Story Moon

Daily Gratitude

2011-06-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

1. Falling asleep accidentally at 8pm, and then deciding to just go with it and stay in bed for the night
2. The smell of lilac in a thunderstorm
3. Miles' perfect pronunciation of the word "bubble"
4. The fact that Miles think the word "bubble" means fruit
5. Brown cowboy boots
6. Being able to talk to teenagers about drugs and sex and fights and also striped sweaters and parody music and childhood pets
7. My dog still loves me, even though I pat her less, and scold her more
8. Miles' pediatrician kisses him on the cheek whenever we visit
9. Mason jars and driftwood

~Ashby

swallows

2011-06-03T07:43:00.000-07:00

~

the way swallows dip
as if suspended on slack lines
swooped across the sky
is how I dip and rise through my day
almost peaks and valleys but smoother
quieter than that

there is nothing jagged about
the shallow slide into stale moments
sinus pressure
the smell of coffee
lazy hesitations
angry voices in the hall

nothing loud about
the air underneath my feathers
lifting me on the invisible current of a smile
a small hand on my calf
a bad joke
a minor triumph of the mind
a lilac bush

~ashby

Accidental Sighs

2011-05-31T06:39:00.000-07:00

I scoop his small, hot body into the curve of mine (softer, much softer than it used to be), wiggle up, feel him latch on, or not feel it, anymore, really - my body desensitized to the feeling of small lips and teeth, or so sensitized to it that it's now like breathing - it happens, I can tell if I pay attention, but it's not something I notice

and I hear his contented nose-breathed sigh and smile, and then realize that my own breath has followed his, puffing out my nose, ruffling his baby hair, my own sigh, unbidden and accidental, every single time and still taking me by surprise

it still takes me by surprise, this quiet wave of perfect that overtakes me, that swells in my belly, pressed against his knees, that slips out between my lips in a puff of warm air. It's my hundredth, thousandth, millionth such accidental sigh, a reflex, like the tap of a hammer to a knee - snuggle, latch on, sigh - but I never expect it, am never prepared for the way my body gives me away, announcing my powerlessness to this tiny mouth, this small hand on my collarbone, with one quiet breath.

~ashby

Guilt

2011-05-25T07:29:00.001-07:00

Does this guilt, this constant, pervasive feeling of "not good enough" that drifts ever-present beneath the surface of every moment, come from being away from Miles every day? Is it a result of the fact that I only have a few hours with him each day, so each minute I waste cleaning or reading a magazine or playing half-heartedly (I love my son, so much, but god, shape sorters are so boring) carries extra weight, because there are just so few minutes? Or does everyone feel this way?

If I spent my days at home with Miles, would I feel guilty for not exposing him to other kids, for not creating daily themed craft projects, for not visiting the library often enough? I find it comforting to think that, to believe that this feeling is part of being a mother, that I would feel like a slacker no matter what situation we were in. I take comfort in the fact that so far, it seems like Miles is absolutely thriving - he loves daycare, they love him, he's developing fast and furiously, he's happy and funny and affectionate. I easily rattle off, without even thinking about it, all of the good things that daycare has done for him - he is learning to share, he can be patient, he knows that lots of people can meet his needs, he's comfortable in the world. I believe these things, too - I see my happy, bright boy and I know he's ok, that we're doing ok. But in my worst moments (and it feels like there are so many), I believe that being with Miles all day would make up for any of my shortcomings as a stay-at-home mom, but that all the benefits of daycare will never make up for the time I am not with him. In my worst moments, I believe that I won't ever be able to make up for those missed hours. In my worst moments, I worry that I am just a weekend and evening caregiver, no different to Miles than his teachers - not really a mother at all.

~ashby

Daily Gratitude

2011-05-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

1. big sweater
2. radish and arugula seedlings
3. "nuh night nuh night nuh night" over the monitor
4. spontaneous toddler hugs
5. double piggy backs
6. the return of Victor
7. Jane the magnolia tree
8. professional enthusiasm
9. high school students who act like nice humans
10. how suddenly kid-like my baby is

Bumps

2011-04-15T07:25:00.000-07:00

There are many, many things I love about my kid.
The way his head always smells like toast and garden soil.
The goofy, nose-wrinkly smile he makes when he knows something is funny, but doesn't know why.
His flat, square, stinky flintstone feet.

My favorite thing about him, though, is his enthusiasm for life, the way he approaches every situation as if "this is going to rock!" He's always been this way. I remember when he was an infant, lifting him out of his car seat or bassinet; as soon as he was shifted into a new position, he eagerly craned his neck to take in this new perspective, grinning before his eyes even focused. He just knew it was going to be awesome! Now that he motors around under his own power, his optimism is even more obvious. He careens around corners at a 45 degree angle to the floor, skidding to a stop in the middle of this new room, beaming wide-eyed at whatever he finds.

Maybe it's a little kid thing in general, the utter lack of cynicism and trepidation, the assumption that of course this new person is going to be nice, of course this new place is going to be fun, of course this new day is going to be joyful. When do we lose that? And why? I wonder if it's simply a result of knowing more, learning about all the bad things that happen in the world and rationally understanding that those things could also happen to us. Or maybe it's more personal that that, a gradual toughening with each bump or bruise.

For me, parenting has been like a time machine back to that early enthusiasm, an inevitable shucking of a bit of the cynical armor that I've built up in response to my own bumps. I watch Miles stare out the car window with wide, excited eyes and I suddenly see what he's seeing; the silhouette of birds on the wire, the cloud shadows shifting across the glass, all brand new and beautiful. I hold his hand out to feed a horse and when the velvety lips brush my own hand, I shiver in glee just like he does.

He takes me back to that easy joy, surely, but not all the way. I can't quite forget all my own bumps, can't help cringing just a little bit when his happy feet send him careening into a corner. At the same time that my heart swells to see his eager smile when another child comes to play with him, it clenches painfully with the knowledge that this new friend could hurt his feelings, could make him sad. The same love that has opened me back up to the possibility that he sees in every new day has flayed my heart open, raw nerved, vulnerable to every potential hurt he could feel.

Maybe what it comes down to is, I'm afraid that he'll lose this joy, that each new bump will be the bump, the one that starts to chip away at his enthusiasm, the one that starts to dim his bright light.

Most days, though, that bump seems very far away.

~Ashby

Growing

2011-04-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

I feel like parenting this child should make me sadder than it does. He changes daily, hourly even, and it's impossible not to notice how quickly he's losing his babyness and becoming a child, a real child with sneakers and opinions and an attention span longer than mine. When he snuggles in my lap before bed his legs hang off the edge of the chair. His teacher asks him to use his walking feet and he does!

I'm losing my baby and I should probably be sad about it, right? Of course I am, at times, nostalgic for his tiny fist wrapped around my finger, and I miss the way his body fit perfectly between my breasts, his milky-smelling head tucked under my chin. I know that I should be heartbroken at the sight of my baby slipping away, and I feel it on some level, I do. But whenever that feeling creeps in, it's immediately pushed aside by the total delight that is watching Miles grow up. It's impossible for me to linger in how he was yesterday when how he is today is so exciting. Just when I get used to a chubby hand waving "buh buh" as he leaves for school in the morning, it becomes a perfectly pronounced "bye-ee." Suddenly I have a little person who arranges his pillow and teddy bear into exactly the right position before falling asleep, and who picks up scraps of paper and takes them to the recycling bin, carefully closing the door behind him. The joy I feel every time he does something new trumps even my near-frantic need to document every moment - lately I find myself putting down the camera and just grinning. It's hard to be upset about losing the seed when the sapling is so beautiful, and maybe I'm biased, but I think he's a pretty gorgeous little plant.

~ashby

This is the place

2011-03-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

I used to think that I would be a nomad when I grew up, bouncing around the globe, never settling anywhere for more than a year or two. I wanted to be so open to the world that I drowned in it, to be colorful and exotic and speak 20 languages. Mostly, I wanted to move. Wings, not roots, was like a personal mantra.

And then . . . what? And then love, or contentment, or maturity, or ambition or maybe laziness. Then something, and here I am - rooted to this place by a mortgage and a magnolia tree and a patient man and a weekly dinner date and the way my baby boy smiles at his grandparents. I find myself, just 26, flicking through pictures of what I thought would be my future - me jumping through a waterfall in Costa Rica, buying daffodils on the street in Dublin, petting a carriage horse in Quebec, collecting owl feathers in Greece - and understand that I'm looking at the past, instead. And I am happy with these roots, in general. I have traded, for now anyway, the freedom of a single suitcase for the quiet joy of a vegetable garden and a flock of ducklings. I have traded a journal, full of frantic descriptions to share someday, with someone, for an actual someone to share things with. I've traded bare feet and tired shoulders beneath a heavy backpack for stretch marks and tired arms around a sleepless baby. There is contentment here, for sure.

Lately, though, I've been restless, scanning my classroom map and finding my gaze linger on Oregon, Provence, Madagascar. The growing season is so much longer in West Virginia than in Maine. In Sweden, teachers make a decent wage. In Greece, we could live on feta and cucumbers! As the political tumult here hits a fever pitch and we start to truly feel the panic that comes from realizing that we may be literally driven out of our chosen profession and home by our government's choices and left to start over, somehow, already behind - I admit I get a serious case of "the grass is greener." I beg Jesse to consider other places, to promise he'll at least think about "trying out" the West Coast. I decide that it wouldn't be so hard to leave - I'm here because this is where I landed, that's all. I'm here because somehow, this is where the current deposited me, sputtering a little. I am not tied to this place - this is just where I live. That's all.

Yesterday we went for a drive, like we do sometimes on Sundays. Miles fell asleep in the backseat, mumbling to himself what sounded like "doggie doggie buh bye," and the radio played songs we actually liked, so we decided to drive for a while, out on the Peninsula, where we like to go when there's nowhere to go. Like always we admired all the little capes with their cedar shingles and white trim, small acreage butting up to the ocean, old canoes in the yard. We daydreamed about our tiny someday-farm, our wraparound porch and our stand of pear trees. I felt the warmth of these small dreams, and then the real, deep sadness that has accompanied them lately - sadness that stems from the fact that these simple, reasonable little plans of ours might be too much to hope for, here. Even as we watched the spruce trees bow to the salt wind and giggled at the memory of our wedding, a few miles away, I was mentally disengaging - we don't need this place. It's just a place. I have no ties here. This is just where I live. That's all.

Then we rounded the corner in the dirt road and hit the end of the peninsula, Marshall Point light, a stand of evergreens and the ocean on three sides. I stepped out of the car and climbed down the rocks, making my way like a mountain goat to the edge of the water, feeling the surf roll like a deep breath against the rocks. My feet moved easily along the slick boulders and my steps were steady in the gusts; I've never been in danger of falling near the ocean. I breathed, matching my inhalations with the surge of the waves, and then returned to the car. With a sigh, I settled into the passenger seat and looked at Jesse.

"This is why," I started, "we can't leave. You know? Like this -" I struggled to find the words to say what I meant - that even though I wasn't born here, even though I don't say "right mint" or have a lineage steeped in salt water and lobster tails, even though these weathered houses belong to strangers, I can't imagine leaving. "It's just....."

Jesse, as usual a step ahead of me when it comes to accepting the inevitable, smiled and shrugged.
"Yeah. This is the place."

~Ashby

Signs of life

2011-03-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

It has been a long, long winter here. I know it's Maine, and that this is what I signed up for, and I know that it's actually not even supposed to be springtime yet - we still have a few weeks until the equinox. And I also know that in Maine, the equinox means absolutely nothing - I can't remember a year when there wasn't snow in April.

But still, it feels like it's been a long time since there were robins in our front yard, and visible grass. Maybe this winter seems so long because it's been, in some ways, a little tough - lots of disheartening career things happening, lots of work-related stress and lots of distance from family. Or maybe it seems like we've been waiting forever for spring because with Miles around, the prospect of nice weather is even more exciting than usual - mud puddles and apple blossoms and earth worms are going to be so much cooler with a toddler! Whatever the reason, I have been aching for some springtime up here.

And , lo and behold - signs of life! This week, the torrential rains have melted much of the (4 feet of) snow in our yard, and suddenly I can see it, life underneath all the muddy stillness and cold. Today I took a hike around the yard to collect some hope...

These shelves were almost full of canned stuff in September, the fruits of my summer labors. When the food starts dwindling, you *hope* springtime is close!

The dirt in the sunchoke pots had thawed out enough to dig out almost a thid of the roots - we left these guys in their soil over the winter so they'd be sweeter.

Our raised beds are starting to become visible as the snow finally melts. Bonus - snow is a great mulch!

Daffodils!

Rhubarb babies, unfurling under their mulch. Don't worry, I covered them back up again.

Jane, my little Magnolia tree, survived being totally buried in the snow for the past two months, and emerged - covered in buds!!!

The traditional beacon of spring - crocuses.

But the best predictor that springtime is finally near? Ginger refuses to come inside.

~Ashby

on target

2011-03-01T08:48:00.000-08:00

Miles can climb up onto the couch and he can say, "all done." He can brush his own teeth, stack a block tower as tall as his waist, and dance on command. He plays the piano, can paddle through the water, is usually gentle with the dog and sprints faster than I do. My little guy is only one and can do SO MUCH, and I think I generally do a good job of recognizing that, of noticing the fact that he is totally miraculous and that, honestly, there isn't anything he can't do that seems of much consequence.

But the pediatrician's office always totally throws me into this anxious-mom tizzy. I'll be happily extolling all the amazing things about him - he's grown an inch! he has 10 teeth! he turns the pages in his books! - and Dr. Russ will ask a simple question like, "does he know any body parts yet?" and I will spin off into a silent panic. Even as I smile tensely and mumble "um not yet," through gritted teeth, my palms start to sweat and I start to mentally calculate how long it will take to teach this new skill. We'll get a picture book! I'll write a body parts song and sing it day and night! I'll hire a body-parts tutor to drill him on his facial features three times a week! My baby MUST BE DEVELOPMENTALLY ON TARGET!!!!

But then, of course, I remember that I secretly mock that type of mother, with her Baby Einstein videos and her oversized satchel full of educational toys. I remember that I'm that smug Mama who hands her kid a wooden spoon to play with and sleeps soundly with the belief that kids learn things naturally, without pushing on our part.

I remember that, oh yeah, I'm super lazy and don't really feel like stressing about this.

So I mellow out. For now.

Dancin'

2010-10-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

Dancin'
Originally uploaded by ashbyandjesse

Miles is still in that stage where he stops moving the instant the video camera comes out and just kind of stares, wide-eyed at it. Occasionally he'll do something awkward and then go right back to the wide-eyed-stare thing.

M is becoming quite the little groove-monster as he gets older. When a song he particularly likes comes on, he looks around all excitedly like "hey, I know this!" and then starts to bounce up and down, bobbing his head and sometimes humming along. I love his singing voice especially - instead of his normal bellow, his musical voice is quiet and high-pitched, like the voice I use to sing lullabies (although probably more in tune than mine). I give our weekly Music Together classes a lot of the credit for his interest in music - he loves going to class and playing (ie eating) the instruments and watching everyone sing and dance. But he was born musical - I remember in those early weeks spending hours with him held against my chest, dancing around the living room to Tracy Chapman and John Legend because it was the only way to keep him from getting cranky. Now he does the dancing himself.

15 Things I Don't Like

2010-09-30T09:32:00.001-07:00

1. Feeling nauseous
2. Black flies
3. The sound stuff makes scraping against the ice that grows on the inside of the freezer. *shudder*
4. Phonetically spelled names
5. Pork chops
6. Saying something bitchy and having the other person act all understanding and patient.
7. Stainless steel appliances
8. How your head gets itchy as soon as someone mentions the word "lice."
9. Now I'm itchy
10. Waking up too late to make my morning juice-and-selzer to bring to work
11. Waking up too early to feel remotely functional all day long
12. When #10 and #11 happen on the same day
13. Ruining surprises
14. The stupid way roller-bladers swing their arms. This isn't the Olympic speed skating trials. Blah.
15. Anything in the larval stage

~ashby

Pressure

2010-09-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

It starts innocently enough - you're watching your baby sleep, or play with a wooden tractor, or jam cheerios into their nose, thinking about how wonderful and perfect they are when BAM - out of nowhere, it strikes....the guilt. You should be snuggling with them while they sleep - they're going to feel neglected and have an inability to attach to anyone in their life if they wake up and find you gone! You should be down on the floor playing with your baby instead of just watching him - he's going to lack social skills and be an outcast in high school and end up wearing a trenchcoat and eye makeup! You should be spoon-feeding your baby oatmeal made from oats you have lovingly hand-rolled and sugar-free, gluten-free maple syrup you sucked from the tree with a straw yourself - he's going to get diabetes and become obese from all those cheerios and end up needing gastric bypass surgery! Your beautiful, quiet moment of reflection has turned into one more reason you are a terrible parent.

Is there something about being a parent that makes us more prone to guilt than our non-parent counterparts? There must be - every Mom I've ever talked to, even the elusive "confident Moms," share this same experience, this sudden plunge into totally irrational guilt over things that are truly, truly unimportant. I find myself particularly hard-hit. I'm a working Mom - so of course my son is going to grow up thinking I don't love him and learning all about life (and intravenous drugs) from his other-side-of-the-tracks daycare peers. I tend to choose flopping on the floor with the baby over cleaning the house when I get home - so it stands to reason that Miles is going to catch some gross disease from our un-scrubbed kitchen floor. But what the hell? If I didn't work outside the home, I'm sure I would be wracked with guilt over not being able to provide financial stability to my kid. And if I spent my after-work hours scrubbing the floors, I would feel horribly guilty about not spending "quality time" with Miles instead.

There's truly no escape from the Mom-guilt - and I KNOW this. So what turns a generally rational (I said generally), decidedly non-type-A person like me into such a Catholic? (No offense, Catholics, but you do have this guilt thing down.) This is the only aspect of my life where I face this problem - I am perfectly fine slacking off at work occasionally, and being a raging bitch to my husband for no reason, and being late with a bill or two. But add my little boy the the equation and suddenly every decision I make is fraught with drama. Why is it only this one facet of my personality, "Mom," who is so guilt-ridden?

I've thought about this a lot and the only answer I can come up with is that being a mother matters to me. My job matters, of course - I love teaching, and work hard at it. My marriage obviously is a big deal - Jesse's a pretty cool guy and I'd rather he stick around. And bills - those suck but yeah, they're pretty important. But compared to my baby - well, there's really no contest. I look at Miles and I see complete perfection - even his snotty nose is the most perfect snotty nose that has ever existed. I see this small, helpless person who somehow, through some cosmic fluke, has landed in my life, in my care, and who is without a doubt the best small person in the world and I am totally overwhelmed by how lucky I am. And then, in the next second, I am totally overwhelmed by the responsibility that comes with being caretaker to the best person in the world. There is just so much that could go wrong! And I am such a mess!

Rationally, of course, I know I am batshit insane. I know that babies are rugged and that they are meant to thrive with all our imperfect care and bumbling attempts at parenting. In theory I understand that there is no way I could do everything perfectly, and that this is ok - that Miles will turn out great even if (when) I screw up. In theory I am a rational, confident parent. I trust my instincts and know, definitively, that I am trying my absolute hardest every single day. I know, in fact, that he is the ONLY thing I will ever work this hard for. In theory, I am sane.

But then. Oh, then. He wakes up between us in bed and starts smiling before his eyes even open. He crawls around in the dark until he finds me and then "pop!" his eyes open and he grins and rubs his face into my belly and grins some more. He loves me - I am the absolute center of his world and just seeing me when he first wakes up is enough to make him so, so happy.

Shit, man. That's some pressure.

~Ashby

Baby face

2010-09-28T11:41:00.001-07:00

This is my favorite face in the world.

Sin

2010-09-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

He washed his hands in melted copper and
they smelled like blood and cinnamon
for days.

There are easier ways to forget
the rush of falling
and the way the ground tastes,
dirt lingering under your tongue.

I'll hold the flashlight
while you turn the magazine pages
our blankets a flannel igloo
glowing from inside.

An acrostic

2010-09-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

Want to play hookie today? We'll sneak
Out and meet up at the ocean. I'll bring the wine and you bring some
Radishes and cheddar cheese. We'll throw rocks into the water and
Keep time by the sun, since there's nowhere to be anyway.

Silly Mama

2010-09-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

I wondered if you'd be sad that we were gone.
I wondered if you'd cry because you missed us.
I wondered if you'd be scared that we were gone forever.
I wondered if you'd hold our absence against us.
I wondered if you'd wonder if we still loved you.

You saw us, waking from your nap, and you smiled and wiggled and smiled more.
And then you whined because your diaper was wet.

I wonder how I got so dumb.

Happy Birthday

2010-09-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

To my husband:

Twenty nine years ago
twenty nine summers and twenty nine rings in
an oak tree
ago
you made your presence known.
I wonder if your mother knew who she was delivering into the world
knew the full weight of your small body on the earth.
I bet she did.
I bet she looked at you and saw, in those first moments,
the work your hands would do,
the bruises your limbs would carry,
the way your voice would rise into the world
and speak of love
without even saying it.
I bet she shivered then, feeling the change in the air,
feeling the shift in gravity,
knowing, for sure, the world had changed,
that the small body she kissed and cradled
was you.

Haikus

2010-09-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

There is orange juice
and ice in a mason jar
sitting on my desk

I am quite thirsty
so I take a couple sips
mmm it's delicious

How's that for poetry?

Hey, I never promised it would be good.

Nine Months

2010-09-16T05:49:00.001-07:00

It has been nine months since I've been here. Nine months - how did I do that? And oh my, what a nine months.

When I last wrote, I was "with child" but now, nine months later, that child is decidedly with us. We've done some writing in the family blog, but I haven't been back to this space since Miles was born. Maybe the reason it's been so long is because this is my blog, just mine, and it hasn't felt like "just mine" exists anymore. That's not a complaint - I love this cramped new existence my heart has taken on (how full can it possibly be??). But I think it is, maybe, time to come back here a little more often - to remember that I exist and, also, to figure out if I've really changed as much as I feel like I have.

A challenge, to me, then. A poem a day. Not necessarily a good poem (I have never made such a promise!), but a poem. Starting.....now?

I will take the way you curl against me in your sleep and

store it away

The way leaves store sunlight in July

And I will survive the winter

on only the smell of your skin

Sandy Pants

2010-08-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

Living near the beach definitely has its perks.

Dangling toes in the waves? Perk.
Listening to the gulls and terns? Perk.
Picnics on the rocks in the evening? Perk.
Eating handfuls of sand and chasing it with a pile of seaweed and some small rocks? Oh, definitely a perk.

Sand diapers? Not so much a perk.

Life Preserver

2010-08-02T12:09:00.000-07:00

Miles had his first sailing adventure yesterday! It was . . . . interesting.

I feel like I say that alot these days when asked how something was with the baby. How is sleep? Um, interesting. How is dinnertime in? Certainly interesting. Well, sailing was like that, too. We're really, really lucky when it comes to the baby thing; we've got a happy, flexible, not-easily-ruffled little guy, and it makes doing all the things we used to do really pretty easy. Miles is only 6 months old and already we've been hiking and camping and swimming in the ocean and out to eat at restaurants and to see bands at pubs - he doesn't cramp our style so much as add a little extra pizazz (and spit up) to it.

That being said - whoa sailing. When Jill came over for dinner on Friday she invited us to go out on the boat and we leapt at the chance. I grew up on the water (and in it) and Jesse has never been on a sailboat, so he was psyched to try it. And we just kind of assumed, given that Miles is a total fish and likes pretty much everything, that he would feel the same. What we didn't factor into the equation was . . . the life jacket of doom.
OH. MY. GOD.

Apparently, life jackets are crap. And sunscreen makes him shiny.

And shiny is crap too.

The instant we strapped him into his just-purchased, coastguard-approved vest he started making horrible guinea pig noises. The guniea pig noises escalated into hyena noises and he pretty much started flipping out before we even left the dock. He settled down for the dingy ride out to the mooring, but then once we were settled onto the boat and had cast off, the hyena-pig returned. I spent the first hour of the sail with him attached to my boob, balancing on my lap like a little buoy and alternately whining and sleeping.

We were able to enjoy the sun and waves and spicy chips and giraffe nuts and goat songs and all the other stuff that goes along with sailing (sailing with Jill, at least) while the young Captain slumbered.

Then upon awakening and realizing that, jesus christ, I'm still in this freaking life jacket, holy god, the most tantrumy of tantrums I have EVER experiences from my little angel ensued. We're talking eyes screwed shut, flailing fists, wailing at full volume for like 6 hours. (Or 15 minutes. I'm not sure. Whatever). And then, as is typical of my dear child, once he realized that, sorry honey, mommy can't do anything about it because we're on a freaking sailboat in the middle of the ocean, (and once we allowed him to be naked - little nudist) he settled down and spent the rest of the sail calmly watching the waves, smiling, eating a banana, and chewing on the jib lines.

So yeah, sailing. It was interesting.

Toby

2010-07-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

We're rabbit-sitting this weekend.

This is Toby. He is lovely.

He likes carrots, not chard, and belongs to Eliza and Jamison. Eliza wanted to call him Frank.

Toby was a good choice.

And he's off

2010-07-23T18:44:00.000-07:00

Miles is crawling.
And by crawling I mean flinging himself forward violently until he reaches his destination.

See, on Wednesday he figured out the mechanics of crawling. Knee, knee, arm, arm, repeat. Easy enough.

On Thursday he added in a step. Knee, knee, arm, arm, lunge forward onto the ground, repeat.

And this afternoon, he said screw it to the whole crawling process in general, and decided to just stick with the lunging part. Which he does, with gusto. And, a little disturbingly, he also adds in a very energetic little "sieg heil" arm salute before each lunge. If he asks for a pair of combat boots and a copy of Mein Kampf for his first birthday, I'll start worrying.

A visual:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashbyandjesse/4821313021/

This week has been pretty incredible in the land of Miles. I remember the 12 week mark being huge - it seemed like he suddenly became a new baby at that point, somehow. It was a major turning point - he was suddenly more independent, and could do so many things he'd been struggling to do just days before. It seems like the 6 months and 1 week mark is similar. My little man is on the go, but he is also totally loving life. He is content to hang out on the floor and cruise around wrecking things, leaving Mom and Dad to momentarily think "ah, a moment to myself" before we notice that he's climbed under the table and is eating our shoes. Ah the joys of mobility.

In all honesty, though, I love that he's moving. He is so much happier being able to interact with the world. He's like this constant bundle of buzzing energy and he finally has something real to do with it. When he crawls his arms fly out in huge arcs like he's freestyle swimming, and he lifts his feet up into the air above his head like he's participating in a wheelbarrow race, wiggling his butt around. Never one for energy conservation, it's like he uses as many movements as possible for everything he does. And god, he's so funny to watch. He plays now, waving whatever he finds in the air like a prize and babbling to it until we realize that oh, yeah, electrical things probably aren't good baby toys and take it away. Jerks.

Down on the Farm

2010-07-22T18:22:00.000-07:00

We have a new family addiction - this place . It's become a bit of a weekly routine now - after Miles' mid-day nap, we hop in the car and head down to the farm. First we pick a few pints of raspberries from the enormous, rambling patch, while Miles rides in the Ergo and studies the raspberry leaves and begs tastes of the berries. Then, when Mr. Fussypants starts showing up, he and I take a break under a nearby oak for a little snack. While he noisily nurses, I get to stretch out in the grass and watch the butterflies in the hay field. Once we've picked our pints we usually find Jo, the farmer, a delightful tidbit of a woman with cropped pants and cropped hair, tossing a bag of fresh basil into our car.

Miles spends some time tearing around on his hands and knees under the apple trees, probably ingesting more grass and insect parts than is strictly safe, while we wade through the chest-high perrenial garden with Jo's scissors. I've found the sweet spot in the huge, wild garden, a spot to pause for a moment where the air suddenly smells so strongly of lemon balm and morning glory that it's like a little high - I forget where I am for a second and just breathe, delighted.

Once we've got armfuls of flowers for the kitchen table, we trot across the street to visit Maud, the Suffolk Punch draft horse, and the rest of the livestock. Beau Chemin is a preservation farm, so all of their livestock are endangered Heritage breeds, breeds that were common in farming years ago and perfectly suited to their jobs, but that have almost died out in the wake of mechanization and the age of inbred, standardized animal breeds. The vast majority of livestock breeds in the US have disappeared forever - farms like this one are trying to hold onto, and spread, some of the old breeds because, in truth, they are far superior when it comes to health, longevity and usually even temperament. Miles loves Maud, with her enormous velvet face and steamy horse lips. I think he thinks she's Ginger, but bigger. He is also a big fan of Jack, the donkey. He's not a heritage breed. He's, as Jo puts it, "just a donkey. We keep him for comic relief."

It's strange how much joy we've been getting out of our little farm trips. When we drive away Miles is covered from head to toe with dirt and raspberry juice and smashed blades of grass, and the whole car smells like flowers and basil, and we find ourselves breathing deeply and just grinning the whole ride home. Life is pretty good around here.

~Ashby

Port in the Storm

2010-07-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

We had the most incredible electrical storm I have ever experiences last night. We were having dinner with Mike and Lydia and heard a tornado warning (I know, right?) on the radio. Then, like it had just been waiting for its cue, a huge flash of lightning brightened the sky and there was a growl of thunder that lasted long enough that Miles actually lost interest in the noise before it was over. It was really an incredible storm, though - very little thunder, just lightning over and over and over again, with pauses never longer than two seconds between the next flash. Driving home felt like being under a really huge strobe light, and every time the sky lit up we could see the cornstalks whipping back and forth along the side of the road, and water in the deep puddles frothing around like the ocean. It was so intense that we found this poor little tree frog (we have tree frogs in Maine?) seeking respite at our basement window when we got home.

The most interesting thing, though, wasn't even the storm - it was my reaction to it. I love a good storm (and man, this was a good one), always have. I've always been the type to drive down to the beach to watch the waves (following in Grammie's legacy there) or make a mug of tea and perch by the window, nose pressed against the steaming glass. But last night, I was a total mess. Like, heart beating out of my chest, anxiously squeazing the baby, frizzy-haired mess. I know I can'tblame the hair thing on the storm. Let me anyway, please. It was bizarre - I was completely panicked about going outside, even from Lydia's house to the car, and then into our own house. I actually tried to convince Jesse to drive around until the storm was over. Visions of Jesse getting struck by lightning and lying, smoldering, in the driveway kept flashing through my head. I wasn't able to settle down and actually start enjoying the storm until Miles was asleep in his crib, all the windows were closed, everything electrical was unplugged, the dogs were upstairs and Jesse had solemnly vowed not to touch the screen door.

What has happened to me? I blame motherhood. Have my fierce tigress protective instincts robbed me of any drop of enjoyment I might get out of semi-dangerous situations? And more importantly, is this normal?

Breath in, breath out....

2010-07-11T16:05:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this post by saying: I love my son. There is not a single thing about him I would change, given the chance, and I think he is absolutely perfect.

That being said, holy hell. Whatever this little phase is, Mama will rejoice when it is over. Our normally opinionated, outspoken, energetic baby is still all those things - but now, he's ANGRY. So instead of happy hollering and wiggling, we have ferocious bellowing and flailing. All. Day. Long.

I'm chalking it up to the fact that he is soooooo close to crawling, and is marinating in his frustration all day long. So, for the love of god, crawl baby, crawl!

~Ashby

The Garden Begins

2010-07-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

We finally (finally!) have space for a garden (in the actual ground, not in a kiddie pool - yeah, remind us to tell you about that failed experiment sometime) and are trying our hand at a little plot in the side yard, and some border gardens and potted veggies and herbs. We truthfully don't expect much, since we've never done this before, and have a less-than-stellar track record with houseplants (shhh, don't tell the seedlings). We're calling it our "practice garden." It's so much fun.

We planted 9 tomato plants in pots alongside the driveway, where they get a lot of sun, and Jesse planted a little herb garden. I put in a perrenial bed along the front walk, and we also tilled up a little 8x8 plot for veggies. Here's how she started:

May 27, 2010

June 13, 2010

July 6, 2010

We've already had a few learning experiences - major cabbage worm infestation on the cabbages, broccoli, kale and brussel sprouts, and some Japanese beetles lurking around the beans. But we're figuring it out! We are so passionate about knowing, and liking, where our food comes from, that it's been so cool to start bringing the process even closer to home. We ate our first tomatoes yesterday, some sungolds and early girls. Amazing.

~Ashby

Shark Pants

2010-07-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

I love that he loves the water. It's so much fun.

I also love his swim diaper, which has fish on it, and I call his "shark pants." There is even a theme song. It's a blend of batman and duck tales.

Na na na na na na na na Shark paaaants. Woo oo.

Awesome.

Ninja Mom

2010-05-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

I was asked by the ladies over at Offbeat Mama to write a piece about Ashby for Mother's Day. Here it is.

Growing up I always wanted to be a ninja, but turns out I am married to one instead. I would spend my youth practicing my moves in my pajamas with a tie wrapped around my head while my wife was off rescuing drowning worms. I would study the Karate Kid trilogy for hours when my wife was scared of the TV. I had the duds, the moves and the desire- but my wife had the gift.

I didn’t know this when we met, or got married- like a true ninja she kept her true identity a secret even from those who were closest to her. One can become a ninja through a variety of ways: years of training, radioactive ooze, or meeting a nice Japanese man who works in your apartment complex.

Then there are the folks who are just born with the gift. It lays dormant for years waiting for the right moment to show the individual their destiny. For my wife, her destiny was revealed in a tub. A real mom ninja possess skills that mere mortals do not have or can never perfect.

My wife is a master of the breast pump, has advanced training in diapering and has perfected the swaddle sleeper hold. I spend my time wrestling with the baby to feed him, swaddle him, change him or reverse the current meltdown. Ashby uses her advanced combat skills to do all of the above while making dinner. It all looks like a choreographed dance, some days I think she has 6 hands.

The element of surprise is most often used at night. I will feel a poke to my side and a whisper, “The baby needs to be rocked- can you do it please?” As I am convincing my legs to work and then my arms and hopefully a piece of my brain, Ninja mom has already nursed, rocked, burped and changed by the time I get over to the crib. I never even see her move. The most impressive is the use of this skill is through song. She knows the exact song to sing to the baby at any given time to offset his mood, this is a very important ninja trait. I am still not sure who she is using the element of surprise on most of the time, me or the baby.
Improvisation and the ability to manipulate your surroundings to create anything you need is one of the most essential Mom Ninja skills. I believe that MacGyver learned everything he knows from his mom. It is about finding out how to make a lunch out of garlic and cottage cheese with no hands. It is being able to navigate a sleeping baby through the house in the dark without waking him. She possesses a keen eye to be able to find a flat level surface to change a diaper in any surrounding. Similar to origami, the art of turning a Moby into a burp cloth, shirt, jacket, purse, table cloth, diaper pad, hat (for herself or the baby), parachute or spare tire simultaneously.

I accepted long ago that I may not have what it takes to be a ninja, but it is even more comforting to know that I watch a real life ninja everyday. Ashby is very patient with me and teaches me the way of the Mom Ninja, and I learn slowly. Everyday I am in awe of how easy she makes it all look and I am consoled by the fact that, although I may never be a ninja, at least I get to be one’s sidekick.

Nurse Ashby is on call

2010-04-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Jesse is home, after 5 days in the hospital, one positive MRSA swab, 274 gallons of IV antibiotics, 5 big-butted nurses in hazmat suits and 410 hours of the Food Network on cable.

Miles is happy to have Dad home.

I am kind of excited, too, mainly because I have been assigned the job of "wet-packing the knee wound." Which involves, and this is a quote from the doctor, "yanking the gauze out hard enough to make the skin bleed a little." Payback for a rugby-induced week of single parenting? Yes, yes please.

~Ashby

Bliss? Erm, perhaps not.

2010-04-18T16:34:00.000-07:00

It's school vacation now though so all three of us get a whole, uninterrupted week together. Bliss.

Remember that, from yesterday's blog? Well, it seems I may have been wrong about this vacation.

My lovely husband is going to be in the hospital for 2-3 days because a minor rugby injury from last Saturday on his knee got so infected he needed to have surgery to drain/clean it out and needs Iv antibiotics for at least 2 days.

Awesome.

Poor guy - he's had 3 knee surgeries before, so initially when his knee started hurting he assumed he'd just "tweaked" the old injury - happened before, no big deal. But yesterday when suddenly the pain was excrutiating and his LYMPH NODES started to swell up, we geniuses were like "oh, hmm, maybe we should get that checked out." Fast forward to 4 hours later, sitting in the er with a quickly crankifying 3 month old, hearing that my husband is going to have to 1)go under the knife and 2) be gone for up to 3 days . . . certainly not a high point. Plus, his knee is a ridiculous open wound. Blech.

So fastforward to this morning - my awesome baby let me sleep til 8:00 (not straight to 8:00 mind you, but I was in bed at 8!) and my poor husband forgot my phone number and needed the nurse to look it up. Oh life.

Also, I ate an avocado.

~Ashby

Miles To Go Before I Sleep....Miles at 3 months

2010-04-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

It seems we have reached the inevitable "adjusting sleep patterns when Mom goes back to work" stage. My little man who has been sleeping a 7-8 hour stretch for the last month or so is suddenly sleeping 5 hours, then up every 1 1/2 after that to "eat" - and by eat I mean whine, latch on, and fall back asleep, haha. To be honest, I don't hate it - I get snuggle time, I'm still getting an ok amount of sleep, and it adds to the total time I get to hang out with the little dude. But shhh, don't tell him that. I've got him convinced that my horrible singing voice is due entirely to sleep deprivation.

My first week back to work went as well as can be expected - I missed him like crazy and once leaked milk through my shirt in science class (it led to a cool discussion, at least) but he was with my Mom, and she brought him to visit me at lunch every day. She also cleaned, did laundry, cooked, walked my dogs, weeded the garden and chatted with me after school before Jesse came home. I was certainly sad to see her go! It's school vacation now though so all three of us get a whole, uninterrupted week together. Bliss.

Miles is pretty incredible, as usual. He's 14 weeks old now(!), weighs over 16 lbs, can scoot backwards across the floor and looooves hanging out in his bouncy seat. He also grabs toys from in front of him and picks them up now, which I am totally floored by. I know a year from now I'm going to be watching him zoom around the house, throwing things, but for right now the whole "reach and grasp" thing seems like an olympic achievement! He is the only baby at his daycare (the rest are 1-3 year olds) and is totally spoiled - the tots pat his feet and talk to him, and since they discovered he loves singing, whenever he cries they all run over to seranade him. I witnessed it once - holy cuteness batman.
Major milestones this month~

~Moved on from Tracy Chapman (whom he still loves, just not exclusively) to Prince and Disney music
~First swimming trip! Looooved the water, and was totally cool with being splashed in the face by toddlers.
~First roadtrip and babysitting experience - Jess and I went to see a sox game and the Bartkes watched him. And let him watch cable. And stay up late. Yep, they've got this grandparent thing down pat.

Showering off after his first pool adventure

~Ashby

Three Months In.....

2010-04-08T18:25:00.000-07:00

...to this Mama thing, and I can say without a doubt that this is by far the most fun I've ever had. And the most conversations about bodily functions.

Things Are Going to be Different

2010-03-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

My wife and I have always lived a fairly uncomplicated life. We enjoy the simple things - walks in the woods with the dogs, long car rides and nice simple dinners made from scratch with local ingredients, over which we sit and talk about our days. We’ve worked to reduce the clutter in our lives so we can exist, and enjoy just being. When Ashby got pregnant we continued these routines, except with a bit more clutter slowly filling our closets and a few more naps interspersed. Over dinner we would envision what our life with a child would be like, the adventures we would enjoy, and whose traits he would be better off with. Then we’d plop down on the couch and watch part of a movie and go to bed. We would sleep, wake up to an alarm, go to work and start the process all over again. Everyone kept saying to us, “things are going to be different when you have a kid”. They always said it with a slightly evil smile, and went on to explain that we would never again have time to cook nice meals or sit and enjoy each other’s company or brush our teeth. I always knew that those external things would change, I was ready for that. I was lucky enough to be in the rare club of expecting Dads who could already change an infant’s diaper faster than you can whistle Dixie while simultaneously reading “Good Night Moon” to a restless toddler. I knew we were being a bit naive in thinking that the transition wouldn’t be all that noticeable, but the land of naïve is a wonderful place to live.

When we got home things sure were different, but it was more of a shift in routines kind of different than anything else. We still cook nice simple dinners from scratch with local ingredients – only now we trade off baby bouncing and veggie chopping duties. We still sit and enjoy those dinners together, usually while they’re still hot, with Miles bouncing on a knee or swinging beside the table. Although we take the dogs for fewer walks, take fewer car rides, and never have to worry about using an alarm, I wouldn’t say that life is all that different, on the surface. It’s just changed.

What I never put much thought into was the internal change that my son would bring. The warning that your emotional state will never have the same balance again is never tossed out as readily as the other “your life is gonna change”s that experienced parents like to throw your way – all the “oh you won’t have the time, energy, money, freedom, waistline to do this or that.” Now, don’t get me wrong, on some level I knew that I would have some kind of emotional response to bringing another being into my inner circle, but what I didn’t take into account was the ripple effect, how it would end up affecting every aspect of my life.

This ripple effect started very subtly, when Miles was born. From the first instant when the midwife handed him to Ashby, I reached around and he grabbed onto my finger, and I felt a rush of emotion that stayed. It was as if someone opened me up, poured in a large vat of fatherhood and then sealed me back up again. There was no doubt that something big had happened, and that stayed with me. Somehow, though, I still didn’t feel different – I felt suddenly right. It was something that made me feel more like me than I had ever felt before. I wondered if it was just the sleep deprivation or how quickly it all had changed, and I waited, a little nervously, for the “difference” to set in.

It wasn’t until this past weekend at 7:30 am riding alone in my car down I-95 that I realized how different things were. I was on my way to a rugby tournament, my main source of stress relief, after a particularly difficult week at work. Although rugby is something that has always brought me a great deal of joy and satisfaction, that morning the game was an afterthought. What I kept thinking about was how much I missed getting up with Miles at 6:00 on a Saturday morning and tip-toeing out of the bedroom so my wife could get a few extra hours of well deserved sleep; sneaking down to the kitchen, placing Miles in his swing facing out the window, putting on a Lyle Lovett record and then plopping down on the couch with a hot cup of coffee to watch my son swing, staring sleepily out the window and then turning to smile at me. I watch him rock back and forth and back and forth. Then once he is ready for a snack and a snooze we crawl back into bed with Mom and cuddle up. This is now my ideal weekend, far from a rugby match and loud post-game party. My favorite moments these days are a toothless smile, squeaks and coos, and naps with my son curled up on my chest. Now, when I find out that friends are expecting their first child, I look them right in the eye, smile and say, “things are going to be different when you have a kid.”

-Jesse

edit: Also published here.

Two Months

2010-03-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

Holy crap, two months???
Little man is astonishing in so many ways - firstly, he's ENORMOUS. He weighs 14 1/2 lbs now, and is steadily wearing 3-6 month clothes. He and I go to a Nursing Mom's group every week and he is the second largest baby there - the only one bigger is 6 months old, and only has a pound and a half on him. On top of being huge, he is also crazy strong - he's pushing up into a mermaid-like pose, and occasionally into crawl position (gahhhhhhh no!) and is happiest when he's on his belly, talking to himself in the mirror. He is a big fan of himself, thinks he's quite the looker.
He's become incredibly chatty, too. I've never heard a baby so young talk so much. He makes lots of different sounds, and strings them together while looking you right in the eye and bobbing his head around. We're already starting to equate different vocalizations with different situations, and our communication is really getting great. Rarely does he get so frustrated that he actually cries, except in the car. He HATES his carseat. Ugh. Eventually he settles down and sleeps, but the intial 5 minutes of screaming is horrible. I've learned there's nothing I can do about it, because if I pull over to comfort him he just starts up again as soon as I start driving again. So I usually just contort myself awkwardly to reach behind me into his carseat and hold his hand. Usually my entire arm is numb by the end of a trip to the grocery store.
We live in the Moby or the sling, still. He has started to get frustrated with the Moby when he's not tired - he wants to see more. So I put him in the "kangaroo carry" in the sling when he's alert, and in the Moby when he's sleepy.He's started to get so wiggly that cuddling is tough unless he's half asleep. The kid NEVER stops moving - we are in so much trouble when he starts to crawl.
On the homefront, things are pretty wonderful. We've all settled into a rhythm, and it works. My favorite time of day is bedtime (his) because our routine is just so nice and comfy. Bath, pjs, book and rocking time, all three of us.All in all it's a much nicer existance than the one I had two months ago. And that one was pretty awesome, too.
I have to go back to work in 5 weeks, which I'm avoiding thinking about. I am having a really, really hard time with the concept, to be honest. I know, intellectually, that someone else will be able to take care of him and he'll be fine. But I can't really picture it - I know what all his cries mean, I know exactly how to hold him or bounce him or what voice to use in each situation. I keep thinking that he's going to be so sad and upset and no one's going to know what to do. Which is, of course, complete crap.
Without further ado, what you all put up with this long-ass blog for, a picture....

The dreaded Chicken Hat!

Water birth

2010-02-26T06:44:00.000-08:00

I've written my birth story already, but the "water birth" aspect of it has still been kicking around in my head ever since. Every time someone says "oh, a water birth, was it cool?" I want to be like "gahhhhh are you kidding it was the awesomest thing eveeeeer!" but that wouldn't really explain it either, plus it would be a little intense and scary. I finally sat down tonight (the baby and husband are in bed - yes I am squandering possible sleep time. Yes I know that's dumb) to try to get it out. Hmmm. Anyway, my musings......

“You look beautiful when you’re in labor,” I heard my midwife say from somewhere far away. Looking back now, I wish I had been present enough to thank her, to smile or to even recognize that I heard her words. I did hear them, somehow, from the soft blue place I floated. I heard them but they hovered somewhere outside me, like the lights and the noises in the hallway and everything except my belly and my breath and the water.
I floated through my labor, literally and figuratively. I spent seven hours in a big round tub, making my own waves as each contraction made waves through my body. I rolled sideways and clung to the edge and kicked against the pain and swayed in the wake and then floated again. I sank deeper and deeper into the water, into the tub and into myself as my baby kicked hard to come to the surface and I dove down to meet him.
On “land” while I waited for my cervix to dilate enough to get into the tub (5 cm), I had paced the floor and rocked on the edge of the bed, breathing hard and finally seeking refuge in the hospital shower, where I closed my eyes and pretended I was swimming. I moved quickly, racing the pain in my bare feet and hospital gown, mentally urging my uterus to contract, murmuring “open, open” to my cervix each time another contraction swelled. I knew, somehow, that the water would make everything right, so I begged my body to move faster, to get me in that tub! My husband knew it too, and reminded the nurses often that I wanted the water. I felt strong and tough, maybe too much so. I fought against each contraction, struggling to find a way to bend my tense muscles around the pain.
Finally it was time to get into the water. Immediately my body melted, and instead of tightening against the waves, the rest of my muscles were soft and weightless and all I had to focus on was my womb, the center of everything. Without having to think, I found the right way to breathe through each contraction and then, the moment that I suddenly knew breathing wasn’t enough anymore, to hum and then to moan and then to scream. I didn’t have to choose these things – it wasn’t about being brave or tough, it was just about being, period. The water showed me that right away. From the moment I lowered myself into the water, my memory is a blur of murmured conversations and gentle hands and cranberry juice. I floated in an incredibly private place, naked in the water in a room full of people. I was barely aware of the things going on around me – my husband pouring warm water over me (and accidentally squirting my with the icey faucet), the nurses checking the baby’s heartbeat, my midwife whispering “she looks like the quintessential woman in labor, look how she floats in it!” It all found its way to my hormone-drunk brain, but by the time it got there it was diluted, dimmed and not very important anymore. I was somewhere else, somewhere primitive and dark and wet. When I think about my labor now, I sometimes picture myself in a sort of womb, experiencing the labor the way my son did – rosy darkness, warmth, the sound of water, the rush of blood pounding, the world shrinking and shrinking and shrinking around us and then, when we are barely there anymore, opening up again so we can breathe. We swim together through each wave, him pushing up towards the light at the surface, and me diving down to find him where it’s dark.
When I finally met my boy, I lifted him out of the water with pruny hands, and he opened his eyes and looked at me, and we were both surprised to find ourselves on land

~Ashby

Edit: Also published here.

Popping In

2010-02-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

Six weeks old today.

Holy cow.

~Ashby

One Month, golly gee

2010-02-04T06:44:00.000-08:00

This has been, by far, the fastest month of my entire life. I never really got it when parents said "it flies by" until now. Wow. On one hand, it feels like we've had him forever, but on the other hand it's like yesterday I was hanging out in the labor tub, getting pissed off about the amount of sunlight in the room.

Miles is, obviously, the best baby in the universe. Duh. He doesn't do anything miraculous like sleep through the night (ha!) or speak Spanish (yet), but he does other miraculous things like wake up every morning wanting to play for an hour, and stare wide-eyed at the window, which he just noticed, and suck on Jesse's nose. He has been holding his head up since the day he was born, but now he actually looks at us when he does it, without crossing his eyes! He talks in his sleep, too, which is so killer.
Sleep isn't happening so much, for me and Miles at least - our current nighttime schedule involves 3 hours of solid sleep right when we go to bed, then he's up every hour (no exxageration) to snack after that. I've been attempting to keep him awake longer at each feeding so he gets more in his belly, but it's legit impossible to keep him up once he passes out at the boob. I strip him, flick his feet, make him do situps, whine plaintively in his ear - nuthin. He just lays there all droopy with a satisfied smirk on his face. And then, of course, is awake, hungry again, in 45 minutes. It's cute. Everyone keeps telling me that this will change on its own, that eventually he'll know the difference between night and day and just naturally do a little more eating during the day, a little more sleeping at night. I, however, am skeptical.

It's unbelievable how much life has changed in all the obvious ways, and how little it's changed at the core. I mean yes, I never ever ever have two free hands unless he's passed out strapped to my body in the Moby, and when he does miraculously fall asleep in his swing I find myself running around the house doing everything at warp speed in case he wakes up. And things like, oh, leaving the house seem far less important when there's such a cute little person there. So yeah, things are different. But really, everything makes much more sense now - we already spend all our time with people with kids, so now there's just one more kid (the house is like a daycare on weekends when everyone comes over with their wee ones). And I don't know, it feels like we've been waiting for him for so long that now that he's here it's exactly the same as it was, just easier to breathe.

I already get all weepy when I think about how fast he's growing. Sure, there are things I dislike about this stage - lack of sleep, almount of spitup flowing down my shirt on a regular basis, inability to do silly things like eat a meal or shower. But they're nothing compared to how amazing it is to have this tiny person curled up on my chest, squeaking in his sleep. I think that that image of him, the top of his head pressed against my throat and his fists curled up under his chin, is how I'll always think of him. Which I'm sure he'll hate when he's 25.
And holy cow, do I adore my husband. Wow. I was worried that once Bundle came, I would find myself sadly feeling less for Jesse, since all the love directed itself towards the baby. Well, I'm an idiot. Apparently there is not finite amount of love, and things just seem to multiply exponentially because man, I am swimming in it lately. It's almost gross

~Ashby

Birth Blog

2010-01-12T14:30:00.000-08:00

At 9:18 am on Friday, January 8, 2010, Miles Roy Bartke joined us here on earth, and that is fantastic.

This has taken a few days to write, due to a combination of tiredness, visitors, slow processing, and a newfound addiction to laying in bed with a baby on my chest. But I've been looking forward to kind of mentally processing everything and getting it into some organized form, so here we go...
I'd been having teeny contractions (braxton-hicks, apparently) on and off for weeks, and was going into a mild state of panic because my mother never had actual "labor" with any of us, so she barely made it to the hospital. I didn't want that to be me! Thursday I woke up feeling.....different. Just, strange. Calm, but expectant. I started having early contractions around 8, and they progressed all day at work until when I got home in the afternoon they were every 3 minutes apart, steadily. The only issue was, they didn't hurt - they just felt like tightenings, like Braxton Hicks. On the urging of Jesse, we went to the hospital to get checked, just to be sure, with my Mom's history and all. They hooked me up and I was indeed having contractions regularly, but there was no change in my cervix, so they sent me home. My midwife said "don't worry, when active labor starts, you'll know." I had a minor meltdown in the car - I was so frustrated, and was basically thinking that I am not going to have any idea when I'm actually in labor.

We went to bed and then, bam, two hours later, I sat up in bed, shook Jesse awake and said "I'm in labor, call Bridget, let's go." Apparently they were right - I knew :o)

Then the fun started - we got to the hospital at midnight and I was 3cm, 90% effaced. I wanted a waterbirth, and knew I could get in the tub at 5 cm, so I spent the next couple hours pacing and rocking through contractions, willing my body to "open, open" so I could get in the water. My hospital is amazing - my midwife and nurse checked in frequently, but seeing that I was doing my thing without needing anything, they gave Jesse and I lots of space. Talking later about the birth, Jesse said that it was wonderful to be left alone, just the two of us in the dimly lit room so I could do what I needed to do, with whatever support I needed from him. It was empowering, the staff's obvious belief that I knew what to do, and being left to do it.

At about 3, they came in to check me again (oh ouch contractions laying in a bed suck - I don't know how women do it) and I was past 5 cm. Yay tub! Getting in the tub was heaven - immediately, my body figured out how to breathe and move through the contractions. The water did really cool things - contractions "on land" involve a lot more muscles, it seems, since you're trying to support yourself somehow. Floating in the water, I was able to relax everything else and so the pain was just in my uterus. Working with just one muscle is so much easier. I stayed in the tub for the next 6 hours, getting out just to pee. I was a prune by the time it was over!

The real "active" part of my labor is a total blur. I remember adjusting my breath as they got stronger, and then breathing turned to humming, and then I don't even know what. Hormones are amazing - I was completely passing out between contractions, floating in the water with a vague awareness of what was going on in the room but a total inability (or disinterest) to respond. Jesse said that our midwife kept coming in and commenting on how I looked like I'd done this before, like the "quintessential woman in labor." I don't really remember that, but I bet hearing it, on some level, helped me feel even more strong throughout. I threw up through my whole labor, which sucked a little, but to be honest I didn't really care at that point. It got to the point where I couldn't even have ice chips without yakking, so they gave me an iv (still in the tub) with fluids, and I felt a lot more energetic after that.

Jesse was amazing -I didn't use much interaction during labor, kind of just floated in my personal space bubble and occasionally mumbled things in response to questions. But he never got in my way, and seemed to instinctively know when to touch me and when to stay close but apart. The only oops was when he accidentally sprayed me with ice water from the faucet at the peak of a contraction!

When it was time to push, I woke up a little. Pushing wasn't what I expected - it didn't hurt so much as just feel terrible - I was expecting another kind of natural sensation to just work with, like labor had been. Instead, I felt like I didn't really know what to do, and just sort of was guessing. But my midwife, again, was amazing, and gave me lots of feedback, and when I really started getting into it, Jesse was absolutely wonderful - I held onto his hands and pulled against them when I was pushing, which helped a ton, and then, holy shit, after about 45 minutes of pushing, I could suddenly feel the point. Through the "ring of fire" I felt his head move, and then I felt his feet kicking (he was helping) and reaching down I could feel the top of his head. It was suddenly really real, and in my next contraction I bore down hard and then there he was, floating in the water. I pulled him up to my chest, with the nurse, and they did his whole exam right there in the tub, with him protesting heartily.

Labor was legitimately the coolest experience I've ever had. Every worry or concern totally disintegrated, as did most conscious thought, and it's such a blur of sensations in my head. I feel so lucky that everything worked the way it did - he was in the right position, everything progressed as it should, there weren't any complications. The only time the thought of drugs entered my head was when they checked me and discovered I was almost 9cm and I thought offhandedly "huh, I guess if I wanted drugs it would be too late." I know how incredibly fortunate I am to have had a labor like that, and it's amazing, still, thinking about it. I feel so differently about my body, and my husband, and even my baby - like we worked together to do something totally incredible, and kicked ass at it. I think that attitude of everyone at my hospital had a lot to do with that - not once did anyone act like there was anything wrong with anything I did, be it humming scales or rolling in circles in the tub or moaning. Everyone was so calm and acted almost as if they were just there to observe me - it was really my thing, and their lack of doubt gave me no room to doubt my own ability.

This has been a really long blog - there's so much else in my head, about the days that followed and the way it felt to lay in bed holding my son for hours and how much more I feel towards my husband and my mother and myself and every perfect, surreal moment since. But the baby needs a boob, and duty calls :o)

Christmas

2009-12-25T06:40:00.001-08:00

It's Christmas. I'm full of cinnamon roll and orange juice, and of course baby, and it's nice. Jesse's family is here, so the whole house smells like pasta sauce, and that's nice too.

My family is on Cape Cod, and my son's not born yet. That's . . . strange. It's a good day, a very good day, but it doesn't quite feel like Christmas.

Solstice

2009-12-20T10:24:00.000-08:00

Winter solstice has always been one of my favorite days of the year, probably because I'm a sucker for symbolism, and the solstice is ripe with it. Our days have been getting shorter and shorter through the fall and we all find ourselves pining for a little sunlight, a little extra time, a little energy, even as our bodies slow down in preparation for the mini-hibernation that happens in the winter, especially in a place like Maine. As we slow down and the world slows down, we find ourselves getting a little hopeless, almost forgetting what it feels like to be fully awake, as we prepare for the long stretch of cold that's coming.

And then there's the solstice, a reminder that things are, in fact, at a turning point - even while it feels like it's getting darker and colder, at a point in the year when all we can see is darkness, the sun is coming back. From this day forward, the days get a little bit longer, we have a little bit more sunlight in our day. This holiday is really about taking a leap of faith - believing something that seems entirely impossible, given all the evidence. It's getting colder, we're getting sleepier, the world is getting quieter. But believe, the solstice tells us, believe that the opposite is true - the world is waking back up, even as we slip into sleep.

This year, solstice seems especially poignant, as it's another huge turning point in our life. Just like the solstice promises, very soon our days will be getting significantly longer, and our nights shorter and shorter as we enter into a sort of family hibernation - incubating both our new baby and our new selves, as the birth of a baby also means the birth of parents. It seems impossible that everything I can see so clearly right now - my quiet home, my relationship, the rhythm of my life - is about to change dramatically. But like the winter solstice, it's a leap of faith, a reminder to believe - the sun, and our son, are coming.

Candles and Carpal Tunnel

2009-12-14T07:53:00.000-08:00

Solstice Fest 2009 was this past weekend, and yet again I find myself feeling grateful and delightfully surprised by how fantastic a group of people we have in our lives. It's a beautiful thing to be able to offer up an informal invitation a few weeks in advance (or, in some cases, 12 hours) and then somehow have a house full of happy people, bearing delicious food and fun baby hand-me-downs and always creative gifts for the handmade yankee swap. And what's more, it's always a group of people able to make quick, real connections with each other, and negate the necessity for any actual hosting. Damn, I love hosting parties that don't need a host. Decidedly simpler that way.

It was even sweeter this year to be in our own house, and have a little (just a little) more space for everyone, and to fill the space with flickering candles and good-smelling food and one extra-special (read: retarded) Christmas tree. Having a home has always come fairly easily to me - I settle into places quickly, and move on just as quickly. But it's different, this "owning a home" thing. It feels so deliciously domestic that sometimes all I want to do is dance around barefoot and bake cookies. Ok, often that's all I want to do.

I will say that I, as usual, overdid it a little on the food front. I am a chronic under-estimator of others' generosity and an over-estimator of people's appetites, so we always end up with more food than counter space. And this year, a full day spent on my feet baking and then a full night of mingling, however delightful, had me waking up Sunday morning feeling like my feet were about to fall off and unable to uncurl my fingers from the swollen claw shapes they'd taken on during the night. Jesse said all day on Saturday "slow down, we have enough food, take a break." But how do you take a break when you only have 90 lbs of dessert and people are arriving in 4 hours? I tell you, the man is unrealistic.

Love Letter

2009-12-04T04:53:00.001-08:00

Dear baby,

Soon we'll be meeting you, and I've been thinking a lot lately about what kind of world we'll be welcoming you into.

I'm not going to lie to you, at least not yet. There are some bad things in the world. People are sometimes sad, families are sometimes broken, things are rarely equal, and it rains a lot some years. But since we first realized you would be joining us, I've had a very hard time feeling anything but hopeful - there is a lot of bad in the world, it's true, but I think there's more good. It just takes some noticing.

There are people to smile with from the day you are born,

There is beautiful food to store for the long winter,

and magic in unexpected places.

There are quiet moments to think,

And there are days when dancing is the better choice.

There are tiny places that mean everything,

And things so huge and old it's impossible to understand what they mean.

There is soda bread,

and rugby,

and the beauty of feeling small.

I wish, like I'm sure all parent do, that there was a way I could show you all these beautiful things, and keep the bad stuff to myself. I would love to wrap you in a blanket of music and friends and good weather and apple cobbler, and sternly instruct you to close your eyes and hum when the scary parts happen. But of course I can't. And I shouldn't - it's your right to weather a Maine winter or two, so spring seems appropriately miraculous. It's your right to watch people suffer from inequality, and perhaps to suffer yourself, so that you understand why it's important to fight, hard, for what is right. It's your right to have your heart broken once or twice, so that you can realize how amazing it really is when you find someone who won't ever break it again.

So soon now, you'll be coming into this world. I hope you like it.

Heirloom

2009-11-05T12:13:00.000-08:00

It's been a while, eh?

I've spent the past 20 weeks (pregnant women think of time in weeks, I've learned) occupied with other things than blogging I guess. Eating popsicles. Homifying our new house. Teaching kids how to write and read and laugh at themselves. Stocking the freezers with enough kale to carpet the Superdome. Making a small person in my belly.

You know, the usual.

To welcome myself back, here's an old mainstay of my forever-ago livjournaling days - The Happy List.

Things That Make Me Happy:

1. Carrot cake
2. Flemish Giant rabbits
3. Drinking my full gallon of water every day
4. Planning things, even though I don't follow through with 90% of the plans
5. Heirloom tomatoes (especially the purpley ones)
6. Jesse's bread-machine pretzels
7. Jesse, in general
8. The Bundle's room
9. Writing letters
10. Feeling baby elbows against the inside of my bellybutton

*ashby

jet lag

2009-06-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

We are OFFICIALLY on our honeymoon, just a mere 9 months post-wedding. Apparently good honeymoons have the same gestational period as good babies.

We're both sort of feeling this "been awake for 15 hours and it's only 6:00 pm here" thing at the moment, and realizing why people tend to take honeymoons right after their wedding, when they're still riding the adrenaline high, not 9 months later just days after moving into a new house and finishing school. I think the exhaustion is apparent in the manic faces when we finally reached our first hotel this afternoon...

In true ashby-jesse form, this is how we have spent most of our first afternoon in California:

And now, for the zero people out there who still read this long-neglected blog, a pitiful excuse for my lack of writing in the past month...there has been a wee development that has been occupying my mind fully for the past few weeks, that I wasn't quite ready to share, but that I also couldn't avoid sharing. So I just stayed away. And now out with it......

Bun.

Oven.

There you have it. A brief visual:

Not much to see yet (11 weeks and counting) but trust me, it's there. The three gallons of bloody mary mix I chugged on the plane to avoid vomiting are testament to that.

2009-05-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

yesterday, we bought a house.

our own house.

*grin*

Double Sink

2009-04-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

It doesn't take much to make me happy these days...

960 square feet...

Open kitchen...

Daylight basement...

Campsite-like backyard (yes, that is a horseshoe pit)

And a DOUBLE SINK!

Life is pretty exciting right now.

Wake me up before you go go

2009-04-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Or, in the case of this morning, don't wake me up before you pounce on me lustfully. At 6:15 am. On a Tuesday.

Not complaining, mind you, but with such a disconcerting wakeup call (from a guy who generally needs to stand in the shower staring blindly at the wall for 25 minutes before being awake himself), I've been walking around confused-like all day, stumbling into things and mumbling "wait, what?" and then wandering off slack-jawed before anyone responds.

I'm sure I could get used to it, of course.

Happy Bastardized Easter

2009-04-12T06:42:00.000-07:00

Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays, but it's one of those holidays that I completely bastardize into something totally different, and then go on and on about how much I like it. So, really I don't like Easter so much as springtime - and I sort of pick this day to celebrate the whole season. Yeah, not allowed, but I do it anyway.

And this spring, I feel like I'm in the same boat as the ground and the tree and the crocuses (croci?). I feel fertile and energetic and full of possibility just below the surface. And I wonder if some internal gardening may be taking place in the near future (like that image? I'm picturing pruning shears hanging out near my ovaries now - *shudder*). And I'm thinking that would be pretty nice. I like gardens.

Under Contract

2009-04-08T11:13:00.000-07:00

We are under contract for a house.

A HOUSE.

My gosh. When did they start letting 8 year olds buy houses?

And then today

2009-04-04T05:47:00.000-07:00

Sleepy sounds (mine)
Snuggle (him)
Wet nose in ear (Henry's nose, my ear)
Furry face on shoulder (Ginger's, mine)
Smile (definitely mine)

How long could a bad mood really last with what I've got?

today

2009-04-03T15:53:00.000-07:00

skip
wiggle
stern face
soil
smile
sigh
furrow
sniffle
sob
breathe
breathe
breathe
*sigh

Not Less

2009-03-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

I just got this message on facebook (all hail free internet stalking tools....err, I mean networking sites) from someone I knew a long, long time ago.

"I just wanted to let you know after seeing your pictures, particularly your wedding pictures and reading your blog (a bit stalkerish, I know) I'd have to say that your inner soul is still that wonderful, fun-loving free spirit that I've know since girl scouts,. But I do know I envy it, even if it's in the slightest bit. Hope all is well."

And it made me gasp a little at the occasional perfection of the universe's timing. The past few days I have been a little divided - exceedingly happy, on one hand, with my life, and the direction my life is going. But on the other hand (the left one, always the pessimistic left) feeling nostalgic for the whimsical, freer Ashby who used to be so vocal about how big her life was going to be. I've been feeling like, since my life doesn't look like what I thought it would (where are the long lines of eager readers waiting to have their copy of "My Life As A Nomad - The Ashby Connors Story" signed?) that I am not who I used to be either. Like this cozy, small, ordinary, minestrone soup and beach stone life I'm living is a reflection of the fact that my personality, my soul, is actually small and ordinary too. Like I've changed.

And I have no regrets about my life. None. I love minestrone soup, and beach stones, and baby dreams, and the big heap of everyday happy that I've somehow stumbled into. But if I've changed - that I would regret.

This message from a long-lost friend jolted me back, though, and re-aligned my oh-so-misguided perceptions. I am still me - big voiced and big haired and big dreamed - and I will be, no matter where I am. I may be quieter now, I may spend more time baking cookies and walking my dogs than globe-trotting and frolicking. But I'm still, in my own awkward little way, bringing a little bit of "ashby" to everything. And that, my friends, will never be boring.

O'Yum

2009-03-18T15:53:00.000-07:00

We had our St Patrick's day dinner a day late, but the bad timing was in no way reflected in the meal.

While my decidedly non-Irish husband slaved away over corned beef and soda bread, I tried to hide my skepticism by focusing on my pretty birthday flowers. They smell good.

Jesse's foolproof method for making absolutely
perfect corned beef:

-One big hunk of meat
-One too-small crock pot
-Two bottles of Guiness
-Lots of black peppercorns and salt
-More garlic than real Irish people would ever use
-One little green cabbage
-Four and a half carrots (Spike ate the other half)
-Lots of potatoes
-One very hectic workday left simmering on the counter

So simple, and so delicious.

But, I've had Jesse's boiled dinner before, so while pleased, I was not surprised by the
deliciousness. No, what shocked me, what truly knocked by brand-new socks off, was this incredible and, he swears, completely simple
Irish Soda Bread.

Holy Cow.
He found the recipe online, and fiddled with it only a little. It was his first time using my MixMaster, which he was really excited about. I pretended not to be horrified.

Irish Soda Bread

4 cups flour
4 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup margarine, softened
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
2 tbsp butter, melted
2 tbsp buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a large baking sheet (we used parchment paper)
In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and margarine. Stir in 1 cup of buttermilk and egg. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead slightly. Form dough into a round and place on prepared baking sheet. In a small bowl, combine melted butter with extra buttermilk and brush loaf with this mixture (pretty liberally). Use a knife to cut an 'X' into the top of the loaf.
Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

I don't know how authentically "Irish" this meal was, but it sure didn't last very long.

On a Sunday

2009-03-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

I spent last night in Portland frolicking with Brie and Erin and Karissa. It was delightful - lots of pizza and too much dessert and laughing until we almost peed and singing Irish drinking songs really loudly into our glasses of wine. You know, the usual. And then this morning, I stopped at Kerrybrown's for veggie wraps and the type of giddy, semi-frantic conversation that has begun to characterize our relationship since we stopped seeing each other daily.

And then I came home, practically wiggling out of my car seat because it's 50 degrees out, and I haven't played outside in far too long. My magically patient husband suffered through a very muddy walk to the beach with an injured foot, and much frolicking ensued.

Henry did a lot of bounding and leaping through the sand, his sore paw miraculously healed by a combination of seawater and pure joy.

Ginger trotted along in the surf, viciously attacking any pile of seaweed that dared impede her cavorting.

One of my favorite things about Ginger is that she does everything full-out...her play style is runrunrunjumppounceflopcatchmybreathrunrunrunplaypounce. Here I captured the elusive moment of rest.

Henry contemplates the universe.

Today was a perfect day. To honor the suddenly summery vibe going on, we're having cheeseburgers and potato salad for dinner. Mmm.

Grownup

2009-03-13T15:36:00.001-07:00

We went and looked at a house today. It was a pretty crazy experience, actually - walking around tapping on walls and peering under the edge of carpet like I knew what the hell I was looking for, I got that wearing-too-big-clothes feeling I alway get when I'm doing something that's way too grown up. And house hunting is definitely way too grown.

I should be completely disappointed right now - we've had our eye on this place for a long time now, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit the amount of dreams I've had involving myself doing various cute, domestic things there..........I hang up laundry between the beautiful old apple tree and the craggy, mossy oak.....I laugh joyfully and chase the children (all strangely blonde and filthy) around with the hose.....I push Jesse lasciviously onto the grass out front and have my way with......ok you get it. I was getting ideas. We were getting ideas. The location is perfection, and the property is amazing, and the house itself is solid and the right size.

Also, absolutely stupid. We went inside for the first time today, and it was clear from the get-go that this isn't the house for us. Or really, for anyone with any sense of visual-spatial understanding. The kitchen is divided between two rooms, the bathroom is carpeted, there is a Free-Willy sized hump in the middle of the dining room floor, the counters are bright yellow plastic....it's like the place was designed by blind, opium addicted 94-year-olds. In the 70's.

Ok, it's not that bad. But it's definitely not that good. It didn't feel right, or comfortable. It felt....stuffy. We don't like stuffy. And the thing is, we could probably turn this house into the place we want - knock down some walls, move the kitchen, rip up the bathroom carpet (seriously, who carpets a bathroom??). But I don't think we're in a place where we want to re-build a house just to make it feel comfortable. So, we passed. Goodbye laundry flapping in the breeze, goodbye filthy romping arian children, goodbye naked Jesse on the front lawn with the neighbors gaping. Hello to a few more months in our beautiful, tiny apartment. I think we can handle that.

A major happy point to today, though - we really do make a fantastic team. Seriously, we are like the married couple equivalent of He-Man and She-Ra (yeah I know they're siblings....we are in Maine, remember). We checked out the house, we drove home in silence, we spent a few minutes processing seperately, and then we took the dogs for a walk, laid it all out, made a decision, mentally yelled "go team," and went home for some wine.

I'm not so good at this grownup thing yet, but this married thing I think I'm getting the hang of. And really, "wife" is totally more fun than "adult."

24

2009-03-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

I'm 24 today.

Birthdays as a grownup, I have found, are much quieter, but still quite nice.

This one included: colorful socks, a meeting at the bank, pickles and chocolate, pretty pink leaves, a swearing student, surprise flowers, and a new collar for Henry. Not bad for my first day of 24.

Blog Lust

2009-03-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

I've been reading other people's blogs a lot lately. My life has recently exploded into a supernova of busyness, stress and virus, so books are definitely out of the question. I am one of those pathetic, weak-souled people who are depressed by the news, so the newspaper is also out. I loathe the language of magazines ("queerified" is not a word. Nor is "cutastic.") and although I have been cuddling on the couch with many a cookbook lately, they lack a certain literary spark. So, I've turned to blogs. I read only the well-written ones (even in cyberspace, cutastic is not a word), and I find them refreshing and inpsiring, for the most part. A couple of my favorites lately are electrolicious, smittenkitchen and this joy+ride. Seriously, you can blog about anything. I've found blogs about punk rock and recipes and simple lives and ovulation. I actually stumbled across a blog today called Fuck Yeah Puppies, about, you guessed it, puppies.

I have a serious case of blog-lust. Because this lovely little spot (neglected as it may be) lack something very important - direction. It would be pretty simple to make it your run-of-the-mill "read some stuff about my life and look at some pictures of my cat and watch a video of my dog chasing its tail" type blog, but I really, truly don't think I would ever, ever be motivated to write in it. So, direction. Hmmmm.

A Little Evolutionary Wondering

2009-02-07T15:56:00.001-08:00

It was a long day, and by the time I got home I was feeling like doing little more than putting on sweat pants, making tea and cuddling with a book.
The dogs, however, had other plans. Jesse is gone at a track meet and when I walked in, the four-legged dancing that greeted me made it clear that Ginger and Henry hadn't had any exercise today. And Saturday belongs to them. So - on went my coat, and off we went to the beach.
The light was already beginning to fade when we arrived, and we were blessedly alone with our steamy breath and crackling footprints, so I unleashed the mutts and watched as they fearlessly bounded along the beach, dodging huge ice chunks and skidding along on top of the snow. I, the inferior human, picked my way cautiously down the icy bank and followed them, clumsy in my boots and hat. I swear they were laughing at me.

*I love watching them run. There's an ease of movement, a basic, instinctive connection to the ground they're moving across that I find incredible. I feel like the fact that humans don't see themselves as animals is a major detriment to our quality of life as a species. When we have zoos, we require that each animal be housed in a habitat that replicates their natural environment as closely as possible. But what about us? We have outpaced evolution by so many generations that the life we lead looks nothing like the life we're built for, the life our bodies and brains were designed for. Today's humans are built for the world they inhabited 4,000 years ago.
Elephants live in the savanna, right? Their big, leathery bodies are designed to thrive in the hot sun, and their wide feet are perfect for marching across the sand. In zoos, they're always places in groups, because elephants, the way they're designed, are meant to live in families. The zoo designers create a miniature savanna, with plants to munch on and mud to bathe in and things to keep the elephants busy that they would find in their natural homes.
And then look at us - what were we designed for? Biologists will tell us that we were designed for hunting and gathering, for hours spent walking at a steady pace across hilly land. We were designed to be communicators, with a well-developed voice box and expressive faces. Our highly developed brains gave us reasoning, inventing and problem-solving ability arguably better than almost every other creature, and our agile hands were designed perfectly to help us create the things we dreamed up. Evolutionary psychologists will tell us that humans evolved to thrive in small extended-family groups, communities of a few nuclear families, small villages where each individual had a specific role to fill and there was a clear sense of purpose and necessity for every human life. We were meant to be relaters and creators.
Is this the life we're living? I think that if we were the zoo designers for our own exhibit, we'd be fired on the spot. How far have we strayed from what we were made to be?
Creators: Instead of following our bodies' natural purpose of moving steadily all day long, we sit for hours and hours and then try to offset this with strenuous 30-minute sessions in a crowded gym doing unnatural movements to build muscles we should have naturally. Instead of using our brains to create and invent, most of us have abstract jobs that involve little to no actual creation or tangible result. We crunch numbers and trade invisible money and play power games - for most people, or at least most in this society, our "work" days look nothing like the work we were actually built to do - we don't make anything, move anything, change anything, build anything. Sure, in a metaphorical sense we do - but we aren't metaphorical, we're actual, and I think this lack of actual work, of actual, primal, instinctively understood results (something touched, tasted, moved, changed) creates a deep, deep sense of futility in our society. Sure, we're working. We work more hours than any other culture on the planet. But while our conscious, "today minds" understand that what we're doing is work, our evolutionary brains, our instinctive selves, don't recognize it. And so, deep down we feel unfulfilled, like we're doing nothing useful.
Relators: And then there's the relationship issue. How many people in our society feel disconnected, lonely, useless? Or, maybe the easier question, how many people feel like they are absolutely, completely integral to a community's functioning? I think the answer is a very small number. Our brains are built to recognize, remember and relate to an extended-family-group sized community - a village. Well, today's "village" includes everyone we know from our families (spread out across the country), our jobs, our schools, our towns, our churches....and then there's the internet, and the media, two mediums that effectively extend our "village" globally. In a lot of ways, this is a good thing - it creates awareness of other cultures, links people. But, psychologically speaking, we can't handle it! We just aren't designed to be connected to so many people. And so, in trying, our bonds are diluted, weakened, stretched until almost all of our links are shallow and superficial. And do any of us feel important, truly important, to a community? We may know that we fill a special role, but in this society, there are so many people to fill each role that it's easy to feel expendable. And because we're designed to be most comfortable when we fill a niche, when we play a role in a small community that no one else plays, we are all unhinged and jealous and competitive, fighting each other for too few "important" spaces in our communities and social circles.

Is there any wonder we're such an unhappy species? We've been put in the wrong habitat. We're penguins in the jungle, monkeys on an ice floe. Someone should fire the zookeeper.

Cassia

2009-01-02T08:39:00.001-08:00

I have writer's block.

Ok, that's a crap excuse.

More truthfully, I haven't written anything in months, and if you don't count our wedding ceremony, it has really been over a year since I've done any writing of any kind. OVER A YEAR.

So no, I don't have writer's block, in the "I have suddenly hit a wall in my creative process" sense. What I have is "writer's slump", in the "I am a lazy ass and can't seem to get the old creativity train rerolling because the wheels are frozen to the tracks" sense.

It's annoying.

I've been sitting here at Second Read with my chai and Jesse's laptop for an hour now, reading other people's blogs and staring at the page in front of me. This is what I have so far...

9,000 years is a long time.
10,000 years?
9,000. That’s a long time to be sitting on the bottom of the ocean, watching ships drift by overhead.
What?
That’s my problem, not yours.

That's the conversation I overheard as I was trying to warm my fingers up enough to type. The conversers were two kids in their early teens. They sat next to me for close to 45 minutes. Now that they're gone I miss them. The one doing most of the talking was a terminal-geek type - he read aloud to his quieter, long-haired companion from a book with a dragon on the cover, and spoke with a strange, nasal accent, like a cross between a daytime-tv British character and a gay psychology professor. His friend's name was Eli. I know this because the first kid (in my head his name is Ian Lint) kept saying "Eli, honestly," to everything Eli said. Eli didn't really say much. At one point, Ian Lint spent 15 minutes explaining that most people in the Western world have never tasted cinnamon. "You see Eli," lectured Ian, wiping away his hot chocolate mustache with the end of his orange scarf, "what you commonly refer to a cinnamon is actually cassia, a more common spice with a similar flavor." Eli mumbled something into his cinnamon roll. "Eli, honestly," said Ian. "I'd think you of all people would know cassia."
Now that they've gone, Ian Lint wrapping his whole head in his bright-orange scarf and carefully tucking his leftover molasses cookie into the pocket of his tweed jacket, I'm left wondering; why should Eli, "of all people", possess knowledge of this secret cinnamon stand-in? Is he an experienced baker only masquerading as an awkward adolescent in short pants and rubber boots? Has he researched the spices of the world for his doctoral thesis?

What does Ian Lint know that I don't?

Homeward Bound

2008-12-27T16:49:00.000-08:00

It's strange how "going home" can feel so different than it used to. I can remember the first time I got homesick while sitting in my parents' living room on Cape. It was the oddest sense of disequilibrium, but I remember being elated - not that I was losing my sense of "home," but that I was actually developing one at all, for my own home. And now I seem to have a traveling sense of comfort. "Home" is Jesse, and my dogs, and our favorite songs, and being able to cook when I want to. And home is Maine, no question about that anymore - I find myself longing, almost physically, for Maine, especially driving down the highway. God, I hate billboards. Ugh. And things seem to move slower at home - cliche, absolutely, but true nonetheless. I love that I have to wait to buy things because the closest store that carries it is 45 minutes away. It's frustrating to have so much movement and noise around all the time - I go right back to the way I was before I moved away, antsy and itchy and unable to sit down for fear of missing something.

We go back home tomorrow, back to Rockland and our tiny apartment and our inefficient heater and our stressful jobs. Yay.

Chapter 3

2008-12-23T10:55:00.000-08:00

Chapter 3 in my book is titled
"Roots"
and has section headings in bold, italic, squiggly font.
It's full of imagery, lots of starscapes and smooth skin shapes
moving under thick white quilts,
lots of hot cider, cold beer,
hand over hand learning the way to move in tandem,
two shapes jostling to fill the space formerly occupied by one.
There's warmth in claustrophobia,
something freeing about roots.

lost in translation

2008-11-19T05:38:00.000-08:00

Lately we've had some fantastic soundtracks. Last night I made mashed potatoes, swaying my hips to Bob Marley and the night before it was the Fugees and veggie pot pie. In my hour alone before Jesse gets home, it's been Sara Bareilles and Nora Jones, strong female voices to move my fingers across the tabletop and swell the empty spaces in the apartment. In the car we've been playing a lot of Brett Dennen and Jason Mraz, beats and social commentary delivered with a smile. Sunday mornings are omelets and Lyle Lovett and James Taylor, smooth coffee voices to ease us into the one day a week we can ease into. When I fall asleep, I find Wyclef running through my head.

I find my whole life can be measured by the music I listen to, months and years and phases and even relationships ticked off by album titles. I don't know what it is about music, about notes stuck together in patterns, that moves us so. I read a study once that chickens responded to different types of music. Their favorite, surprisingly, was heavy metal. Sometimes you can communicate more in a few bars than you could no matter how many words you bumbled through. There's something to be said for that, for simplifying all the complicated thoughts that make us human into the simple, entirely uncomplicated emotion at their core. I wonder how different the world would be if our only communication system was music. Not music turned into language, not notes standing for words, but just music - emotion and perception expressed without translation.

There's always something lost in translation, it seems. There's never an exact right word.

Springtime in Paris

2008-11-18T06:40:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night that I was sitting in a cherry tree, in full blossom, watching Parisians walk below me on a cobblestone street. I was naked and holding an avocado in one hand, and my other hand had a loose grip on the branch above me.

The oddest thing about dreams is how something as bizarre as sitting naked in a cherry tree in Paris can seem totally natural.

Come to think of it, that's the oddest thing about real life, too.

Indecent Proposal...

2008-09-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

Well, it was fairly decent...

A little over a year ago, I realized that I was going to be with this guy for good. And I told him so.
Me: "You're going to marry me someday."
Him: "Yup."

Then, a few months later...
Me: "So, um, when exactly are you going to marry me?"

And a few months after that, Ginger strolled into the kitchen with a confused look on her doggy face and a beautiful pebble ring in her collar, and the planning began in earnest. Poor Jesse. Months of painting mason jars and cutting table runners after school, more lasagna than I ever want to see in my life again, doing frantic calculations about weights of potatoes and lettuce, and picking out all the beautiful squashes at the farm stand. Buying 6 (yes 6) dresses and returning them until finally I gave in, gave up, and found my happy little green one. Parties and care packages, stressing out about the only thing we can't control (the weather) and then giving up and moving on with it, and buying so much wine that strangers were asking if we needed help drinking it.

And here we are, married.

Legit married. But more on that later ;o)

Just

2008-08-14T21:18:00.000-07:00

Just so I remember, I just wanted to say how beautiful tonight is, and how beautiful every night is, and how big a role you play in that.

Every moment is different because I know you exist.

Tonight some of us went down to the docks at 11, after all the kids were asleep, the hour of porcupines.
We sat cross legged in rows like in a movie theater and watched the moon and clouds ripple and smoked and drank cheap white wine and there was mist rising off the river and I closed my eyes and leaned onto the legs behind me and talked and listened and watched the sky. And it was a hundred thousand times more wonderful because somewhere, there's you.

I miss these girls.

2008-08-04T05:53:00.000-07:00

Whose leg is Brie holding?

Secret Ingredient?

2008-07-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

I had a scary dream last night. I don't remember what it was about, but I remember that it was really scary.

I also remember rolling over into Jesse's side and poking him repeatedly in the stomach until with an "urmph" he put his arms around me and kissed my head. Clearly still asleep, but still the perfect reaction. Then when I whispered "I had a scary dream" in a voice reminiscent of a 4 year old, he kissed my head again, squeezed me and said "rrrmthmmppsh."

How come I never have the perfect reaction in my sleep? I never squeeze or say "rrrmthmmppsh" at the perfect moment. No, I BERATE in my sleep. I quiz Jesse on the secret ingredient at 3 am- "cheese?" he guesses through his sleep haze. "No. Raisins!" I respond cheerily and then roll back over. I claw at his stomach while muttering angrily "where IS it? I left it right here on the table!!!" until he mumbles "um, it fell off?" and I nod, satisfied, and pass out again. I wake him up in the wee hours to sleep-chat about bridges and decision-making strategies, and to yell at him for all manner of things he never did.

I apologized once for being such a random bitch in my sleep, and he said "I guess I'd rather you get it out in your sleep than do it when you're awake."

Good call.

Hormones are magical.

2008-07-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

"Gosh," he said. "That was a really rude thing to say."
"Whatever," she replied nastily. Really, though, it was a rude thing to say, and she knew it.
So, because he was right (again), she did the only thing she could do....
"You hate me!" she wailed and stamped out of the room.
Estrogen defies logic.

Tornado Warning

2008-07-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

I just got a text from Kerrybrown that there's a tornado warning in her county right now, but the sky is clear and beautiful and the birds are singing. I thought birds were supposed to know when the weather's going to do something funky. Maybe they do know, and they just don't care. Or maybe a meteorologist somewhere fucked up.

I think my internal meteorologist has been a bit fucked up lately. I have the opposite problem as the birds and Kerrybrown, though - a tornado IS coming, definitively, and yet my weather report is saying "sunny skies from here til next February." I'm getting married in 58 days. I'm moving in 39 days. School starts in 40 days. I have approximately 3,465 days worth of things to do between now and then. And yet what have I been doing all week? Working in the morning, spending a lot of time naked in the kitchen for the rest of the day. Cooking vegetables, making baby clothes, reading and watering the tomato plants. Basically, nothing that is in any way shortening the list of things I "need" to do. But am I stressed out? No, of course not. That would make far too much sense.

Yesterday, Jesse and I went hiking in the rain. It was gorgeous in a very typical way - we fought for the first 10 minutes of walking up the slightly graded path, held hands for the next 15 minutes of trudging uphill, I spent 5 minutes of rocky trail mildly flipping out about how I'm slower than he is and he probably thinks I'm lame, he spent another 5 gritting his teeth and arguing that no, you're not lame and I think my camel pack is broken. We held hands again, Jesse whined about hikes that start out in the forest and end in a parking lot, and we climbed a tower to look out over the harbor, and I accidentally flashed a bunch of tourists my undies on the way down the stairs. Almost down the mountain, it started to pour, and we stopped for a second to look up at the leaves trembling in the rain and marvel at the effectiveness of trees as umbrellas. Then we went out for sushi.

At summer school this morning, my motley crew of wee ones was even more motley than usual. Normally, any bunch of elementary schoolers on a broad range of attention and behavioral medications is a hoot. On a day when more than one of them forgets to take said attention and behavioral meds, the word "hoot" doesn't really begin to sum it up. Case in point:
Me: "Nick, what are you doing?"
Nick, speaking into his shoe: "Talking to Mrs. Butterworth."
Me: "Um......?"
Nick: "Want to say hello?"
Me: "No I'm fine thanks."
Nick continues his cheery conversation with his shoe.

A little later, reading a story about how the pretzel was invented:

Me: "So that's where the pretzel came from. Any questions?"
Tristan: "I invented the phone booth!"
Me: "The phone booth?"
Tristan: "Want to come to my house?"
Me: "Ok Tristan hold on what are we talking about?"
Tristan: "Hey. Know what? I'm really skinny. Also, I like your hair."

I laugh a lot, and also do a lot of deep breathing exercises.

*ashby

Breathing

2008-07-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

Sitting here at the kitchen table breathing this morning's poppies and the ocean, I suddenly felt the need for a fresh start.

So here we are. My words since 2001 are still floating around in the electronic ether, hovering in the periphery waiting to be read again at www.livejournal.com/users/ashby . They'll always be there, and I'm sure I'll visit them often, sometimes angrily, sometimes with tea and scones and nostalgia. It just wasn't working for me anymore. I don't know why, but I can guess that it had something to do with how heavy the air is in that journal, how saturated with sincerity. Truth can leave you struggling for breath, and I was suffocating in years of my own honesty. Time to breathe, to shake off what was true so long ago and let some new truths soak in to my skin.

We're off.