the warmth of my body, curling around me and falling asleep on my chest. He clutches my fingers, his tiny nails digging into my skin. And I hold him, feed him, rock him, soothe him, change him, stroke his head, while feeling… well, not so much. It’s not negative feelings I have. But it’s like caring for a stranger. Which, in a way, is exactly what it is.

Recently, there’s been some prickling through the numbness. He’s starting to smile with regularity. I put my face close to his and ask for one. He holds my eyes with his, then the gaze tracks to my mouth and his lips pull up. And I find myself talking to him more. The silly terms of endearment coming without thought. Pumpkin head. Biscuit pie. Sweet boy.

I try not to blame myself or judge any more than I’m already prone to do. I’ve heard lots of metaphors for depression and even more for coming out of it. Like a black and white movie that rainbows into Technicolor. The off-beat metronome that regains rhythm. But it’s frustrating enough when the depression disrupts my own life. That it dislocates my barnacle feels unforgivable. My mantra becomes: He will be fine. We will be fine. until the moments of color outgrow the monochromatic beginning.

Cost/Benefit Analysis... Sorta

Things that are easier with child #2

• This time you know they don't break that easily
• You've been sleep deprived since the arrival of child #1 so the transition isn't as shocking
• Shopping/registering for stuff (since you know you don't need 90% of it) and already having most of what you need
• Realizing that noise while baby is sleeping is a good thing and NEVER get them used to silence
• Having two sets of grandparents within a 20 mile radius
• Having a co-sleeper

Things that are harder with child #2

• Child #1
• Mastitis
• Nipple confusion because of giving a bottle because of mastitis
• Working from home, but still having to interact with people (ie. giving new student and her parents a tour while leaking from my left breast)
• Not being a horrible, snappy, cranky parent to child #1
• Protecting child #2 from child #1 while still encouraging big brotherhood
• Convincing child #2 that 8pm to 6am is nighttime/bedtime/sleeptime... not 4am to 10am and most of the day
• Not waking child #1 while child #2 screams from gas during said non-sleeping, nighttime hours
• Imagining a functioning life with two children

Sullivan's Birth Story

Here's Sullivan's birth story... for people who like that sort of thing. Heads up, it does contain the works vagina and catheter. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm pretty sure the cherry coke made me go into labor. That or dancing at prom. But my money's on the cherry coke. Tuesday, the 6th, Henry and I went to my parent's house for dinner. I rarely drink soda - as in once a month or so I'll have a sip of Jared's. I also don't drink coffee. But seeing that can of cherry coke in the door of my parent's fridge inspired an irresistible urge to guzzle. I drank it down within ten minutes.

At dinner, I told my parent's about the phone message I'd gotten from my father-in-law earlier that day. It was his birthday and he was hoping it was going to be Sullivan's, too. My dad asked if I thought it might be. I shook my head confidently saying there was no way I'd have him that day.

Henry stayed over at my parents and Jared and I stayed up way too late chatting. I went to sleep around 1am. At 2:30, I woke up feeling contractions. They weren't too dramatic, but definitely happening. I waited a bit to wake Jared up figuring this whole thing would take awhile and one of us should have some sleep. But after hanging out in the living room by myself for a bit and them not going away, I decided he should probably be awake for this. At the birth center (with Henry) they wanted more of the labor to happen at home so told us to call them when the contractions were 4-1-1: four minutes a part, one minute long, for one hour. When I asked the doctors here, they said, "Oh no, don't wait that long. Call as soon as they are regular. 6-1-1 or even earlier."

By the time we started tracking around 3, mine were 2.5-1-1.

In between moans, I finished packing my bag and we set off for the hospital, 30 minutes away. Just like in the movies, they brought out a wheelchair and I was rushed to Labor and Delivery. They hooked me up with monitors and such, stuck an IV in my hand and I put on their gown. I was already seven centimeters dilated. My water hadn’t broken and they were waiting for my doctor to arrive. They quickly noticed the baby’s heart rate was dropping during contractions. It felt a little like déjà vu as the same thing happened with Henry. However, this time we could clearly hear his heart. It went from the horse-racing hoof sound of duh-dump, duh-dump, duh-dump at 140 beats per minute to the terrifying

Dump

Dump

Dump

They kept changing my position and made me wear oxygen. My doctor arrived around 4am and broke my water. With his calm voice, he brought up the c-section possibility and Jared, after hearing that insanely low heart rate for the last half-hour said, “Don’t dilly dally. If you need to do it, do it!” The doctor said they didn’t know why the heart rate was dropping – that it could be a cord thing or that the baby was just pissed off at how quick labor was going. He said they’d take me to the OR and if, along the way, my labor progressed to the point where he could use a vacuum for a VBAC, we’d still go that route.

I was rushed downstairs to the white, bright room I remembered from Henry’s birth. This time, they made Jared stay outside until they assessed. It was determined I’d need to be knocked out completely and emergency c-section was a go. There was a sweet woman holding my left hand and lots of running around. My eyes were mostly closed as I was still having intense contractions and was now lying flat on an operating table with very little to brace myself with. The nice woman left and was replaced with a blurry, deep-voiced, gruff terrorist who proceeded to tell me she had to insert a catheter. And she couldn’t wait until I was knocked out. And then slapped the inside of one of my thighs saying “Open up” while I was having a contraction. Then there was shooting pain, I’m pretty sure I screamed several times and she told the doctor, “I think I put it in wrong. Is that her vagina?” Lovely woman.

Eventually, my doctor did her job and they knocked me out (with a suffocating rubber mask that made me ask them if they were killing me). Turns out the cord was wrapped very tightly around his neck which is what was causing those practically flatlining heart “dumps.” Sullivan Brady McCannell was born at 5:21am. Less than three hours after I woke up feeling the first contractions. He weighed 7lbs 10.8oz and was 20.5 inches long. Perfectly healthy boy. Just really wanted to get out. It was the cherry coke, I tell you.

Bust a Move

Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:42. Well, that’s my guess because I wouldn’t let myself look at my phone until 4:57. At some point in the night, Henry had climbed into bed with me. His tulip lips and delicately closed eyes were on the pillow next to me and his feet bumped my knees under the covers. I thought for the 137^th time how tall he’s getting and remembered when he’d first nursed in bed with me, his feet skimming below my stomach which I shielded with a blanket to protect my c-section scar.

After a few moments of enjoying my sleeping son, the to-do list bullets started firing in my head. Work stuff. My first job, my second assignment, and the committee I’ve been working on. Email so-and-so. Write up such-and-such. Finish that one thing. Assign those other things. Email someone else. And then the baby to-dos began to whine. Fish out the infant car seat. Wash both car seats. Where is the breast pump? Finish packing the hospital bag. Set up the co-sleeper. Clean out Henry’s new closet. Hang the artwork in his new room. Rearrange the nursery.

We’re getting close to the single-digit countdown. Jared’s big work event (Reunion Weekend) passed this weekend (a huge success). The ESL students start to arrive on Wednesday. After that, we are just waiting. On Friday, the doctor acted like I was overdue. They also act like I’m the one scheduling weekly appointments. “No questions?” they say each week. This time she gave me tips “to get things going” as if I’m past my due date. “I’m in no rush,” I told the doctor, “they are easier on the inside.” She shrugged, maybe surprised I’m not begging for induction.

 

Although… Friday night, we went to the first annual Alumni Sno-Ball (MCI’s version of prom). To celebrate the 90s in which we attended high school, some of us did some throwback dressing. I found a blue, glittery gown from the Goodwill that was very stretchy. With Aquanet bangs, blue eye shadow and my very form-fitting dress, we joked I was the token teen mom at the prom. (Pictures coming soon) Being mostly belly at this point, people seemed very concerned when I took to the dance floor. If you can’t dance to Bust A Move and the Humpty Dance when you’re 8 ½ months pregnant, when can you? And if that doesn’t speed along labor, well then, baby isn’t ready to come out yet. I’m happy waiting.

 

Gives me more time to pretend I’m going to finish those to-do lists.

Just Scream Dance 2

I’m 37 weeks pregnant today which means “full-term.” Which means I could deliver at any moment. Well, I’m sure there’ll be a little notice. I went into labor with Henry two days before his due date and he was born very early the morning before. The doctor says this is a good thing, that my internal clock is accurate. Look out August 14 then.

Henry was in camp this week so I tried to spend my mornings knocking things off my to-do list. Monday was very productive. Tuesday through Friday I think I added more things to the list than took off. I hope Front Loader hasn’t heard how many times I’ve said “the worst timing” in describing his arrival. We are excited, just ill-planned.

There are moments when Henry is being the bestest boy – splashing in the water at Lake George in his Thomas the Tank Engine swim trunks, the sun reflecting in his brown with yellow specks eyes – and I think, This next one is going to be so much easier. I’ll just throw on the sling and tuck in FL and we can come to the lake and enjoy the rippling water that laps at my legs while Henry walks on his hands, making a tunnel through my legs. Then there are moments where 45minutes into trying to get Henry to take a nap – “I’m not a nap boy, Momma.” – where I think What have I done?? How does anyone ever have more than one child?? And yet plenty of people have. When we found out we were having another boy, I started counting all the friends I know who have two boys. A surprising number. And they are all incredibly, impressive mothers (or fathers). I got this, I’ll think. And then Henry will yell “Poop!”

I’m at the point in my pregnancy where the belly is peaking out below even my maternity shirts and people feel comfortable approaching me in public about the impending arrival. Most conversations begin with “When are you due?,” contain a story about their child(ren) and end with “Enjoy it because it goes so fast. Good luck.” It’s a strange thing for strangers to know this about you. No one knew when I was going through a divorce or got a new job or had a fight with my parents. Yet, just by looking at me, they know at some point soon I will be in a hospital with near-strangers between my legs helping me push out a mini-human. Doesn’t that seem extremely personal? Is that what warrants the conversations? It’s like, Well, we know all know this about you and some of us have been through this before so we might as well just address the Front Loader in the room. A public connection too strong not to acknowledge.

And I suppose this is why Mommy Groups are so popular. Motherhood can be so polarizing and isolating. It’s easy to drop into the mind-sucking quicksand of poop and feedings and lack of sleep. To forget that millions of parents around the world are experiencing (or have experienced) the same thing night after night, year after year. What’s surprised me the most is when I feel less than, it’s my mom telling me how occasionally she’d have to go in another room and do a scream dance just to make it through a moment when we were young. It’s probably because I consider her a model mother that her itty-bitty-breakdowns are so meaningful to me. It tells me it’s okay to need to scream dance in another room. My child can still feel loved and I won’t win Crazy Mother of the Year.

With two children, I may need to hear more stories from my mother.

A Year and A Month

Tomorrow, I will have lived in Maine for a year.

Today, Front Loader is one month away from his due date.

Today, Jared and I will go for the final ultrasound to see this boy who feels like he’s already a 10lb gymnast and they will look at the chambers of his heart and ask me if he’s moving and if my feet are swelling and am I sure I want to do a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Then we will go meet with the anesthesiologist at the hospital because everyone is freaked out about VBACs and he wants to know I’m allergic to penicillin before I’m moaning through another labor.

 

After these appointments, we will drive to a coworker’s “camp” and meet with several other coworkers over a mish-mashed potluck discussing our plans to improve the boarding program at MCI. We’ve been meeting for months and our three-hour long meetings are so inspiring and motivating that I don’t even mind we’ve been sitting inside an un-air-conditioned house while the heat and humidity threaten to melt me. Over pulled pork and guacamole and homemade ice-cream sandwiches (not in the same dish), we’ve been hashing away at a system that will allow students to earn privileges, deciding their own fates. Thrilling stuff. Seriously.

Tomorrow, Henry and I will probably go swimming at Grammie’s house and I will marvel, again, at how he can now walk down to the bottom step in the pool with his long, big-boy legs whereas a year ago his stubby stems sat on the top step with his adorably pudgy hands slapping at the water.

 

 

August 2012

 

Next week, he goes back to camp (this time Polar Bears and Penguins themed) and starts swim lessons at night. And wherever he goes he picks up words and concepts and his language, no matter how long he’s been talking and how many times it surprises me, continues to knock me over with his sharp insights and sense of humor. His face, in a constant state of expression even in sleep, paints compassion and frustration and glee and anger and surprise and understanding and confusion – sometimes  

July 2013

all within five minutes.

While I still long for San Diego Mexican food and seeing old pictures of Henry at the Zoo bring about a sense of mourning, our life is here. Walking down the street to Big Bill’s for ice cream. Eating hamburgers and fruit on Nona and Bumpie’s deck, listening for loons. Watching cousins pull Henry around Grammie and Grampie’s pool in the blue, floaty, netted inner tube. Having friends over for Taco Tuesdays. Lots of driving. Living in a dorm full of girls with my house full of boys.

The hardest thing about moving to Maine was the actual moving. Despite the weather changes, more remote location, new jobs and all our new “neighbors,” being here has been like changing an outfit. I still own my San Diego clothes, the skin I was born with. But right now, this Maine wardrobe fits pretty great.

Front Loader's #1

33 weeks along (which means there’s 7 left) and we haven’t picked out a name yet. Front Loader is getting closer and closer to the front runner. We have plenty of suggestions. And plenty names we don’t hate. But Henry Oscar came so easily to us. Within a month of finding out I was pregnant last time. I’m struggling with the maybe impossible balance of recognizable name (aka, people can spell it) without the overwhelming popularity. I’m also looking for a name that, when I share it with my brother, he doesn’t text back “Seriously?” and then “That makes me think of a large, slow man. Like Lenny from Of Mice and Men.” Eh, it will come to us.

Meanwhile, Henry went to pre-school summer camp last week. Every day I dropped him off, he ran off with a “Bye, Mommy. See you later.” and picked up the trains before I could answer. The first day was waaaaaay harder on me than him. On Monday, he did gymnastics. Tuesday, he made a monkey paper bag puppet. Wednesday, he complimented the teacher on using her words. Thursday, he was cuddling with two little girls when I picked him up. Friday, he brought home a picture of himself wearing gianormous red glasses, in a frame made of popsicle sticks and tissue paper flowers, where his resemblance to Elton John prompts us to sing Henry and the Jets. This week we’re hanging out at home, but next week he’ll return for Pirate Camp.

It’s strange to have a baby kicking inside and an almost three-year-old on the outside (sometimes, also kicking). As Front Loader (henceforth known as FL) gets ready to escape, newly independent Henry also wants to conjoin. He’ll climb into bed with me in the mornings and get so close it’s like he’s trying to crawl back inside, his knees pressed against my belly and head sweating on my shoulder. “I missed you, Mama,” he says when I return from a quick trip to the store (or the other room). And today at the beach, after playing with other kids in the water, he’d run over to me just to touch my shirt before heading back out to splash. FL rolls and turns like a big cat pacing. Two boys already with different energy.

As we’ve gotten baby clothes, I can’t imagine a child fitting in these tiny pieces of soft cloth. “Was Henry ever that small?” I keep asking people around me. As my boy-child loses his baby pudge, his body leaning and stretching, his stomach no longer round, FL will spend the next seven-ish weeks gaining fat. Here is Henry, the child I could never conjure, but also the inevitable boy, so himself from before he was pulled out. My mind is separated into before Henry and after, a benchmark for events. And FL will emerge with his own personality and dark hair, alike but completely different like when I scramble my letters in Scrabble; the same components spelling a distinctive face and hands and sense of humor. And what name will fit him…

Potties & Pirates

On Thursday, I took Henry for a mini-interview at the Y for their Preschool Summer Camps. Kids are supposed to be at least 3 years old and potty-trained. When I told Henry on Monday he could go to Pirate Camp if he used the potty, he spent the next two days running around naked or in underwear rushing to the potty and proving all I had to do was dangle “Pirate Camp” in front of him to do away with diapers. Each time he went I gushed over him. When he’d catch me using the “big girl potty” he told me how proud he was of me. A week of no accidents and 1/4 the diapers was lovely, if not homebound.

At the Y, we interrupted play time. Henry ran in, saw what the kids were doing, then ran back to the door, took off his shoes (although every other kid was shoe-d) and hung up his jacket. Then he ran back to the trains and dug in. Because we came in the middle, there was only ten minutes left to play and when asked to clean up, Henry was not quite done with these new toys. He eventually got over it and helped put things away. The other children watched him with tilted heads and squinting eyes. “I’m Henry,” he’d tell them when he made eye contact.

We were invited to stay for snack time and Henry sat in between a little girl with curls, Molly C, and a hyper boy in a striped shirt, Gus. The kids talked as they ate their pretzel sticks, popcorn and watermelon. I helped insert straws into juice boxes. Henry tried to contribute to the conversation and, for the first time, I felt protective of his emotions.

“I watched a movie yesterday,” Henry added when they talked about watching Finding Nemo.

Molly C eyed him frowning and I thought, You think your shit don’t stink, Molly C?

“You weren’t here! I don’t know you!” Gus yelled. Back off, kid! He's trying to connect!!

A stuttering boy from the other table leaned back in his mini-seat offering, “I…I…I…I w-w-w-atch movies, t-t-too.”

I wanted to move Henry from the big table to next to this awkward boy, but I took two steps back fast-forwarding my brain through middle-school and high school imagining my child.

“Is he going to be the weird kid?” I asked Jared later as I recounted the story.

“He’ll be fine,” he reassured me.

It’s hard to picture your two and a half-year-old – a boy obsessed with saying “Poop” who runs around naked with his hand up his bum – a part of a school community, having friendships and being in a classroom. My heart already hurts a little for my big boy. The girl that might say “No” to him for prom. The elementary school boys who will make fun of him for ever watching (and loving) Sophia the First and Tangled. The team he won’t make or the part in the play he won’t get.

And the silence. The silence I’m sure I’ll get when all these things happen. I can’t imagine silence from him at this point. He tells me when he’s mad at me or nervous or thinks I’m being mean or when something is fun. He remembers everything and brings things up randomly. He is… always talking. Any quiet now is when he’s hiding behind the chair with the dry-erase board erasers making the carpet camouflaged with black smears. Or barricading himself with chairs under the kitchen table while he practices with scissors. But even then he’s snickering.

I’d thought of summer camp as a chance for him to get out of the house and for me to nap. Who knew I’d go Breakfast Club on the poor kid!?

Departures and Arrivals

Sunday, 15 of my girls graduated. By Monday afternoon, all 15 were moved out. That only leaves 25 girls and by this time next week, they’ll be gone, too. It was a crazy, chaotic weekend of tears, last-minute packing and flash flood warnings. The graduation ended up outside in 90% humidity. Out of the top ten students in the senior class, four of them were my girls.

There are some I will miss (already miss) and others who left bags of trash and drawers with hairballs in their rooms. There are so many things on the “Now We Know & Can Do Better Next Year” list and while I’ve accrued some tips (I’m now an expert at mailing large boxes at a very, small post office), me thinks the end of the year will always embody a certain amount of madness. The recycling of notebooks and returning of internet chords. Room keys and broken vacuums. Passports and bags & bags & bags (& bags) of discarded hangers. Wet towels left hanging on the backs of doors like shed skins. Empty, rickety shoe racks yawning into hallways. Oozing shampoo bottles hidden under sinks, the melted remainders of rushed mornings.

The underclassmen observed the panic and, in some cases, were left to deal with the abandoned fridges or hole-punched confetti left under desks. I told them to make it easy on themselves. To pack a box every day this week and take out trash bags as they make them, using the seniors as a cautionary tale. And they nodded. But we shall see come next Monday and Tuesday if they learned anything from the past weekend.

And we shall next year if I’ve learned anything from the past year. Next year, over half the dorm will be new girls. Already we’ve started planning for the ESL program, which, in its second year, they’ve asked me to direct. Already we’re discussing the changes to our dorm structure for next year and discussing how the dorm program will look. Oh yeah, and I guess I should start preparing for Front Loader Gilbert McCannell. Although if Henry taught me anything, it’s that “preparation” isn’t applicable and any attempt at such is fairly futile.

Today, the most important thing of the summer was taken care of: the air conditioning was installed.

Anniversary

Four years ago, Jared and I met at work. Before he started, I’d heard all about him from a couple coworkers. As anyone who knows me knows, out of shear stubbornness, I don’t like things that are overhyped. I’ve never seen the movie A Beautiful Mind or read Harry Potter. I know my ridiculousness is only hurting myself, but I continue. With this in mind, I was prepared to dislike Jared.

He scheduled meetings with each staff person to learn what they did with the organization. During our meeting, he stared at me. With clasped hands. Like Von Trapp family singers clasped. I couldn’t figure him out. Then he saw a card from my mom on my bulletin board. It had a deli sandwich on it. He told me a story about an impromptu road trip with his German friend Joerg and how after too many hours of driving they’d formed the Sandwich gang. Part of the story he spoke in a German accent. I like stories and accents. I was warming up to him.

My office was by the kitchen and his was by the printer. Over the next couple of weeks, he drank even more coffee than normal and I killed an unnecessary amount of trees. Several times I made him eat lunch with me. We started leaving at the same time. On one trip to the cars, he asked when my last day was (I’d put in my notice a couple months early). I took this as he couldn’t wait to get rid of me. He was asking because he thought it was poor form to date coworkers. We both attended a coworkers birthday outside of work because we knew the other one was going to be there and talked for several hours across a narrow bar table. I found out he’d been married before, too. Because of this, it felt like he understood a language that few other people I knew spoke.

 
He invented a party and invited me. He worried no one would show up to his last-minute-want-to-invite-a-girl-to-do-something-outside-of-the-office party. I came “fashionably late” (which meant ten minutes late, for me) and his friends all showed up fashionably late (meaning the actual definition). Jared made Spanish tapas, his go-to impress-a-girl food. I’m the opposite of gourmet. But I ate them and complimented them and when he walked me to my car, he kissed me.

The next night we went to go see The Hangover. Later that week, he went to a movie with my parents and some other family. Weeks after that, I met his family in from out of town. Six months after our first date, a couple days before we moved in together, he asked me to marry him. I said yes because I’d already seen how hard he would work on our relationship. I think effortless relationships are like fairies or unicorns. Of course there should be more good than bad, but it takes work. This is not a secret I’ve discovered. This is what any long term couple knows. I’d met a person who’d fit more than 95% of my List of Things I Would Want I a Partner (speaks another language, likes to travel, probably not from San Diego, etc.) AND he was willing to work with me.

Three weeks after we got engaged, we found out I was pregnant with Henry. The month after that Jared got a new job. The month after that two of my closest family members died. Two months later, I got a job running a nonprofit. The next month we moved again. Two months later, Henry arrived via emergency C-section. I don’t really remember the next couple of months. When Henry was six months old, we moved again. Then Jared lost his job unexpectedly. Three months after that, my parents moved to Alaska and we moved again, into their house. For almost a year, we worked part-time jobs while our dog progressed through a nervous breakdown, culminating in him jumping through a glass window. We started looking at jobs around the country, landing two in Maine. Days after accepting the positions, we got married and celebrated with Mexican food. Then we moved across the country with our almost 2-year-old and manic dog. Then, because it looked like things were settling down waaay too much (what with healthcare for all of us and stable income), we decided Henry needs a sibling. Baby #2 (aka, Front Loader or Gilbert, both suggestions from Henry) is almost 28 weeks along and here we are at our first wedding anniversary.

Jared continues to be an excellent cook and to make me laugh. We bond over taking scenic back roads of Maine to keep up our gas mileage. We still agree the Toyota Yaris (hatchback) is the best car ever. We still appreciate the gamut of movies together (and are celebrating our anniversary tonight with a viewing of The Hangover III, even though Hangover II  made me wish I didn’t have eyes). Right now he’s cuddling with Henry on the couch while translating the Secret of Nimh into Spanish and still, seeing the two of them together feels like I just ate a still-warm, doughy chocolate chip cookie.

And with all that good stuff, the regular attraction stuff, he still works hard at us. We will yell or ignore or do the things people do when they are angry and want to be stubborn, but then we talk. Facing each other in bed with Henry snoring on the other side of the wall. While I’m not eager to repeat the family deaths, gazillion moves, variety of jobs, traumatic births and cross-country relocations – all of it showed me even more that we’d made the right choice.

Happy Anniversary, Jared.

Senioritis

For the last month or so, seniors have been working on Senior Projects. This is a tradition at MCI of each senior choosing something interesting to them to devote at least 40 hours to and be able to give a final presentation on. People have built rocket launchers, collected shoes for children in Africa, composed music, designed a clothing line and decades more. They each have advisors and “specialists” who are to assist with their project, but not do it for them. In theory, senior projects are great. Some kids are really excited about theirs and spend lots of time on it. However, because this is a big chunk of their humanities grade, they get out of their English and History classes to work on them more. Some even get out of study hall periods. During these free periods, students aren’t monitored. They can go home, they can go get Chinese food, they can make out in their garages while getting high (I haven’t heard of someone doing this, but c’mon, we know it happens).

This is where I come in. In order for residential seniors to be in the dorms during this time, I have to be in the dorm. All day. Every day. 7:45am to 5pm. I know, I know those are the hours most people work. And all I have to do is let them in the front door when they call? What am I complaining about?

It’s Spring time in Maine. Despite my dear Californian friends claiming the weather has changed in San Diego, it has not. You did not go from stick-figure barren trees to tulips sprouting up like jelly beans nestled in neon green Easter grass. You didn’t forget what your toes look like because they’ve been in wool socks since November. You didn’t get sun poisoning on your arms after spending an afternoon outside because your skin forgot what the sun was. It’s gorgeous. It’s lush. And I have a two and a half  year-old.

“Let’s go for a hike, Mommy.”

“Can we go to the park?”

“What about the bouncey house?”

“No, honey. Mommy has to stay inside so she can let girls in to take naps and fart around on the internet.”

Oh, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned my internet was been down during the day for two weeks. And my wireless printer down with it. This little mini-crisis certainly illuminated my unhealthy attachment to email, Facebook and Words With Friends. So, while this new time constriction hasn’t added a whole lot of extra work to my plate, it’s the confinement that’s driving me nutso. Usually, we’ll trek to the cafeteria for dinner and maybe I’ll hang out with a coworker watching Jeopardy at night. But since the start of senior projects, as soon as 5pm hits, I want nothing to do with MCI. Nothing to do with coworkers and nothing to do with the girls. This is not a good feeling. I do actually like my job. What I may have liked most about it without realizing, is the flexibility that used to exist for my position. With it almost gone, I feel a growing bitterness. And this isn’t the way I want to end the year.

I’ve tried to make the best of it. So far, I’ve sewed three aprons (not that I ever really cook). The house is generally cleaner. I’ve kept up my vacation reading. And, after fixing my internet issue late last week, this is my second blog. If only I could nap. Hey, I’m pregnant, that’s not an unreasonable request.

Adios, Blue.

About a month ago, Henry’s pacifier bit the dust. Or, I guess more accurately, he bit it. We’d been telling him since we got this one that it was his last one and when it broke, no more pacifiers. Wouldn’t you know that this one lasted through a cross-country move AND most of a school year after that! Alas, “Blue” as Henry called it, is no more. And any sort of sleep schedule/routine we had going, is also no more. Henry has decided to not go gentle into that good night. He’s even created a new cry for the occasion. It involves his whole body and the only good thing about it is it does seem to tire him out. He rejects any part of the bedtime routine that once seemed to work well. Bath. Blue. Books. Bed. With one gone, the rest of these now warrant the cry.

 “Did we take it away too soon? Too suddenly?” Jared asked me after experiencing an especially excruciating evening. The doctor and dentist have been telling us to take it away since he was six months old. Clearly, we had an attachment to the magic Blue as well.

“Whether we did or not, we can’t go back now,” I said, “or I can just picture Henry’s high school graduation photos with buck teeth and Blue.”

One of the byproducts of Blue’s departure is Henry decided without Blue there is no need to stay in his crib. So he climbed out. Several times. Back in September, after an especially scary nightmare involving an orange T-Rex, Henry jumped shipped. We worried, back then, our crib days were over. But, he made no more escape attempts. Until now. Less than a week after Blue’s demise, Jared put Henry in his crib after reading to him and came out to the living room. It had already been a long day. I think I was on duty. We sat there trying not to fall asleep and we heard Henry’s door knob squeal. My first thought was How did someone get into Henry’s room??? Then he emerged saying, “I wake up.” After two more exoduses and a requested demonstration (quite talented gymnastically actually, including the arms up finale pose) of how he did it, we converted his bed to the toddler phase. While safety has been restored, removing a wall does not help in keeping the anti-sleep kid in his bed.

 

 

Luckily (and unluckily, depending), he saves the crazy for us. The first day my mom (Nona, to Henry) was here for naptime, she read him two books in the guest bed and told him, “Show me how you get in your big boy bed.” Henry comes running through the living room, makes the tight corner to his room and hops in his bed. “Goodnight,” I hear her say. “Goodnight, Nona,” came his tiny voice. The door was closed and not a peep. Relief, but also are you kidding me?!?! came from inside me. The same for Grammie (Jared’s mom). Whereas I will spend thirty minutes rocking him while he hiccups after twenty minutes of the cry and it’s like those Neverending Story statues as I put him in his bed. Will the eyes open and zap me or not? Deep breaths. Good thing for grandmas.

Preggers Update

I can only see the tips of my toes if I bend forward a tad.  

I’m 24 weeks.

I’ve gained 3lbs.

I've eaten a fair amount of chocolate pudding.

Cat Scratch Fever

Setting: common lounge, Sunday night/the day everyone has returned from April break. Girl in story has been home since noon. It is now 9pm.

Girl: Ms. McCannell, I’m very worried. Last night my friend’s cat bit me. It just jumped on the bed while I was on my laptop and it scratched me. I think I have rabies.

Me: Did you wash the cut when it happened?

Girl: No, because it didn’t bleed. I didn’t think it was too bad, but now look.

She holds her hand up to me and I search for the cut. After ten seconds, she points it out to me. This picture looks like a fatal wound compared to what her hand looked like.

 

Me: Girl, I’m sure you are completely fine. To be safe, you should go see the nurse first thing tomorrow morning and she can look at it.

Girl: I think I need to go to the doctor. I need to get that shot.

Me: The nurse can make you an appointment.

Girl: How long will it take to get one? I could die before then.

Me: They have morning walk-in times every day. You will not die. I promise you.

Girl: I’m very worried. I don't want rabies.

Me: I can tell. Girl, I know you will be okay. We will get you taken care. Nurse. First thing. (I nod my head for emphasis) Are you feeling okay otherwise? Any other symptoms?

Girl: I’ve been sneezing a lot.

Me: I’m sure it’s unrelated.

Cheesy Ode to Books

Last week was our April break. The dorms closed on Saturday at noon and reopened today at noon. I wanted to spend the week on a beach in Mexico, drinking cold drinks, reapplying sunscreen and reading in between sun-soaked naps. That sort of happened. Except, instead of Mexico it was Maine and instead of a beach it was the woods or the dorm. But I did nap and read a lot. I finished six books this week. I forgot how much I love reading. I know, how could I forget this? I’d read five books in March and I’m up to nine in April. This feels luxurious. Indulgent. I’m a better person when I’m reading.

Henry’s loved reading since he was born. Even without a book, we’d recite stories to him like lullabies. He finds solutions in books. Stomachache? Eat a nice green leaf. Dinosaurs chasing you? Blow a dinosaur horn. He memorizes quotes to make his trains say later: “Honk, honk, comin’ through. I’ve big important things to do.” His new favorite reading material is Ladybug magazine and he loves even the poems. The other day he told me he was going to have a “red day” and asked to wear his red t-shirt. He’ll rediscover books from his bookshelf and climb into my lap during the day. And we always read three books before his nap and another three at night. Go Dog, Go! and Are you my Mother? just snuck back into the rotation. Sometimes, we just make up funny voices for the characters.

There are some girls here who are required to go to the cafeteria during study hall because of low grades. No electronics allowed. They complain they can’t do anything without their computers. Read a book, I tell them. This is never a popular suggestion. I try to remember if I read in high school. My favorite teacher, Ms. Eagan, from 3^rd grade used to read us Roald Dahl books, made a million times more exciting with her Irish accent. Then she’d give us an hour of free reading time every day where we could sit anywhere and read anything and I huddled under my desk (because, why not?) and inhaled Babysitter’s Club books and later, RL Stine. Somewhere around freshman year of high school I discovered Barbara Kingsolver and words changed.

I hope Henry finds his Kingsolver. I hope every one of the girls finds hers. Whether that’s 50 Shades of Grey or To Kill a Mockingbird. Some author that makes them reread a sentence five times because they can’t believe how accurate and simple and tender it is. An author who cradles nuance and leads you through a more stunning version of every day. Because a week of reading is no beach in Mexico, but the escape is just as entrancing.

La Luna

I’ve started seven blogs since my last posting. All half-thoughts about celebrating Lunar New Year; getting a girl to break-up with her jealous, unhealthy boyfriend only to write another one about their reunion less than a week later; my Sunday in the ER; baby thoughts; Henry’s new surge of energy; and my dad coming to town. Obviously, none of these made the final stages of internet posting.

Then, the other day, Henry said the most amazing thing to me. And maybe it’s my new lack of sleep that makes it so incredible. Maybe it’s because I’m his mother that I find it insightful and brilliant. But it hasn’t left my head since he said it.

He was being his crazy self, getting into exactly what I’d told him not to and I told him we don’t do whatever it was he was doing.

“Why?” he asked.

“Those are the rules.” I answered, completely uncreatively.

He put his still baby chubby hand on my arm.

“You follow the rules, Momma. I follow the moon.”

Henry has had a fascination with the moon for as long as I can remember. When we took walks in San Diego, three times around our neighborhood park every night, he’d point to it. Here, with the clear Maine sky, stars like salt on black velvet, his finger finds it: “La luna,” he says, reverently.

We read a book about it recently. A boy, his father and his grandfather row their boat (“La Luna”) out to sea and when the moon comes out; they hoist up their ladder and climb to the moon to sweep the fallen stars off its surface.

After a semi-sleepless evening of nightmares and scary shadows, I headed to the store to pick out a new night-light for his room. I found one he can push and it fills his ceiling with moon and stars. “Ooooohhh,” he said when I first turned it on. “I like it.”

So when he’s driving me nutso, pushing all the buttons, I try to remember he lives by the rules of the moon. And when I’m not feeling very creative or sane or more tired than there is a word for, I try to remember that I made a son with lunar connections.

Thank you, Daniel Tiger

Henry loves Daniel Tiger. He watches it on “his computer” (the iPad my brother sent him). He scrolls to find the PBS Kids icon, clicks it, scrolls through their list of shows and selects Daniel Tiger. This, in and of itself, amazes me.

 

For those of you who aren’t subject to the television preferences of toddlers, Daniel Tiger is based on the original character from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. There’s O the Owl, Katerina Kittycat, Miss. Elena (who calls everyone Toots - rhymes with foots) and Prince Wednesday and they all ride around on the trolley. It took him a few weeks to get into this show and then one day he loved it. I prefer it over Thomas because the characters aren’t jerks to each other and they sing a lot.

 

 

Here are the Top 5 lessons we’ve learned from Daniel Tiger (you have to imagine these being sung, it makes the lesson better):

5. When we do something new, let’s talk about what we’ll do: Daniel’s ever-patient mother recognizes new things (going to the doctor, brushing teeth, etc.) can be weird and scary. She stops to explain and then Daniel, of course, isn’t scared anymore.

4. You’ve got to look a little closer to find out what you want to know: Instead of the neverending Why? Where? What? from the kids, the adults give the questions back to them and then the kids feel like scientists discovering big stuff.

3. Try new things: Ever since this episode, I’ve been able to use this one several times to get Henry to try something. “Remember how Daniel Tiger had never played that game before and then he tried and it was so much fun?” Feels a little manipulative and peer pressurey sometimes, but luckily I’m not offering him alcohol or heroin so I get over that feeling pretty quick..

2. You can take a turn and then you’ll give it back: Sharing. Are we really that attached to our stuff or is it the possibility of never seeing it again that freaks us out?

1. When you feel so mad, that you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four: This is the one Jared and I have used the most for ourselves, and it’s the root of one of my favorite, most recent Henry stories. In the cafeteria, we’ve been letting Henry sit in a “big boy chair” (one of the regular cafeteria chairs that we use). He has a hard time staying in it and we continue to remind him (okay, threaten) the potential return of the high chair should he continue to jump down. After a particularly challenging mealtime, he bolted and ran to the exit. I went to retrieve him, picked him up and said, “Henry, we keep threatening you with the highchair and you continue to run off. It makes me really upset to have to chase you. What am I supposed to do?”

He took my face in his hands and said, “Count to four, Mommy.”

Lost Our Finesse

In October, one of the girls started sleeping in a Scooby Doo costume. It’s a full-body footied-onesie with a hoodie that has ears. I’m not joking. She did not buy this for Halloween. It looks very comfortable. After her, another girl surfaced with a similar, raccoon costume. At night, when I check on them for lights out, they are usually sitting at their desks, the heads of cartoon animals drooping down their backs. Their straight, dark hair adding fringed bangs over the animal eyes. I wonder if they wear the hoods while they sleep, totem pole animals in skinny, twin beds, staring up to their ceilings like spirit animals.

***

Over half the girls stretch their underwear on tiny hangers, like dreamcatchers in their windows. At first it was a little shocking, as if I were reading their journals. It reminds me of being at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul where hanging thongs – the Ts like cotton Jesuses strung up on specially made circle hangers – covered walls of booths and the vendors called to my friends and me, “Angels, where is Charlie?” Being the type of person who buys underwear from bins at Target of the 5 for $20 variety, I had to ask a coworker why one would hang underwear up to dry. “It’s not good for the elastic to go through the dryer,” she told me, “or at least that’s what my friend said.” I’m glad she had to ask, too. Dangling window pendants, suspended in their rooms and the common bathrooms with pink, block letters and tiny, repeated graphics. Many of them had never done laundry, needed help with settings and soap, asked advice on what to wash together, but this they learned before my name.

***

There is a future art major rooming above our living room. She’s been creating a gianormous eyeball for the past month or so. We hear the blender as she mashes newspaper for the muscles surrounding the larger-than-a-watermelon-size eye wedged in cardboard. While her room is normally messy, the eyeball brought new levels of chaos. Recently, on a heater investigation with the Head of Maintenance, he pushed his way into her room, smashing papers on the under the door and bowls with chopsticks and things stuck to them. I wondered what he was going to say about the fact that he could only sporadically see the floor. “Someone doesn’t want her security deposit back,” he said, checking to see if her windows were open. When he spotted the impossible-to-miss-eyeball, the stunning blue of the iris, he took two steps back and shook his head.

***

I’ve started collecting their phones at dorm meetings. If I see them, I take them and they get an early bed time for the week. Yes, I’m that person. I’ve imagined keeping them to hang like Calder mobiles in our lounge area: their bright, plastic covers over slim, metal bodies swinging over couches and tables like a dorm portrait. Their various rings calling out to their owners, alerting them to messages from beyond. The vibrations causing the phones to dance in awkward, puppety swoops. When I’m on duty, I stare at the long beams crossing the room picturing the image of what I’m sure would be my masterpiece.

 

***

The other day I was writing something for one of the girls and they informed me that most kids their age cannot read cursive.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“They don’t teach it, so people don’t, like, see it and most can’t read it. Like, I can, but, like, most can’t. It’s weird, I know.”

“They don’t teach cursive anymore?” I asked. She narrowed her eyes and shook her head.

“That blows my mind.” I told her.

And immediately the quote from “Duets” came to mind: “And they say our society has lost its finesse.” If we were cutting humanities and arts and it was working – kids were mastering math and science or becoming star athletes – that would be one thing, but that’s not the case. We are just cutting. So our children are these half-formed humans who don’t read cursive and can’t not text for a 20-minute meeting. They can’t write essays or memorize poems. But these are the same kids who wear animal costumes to bed. Whose underwear is as colorful as their cell phone cases. So, why do we stop teaching curlicues and fun words? Why is it that we underestimate their imaginations? I think it says more about adults than the kids.

Seven Months

Three weeks ago I wrote a post about how monotony was dragging me down. Not even within my job, but the life part of my life. The making of beds, folding of laundry, the washing of dishes, putting away blocks, picking up crayons, wiping yogurt off tables. The life stuff. But writing about it didn’t change it or really make me feel less like stale, stretched taffy.

And then I found out my mom was coming to visit.

Then she came. And doing anything more than spending time with her or napping didn’t seem important. And then it snowed a lot. And then she left. And we all got sick. And then vacation ended. And today it was 0 degrees at one point. And now you’re caught up.   

Someone sent me an invitation to “connect” on LinkedIn today and I looked at my profile. It said I’ve been working here for seven months. I’m not really sure how that is possible and I questioned their algorithm’s math. Seven months is one month longer than I worked at Words Alive: a job that could quite possibly go down in my permanent history as my most favorite-ist group of coworkers ever (Sorry, all my other jobs, it’s true.) And yet, I’ve now been here longer.

Over the last several days I’ve driven close to 400 miles on five different trips picking up students from vacation. This has given me time to process my seven months of Maine. So much of it has to do with the weather. I came in sun and now we live in snow. It was sticky, 90 degrees, want to spend all your time in a pool, in the shade, drinking something with ice in it hot. Now it’s single-digit, dry, red-nosed, immediately freezing anything that’s exposed to the air, your hands tingle when you walk inside cold. This requires flexibility. 15 years ago Pittsfield had an ice storm that lasted for two weeks. At least ten days without power. In January. I asked my mother-in-law how many people died. “None.” She said, looking at me weird. “We’re Mainers.”

I recently had to drive in a snow storm. And again, because of the hours spent in the car very recently, I’ve thought about all the witty, clever ways that driving in “inclement weather” is a metaphor for life.

·         There is very rarely a reason to slam on your brakes as most often taking your foot off the gas works better.
·         The same goes for speeding up. Unless you’re running from a tiger, the damage and eventual adrenaline drop of going from zero to 60 is unnecessary.
·         Cutting corners doesn’t actually save time, but it does raise your blood pressure and piss off the people around you.
·         Jerky movements are for jerks.
·         Courtesy waves should be law.
·         Pay attention.

 In reading this back through, it needs to be edited. Some of this stuff doesn’t even make sense together. But, since I hate editing and would probably just put that off for another week, I’m going to post as is. I promise to get back into the swing of things (aka, edit) soon.