twistedtoes

fifteen minutes

2012-01-16T22:15:00.003-05:00

{really, how do i come back to this after so much time? i’m sorry for not writing, mainly sorry to myself, because i miss having the ability to say things without apology and in return receive your words of love and support. thank you for coming back.}

This week through my school work I have listened to lectures and read articles by Dr. Bernie Siegel, MD. Dr. Bernie Siegel is a physician who has cared for and counseled thousands with life-threatening illnesses. He embraces a philosophy of living and dying that stands at the forefront of the medical ethics and spiritual issues our society grapples with today. His humor buffers his severe honesty about illness, death, life, and love and I could have listened to him for hours. This section of study prompted a discussion in which we were asked,

“If you had 15 minutes to live, what would you do?”

As someone who fears death, my own as well as that of my friends and family with every fiber of my being, it was shocking to be asked this question and downright frightening to think about the answer. Of course with each passing stage or event in our lives, the answer would change for each of us. Six or seven months ago when we owned Food Matters my answer would without a doubt include something about running as far away from that place as possible. There were times in that five years that we had the restaurant, and more often towards the end, that I was convinced that continuing to operate it the way things were going would for certain kill me. Every day I am thankful to have been able to walk away from something that had, after five (but really more like seven) years, taken all but the tiniest bit of energy, drive, happiness, and hope from our lives. Easily the most painful thing I have ever experienced, and seven months later, I am still unable to fully articulate my feelings. Perhaps in time it will unravel here, and I’ll be able to let it go along with the other things I have left behind.

I have spent the past couple of months intentionally taking care of myself, though not without a tremendous amount of guilt. A definite sense of calm has come over me without the distractions we had just a short time ago and I have been fortunate enough to spend lots of time with my children as well as develop much deeper relationships with my best friends. And so it is with a bit more clarity that I make an attempt at answering this question of what I would do today if I had fifteen minutes to live.

1. I would make love to my husband.

2. I would tell my children and my family that I love them.

3. I would forgive my father.

4. I would ask God to forgive me.

5. I’d ask my girlfriends to throw me a kick-ass funeral/party.

6. Finally, assuming I had the sense of calm and resolve about me that I hear washes over people before they die, I would hold on to my husband and children until the very last breath. I’m guessing that that would be the smoothest possible transition from life to wherever it is I am to go.

It is certainly the closest thing to Heaven that I have.

{i'd love to hear from you. what would you do with your last fifteen minutes?}

our grass harper turns two

2011-07-05T15:24:00.007-04:00

beautiful day for your second birthday, harper. you are turning two just days after we closed our restaurant, food matters. the realization that you will never even remember our little dream of a business is not lost on me. it is a painful fact that made the decision to close even harder. i think because it represented everything that we wanted for you and your siblings. but you will have those things anyway, and now at less of a cost to all of us.

perhaps it is because you are the baby of the family, but everything you do just breaks my heart. mostly because each stage you go through seems so miraculous but so fleeting and i can't bear to let it go. i treasured our first couple of days together at the hospital. i am proud that i never once had to give you formula. feeding you is a daily joy, particularly breakfast, your favorite meal. you walked at nine months, i barely even remember you crawling. you hold a fork, a pencil, any tool, with such grace that it amazes us. such perfection from such little fingers. between the omnipresent nest of hair in the back of your head and your super hipster rat tail, i can't bring myself to bring you for your first haircut. listening to you sing happy birthday to yourself last night in bed was heavenly. some of your favorite words are strawberry, bath time, car ride, and i love you. not surprisingly, you love to announce mealtimes at home.

it seems that as mothers we not only want better for our children than we had for ourselves, but with each child we hope to perfect parenting a little more. your intolerance to wheat has challenged me to examine further how i feed myself and others as well. your constant need for my presence teaches me that i am capable of having more patience than i ever thought possible. holding you a little longer at night reminds me that nothing outside of our family should consume me.

i am excited and terrified to watch you grow up, harper. i hope that one day you will read this and be amused, but that you won't need to read it to understand how completely i love you. that i hope to show you every day of your life, for as long as i live.

happy birthday my sweet baby harper.

love,

mommy

ate by a wolf and shit off a cliff

2011-07-01T16:58:00.002-04:00

bad news? that's how i feel.

good news? today means change.

i had decided a while ago that after closing food matters i would make some changes. despite my general tendency to eat well, my life has become extremely toxic lately, particularly since announcing our closing to the public six weeks ago. and while the wound is still fresh and i am not quite ready to talk about all the issues surrounding that place, i am ready to feel better. i have become so tightly wound that i am fearful of even stopping for a moment to take care of myself. i am afraid that even allowing myself to relax one bit will result in a whole new wave of emotion that i am not ready to face. so first step is that i do begin caring for myself and that means i face whatever comes with a clean and clear mind.

for thirty days i am removing alcohol, sugar, grains, beans, legumes, and dairy from my diet. i had planned to start with just the alcohol but i was inspired by a fellow holistic mom, sarah, who decided to do a strict Paleo challenge called The Whole 30 Challenge. since doing the Paleo diet (by following advice from the Paleo Solution) a few months ago and losing a whopping 15 pounds, i knew i'd benefit even more. so with a little will power and support from friends who have either been off the wagon for a while or are going on the wagon with me this month i plan on feeling a whole lot better in thirty days.

everyone keeps asking what tom and i will do next and we don't have an answer for them. things are exciting and incredibly frightening all at the same time. i have really come to realize how incredibly fortunate i am to have such amazing friends and family. they have come forward these past few weeks in ways that i could never have asked for and really carried our family through the process of letting our little dream go. i have learned a lot about leaning on people, something i have never been good at, and i am hopeful that the next few weeks will be a time of healing for me, for tom, and for our precious family.

and i promise to keep you posted:)

dear universe, i need a sewing machine

2011-05-20T17:11:00.000-04:00

so i can make this!

be the cheerleader

2011-05-09T09:37:00.009-04:00

"I don't play the field - I rule the sidelines."

i know where i learned to play the cheerleader. it began when tom and i ran the cherry blossom ten miler together a few years ago. at the halfway point he looked at me with an expression of love and torture and said,

-i’m gonna just run now.

what exactly had we been doing for the past five miles? i was suffering. i was breathing heavily, my boobs were all over the place, but i was persevering. tom was apparently just cruising along and indulging me, meanwhile suffering the stares of runners far below his own ability. i was going to finish, but obviously not at a respectful enough pace for my husband to accompany me. so i took the opportunity to stop running, give him a good luck kiss, say goodbye, but more importantly, catch my damn breath. i realized after that running was not my thing. it was tom’s thing. he has since run several races, and well, i am his number one cheerleader.

and perhaps that was some small part of my preparation for motherhood.

i did not realize it right away, but at some point it hit me. being a mother means taking the back burner, or at least making room for someone else's chance to shine. perhaps postpartum depression is “born” of the diversion of attention from the beautifully pregnant mother to the infant from which she came. this was my wake up call. my baby is the star. my baby is the one people rally around. i matter, but not in the way that this new life does.

and at first that is a very lonely place to be. but it doesn’t last. once the haze has cleared away the rewards are innumerable. because to bow into one’s self in order to support, love, and appreciate another is to witness grace. it is the gift of being allowed into someone’s vulnerability, someone’s head, someone’s heart.

the work is hard, but in exchange i get the wide-eyed morning

stares and the first words that escape their mouths. for harper that is,

-amelie?

-i love YOU!

for amelie it is more like,

-ok mommy, what is the plan for today?

in exchange i get to feed them, first from my own body, then from my hands. there is nothing like having my child depend on me, my body, for nourishment. to be right against my bare skin, feeling my heart beat like she has for months, reassured by the rhythm to which she has become accustomed. and i am then given the pleasure of feeding her foods that we have grown, foods that we want her to love, foods that will sustain her life. and woven into this is her education in the garden. we surround our children with plants so that at every turn they are reminded of life’s possibilities.

in exchange i am the beginning and end of most sentences:

-mommy, i help you mommy?

-mommy, i spin the salad mommy?

-mommy, you read me a story, mommy?

yes, yes, and yes.

and no, it is not always this blissful. sometimes it is not so peaches and cream. but i have learned the value of listening instead of speaking. the value of seeking to praise instead of seeking praise.

the value of supporting without judging. and these lessons branch out into the rest of my life.

this mother’s day i am thankful for my girls, harper and amelie, and for the gift of gunter and annika. i am thankful that every day they teach me to breathe, bite my tongue, write, take pictures, be creative, cry, work towards change, plant things, and thank God for what i have in this moment.

so now i am happy in the wings, on the sideline, with the pom poms. i love the pom poms.

mother's day 2009

mother's day 2008

spring green

2011-05-04T17:37:00.004-04:00

4 stalks of kale, 1 apple, 2 t ginger, 1/2 head romaine lettuce, 3 stalks celery.
breakfast.

no, she did not like it.

but i loved it. energy. straight to your blood.

and the broccoli sprouts are delicious, too!

i have a nephew now. he's, well, breathtaking. the details will stay in the room where they happened but i can tell you this: to be present for and witness a birth is one of the most sacred gifts one can be given.

assurance

2011-05-01T20:54:00.005-04:00

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

tomorrow (monday) i will be cheering my sister along as she and her husband welcome their second child, first boy, into their family. right now i cannot explain the excitement i have for them, and the excitement for me, to watch their faces and see the exhale, the assurance of things hoped for. i am so blessed to be able to witness this event, and ever thankful for my ability to be there.

has it really been a week?

2011-04-28T14:59:00.008-04:00

i thought i'd be better than this but at least i'm still posting. i know i'm also not writing as much, but this is what i got right now, so let's roll with it.

easter sunday.

finished the tank top!

first harvest from the garden: baby romaine, baby red chard, and i had to thin the spinach sprouts, so they got tossed in the bowl, too.

lunch for the girls: garden greens with tuna salad and a piece of amish muenster cheese.

tuna in olive oil, rice vinegar, carrots, red onion, sunflower seeds, aforementioned garden greens, and front step herbs (lemon thyme, cilantro, dill.)

served with a little homemade kombucha.

or as harper would call it, "buchy!"

also in the works

green juice from garden greens

sprouts for juice and salads

more yogurt production

must. find. new. knitting. project.

new classes in the works for breastfeeding center: making your own baby food and feeding toddlers!

things i'm thankful for

(please see above)

my amazing girlfriends

possibility

the anticipation of watching my nephew come into this world (4 days or less!)

since last thursday

2011-04-21T15:46:00.007-04:00

still here, just busy. so to catch you up, a photo slideshow of what we've done:

friday morning, harper's second favorite breakfast, smoothies!
this one has frozen berries, banana, chia, raw milk, and raw egg yolks-yum!

knitted hat for my first nephew! blurry, but at least you can see it.

annika turned nine! she had three girls over for a sleepover which brought the total kids under our roof saturday night to seven! we LOVED it.

the next morning, after annika's friends were picked up, we went camping in lancaster county, PA. absolute heaven to us. beautiful land, fertile soil, and a humble reminder of not only how little we need but how much we have.

we stayed in a teeny cabin on a campground. it was chilly but we stayed outdoors. here's harper having a snack on the front porch.

happy amelie, even in the rain.

the older ones pretty much played with fire the whole four days.

meanwhile, back in virginia, our four family garden continued to grow perfectly.

ten awesome reclaimed wood beds built for us by these guys.

and a partridge in a pear tree! well, really a chick in a nest on a branch; a spring craft amelie and i made this afternoon.

ooh-almost forgot, a gift coming from aunt edie with her nickname for harper-so sweet!

phew!

this afternoon

2011-04-14T15:33:00.003-04:00

a walk with the girls.
outdoor story time.
and hopefully some progress on harper's knitted tank top, free pattern here.

hello?

2011-04-11T21:54:00.002-04:00

no point in trying to recap everything. i’ll just start from now. today was a beautiful day. actually it’s been a series of beautiful days. filled with time with friends and family and things i now know we not only need but deserve. i sit here now and i know i am richly blessed. to have people to cry with, to count on, to confess to, to not have to ask for, to need my help, to laugh with, to love me. things are effortless then seemingly impossible, complicated, then so very clear. for now it’s all general, but later, it will all make sense.

missed you all.

into deep

2010-12-27T22:17:00.007-05:00

deep nutrition that is. these past several months have consisted of a lot reading from a certain nutritional school of thought. one that i am convinced makes the most sense. period. one that squares with my need to eat locally, to eat grassfed meat, to drink raw milk, and to limit or eliminate processed foods, namely vegetable oils and sugar.

as of now, i have not been fully engaged in this "new" approach to nutrition. i am struggling with serious sugar cravings, i continue to drink coffee, i drink plenty of alcohol, i do not get enough sleep, and i do not exercise regularly. i believe the sugar cravings to be the worst as they play out in all manner of ways including fast food consumption, processed food consumption, mood swings, and depression. coffee and alcohol i am willing to limit but not give up entirely. my inability to keep to a realistic sleep schedule is affecting my entire family and i feel incredibly guilty for this. and the lack of exercise can be blamed on nothing but laziness.

now for the positive: we have been drinking raw milk since this past summer and i believe we are all better, healthier, because of it. we eat grass fed beef, pastured chickens, lots of pastured eggs, and grassfed butter. we eat tons of plain whole milk yogurt and i even manage to make my own pretty often. i soak grains sometimes, sprout seeds sometimes, make our snacks sometimes. i do eat local and in season. i do not ever eat fresh tomatoes out of season. (a girl's gotta stick to something!) we, thanks to tom and partly myself, have plenty of homemade lacto-fermented probiotic deliciousness in our fridge at all times. carrots, turnips, sauerkrauts, mayo, ketchup, and (even) ranch dressing.

so back to deep nutrition. i have never had one book explain so thoroughly the reasons for eating traditional foods, the ridiculous fallacies of low-fat diets, the absolute fleecing of our society in regards to major medications and cholesterol numbers, and worst of all, the rate at which vegetable oil and sugars consume us as fast as we can consume them.

now i'm gettin' all fired up.

the point is this: i need to make changes. in many areas, but i'll limit this post to food. so i'm thankful for this book and the feeling of knowledge/power/resolve it gives me. and though i am often afraid to admit it i am nowhere close to being the person i am capable of being to my husband, my kids, my family, my friends, and to the people with whom i work.

guess i have my work cut out for me.

in case your are interested, this is the book.

again with the raw milk

2010-12-16T21:40:00.004-05:00

over thanksgiving i got mixed up and forgot to order milk from our farm. i call it our farm because even though it does not belong to us we feel connected to it in a way that we cannot explain. it feeds us and our kids. we love it. we love the milk, the meat, the sprouted granola, we love that the girls don't get sick. period.
so i forgot to order it and had to get low-temp pasteurized milk from mom's organic market, a place we love.

but amelie was not fooled.

-mommy, this is not raw milk. this is not farm milk.

yeesh.

so we picked up more milk (and meat and smoked turkey leg, omg, delish) yesterday. and the drop off spot is the home of a person who leaves books for folks who stop by for pickups. the books are either free or really cheap.*

so now amelie is drinking her beloved raw farm milk. she begged the whole way home for me to open it.

i am thankful that we know, for the first time in our lives, where the hell our milk comes from. that it improves our health. that it tastes like milk should taste. that something so simple could be so good.

also, i keep telling everyone about this, but in case you missed it, here's another glimpse into the raw milk world.

*and

here's the book i picked up yesterday

i suck at church

2010-12-12T21:40:00.002-05:00

i have always wanted church to be something specific for me and it has never been. i don’t mean to say that it has let me down. i just have come to realize that i have little control over the way it affects me.

we pulled into our church parking lot to buy a tree and we see ted. thirty three years ago he started selling christmas trees and still he is moved by the difference the money they raise can make. thirty three years he has stood out in the cold selling trees to picky people, pulling them out, twirling them around for show, strapping them to the tops of cars. this week he helped us pick a tree. he thanked us, then he walked over to a bed of roses next to the tree stand. he took out his clippers, clipped off a stem with one flower and three buds attached then handed it to harper. her glowing wide eyes looked up at him and her tiny white mitten opened up to grasp the flower. he is not the smiley friendly gregarious type. he is silent and so full of love.

i struggle with my church. i probably have not given it as much as it has given me. i am there often enough to know it makes a difference in my life, but far enough away not to be caught up in the politics of it. sometimes i wish i were in a different church, so i could be anonymous, so that when i walked down the aisle for communion, people who saw me wouldn’t see my parents and their lives and their positions in the church. i struggle with the ridiculous things that come out of the pastors’ mouths when they stand at the pulpit. i am a weak member, i need for sunday to fill me up and sustain me. and scathing political statements and elementary school rhyming poems about the christmas season don’t do that. i need to relate, to be stripped bare, to question, to be challenged, to be let in.

that doesn’t happen anymore.

so when i am the most frustrated it seems that that is the moment that my church surprises me. randy catches amelie’s eye in church, and i imagine that he will be like her adopted church grandfather, that he also will out for her. i pick amelie up from sunday school and kathy says,

-amelie, we miss you. tell your mommy to bring you more often.

we go to a christmas pageant and our children are captivated. we hear pieces from the messiah and amelie sings

-hallelujah! hallelujah!

for days afterward. ashley asks amelie what she thinks is coming at christmas and she answers

-baby jesus.

a three year old, who even though she has been shielded from tv commercials telling her to eat rainbow cereal and play with barbies has still managed to get toys-r-us flyers shoved in her face so that society can decide what she wants for christmas-she thought of baby jesus.

right now, that’s reason enough to stay.

giving thanks

2010-11-25T23:56:00.003-05:00

that's it. just giving thanks.
for my HUGE family.
for babies and more babies to come.
for a baby. boy.
for mishaps and messes and
for the soft cushion that
falls under each of our
children when they are hurt.
for great wine and conversation
and dancing and laughing
and welcoming.
for felting in the corners.
for tradition.
for it all.
thanks.

time to cover these walls

2010-11-12T10:47:00.005-05:00

you know, me, i'm no decorator. plus every single solitary thing i acquire has to have some deeper meaning. why do i have to be so freakin' complicated?! so here begins a journey of filling our home with things that strike a chord with us. probably not with other folks, but dude,

it's our house.

off to etsy we go. item #1:

seriously. how could i resist?

children of the corn

2010-11-11T10:31:00.009-05:00

in my next life on my farm i'll have a box filled with dried corn instead of sand, like this one.

a recent trip to a pumpkin farm started out with this surprise. they could have played for hours in that beautiful fall sun.

sometimes it's the simplest of things that take my breath away.

less is more

2010-10-15T16:14:00.007-04:00

there is a bin of wooden puzzles for toddlers on the shelf in the playroom here at home. one of the puzzles has a motion sensor with pictures of animals that make sounds when you put them in the correct spot. there is a parrot, a hamster, a frog, and some others i can’t remember. we haven’t played with the puzzles in a few months, but today as i sat on the other side of the room and looked at my computer screen the frog spot on the puzzle began to ribbit. this happens at random times and none of us really know why. we’re a little freaked out by it, but we’re also used to it.

in any case as i sit here at my desk working i realize that that ridiculous frog ribbit from the puzzle is the only sound i hear. gunter and annika are at school. harper and amelie are asleep. it’s three thirty and i started my day at 7:00. feeding kids breakfast, getting them dressed, reminding the older ones of their chores, cleaning up, playing with the younger two while tom drives the older two to school. next we take turns showering, tom and i, i get dressed, put away several days worth of clean laundry that has been sitting in a basket in the girls’ room. at 10:30 tom and the girls take me into dc where i teach a class on starting babies on solid foods. the class goes for two hours and i can barely get out all my information. the people attending the class ask lots of questions, they learn things, they take notes and go home to think about how better to handle this awesome task of feeding their children.

i come home and take amelie upstairs for her nap. my mom watched the girls while tom headed to work. i devoured a sandwich, checked and answered e-mails. i began typing this post.

i heard the ribbit again just now.

i have an hour to start thinking about and preparing dinner, getting dressed for work at the restaurant, getting the girls up from their naps. i’ll bring the girls to tom who will have all four children until bedtime while i am at work for several hours. and today is an easy day. like ships passing in the night. tom said to me recently,

-it’s like tag team single parenting.

i am not kidding you i just heard the same puzzle make another sound.

-meow, meow.

so apparently there’s a cat piece as well.

a siren sounds outside and it wakes harper up. the wind blows, she fusses in her half-sleep.

the noise begins again and i begin to tighten up, tense my shoulders, hunch over. it occurs to me now listening to this possessed puzzle across the room that i think it might be helpful if our lives had less noise. less running. less drama. less whining, less plastic, less reminding each other of schedules, less obligatory goodbye kisses on the cheek as we rush out the door.

and more quiet, more together, more texture, more sitting on the couch in each others’ arms, more discussion of hopes for the future, more relationship and more sunshine.

more.

-ribbit.

when hand-me-downs collide

2010-10-13T15:34:00.009-04:00

at first glance a hippie but now i'm thinking more hell's angel. this was what amelie looked like when she came downstairs this morning before breakfast and school. please note the dora bandaid on the left forearm. apparently an important part of the look.

stepping out

2010-10-10T17:59:00.010-04:00

we were in cape may for the weekend, a columbus day weekend tradition. i have the added pleasure of it being my birthday weekend each year. tom and the girls made beautiful homemade cards for me, we relaxed in the beautiful weather with family, and on sunday tom treated me to a massage for my birthday. time away like this allows us to breathe, to think, to make decisions about how to make life better. i am thankful for this bit of time, even though it is mixed with melancholy.

sadly, every time we go away there is bad news waiting for us back home, some crisis at the restaurant that we just have to know about immediately. because waiting one day just can't happen i guess.

but since my last crazy post, many of my friends have lent me comfort, many have stepped forward and have taken care of me in different ways. for that i am very thankful. tonight i will visit with my girlfriends. i will relax in their company, listen and be listened to. i will try to contribute what i can to our friendships in this gift of an evening together. and for that i am truly thankful.

i am hoping that things will change for me this 35th year of my life, because i am hell bent on changing them, not because i hope i'll get lucky. i hope to lose weight, to eat even healthier, to continue to show our kids how to eat well. i hope to form deeper friendships with the women in my life, some of whom have been my friends for a long time, some of whom i am just beginning to know. i hope to strengthen my foul-weather faith. i hope to show an open and whole love to my husband and kids who continue to suffer at the hands of my unhappiness. and i hope for good health.

this last one is particularly fresh in my mind after learning from my sister brooke about a dear friend of hers whom i have met once or twice. a young, beautiful, abundantly faithful woman, wife, and mother who has suddenly been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. brooke shared this woman's recent blog post entitled, "i have cancer. and God is good." with me in cape may. i am still spinning. the grace with which she writes makes her a gift to those who witness it. any words i use to describe the feeling of reading this post seem ridiculous. so just read it.

i have much to learn from this woman. but for now i know that my health is important. that life is short. often much shorter than we realize. that we have to ask for change and maybe even scream for change just so that we are heard. so things get better. and get better soon.

something has to change

2010-10-07T15:33:00.002-04:00

in order for me to survive. i am drowning in the deepest of oceans and the waves are too fast for me.

i don’t know my kids and they don’t know me.

i can’t be there for my friends.

my marriage has been shoved to the bottom of a mountain of tasks that grows every day.

i have gone to the same church for 26 years and yet no one will call on me to serve. maybe because they think they can’t count on me.

for every tiny thing tom and i accomplish at work we have a thousand people who fucking steal it away and make it miserable.

and here, on what i know to be a beautiful fall day, i am overwhelmed, exhausted, tired, fed up, angry, hurting, failing, sliding, withering away.

i’m fucking done.

first day of school

2010-09-14T17:12:00.002-04:00

backed up: part 1 of farm trip

2010-09-13T22:41:00.012-04:00

here i am again, making excuses. the fact is, i'm busy. happy, but busy. and i love writing here and i love letting things go here and i love it when you tell me later that you've seen it and it has affected you. so i'm sorry for not keeping up. i am still feeling the need to tell you about the trip to PA to meet our milk farmers. i have written some but not all. so i will share what i have so far and then share the rest after. i want to give it it's due attention, and i also have so many other things to tell you. so, moving forward:

a few weeks ago when tom and i made the decision to start drinking raw milk we knew that seeing where the milk came from was just as important as drinking the milk itself. so we took a day to drive up to lancaster county to meet the farmers, the cows, see where it all comes together. the idea of visiting a farm is always exciting to us but we had no idea the feelings, thoughts, and insight we would walk away with that day.

because gunter and annika were away with their mom we only took harper and amelie up with us. it was a perfect day, mild weather, no clouds in the sky, so there was nothing between us and the beauty of what were about to witness. highways became roadways and city became town and town became farm country. it was obvious why some call it God’s country. a patchwork of rolling green hills sprinkled with cows, goats, chickens, pigs. simple white houses and clotheslines with pants, blue dresses, and black aprons lined up from smallest to largest and blowing in the wind. driveways with cars, driveways with buggies, all mixed together. we followed directions we’d been given and drove deeper and deeper into the country and found ourselves driving slower and slower so that we could take everything in: black and white hand painted signs that read:

-used canning jars needed

-used greeting cards needed

-chainsaw sharpening

-cold organic watermelon

-fresh mint tea and drinks

-homemade root beer

i went to take a breath and it was cut short. i was already overwhelmed. we both were and knew it because no words were exchanged. we kept driving. a woman stepping out of her front door looked up from her huge basket of peaches to watch us drive by. mailboxes with first and last names painted on the side lined the streets. every once in a while we’d pass a farm with a deceivingly cute sign with the family name painted in bright colors and the perdue logo or land-o-lakes labeled tacked on the bottom. another farm claimed by big agribusiness. luckily these were few and far between, but you could see the effect of these farms when you stopped at a crossroads and saw the signs that read:

-do not spray, organic farm.

these people and their land were victims of the nasty practices of their neighbors every time the wind blew in the wrong direction. their chickens ran freely in mobile coops or in the open fields while just next door the huge ominous barn-like, windowless structures stretched out, fans blowing loudly at one end. it was strange to see such extremely different approaches to farming.

we finally arrived at jacob and barbie’s farm. when we drove up the family was eating lunch so we waited until they were done, playing with the three dogs they had running around the property. after lunch jacob emerged from a dark building and welcomed us. he knew we were coming but things started off slowly. he no doubt was wondering what exactly we wanted to see and know and we were wondering how to ask. so we started by thanking him for letting us interfere with what was obviously a work day for them. conversation moved quickly then, and of course we talked about our families. jake and barbie had eleven children, three who of whom had married and moved out of the house. the remaining eight were home schooled and worked on the farm everyday. as time passed curiosity got the best of them and they made their way out of all sorts of spaces to get a look at us. i felt under dressed in my tank top and jeans and i felt ashamed for having shown so much skin on my arms and chest.

we stood beside one of the barns and jacob asked how many children we had. when we answered four his eyes lit up and he said:

-so you are also richly blessed.

we nodded and smiled in agreement. sometimes there are no other words needed. that i learned from tom.

we made our way out to the field where the cows were lounging in the grass. beautiful light brown jersey cows that were quite at home with us standing there staring. they continued eating, pooping, peeing, as amelie stood aghast with her mouth hanging open. harper just bounced up and down in tom’s arms:

-hoo! hoo! hoo!

there they were, the cows that lived on this farm, that ate the grass on which we were standing, that produced the rich, earthy, fatty milk that we were now drinking. there they were. it would be a few hours before we had the words to describe the significance of, for the first time in our lives, knowing where our milk came from. for a long time we have known the source of our fruit, vegetables, and meat. much of it we have even grown ourselves. but something so very common for us to drink, something we have consumed since we were children, we never even once questioned where it came from, what conditions it was produced under, what exactly our bodies were getting (or not getting) from it. things are different now.

tbc...

end of the innocence

2010-08-31T12:41:00.005-04:00

was it a couple of weeks ago when he started wearing deodorant? maybe last year when he called a girl a bitch on the playground. maybe last week when someone gave him a cell phone. and then he texted you suck big balls to his friend.

he's ten, not fourteen.

when people ask me why amelie hasn't yet watched a movie i think of this. of course she'll love mary poppins. she will laugh her little heart out when she sees julie andrews flying through the sky with her umbrella. but she's three. can't it wait until she's four? five? because then what will we entertain her with? a video game? more movies? a phone? for now she'll watch a little sesame street but she'll also play with cicadas and dance and draw and play dress up and sing.

it breaks my heart that gunter is living in this little boy body, exposed to things he should not yet know. no doubt he has questions but will not ask them. he has fears but will not share them. and the feeling of being a stepparent is like being an animal held back by an invisible electric fence. it is only when you see the danger and run after it that you are shocked into the reality of your role.

it is a scary task we parents have, raising children. juggling their health, safety, the degree to which we show them love and understanding, the effort we make to teach them things we'd wish we'd known; only to have the flood of reality sweep us and our naive and romantic ideals away in a flash. i pray now for the strength to love my children when it is really hard to- when i am tired or unhappy or lazy or angry or disappointed in them. i pray for them to hold on to this gift of innocence for as long as they can, before the rapid succession of reality smacks it out of them. and i pray for help from friends and family when something comes that we feel we cannot survive. something like this. the end of his innocence.

got (raw) milk?

2010-07-30T09:34:00.004-04:00

raw milk pick up went well.
turns out i know the person who's house the drop off point is. she never mentioned it in all the times we've talked.
first rule of the raw milk club is you don't talk about the raw milk club.

taste?

great. i've heard people say that it tastes like milk should taste. now i get it. it does. it's so fatty that it leaves a layer of sheen in your mouth. it is rich but not sweet, and it tastes like it comes from an animal. and it should. our food is becoming so removed from it's source that we forget from where it came. there's no confusion with raw milk.

so now what do we do with it? we still had some organic whole milk leftover so we finished that. and this morning we tore up some raw milk smoothies for breakfast. this is roughly what we put in them:

2 frozen bananas
(when they start to turn black we throw them in the freezer and then later use them in smoothies, eliminating the need for ice, which just waters the smoothie down)
1 1/2 cups raw milk
a kid-sized generous handful of fresh sprouts
(because the kids love to make the smoothies)
1-2 T raw honey
1-2 T wheat germ
1/4 cup whole milk plain yogurt

blend and chug.

psst-don't tell harper, i put cod liver oil her smoothie.

delicious, enjoyed while sitting on the kitchen counter and floor, because we couldn't make it to the table fast enough. first time i've added sprouts and that was so good.

other possible smoothie additions:
fresh greens
freshly ground flax seed
flax oil
coconut oil
cocoa powder
peanut butter
peaches, plums, nectarines
berries
the list is endless!

loving our beautiful friday morning.

ladies who lunch

2010-07-28T15:09:00.004-04:00

homemade caesar dressing.
homemade sprouts.
homegrown tomatoes.
add lettuce, parmesan cheese, avocado, and toast with monacy silver from cherry glen goat cheese.
yum.
amelie asked if she could lick the blender when we were done making the dressing.
i think i shed a tear.

day off and raw milk update

2010-07-27T09:46:00.006-04:00

our day off yesterday was wonderful. gunter and annika went for a half day of soccer camp and tom and i took amelie and harper to the zoo. next a picnic in our dc garden (we have our plots until the end of the year.) after a restful afternoon we ate dinner with our huge family at my parents' house and headed home to face our work week.

our sprouts were ready last night so this morning we enjoyed a breakfast of sprouted grain toast spread with cream cheese and loaded with sprouts. thin slices of cured sausage and peaches were also enjoyed. why eat cereal when you've got food like this?

i over soaked the buckwheat groats so i'll have to try them again. i'm sure we'll continue to eat the clover and alfalfa sprouts at lunch today.

tomorrow we go to a drop off spot to pick up our first delivery of treats from a PA farm: raw milk, raw milk butter, sprouted grain cinnamon raisin bread, and some grassfed beef. next monday we will take the kids up to the farm in PA so they can meet the farmers, the cows, see the land where their food is made. i cannot wait to go!

our decision to drink raw milk has come after MUCH research and thought. we have talked to other families who have enjoyed raw milk for years, spoken with the people who produce it, and have read many articles on both sides of the raw milk issue. i promise to keep you posted on the taste, appearance, and any side effects, good or bad. what an exciting journey we are on, thanks for tagging along.

inspiration is sprouting up

2010-07-23T12:10:00.009-04:00

moving always sets me back. it's exhausting, everything gets put on hold, moved to the back burner, delayed. now that we have been in our new (virginia) home for a month we are getting back on track. that means eating at home more, getting to know our local farmers' markets and grocery stores, and continuing on our path to feed ourselves and our kids well.
those of you who saw me at los tios last night, shhhhhhh...

what we're getting out of our local markets and stores:

4 Mile Run Farmers and Artisans Market

we scored some awesome okra there. some of the pieces were too big and hard to eat. no need to throw them away, though! i learned from one of our favorite magazines, Mother Earth News, that you can just scrape out the tasty and very healthy seeds, rinse them, and throw them on top of a salad or veggie sautee. done. the rest of the pod goes straight into our worm bin.

Del Ray Farmers Market

best find was the Bolivian woman who makes saltenas. delish!

Giant:

yes, I said giant. turns out they carry the very necessary ingredients for our homemade laundry detergent: washing soda and borax. who knew.

Moms Organic Market:

have loved this place for a while, and now we live just a few blocks away! for now we get our milk there (until we start drinking raw milk, hopefully very soon!) because it is grass-fed and low-temperature pasteurized. we also get cod liver oil, coconut oil, and pure shea butter there, all things i eventually need to find cheaper elsewhere. i use the shea butter mixed with coconut oil instead of conventional lotion and i can't get enough of it. we cook with and eat the coconut oil (i'll have to save that for a later post.)

a friend of mine, whose incredibly cute blog you can find here gave me a recipe for homemade deodorant the other day, and i'm dying to try it. i just have to buy some cocoa butter and mix it up. in case your interested here it is, from a blog called Angry Chicken.

finally we're sprouting again! i was reminded of the need to keep eating healthy, crazy healthy, by my friend jennie
who fought off her cancer like a madwoman and is an inspiration to me. so to that end, we are soaking seeds today for sprouts in a few days.

moo mix from sprout people, a mix of alfalfa and clover. ironically, the very thing that cows SHOULD be eating if they are producing milk. also delicious for us humans.

another tasting something-buckwheat.

seeds in the mason jar, ready for soaking.

i'll post photos of the spouts as they appear and let you know how we ate them.

amelie and i got outside yesterday and worked on our container garden, transplanting lavender from the community garden in dc, removing dead leaves from our tomato plants so they keep producing, and watering the basil. we'll start adding new plants soon.

so that's what's shakin' around here. we are quite literally counting down the days (23) until we close the restaurant for a week and head out west to oregon. this is a vacation that we all need, and we look forward to finding more inspiration from our time away.

see you soon!

today is sunday

2010-07-18T12:01:00.008-04:00

and we are home, the girls and i. doing what we enjoy.

window washing with a wedgie.

self portrait. she's obsessed with picture-taking lately.

harper and her milk, not ready to give up the bottle.

and i caught amelie sneaking into the fridge. and eating mustard. could be worse, right?

me, i'm in heaven because i found a new blog that i am loving since losing myself in the nourishing traditions book that recently arrived in the mail.

thankful for this day.

tom and harper: no words needed

2010-07-14T12:27:00.006-04:00

breakfast of champions

2010-07-14T11:18:00.003-04:00

really not that bad. gunter, annika, and i mix it with water, amelie with juice, and harper gets it mixed into her super porridge.

why?

Vitamin A: helps to maintain a healthy immune system, helps resist bacterial and viral infections, and beneficial for eyesight and healthy skin.
Vitamin D: helps maintain strong and healthy bones.
Omega-3 Fatty Acids: have anti-inflammatory properties which help relieve the symptoms of arthritis, improve brain function, reduce stress, prevent allergies, relieve asthma, and help with learning and behavioral disorders including bipolar syndrome.
EicosaPentaenoic Acid (EPA): is great for the cardiovascular system and helps reduce inflammation throughout the body. Also works as a natural anti-depressant.
DocosaHexaenoic Acid (DHA): is also a fatty acid which is vital for good eyesight, a healthy nervous system, and healthy skin.

Research has also shown that consuming 1-2 teaspoons of cod liver oil daily can help to prevent serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, musculoskeletal pain, kidney problems, and high cholesterol.

so why not?

i know, it's getting crazy. tom and i are right on the brink of starting to get raw milk, too. anyone out there drink raw milk and loving it?

love divine

2010-07-05T21:22:00.001-04:00

it is morning and you climb into bed with me, lay on my chest, turn your head to the side and stare off into the distance. a year ago today you were doing the exact same thing.

it is morning and i am already overcome with emotion considering that a year has passed since we were given the gift of you. you are dancing in the kitchen with amelie. i could sit and watch you all day.

it is breakfast time and when we pray, you put your tiny hands together for the first time ever. you sit with us, eating amish eggs, local blueberries, slices of ripe cherokee purple tomatoes, and toast slathered with butter. you are happy.

it is late morning and we all get into the car to go purchase gifts for your birthday because all of our days run together and everything seems to sneak up on us. you face backwards in your car seat and laugh at gunter and annika in the back seat.

it is early afternoon and we’re still out and you are late for a nap. you are grumpy and tired so i carry you through the grocery store and you rest your heavy head on my shoulder. i feel a lump in my throat when i think about how i will never ever get enough of you.

it is evening and our huge family gathers to celebrate this day. we are mommy and daddy, aunts and uncles, brother and sisters, grandparents. our friends have passed on their wishes to you. things are messy, i haven’t showered, it is so hot but all i notice is your pale white skin, your little onesie with green flowers, and your little comb-over hair. everything else disappears. outwardly i know it may seem that this day was thrown together, but i have been expecting it for a long time. it is bittersweet, this passing of time. i am proud that we have come this far but so sad that it has now passed us.

harper, i cannot even begin to describe my love for you. it is so painfully and wonderfully deep that i don’t even know where it begins. it is a visceral love that i cannot control. it is impossible to grasp, it is divine. it is, you are, my gift from God.

happy birthday to you, harper. my precious baby girl.

signs?

2010-06-18T13:36:00.003-04:00

when we were told we needed to leave this house we searched, unsuccessfully, for a new one in dc.

since then we committed to living in virginia.

when we were living in dc we applied to preschools in the city for amelie, though we were waitlisted for all of them. and because we were moving we committed to sending her to preschool in virginia.

since then we’ve been told she’s been accepted into a full day, five day a week, free program. in dc.

we looked for weeks for a home that would suit our family and finally found one in alexandria.

since then our neighbors told us there were two homes that have become available just down the street, in dc.

we lost two managers at work and our family (me, tom, my parents) has struggled to keep the restaurant going while taking care of our kids.

since then the mother of amelie’s good friend next door announces that they are looking for someone to share their wonderful nanny.

signs?

but i do not believe in fate. i do not believe that everything happens for a reason. i believe in God but i do not believe that this is all part of His plan. i believe that life has been hard, really, really, hard for us for a while now. that it has affected the way we love our kids and the time we are able to spend with them. it has affected our financial situation which in turn affects everything else. it has affected my relationship with tom because when everything else is squeezed out of us; time, money, love, energy, dedication, then we are simply shells for each other, full of nothing for the person we each love the most. and i have been a terrible, non-existent friend. my brother –in-law caught me off guard yesterday when in the midst talking about our lives he simply asked:

-and how are you doing?

and i simply couldn’t handle it. i fumbled, i stuttered, i got all deer-in-the headlights on him.

so here it is- if you see me running around these days, just say hello, tell me about your life, tell me anything. just don’t ask me how i’m doing. not right now.

escape

2010-06-07T15:20:00.007-04:00

a gift from my mother. an escape to cape may for the weekend. away from my personal hell. and it was heaven.

catching up with a sister.

gunter and harper. happy.

beautiful annika.

my amelie in the sand.

thanks mom.

see

2010-05-27T11:26:00.003-04:00

the tightness forms around my neck, it is pushing me

down and

i’m angry at what you did to me

you spit out words about welcoming your family

and even though you are a mother you still can’t see

that you’re drowning in your own

hypocrisy.

in your courageous move to set yourself free you’ve

locked yourself in

and

swallowed the key.

what is it that you

even ever wanted

from me

-to cover your own insecurity?

to give you the job

the green light

the attention

for

your pregnancy?

you didn’t care

you were

in the car

you ran on the lowest

frequency

and still you attacked and

kept notes on their delinquency.

they were shadows the shadows that

hid your

inability

to change

to get better to see

with clarity.

don’t tell me whether or not

i should change the key.

where i should send your barely earned money.

just leave us alone-

you are no longer

part

of this family.

and within the last hour

2010-05-15T17:34:00.004-04:00

*update below

that asshole left us hanging. our gas light came on. someone is in our parking space. and two of the four are screaming. normally i would crumple into tears but i had to make lunch. had to put amelie down for her nap. had to put harper down for her nap. had to make happy for gunter and annika, listen to their stories with interest and love because that is what they deserve. i have to pack boxes then pack up the kids then take them all back to work so tom can bring them back home again. so i can work. tonight, tomorrow, for who knows how long now. so no trip to cape may. no time with my husband. no time together with our kids. no saving for that day because i don't believe any more that that day will come. it simply isn't coming. not for us.

and the thing that hurts the most is that i don't really give a fuck what i get or don't get. i want it for my kids.

*thank you to those of who have already sent me messages of love and compassion. i hear them, i am taking them in, i need them. thank you.

and later that same day

2010-05-09T13:49:00.004-04:00

someone drove their car into the side of our restaurant. just as i had closed the door on a chapter of someone’s life. just as i had picked the kids up from school. just as i’d had them start homework while i started dinner. life does not wait for the perfect moment. and i am so tired of the roller coaster.

and earlier this week

2010-05-09T13:30:00.007-04:00

i attended the funeral of a man from my church. he was not a relative or a best friend, but he was someone that i knew i’d regret not saying goodbye to. because his was a face i’d grown up knowing in my church. i knew that since he’d become ill there was a piece missing from each church sunday, a familiar feeling that had brought me comfort, that i was unaware of until it was gone. so i came to say goodbye.

he was old and had died of congestive heart failure. there was no surprise, no shock, no feeling that he had “gone before his time.” in fact there seemed to be a collective sense of resolve in the sanctuary; that he had died, that soon some of the folks that had come would die, and that eventually, hopefully years from now, we younger people in attendance would die, too.

there was no loud wailing, no standing up and asking why, no fighting what had happened. his wife sat stoic in the front pew, surrounded by family. children and grandchildren and great grandchildren had come. they all had a look of blank but proud solidarity that, if asked about, they could probably not explain. his friends sat across the aisle but also in the front row, evidence that they were of equal importance in this man’s life.

i sat next to ashley, a dear friend. we had visited this man in the hospital during the last hours of his life. when we’d found out that he was close to dying we slipped from our lives and into the hospital at 11 o’clock at night. he was alone in his room, breathing heavily, a giant bottle of morphine dripping into his right arm. we each took a side of the bed, ashley and i, and on her cue i grabbed his left hand. i noticed right away that his wedding band had been moved to his middle finger, his ring finger now too thin to hold it in place. his hands were liver spots and veins and bone, but still very warm. and in the next two hours ashley and i talked, comforting each other, comforting him, he comforting us. ashley scribbled a note (to whom?) explaining that we’d been there, that we’d stayed for a while and visited, talked, and held his hands. that we loved him.

the funeral was simple, sweet. there were sprays of flowers, forcefully bright and happy adorning the communion table, resting on his casket. the organ played a slow dirge of music and we stood to watch the family walk in. i made a mental note to myself that i would stand or sit with my arms at my side, rather than crossed in front of me, so that i could fully absorb this next hour or so. and immediately i could feel everything seeping in; the music, the old familiar hymns that we didn’t need books for, the bible verses, the solo, the words of friends that new him well. and with no where else to go my sadness came out in my tears, first slowly, then quickly, then faster still.

i know that funerals are not for the person who has died. i know that they do not care if the casket is cushioned, or if the bouquet that sits on top of it is centered. they do not care if a loud siren sounds outside while someone is speaking about them. they do not care about deviled eggs and punch afterwards. they do not care if it is sunny or raining when they are lowered into the ground. this body, this flesh that remains, these flowers and this ceremony, they are for our selfish need for a goodbye.

i suppose a person that takes the time to design their own funeral is really designing their perfect way of saying goodbye to the people they love. they are imagining how they would handle the loss of a friend or family member. how they could possibly take it all in.

these days i am a shield, blocking out so many things, so i am thankful that i was there, arms lowered, taking it in. i am glad that i said goodbye.

this morning and about a week ago

2010-05-03T22:09:00.002-04:00

i’m trying to decide where to start now and i pull up itunes on the computer for some inspiration. no time to really focus on what i want to hear, so when i click on itunes dj i don’t expect to hear tracks from the “free to be you and me” soundtrack. love the music, a gift my aunt exposed me to as a child, but it’s hard to get fired up when “it’s alright to cry” is playing. and brandi carlile is disturbing me because she is not only not stopping by to sing to me on her next tour but she is also making a few too many stops on main stream TV lately, i.e. Grey’s Anatomy and Army Wives. i know this because i watch these shows. this seems a little two-faced, i know, but i like my separation of church and state. or music and television. same diff.

my last update post was almost two months ago, when harper turned eight months. this week she’ll be ten months old. she is my world and sometimes i want to run away and live in the tiny crook between her neck and shoulder while her arms wrap around me. it’s like she knows i need her.

i’m putting off the inevitable here. so there are a few things going on with us and i will probably split them up into several posts. here they are in no particular order. actually, i think it makes sense to just start with this morning:

this morning:
i felt something crawling on my head and felt my hair. found a tick. yep, a tick. i have read in the past that if you find a tick on your arm or ass or something you should paint it with clear nail polish so that it will suffocate and you can pull it off. this was a non-issue because i was holding it between my fingers. i searched around frantically and saw a pile of leftover plastic easter eggs. oh yes i did seal that tick up in an easter egg. it’s sitting right here on my desk as i type this. what the hell am i supposed to do with it?

please respond in the comments. seriously.

so the whole tick thing really is freaking me out because about a week ago i could barely walk down the stairs in the morning. i took to self-diagnosing via the computer (isn’t that what we’re supposed to do these days?) and determined that i either have arthritis or lyme disease. so now the tick this morning really put me over the edge, you know in terms of dying from lyme disease and stuff. plus, tom insisted on searching my head for additional ticks. and amelie joined in. i can only imagine what folks on the street below must have been thinking when they looked up from their walk and into our home only to find a two year old and forty two year old hunched over my head and picking at it like two gorillas.

honey, it was a tick, not head lice.

stay still, i need to look.

man loves a crisis. thankfully his search was fruitless and i was not suffering from a full-on tick infestation. not today at least. we’ll see what the doctor says tomorrow.

about a week ago:
our landlord e-mails and says that he needs to come by the following morning and fix some things. oh, and he needs to talk to us about something.

i told tom to bring home some empty wine boxes for packing from the restaurant that night.

sure enough, he explains that he is separating from his wife and he has lost his job so we can either buy the house or move. i laughed as he walked out the door, half because i was going off the deep end and half because he had not notified us in writing. we had just gotten used to this place. we had just made friends with the neighbors. they had given us hand-me-downs. amelie referred to katie and gigi as her friends. i knew the nannies. we received someone’s package when they were out of town. worst of all we had planted red runner beans that promised to stretch beautiful vines along the back fence, producing scarlet flowers and edible beans along the way. we had literally taken root. i held out hope that because he had not given us notice in writing we were good to go.

that is until we received a certified letter the next morning giving us 90 days.

and so begins the search for a new home to fit our huge family, a tick-related diagnosis, and for the remainder of my sanity.

more to come.

you better run, you better take cover.

2010-05-02T15:56:00.002-04:00

i keep all my writing on one word document. it’s 117 pages long and the first time i went to save it the automatic title that my mac gave it was “frizzy hair that people are too polite to point out.doc,” because that was the phrase i’d typed at the top of the page. i’ve never changed it. it really just sums up a lot about me.

i have not written for a long time. at the beginning of this year i resolved to try and stop complaining so much in my writing. it seemed that i was taking everything out on my blog, and things were overly negative. so i stopped. writing, not complaining. and everything i’ve had to say has either been filed away at the back of my head or redirected into anger at someone near me. i’ve been fearful that because so many people were reading my blog that i would start to shock, offend, push people away. turns out that i was doing that anyway in my day to day life, and meanwhile all the things i wanted to say, the things that were hurting me, pissing me off, annoying me-i could never just let go of them. my blog is the place where i let things go, to put them down, to share my life and my feelings, even if they stir up emotions in others. because that is who i am, because this is what i need.

so i will try to get back to this, the business of putting my things down. right here. and already the thought of it leaves me breathing a little slower, a little deeper. and if things get worse than they are right now(which is frankly hard to imagine), well at least i’ll have a place again.

so brace yourselves.

and just like that

2010-03-10T13:40:00.002-05:00

you are eight months old

we walk in to get you in the morning and you are standing in your crib

we leave a bowl of food on your tray, turn our heads, and you grab the spoon and try to feed yourself

you wake up on sunday from a nap to find your cousin sitting in the church pew smiling at you and you struggle to get out of your seat and say,

-all done!

we are tucking your tiny clothes away in boxes because you are too big for them

we save a receiving blanket from the hospital; we save a onesie, or two

we look forward to the warm months when your legs and arms will be bare and we can see you soft white skin, your chubby legs, your perfect feet

we anticipate bringing you to the garden to watch us plant seeds this spring.

we thank God for the pleasure of cooking beautiful seasonal food for you and watching you love it

we inhale deeply the smell of castille soap on your head after a bath

we want things to be right for you

we want you to be happy

we want you to grow up but stay small

we want to hold you forever.

to our harper,

we have no right to have something as lovely as you.

when we are running around crazy a few years from now with your brother and sisters, these are the moments we want to remember.

thank you, sweet. baby. girl.

the gift of a snow day

2010-02-10T14:32:00.004-05:00

today i am thankful that our family gets to enjoy staying home instead of working at the restaurant.

that because we are home we can teach our kids to make chicken stock and then chicken soup.

that we have enough time to clean our fridge (found some cornichons!)

that gunter, who is not a fan of making an effort, cleaned our toilets.

that tom helped some firefighters rescue a neighbor by shoveling a path for their stretcher.

that annika and gunter learned how to play poker.

that amelie said, "pass my water, please!"

that harper is growing,
as evidenced by her toe sticking out of her pjs.
i could stare at that toe all day.

no excuse: you're making this for dinner tonight*

2010-01-31T13:58:00.003-05:00

thanks to k i've been reading this awesome food recipe blog, smitten kitchen.
every so often our older kids get a hankerin' to make dinner, so we try to keep those meals simple and easy to prepare. 'cause no one wants to be peeling, slicing, and dicing in between homework and jeopardy. and so the other night gunter and i made this. pasta with a four ingredient tomato sauce. though i should say that we snagged some grass-fed ground beef at the store and started the sauce with that. gunter was not too pleased with the idea of dumping two huge onion halves into a pot of tomatoes and calling it a day, but man was he pleased when he realized he got to fish the onion out later and throw it away!

and there you have it. pasta boiled with well-salted water.
four (or five) ingredient pasta sauce.
grated parmesan on top.

done. delicious.

*for added healthiness we add cooked beans, raw spinach, or raw thinly sliced greens at the last minute.

boob job: making my case for breastfeeding

2010-01-29T19:24:00.019-05:00

warning: this post talks in great detail of things mammary. if the thought or sight of a woman whipping out her boob to feed her child gives you the heebie jeebies, well, keep on walkin’. also, if you think you’ll have a hard time facing me at the restaurant after this feel free to opt out...

here’s where i acknowledge that this is just one person’s experience, opinion, and life situation. it’s not for everyone. (though i guess it could be.)

as harper approaches seven months (eeks!) i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how she eats, or more accurately, how i feed her. as i’ve said before about all of our kids, if we screw everything else up, at least we know they will have eaten well. i have been breastfeeding harper since birth. really it’s just a continuation of what i’d been doing for the last 9 months anyway. no, you’re not necessarily off the hook one they come out. i also breastfed amelie until about five months. with amelie i did introduce formula very early on, probably somewhere between one and two months of age. i was also working six weeks after having her and i never did bother to really get pumping figured out. truth be told, i wanted an out and that free can of enfamil in our cabinet was playing games with me. looking back on it, i get it. that’s exactly how they wanted it all to go down. woman indulges baby and motherly instinct. woman misses old lifestyle. woman has to work. woman not radical enough to attend a la leche meeting. woman gives up and gives in. and that’s how it happened. because as soon as i checked into hotel milk-in-a can, my boobs checked out. dry as the sahara. within days. and i’ve never felt so shitty in my whole life. that’s the truth.

i told my friend k the other day that i had made it past the point of stopping with amelie. i hadn’t really said it aloud to anyone but tom. she was proud of me and i am thankful for her reaction. i am also so thankful to tom for supporting me through this. before i had harper i always told him that i wanted to feed her for the entire first year but that i couldn’t do it without him. to be sure, many things have had to come second or third in relation to my feeding harper, but so far tom and i have made it happen. and for that i am so incredibly grateful.

in the interest of full disclosure, i should say that it has not always been fun, easy, convenient, or comfortable. as the first woman in my family to breastfeed, i had no help or advice from anyone related to me. on top of that i have received comments from family members that not so subtly suggested that i was doing the wrong thing. one thing this journey has taught me is that this decision that we have made has nothing to do with what people think of me and everything to do with two parents doing what’s best for their child. and there is simply no argument that formula is better. period. but the things that have to be sacrificed are more than worth it: all night partying, clean shirts, public modesty, sleep, being able to work a full day, being able to be alone for a full day. still worth it. even the awkward and unpredictable things are worth it. like when i work in the restaurant and hear a baby cry i start leaking. when i talk about harper to other people i start leaking. when i went to see a screening of fresh the movie and heard joel salatin speak about formula and breastfeeding, i started crying then leaking. i’m a mess. of course, i’ve always been a mess, so now i’m just a mess that also leaks on occasion. i’ve also taken to just grabbing my boobs to see which one is fuller before i feed her. much like the way a guy goes around grabbing his crotch all day when he thinks no one is looking. or does he just not care if anyone is looking? and unlike amelie the nursing caused harper to stage an all out boycott of the bottle. not cool.

and in addition to the nutrition-related benefits of breastfeeding, the antibodies she gets that free us from using purell like it’s crack, the connection, there are the unexpected ~~benefits~~ gifts that i have received, like:

-being able to stop her from crying in a instant

-the way she reaches up and grabs my shirt when she’s nursing

-the way she sighs and exhales from complete satisfaction

-when she was newborn, her eyes would roll back in her head when she latched on. once i got over how freaky this looked i thought it was really cute.

-rapid baby weight loss (now what to do about the rest of it)

-plenty of butt patting and fat thigh grabbin’

-me laughing when tom forgets the term “letting down” and says “getting off" instead. ha. double ha.

-watching her get shot in the eye with milk if she takes a break. hilarious.

-now that she's older she occasionally stops, looks at me, and smiles a beautiful smile.

last year tom gave me a handmade birthday card from harper. he had traced her little hand onto a folded piece of paper. the little hand said “happy birthday mommy!” inside it said:

“thank you for sustaining me.”

that would probably be a close second to the number one sweetest gift i get for breastfeeding:

the imprint of her tiny ear on my forearm every time she finishes eating.

worth.

it.

all.

saturday

2010-01-23T15:29:00.006-05:00

today i am thankful for time with all four. for freeze dancing. and for getting yet another glimpse at annika's selflessness.

sunshine

2010-01-16T14:12:00.003-05:00

this week i am thankful for:

a baby that smells like dr. bronners baby soap,

having seen Gunter and his class recite the I Have A Dream Speech at the Lincoln Memorial,

living in a place that allows me to walk to the Lincoln Memorial,

gloria at the verizon store who hooked me up with a new blackberry at no cost after i dropped mine in the bath tub,

homemade dishwashing detergent (oh yes i did),

the anticipation of seeing amelie going to school and with a tiny backpack from my parents,

someone giving me cred for a tweet,

tom,

and my other job.

oh, and haircuts.

teddy bear scare

2010-01-11T14:10:00.005-05:00

so lately amelie has been picking away at this homemade teddy bear that we received from a friend. i noticed but didn't say anything since i thought it would stop.

here it is.

then a couple of days ago after putting her down for a nap, after about 30 minutes, i hear a blood-curdling scream. not a sound you ever want to hear from your child. i sprinted up the stairs with harper in my arms. i open the door to find amelie in her bottom bunk bed, squished into the corner, shaking, and pointing to this:

it was bad.

when i say shaking, i mean like a convulsing, screaming, crying. she had ripped down the mobile that hangs from the bunk above her, she'd covered her self up with blankets to keep the bear from getting to her. let's see if i can find a picture of what she looked like:

no, this isn't it.

yes, more like this.

i threw the bear out into the hallway and held her (and harper) for a few minutes. i calmed her down and told her i'd fix the bear while she slept. so she drifted off.

and i sewed permanent socks onto the bear's feet.

all better. all in a day's work.

snacktime: peanut sesame hummus

2010-01-08T18:05:00.007-05:00

with harper down for a nap amelie and i decided to make one of our favorite snacks-hummus. we usually have all the ingredients on hand, and it's so much better to make your own. we have a great vegan cookbook called Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan so we used the tasty Peanut Sesame Hummus recipe which i'll include here with our modifications:

2 cups cooked chickpeas
1/4 cup lime juice
3 T peanut butter (we use organic)
1 T extra virgin olive oil
1 T toasted sesame oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 t fresh ginger, minced
1 t tamari (we used soy sauce)
1/2 t agave nectar (we used raw honey)
1/2 t salt
1-3 T water, if needed to thin
3 T raw or roasted peanuts, chopped, for garnish (we used toasted sesame seeds)

in a food processor, combine chickpeas, lime juice, peanut butter, olive oil, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, tamari, agave nectar, and salt. puree until smooth, adding water if needed. top with toasted nuts (or seeds.)

here are some photos.

amelie loves the cookbook as much as we do.

our ingredients.

everything ready to be blended.

we keep a lot of sesame seeds on hand. here they are raw.

and now toasted in the pan.

snack is ready. actually this turned into lunch with some cheese and prunes on the side.

girl can eat.

if they make it, they love it. kids eat well when that is all they know.

i'll try to keep you updated on some of the crazy things we do at home when it's too cold to venture outside. hope you enjoy this!

harper and gunter

2010-01-06T22:10:00.003-05:00

inspired by this post.

update

2010-01-04T23:46:00.003-05:00

still praying.

also, have you read (or read about) the happiness project?

seems like a good idea, right?

resolution

2010-01-01T11:34:00.002-05:00

the first of many resolutions, and probably the most important, is to complain less. and let me tell you it's already hard.

it's 11:30 a.m. on new year's day and already we have been hit with some serious challenges at the restaurant.

i want to complain.
i want to blame.
i want to escape.

i realize immediately how easy it is to use that negativity as a shield.

so instead, in my moment of panic, i find myself forming words into a prayer:

god, i really need some strength right now. i really need some fucking strength.

between the lines

2009-12-29T22:26:00.008-05:00

i warned you that the coming posts would be disorganized.

so, lot's of things going on in between the madness. most of the time these things end up half -finished, half-read, half-done. in an effort to follow through with things i have decided that any knitting or crochet project i do must be made with the needles and yarn i currently have at home. so i started to crochet a really cute twirly scarf, you can find it here. but while trying to escape the recent blizzard i dropped the crochet in two feet of snow.

so now i'm doing the knitted version.

'cause i'm flexible like that.

you can find that one here.

if i finish it, i'll show you. don't hold your breath.

reading lots, too. vegetarian times magazine, my new favorite despite the fact that i'm not a vegetarian.

i also compulsively steal parenting magazines from the pediatrician's office (don't tell.)
but brain child remains my favorite, and you won't find that kind of free-thinking publication in a medical building...

working on the csa program for the restaurant and someone suggested i read sharing the harvest: a citizen's guide to community supported agriculture. if only we could appreciate just how hard a farmer works for so little money.

i'm reading this book to gunter and annika. it's an easy way for us to share something. the book is so well written for kids their ages.

and of course, all things cooking: growing sprouts, making baby food (because really, there is no excuse not to,) making yogurt, making granola, making babies (ha-just makin' sure you're paying attention!)

and our new favorite activity, making our own laundry detergent. that's right, i just got all duggar family on your ass. and while i'm not about to squeeze out five hundred kids and counting, i'm all about saving money and making stuff that's all natural (what a concept!)

here's the recipe:

Powdered Laundry Detergent

1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda*
½ Cup Borax

-Grate soap or break into pieces and process in a food processor until powdered. Mix all ingredients. For light load, use 1 Tablespoon. For heavy or heavily soiled load, use 2 Tablespoons. Yields: 3 Cups detergent. (Approx. 40 loads)

*Arm & Hammer "Super Washing Soda" - in some stores or may be purchased online here (at Meijer.com). Baking Soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent - It must be sodium carbonate!!

TIPS FOR LAUNDRY SOAP: We use Fels-Naptha bar soap in the homemade soap recipes, but you can use Ivory, Sunlight, Kirk's Hardwater Castile or Zote bars. Don't use heavily perfumed soaps. We buy Fels-Naptha by the case from our local grocer or online. Washing Soda and Borax can often be found on the laundry or cleaning aisle. Recipe cost approx. $2 per batch.

Yo people, that's $2 a batch-for 40 loads.

No I am not a Duggar.
No I do not live on a commune. Mostly because I haven't found one close enough.
Yes, I am a hippy at heart. But you probably knew that about me.

here's where it begins

2009-12-29T17:43:00.004-05:00

never too early to start her agricultural education.
hopefully there will still be GMO-free food when she grows up...

aftermath

2009-12-28T11:22:00.003-05:00

can you find all four kids in this mess?
one of the challenges/joys of having a stepfamily is that holidays don't always fall on holidays. this morning we celebrated our christmas as a family.
and now the pirates are enjoying their booty.

here i am

2009-12-26T16:09:00.011-05:00

and i have so much to say. as i approach the end of the year i have so many things to say. so i apologize for how disorganized these next few posts will be.

let me try and catch you up. one person at a time. with photos.

gunter is good now. he's had some mysterious illness that has been lamely dubbed as a virus or vertigo (depending on if you ask a real doctor or his mother.) days of exhaustion, dizziness, lack of appetite, two trips to the ER, all followed by slow improvement brings us to today where he seems to be fine. wondering if your child (even if he is your stepchild, which i plan to post about soon) has a temporary illness or a life-threatening disease is no fun. it hurts. and today we are thankful that all is good.

annika is also good. as we approached christmas and asked the kids what they all wanted it was again annika who had the most difficult time answering. the things that she asks for are always either completely practical or are things that she can share with her siblings. it's hard for us as parents to identify what she's passionate about and i worry that she will always feel as if she only deserves to be in the shadows. i asked tom what he thought she cares most about in the world. his answer was gunter. he's right, she adores gunter and would love nothing more than to always be a part of his world. sadly, as a nine year old boy, this is not what gunter wants. much of their time is spent arguing with one another, so we are thankful for the moments in between when they occasionally but truly enjoy each other's company.

amelie is my happiness. she is changing so quickly it's hard to keep up.her thoughts go way beyond the current moment. the other day she told me that the camera in her room wasn't working, that it needed batteries. she said that we should go to the store to buy some and that a person at the store would put them into a bag. then we could bring the batteries home to fix the camera so it would work again. she finishes her train of thought by requesting that if we go to the store for batteries any time soon, she'd like to come along. got it. amelie is a person that touches many people. maybe it is because i've had her around so many people from the day that she was born. from early on she has been at the restaurant. she was passed around as an infant, observed as a baby, now she entertains as a toddler. she touches the lives of many people and as i admitted to someone just the other day, i feel as if she is not ours. like she doesn't belong to just us but to many people. and i am already frightened that she will slip away. so every day, several times a day, i hold her and whisper in her ear,

mommy loves you.

harper takes my breath away and keeps me from behaving like a normal person. i literally love her so much it hurts every day. she'll be six months old on january 5th and she's now getting her third tooth. she is at that wonderful stage where she's chubby and loves to laugh and smile and be held and rest her head on your shoulder. she talks and sings (in her own baby way) and the best part is that she is completely in love with me. she lights up when she sees me and she cries when i walk away. when i hold her she grabs my ears and kisses me, slobbering all over my face. we're a mess and i love it.

no picture of me, sorry. i'm stressed out tapped out, but surviving. same with tom. we were unable to attend a single holiday event this year, a new record for us. we did, however, work to make many others' events special. christmas time is hard for people in our business. while others jump from party to party we scramble to get our kids presents. and no presents for each other this year, it's just wasn't possible, on many levels. i miss my friends who i'm sure think i'm avoiding them.

i'm not avoiding you, i'm just drowning right now.

one of my resolutions for the new year is to start being more thankful. i guess it wouldn't hurt to start now. so here it goes:

i am thankful that even though my hair is falling out there seems to be no physiological reason for it. no thyroid issues, blood tests are normal. could be the hormones from harper, could be the stress, but it's not serious so i'm thankful.

i am thankful for the church service we attended on christmas eve. for an hour our world stopped spinning and i could breathe. the force of everything hit me when we sang the first verse of the first hymn and i couldn't stop the tears. but it was good and it reminded me how much i want my kids to grow up in that church and experience it's comfort.

i am thankful for time with my family, especially for the time that we all come together.

i am thankful for the pictures that brooke gave me. two simple photos from our childhood that because she picked them out tell me what she believes to be true about us.

i am thankful that gunter and annika will be back here on monday and that even though it will be a few days late, our kids will get to open their presents together.

more to come.

and i miss you

2009-11-28T22:46:00.002-05:00

like the desserts miss the rain.

love me some everything but the girl.

i miss being here. promise i'll be back soon.

lots to discuss...

here's where you think i've really lost it

2009-11-16T17:46:00.006-05:00

i contemplated not posting this because i was too worried about the ramifications. but i created this place to be able to let things go. so don’t worry about me, just let me vent and tell me you’ve had those days, too.

i am really done today. i’m looking around for someone in the room to ask this question:

how bad would it be if i just ran away?

last week i called five different people last minute for dinner so i could ask them the same question. none of them were free.

i am afraid that he will go to work and when he comes back i simply won’t be here. because i’ll be running away from all of this. because i’m scared and i’m exhausted and i tried and it didn’t work.

i was holding harper, nursing her to sleep because she’s all weepy lately. i waited for her to fall asleep before i started crying again. and when she finally did fall asleep i woke her up because my tears were hitting her cheek.

i don’t care to rattle off the things that are happening, i just want a place to say that lately there are too many of those things. and when they seem to disappear or fade i always breathe with caution, with trepidation, because to relax would be dangerous. even still, today i relaxed. and then it happened again.

so i’m angry, really angry that she did this again. and i’m tired of trusting people, being open and having it bite me in the ass. and i’m really pissed that you took advantage of their gift and now this is what you have to say. i’m done being nice.

occasionally

2009-11-10T00:32:00.003-05:00

someone gets a picture of me.

trip to the zoo today.

lately you could mistake harper for a leaky faucet. no visible teeth yet, but ooh wee that girl can drool. and she is NEEDY. i was frustrated that she wouldn't stay asleep except in our arms. then tom reminded me of how little we have left of that sweetness.

i stopped complaining.

four months have passed

2009-11-06T15:26:00.002-05:00

two years after amelie's first bite her sister digs in to her first food; sweet potatoes grown in the nothern neck of virginia by farmer steve. my sweet harper, thus begins your journey of nourishment, growth, and pure enjoyment. your dad and i promise to feed you well, to teach you where food comes from, and to show you how to sustain yourself by putting your trust and effort into growing your own food.

we can think of no better way to love you.

these pictures. they take my breath away.

halloween

2009-11-04T15:36:00.003-05:00

original post title, i know. dude, i'm in deep so i'm a little late getting these out but at least it's still within the month of october, right?

um, yeah. no it's not.

in any case, this is how things turned out:

gunter decided that he did not want a costume this year but agreed to be covered in temporary tattoos so he could get candy. he also agreed to some much needed hair gel. (that'll be back soon, i'm sure.)

annika wanted to be a school teacher because she is still in that i-adore-my teacher-and-i want-to-be-you-stage. which makes her costume choice curious since, well, her teacher is a black man.

amelie was a bunch of grapes, an idea i hijacked off the internet a full 72 hours before halloween. she couldn't be bothered with posing since her grandfather had given her juice (not something she gets very often at home.)

and poor harper. she was just kind of freaked out by the whole thing.

all in all it turned out well. they dressed up and had fun.
mommy and daddy had a couple of beers.
these days, you can't ask for more.

milestones

2009-10-29T13:16:00.003-04:00

and just like that they change. watching four different kids grow and grow up is what tom and i have been waiting for all along. to stop and take it all in, and that is exactly what we've been trying to do lately.

harper, now a few days away from being four months old is rolling over, back to stomach and then stomach to back again. she is babbling, prefers standing, and is showing interest in food (shocker!)

amelie has finally mastered the three word phrase:

-mommy come, too?
-back door, locked?
-more apples, please!

she's also fond of the:

-oh man!

and the occasional:

-boyfriend! (in response to me getting frustrated with her and calling her "girlfriend!")

annika is becoming quite the soccer player, much to her brother's chagrin. she is doing well in school and i think she would finally admit that getting lost in a book is a fun thing.

our little man gunter is writing and typing essays. his latest assignment was an essay comparing a langston hughes story with a recent washington post article, citing themes like compassion and forgiveness... good lord.

before i start to sound too rosy, though, i want to be clear that it's not all fun and games.

harper hardly ever takes a bottle.
amelie is in the throes of the terrible twos.
annika has a stomach ache every morning because she hates getting up.
and our angelic little boy called a girl a bitch on the playground yesterday.

that's right. he sure did. but of course there's a story and apparently the little she-devil has been bullying a lot of people. so he cracked. and man is he gettin' it from all angles right now. so he knows he was wrong and he really regrets saying it and he's learned his lesson.

not the first. definitely not the last.

dear God,
thank you for milestones and setbacks. even though we so often feel as if we've fallen apart, it is in your arms that we are in fact always held together.

our little sprouts

2009-10-25T13:21:00.002-04:00

sometimes you just plant the seeds

and life takes care of itself.

half full

2009-10-22T20:17:00.003-04:00

today i am thankful and frustrated. i stink but i ate well. i was unproductive but there are flowers on the table. i am poor, so totally out of money it's not funny, but i have family close by and the best of friends. i am at the end of my rope but i have beautiful kids. i need to write, i finally want to write, but i only have time for this little string of words. i feel i'm in a rough place in this moment, but things seem different than before. because i know someone who will die of cancer any moment now. because the woman who sang " the wheels on the bus" to amelie tonight just spent 9 months getting rid of her cancer, which meant giving up the possibility of giving birth in the future. because i spent the morning with my sisters and their babies and we took care of each other for a few hours. and tomorrow another friend will meet my garden. because she asked to, because she gets me. and when people get you, it means everything.

busy doin' what?

2009-10-21T16:02:00.003-04:00

i've been away. well first i was really away, in cape may. but since i got back i've been busy. busy leading wine tastings, hiring new staff, dropping in on things, cleaning my house, sprouting, raisin' up kids(i just like how that sounds), and playing with my new video camera from tom. and i've been a little lacking in the inspiration department. but last night i watched a film that stirred things up again. i'll post on that soon. in the meantime, here's a another glimpse of what life is like for us in cape may:

gunter and annika with my parents on the porch. making memories. that's good stuff.

cape may

2009-10-11T09:10:00.003-04:00

our trips to cape may have changed over the years. as children we jumped out of bed early to get to the beach. we swam in the ocean, collected shells, dug for sand crabs, and built sand castles. we played skee ball at the arcade, walked down to the lighthouse, and ate big slices of pizza on guerney street. as teenagers we slept in late and then snuck out at night and tried to get into trouble in this quiet beach town. as adults we walked the little shops, visited the spa, bought fudge, enjoyed mimosas at the mad batter or cocktails at the virginia hotel and watched cover bands play late into the night at carney's. and now as parents we see yet another side of this place.

our kids jump out of bed early, anxious to get to the beach. we stroll through the shops, but quickly, before the next feeding or nap. we were once seven people. now we are sixteen. the house looks like an episode of big love, with sister wives holding each other's babies, changing diapers, and entertainging the older kids. everyone goes to bed early and the house is alive even through the night as babies wake up to eat and be changed. football games are watched from home instead of the local bar. we take turns making meals because none of the restaurants can hold all of us. we sit on the porch and share tips on how to swaddle.

this is how we have changed and this beautiful beach town has been our mirror. each time we visit we glance into the looking glass and see a different version of ourselves. energetic child, troubled teenager, carefree adult, and cautious parent. i am most happy with the version i see now. it makes me thankful for the lives we have lived, the faces our children will see in the future, for the memories they will form here.

as i sit here on the couch my sister and brother in law are in the kitchen making bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches for breakfast. tom and my mom are deep sea fishing with gunter and annika. my dad has taken amelie down to the beach to collect shells, and everyone else is relaxing on the porch and sipping coffee. ephemeral though it may be, we are most defintely in our version of heaven. and loving it.

pumpkin picking

2009-10-07T15:12:00.002-04:00

the pirates and their booty.

wanna know a secret?

2009-10-02T16:54:00.002-04:00

when you've got a few minutes to spare, stop by the women's confessional. where some courageous ladies are sharing their deep dark secrets.

come on, did you think it was about me? haven't i given you enough crazy lately?

dear dad

2009-09-28T15:01:00.006-04:00

i’m not even sure where to begin. maybe this will be the first of many letters i’ll write but possibly never send to you. maybe it will be the only letter. maybe you’re already reading this because word of my blog has spread down there in georgia. maybe you’ve heard about it, so you check on me from time to time, from behind the security of your computer screen.

the last time i saw you was several months ago at my grandfather’s funeral. you showed up there with your wife and your son whom i’d never seen before. you stood in the crowd of people who had come to mourn grandpa’s death. you sat in a pew while i read a eulogy to him. were you looking at me? were you listening? did my words touch you?

i did not talk to you that day. in fact, i ran away. i was not warned that you might come. i wasn’t prepared or ready to deal with years of emotion. i had come for other reasons.

prior to that day i had not seen you in maybe ten years. not since my first marriage which you came up to virginia to see. not since then have i seen you. and before that it had been years since i’d seen you. is that our plan? to see each other maybe once a decade or so, just to say we had? just to satisfy our curiosity? i can see if you stopped dyeing your hair black and you can see if i look like your sister lisa.

when i saw you at the funeral i saw a stranger. because the memories i have of you in my head are from the summers when we came down to visit as children. you made scrambled eggs with milk added and we hated the way they tasted. you ironed all of your shirts twice; once before you hung them up and once before you wore them. you were so handsome, like magnum, p.i. and you always wanted to sleep late on the weekends. we went swimming at the army base. you used to freeze those zero candy bars for us to eat during the swim break. we visited your side of the family that cursed and drank wine coolers. do you remember that trip to daytona beach with your brother? do you remember him yelling at me during dinner one night?

-don’t you do that up north where YOU COME FROM?! he yelled at me.

i was just a kid.

do you remember that we packed up and left florida the next morning? do you remember fighting with your wife that one night? the night it got so bad i called our aunt to come pick us up and we flew back home? i remember riding in your red honda civic hatchback. you loved having the windows down and playing music. remember the song that you said you wanted to dedicate to our mom if you could:

-if ever you’re in my arms again, this time i’d love you much better...

how do you think that made me feel? do you think i’ve forgotten that you used to cue up the saddest song on your billy ocean tape, Suddenly, whenever it was time for us to go home again? sometimes you’d tell us you weren’t sure you’d ever see us again. do you remember me throwing up pink pepto bismol by the moving sidewalk at the atlanta airport because i was so sad?

i’m thirty three but i can only see myself as a nine, ten, eleven year old girl when i think of you. how would we be in a room together as two adults? i’m dying to know what you would say and at the same time i don’t want to hear a word. does your son know about us? does he know he has two sisters? do you know the names of my four kids? do you know the oldest is around the age of your son?

have we gone too far to now go back? i always wondered if it was easier for you to just let us go. did it hurt you like it hurt me?

my fear is that now you will die. a heart condition, or cancer, like your father. how will i hear that you have died? will i come to your funeral? will i stand there in a crowd of people mourning your death? will i sit in a pew and listen to some stranger talk about the man you were? will i look at them? will i listen? will their words touch me?

or i could die first.

and someone could give you this letter so you’d know how i remembered you.

word play: please contribute

2009-09-23T09:06:00.003-04:00

i’ve got this list of sorts running through my head that i need to get down so i can let it go so i can fill my head up with more crap. words and phrases that i love and love to hate. no, this has nothing to do with anything. i’m sick, i tell you.

words and phrases i love:

1. snarky
i just love how it sounds. used in a sentence: she is downright snarky. (that’s exactly the same kinda crap i’d try to get away with in school and our son does now-definition of hesitation-the act of hesitating.)

2. tool
as in, our landlord just e-mailed and said he moved to a new place so, in reference to our september rent check,

“More likely than not, the mail got forwarded to my wife's house address and she misplaced it or accidentally threw it away.
Could you put a stop payment on the check you sent me for September?”

what a tool.

words and phrases (or concepts) i love to hate:

for some reason there seems to be a theme here of music and food. you can draw your own conclusions.

1. mannheim steamroller: enough said.
2. meatloaf. though i have to say i really loved that commercial with meatloaf, tiffany, and their son. which can be enjoyed here. pay close attention to son’s face at the 18 second mark. good times.

3. the worst of all: transiberian orchestra. BTW, i do a killer impression of these people. there is something about thrashing around on stage with a string instrument all in the name of the holiday season that drives me crazy. so. annoying.

4. nut crusted fish. just let me get a piece of fish that hasn’t had a nut ground up and slapped on its side just so it can soak up all the oil in the pan and taste all heavy and gross.

5. welsh rarebit: cheese sauce on toast. why this name, people?!

so, what words or phrases do you love or love to hate? please respond in the comments and check back to see what others have said.

this only works if you actually respond...

as we prepare for oktoberfest

2009-09-22T21:38:00.003-04:00

the sauerkraut has been curing, the bratwursts are stuffed, the strudel is prepped, and, possibly most important of all, chicken dance rehearsal:

sunday confession

2009-09-21T00:00:00.002-04:00

so i’m exhausted enough tonight to admit that i watched glee this week. and i loved it. i loved the characters, the songs, the “bust your windows” video which i would link you to except that if you did not see the whole episode you wouldn’t appreciate. i’m going to add this to my list of completely-trashy-might-as-well-be- a danielle-steele-novel television show list.

shame on me.

sorry

2009-09-19T14:03:00.002-04:00

i've got no clever words for this cuteness.

paranoia strikes deep

2009-09-17T10:52:00.003-04:00

as if saggy boobs, a flabby midsection, and hormones that might make a man straight up murder someone weren’t enough, we’ve got to deal with paranoia as well. are you with me on this one? my mind is playing some serious ass tricks on me. apparently crazy thoughts running through your head are perfectly normal.

it’s true. i read it in real simple.

yes, they are called brain synapses, and they are “firing away at random, and every now and then a ‘crazy’ thought jumps out.”

so it’s totally cool that i freak out every time i’m on the highway because i’m 99.9% sure that i left harper in the car seat on top of our car (where i’ve never actually put her) and she has long since flown off and landed in the potomac river.

that’s cool, right?

and it’s cool that when i take a shower i am absolutely positive that as soon as the water comes on i can hear my girls crying, screaming at the top of their lungs. every. single. time.

and it’s just fine that i go to work in a dress that shows off how much weight i’ve lost and imagine getting a compliment from someone only to answer “spanx a lot,” inadvertently letting slip the actual reason for my supposed “thin appearance.”

along those same lines every time i leave the house i look down because i’m so very sure that i’ve walked out sans pants. why does this have to be so disturbing?

i worry that i’ll take off driving without fully buckling harper into the car seat. probably because i’ve done that with amelie. yes, it's true.

i worry that in a hurry i’ll forget to add a “y” to the end of my name when signing off on an e-mail and someone will think that I think i’m the son of God. i'm telling you, people. it's bad.

is this just nature’s way of keeping me on my toes?

‘cause if not, i’m afraid that this might be my fate:

they like me!

2009-09-16T08:24:00.003-04:00

and that's the best way to describe how i feel knowing that the ladies over at the women's colony enjoy my writing. you can check it out: a post written when amelie was but a wee one.
what a huge honor to be included among all these gals.

but they're cousins!

2009-09-15T10:05:00.006-04:00

"cousins are different beautiful flowers in the same garden."

so here they are. three cousins born in july, august, and september. i cannot begin to explain how excited i am for their futures together. from here on out there will be hundreds, thousands of moments of togetherness, of family, of girls driving us crazy, getting in trouble, girls in cahoots with each other, laughing together, girls leaning on each other, just as they are in these pictures.

beautiful flowers indeed.

three ring freakin' circus

2009-09-14T14:46:00.001-04:00

look at me, taking a weekend off.

and i am straight up refreshed because, while i did not rest for a moment this weekend, i did get to go back to work yesterday. please don’t think that i have actually had off for two and half months since harper was born, though. i have been working on off hours, working from home, stopping in for events, stuff like that. but yesterday i was back doing a wine tasting and it was so much fun. getting out the door in order to go to work was another story. because my morning went something like this:

wake up, make coffee so i stay awake.
feed harper and put her back to sleep.
run to computer to finish up the wine tasting notes.
wake up amelie, give her milk (morning ritual.)
eat breakfast with amelie, harper wakes back up.
feed harper. pump extra milk.
do laundry so i have something to wear to work.
play with amelie and harper.
lots of diaper changes in between all of this, sprinkled with some sit-on-the potty and try to go’s as well.
feed amelie lunch.
feed harper. pump extra milk.
shower, get dressed.
bathe amelie, get amelie dressed.
wake up harper and get her dressed.
pack diaper bag with diapers in two sizes, wipes, backup onesies in case harper has a blow out, pumped milk, pump to pump more milk while at work, water bottle for amelie, bib, burpcloth...
e-maill wine tasting notes to myself to open at work.
go to work and print tasting notes while nursing harper one last time before she gets passed on to tom.
do two wine tastings back to back.

lots of balls.
they were in the air.
yesterday, i managed to juggle them.

imitation is the best form of flattery

2009-09-11T14:19:00.003-04:00

she obviously likes to take care of her leaking issues the same way as mommy.

there. just right.

you rock

2009-09-09T13:17:00.002-04:00

just want to say thank you to this woman.
because she posts the most beautiful, generous comments on this blog.
and the crazy thing? i met her here, doing this.
and now we are living parallel lives hundreds of miles apart.
c, what did i do to deserve your kindness?

our brush

2009-09-06T23:13:00.002-04:00

at four thirty tonight we joined as a family at my sister’s house. to spend time together, to celebrate the birth of my new niece, the third child in three months from three sisters. we ate, we fed our kids, we talked. it was a comfortable mix of mayhem and bliss and noise. as the sun went down my brother-in-law opened the windows to let in the cool night air. holding harper in my arms i looked around, took a deep breath, took in the scene. the air outside smelled of wet dirt. had it rained outside?

as things began to wind down we packed our things and said our goodbyes. each of our kids made their rounds hugging and kissing aunts and uncles. i realized that this was the first of many goodnights to come, and that with each night of goodbyes we would be forming tighter bonds with one another, shaping a new generation of family. as we made our way out of the door it was sprinkling outside.

tom and i had taken separate cars to my sister’s house so we split up the kids, each of us taking two, and headed home. by the time we made it onto the highway it was pouring. we drove slowly, tom following me so that we could stay together. i thought for a moment about the roads and how tom had mentioned earlier in the week that we needed new tires on the corolla. i think we both kind of blew it off, laughing about not having money to do it.

just one mile short of home, i changed lanes, moving to the left. right before i drove over them i saw the deep puddles of dark water in front of me. i breaked to slow the approach, and we slid a bit but kept moving forward. tom was seconds behind me, in the corolla, maybe ten car lengths. again, for a moment i thought about the tires and as i glanced in my rear view mirror i saw him collide into the barrier. i stopped.

oh my god. oh my god. oh my god. i know that is him in that car.

it was too dark to tell what kind of car was there but i had no doubt it was tom, with gunter and harper in the back seat. the car sat there. it did not move. i threw the van into reverse on a highway and backed up until i got closer to the car. tom pulled up alongside the van and we rolled down our windows. he said they were all fine.

i drove the rest of the way home with the need to get there quickly but also keep us alive.

no other details from this point matter, you see. only this: in five short hours i moved from the warm cocoon of family to the cold fear of losing it all, or at least half of us. and the five second scene i saw played out in my rear view mirror is fresh in my head two hours later. i hurried inside to hold harper and cried with her in my arms, thanking God that i had not lost them, but asking Him,

when will this get better?

the sweetest way to get screwed by your line cook

2009-09-05T14:07:00.002-04:00

and just in case you didn't think our lives were material for a movie, check out this e-mail tom just got from his best employee:

"im not going to come in anymore. i took an offer to run my own kitchen in stafford and i really need the money. i would have given you more notice but i have a bad feeling that im gonna fuck someone up in there, so it's best we leave it at that. i really appreciate you hiring me. i can honestly say that you were the realest motherfucker i have ever worked for. every other chef i've worked for was scared to make more than 2 seconds of eye contact with me. i hope everything always goes well for you. please let me know when to pick up my check or mail it to me."

words, please? 'cause i got nothin'.

cry for help

2009-09-05T14:05:00.001-04:00

maybe the postpartum shit has just come late. is that what this is though? i don’t feel like throwing my baby out of the window but i do feel like giving up. i had a dream for work but i’m ready to stop dreaming. things go right for two days then we wake up. so i just keep breaking down and crying and cleaning the same room and picking up the same shit over and over again. my house is really becoming so damn clean. like i’m expecting the fucking president or something. seriously, i’m on my hands and knees polishing the toilet bowl. maybe if i can just get every last piece of laundry done before her next dirty sock hits the floor then things will get better. i’ll see my husband. he’ll have a competent and full staff. new managers will suddenly appear. we will have money to save and i won’t go broke for having a root canal. and why is it that every time i cry tears my boobs cry milk? maybe it’s my body’s own way of self-sabotaging my laundry plan...

meet you for lunch? sure!
yes, we’re free on sunday to do that!
here’s our rent check on time!
we’d love to donate to your cause!
i’m so happy i feel like singing in a grassy field like maria in the sound of music!
we’re heading out for a romantic evening!
we’re going on vacation!
our phones aren’t going to be cut off, ever!
i’m so fucking inspired to do new things!

excuse me, could you please show me the way out of here?

i'm a loser baby

2009-09-04T16:00:00.001-04:00

because for the second year in a row our anniversary has come without us even knowing it. so i’ve been crying since this morning. because it is so pathetic that neither of us can remember to remember the day we got married. not that we’d really be celebrating by going out to dinner. because on the occasion we get childcare, it’s only because we both have to work at the same time. last week when my youngest sister was in town it took her asking me how mine and tom’s relationship was to even think about it. she asked me when the last time was that we did something alone together.

i didn’t have an answer for her.

turns out my wise youngest sister is wiser than i thought. and instead of listening and acting i went right back to doing and here i land a week later on my fifth wedding anniversary. at least i think it’s the fifth.

on my walk with harper and amelie this morning i sent him a text message:

i feel incredibly sad.

he answered back that he’d bring champagne home after work, that he and i and our baby who cries every night from nine to twelve will celebrate together.

i’m the clown.
i’ve got plenty of balls.
why can’t i learn to juggle them?

making the most of one day off

2009-08-31T21:15:00.010-04:00

we have one day off as a family. monday. that's it. with the exception of about four other days during the year our family only has mondays off together. no saturdays kickin' it at the pool. no sundays hopping from church to brunch to friends' houses. no nine to fivers in our house. so mondays. in between school and homework and bedtime routine it's our day off. so usually anywhere we have to go we go together. here's how we celebrated our one day weekend:

harper sports her first hoodie of the season because this morning was so cool and crisp and fresh we wanted to cry.

making dinner means we all help with cooking or kids. annika and harper catching up.

tom smoked whole chickens on the grill just to make all the neighbors jealous.

annika seasoned the tomatoes and the table is set with sunflowers from the garden. we also grilled corn on the cob and gunter made herb garlic bread with herbs from the garden.

yes, we could have ordered pizza, made macaroni and cheese, or made sloppy joes, and sometimes we do that. but today we made the most of our time, the season, and our kids' ability to make their way around a kitchen. and we enjoyed an amazing dinner together. because hell if we get everything else wrong, we're gonna get this right. food is our language. it is our love. and our table is where we express it. and if we died tomorrow we'd die knowing that we all went to bed happy, full, and proud of what we'd done.

because today, nothing else matters.

five things you may not know about buffy sainte-marie

2009-08-29T10:19:00.006-04:00

while seemingly random, this does relate to our day. amelie and i spent the first part of this morning reading the newspaper and listening to npr (does it get much better?) which featured an interview with buffy sainte-marie. she sang one of her most famous songs, universal soldier as we listened. before you begin to conjure up images of a vampire-slayer let me explain. i came to know who she was when the indigo girls covered "bury my heart at wounded knee," a song about how native americans in the west were simply displaced by greed/energy companies. when i say displaced of course i mean raped and murdered. anyway, i became a fan of buffy and her music and was pleasantly surprised to be serenaded this morning.
so, not that you asked for it, but here are five really cool things about miss buffy:

1. her son's name is Dakota "Cody" Wolfblanket Starchild. wow.
2. her guitar skills are self-taught
3. she wrote "up where we belong," the song recorded by joe cocker
4. her name was included in a letter from lyndon b. johnson on white house stationery as among those whose music "deserved to be suppressed"
5. and best of all, buffy did a five year stint on Sesame Street, where she taught children about sibling rivalry, Native American people and practices, and breast-feeding

check this out:

buffy, you rock.

how much of a freak i am

2009-08-28T14:04:00.003-04:00

today i researched online how to become less of a control freak. the information i found is proof to me that:

1. the problem does exist.
2. lots of people must be like me
3. i really have issues if i am telling you all of this but whatever right because either you’re gonna identify with me or you’re gonna stop reading this blog because i’m stressing you out or you’re gonna keep reading to see just how much i do reveal about myself. (am i close?)

i hate the look in my husband’s eyes when i second guess everything he does and then instantly feel bad for it. i hate that i sometimes bark at him. i hate the energy i waste going behind people. i wish i could listen more than talk sometimes. i wish i could exist evenly in a room with others. i know that this need to control stems from my insecurity. i know that i’m insecure, that’s nothing new. and since i’m all for getting help but i’m not all for spending money i don’t have i seek help from my greatest of counselors:

google.

wikihow says that i should explore different avenues of art that “treat the topic of leadership through inspiration (rather than control.) Writings such as Ben-Hur, the Koran, the Old and New Testaments, and Leadership and Self-Deception are excellent sources. Movies might include "Bridge over the River Kwai", "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas", "Dead Poets Society", and "The Cowboys". Dance forms would include most Ballroom Dance styles, including the West Coast Swing, the Waltz,.....”

blah, blah, blah,...

i'm reading this and i’m all you’ve got to be kidding me this is not what i need i can do a better job of getting to the bottom of this problem and THIS IS MY PROBLEM.
i did like the point that it made when it said that if i’m constantly telling someone like my husband what to do, how to do it, etc. it is because i’m really just afraid that i will not be loved and cared for in a way that i need. and, as they explain, love and care that is freely given is worth so much more.

so, can i mind my own biz and wait quitely for love and care?

then there’s this poem, which seems harsh but so totally right on at the same time:

Relinquish control
Stop trying to control
People and circumstances
Let go and make advances
Rather than succumbing to
Such unyielding irreverences
Shun manipulative glances
Looks, sighs, and commentary
Let people live happily and freely
Without your incessant control
Stop lording yourself over others
Spying on people like an insidious mole
What horrific thing has happened to you
That your tenderness and inner life
Has suddenly been robbed and stole?
Utterly incapable of being made whole
Are you while tending toward domination
Thwarting the peace and plans of others
Adding to life's complexities and frustration
Forgetting the freedom of human beings
Pushing and shoving your weight around
The tone of your words atrocious in sound
The bite of your attitude alienating others
Causing friction between sisters and brothers
Sowing discord and strife, removing precious life
Your gross sins, foul disgrace are turbulent and rife
When you enter a room, your presence is heavy
Cutting through the atmosphere like a sharp knife
Certainly this is not love, nor the meaning of life
Can you not therefore pleasantly adapt and change
Your way and your manner of trying to control life?
Surely it would be far more peaceful and pleasant
For others and also you, that is if you could simply
Find something else more productive and joyous to do
Your gifts, talents, and abilities seem great but few
That is when they are suffocated by the control factor
Smothered by your mixed motivation and manipulation
I sense if you were to relinquish control and live freely
Your gifts, talents, and abilities would shine magnificently
Others would happily love and embrace you wholeheartedly
Therefore relinquish control, be made whole, and love freely.

much of being a parent, especially of a newborn, is really about surrendering control. and i have gotten better since i had amelie and harper. and i know where i got this. not that it matters. i’m ready to put it down.
i don’t want to tread on the souls of those i love the most. it really consumes me and my energy. and i’m tired.

so perhaps this is a start of me trying to absorb myself into the scenery. more like a flat painting and less, well, bas-relief. thanks for letting me write down this disjointed set of thoughts and selfish observations. knowing that you know what i know kind of makes me accountable, ya’ know?

days two through five

2009-08-21T22:46:00.007-04:00

and clearly i cannot do anything on a daily basis, as evidenced by the fact that i am now catching you up on the past four days of our stacation.

harper pulls a violet beauregard under the huge blue tent at a local pool we visited with friends.

amelie and her friend LEW at amellie's second birthday party.
tutus courtesy of aunt jennie.

annika and jennie demonstrate the fine art of pool handstands.

love him.

for every birthday we abandon every rule we have about what to feed our kids so that they can eat krispy kreme donuts. with sprinkles.

and yes, gunter has been present for all of this. he's just not posing for so many pictures these days. and we understand that. he's nine.

we've also been back to the garden, grocery shopping (the six of us), visited our new niece/cousin, and washing dishes, because oh man can we mess up a kitchen. gunter and annika found out who their teachers will be for this schoolyear since school starts in three days!

not that i'm counting...

day one

2009-08-18T11:30:00.013-04:00

on the first day of our stacation we packed in the activities.mostly because you really don't want your kids to accuse you of being boring. our morning started with a trip to the garden to water new seedlings (spinach, okra, and arugula have appeared!) and to harvest chiles for homemade tabasco sauce. next, tom took the kids to the pool while harper and i stayed home to rest a while. there was nap time for amelie and finally our day ended in a trip to meet the grandparents at la loma, a mexican restaurant on the hill that we've been going to for years. thanks to a little advanced planning i pumped enough milk to enjoy the margaritas. so delicious. so worth the wait.

why would someone eat inside on a night like this?

everyone gets their own massive plate of melted cheesy goodness.

harper gets passed around.

love.

just wait until you see the rest of the babies in this family. i've never been so excited to be a breeder.

after h(ours)

2009-08-14T22:03:00.003-04:00

even when i’m exhausted but beginning my day’s work for the restaurant at 10pm at night.

even when there is so much to be done.
even when i stink and need a shower.
even though she has fallen asleep.

harper insists that i hold her.

and today, after watching my niece enter this world,
after watching my brother-in-law give his heart in its entirety.
after watching my sister give all of herself for her child.
do you think i would dare say no?

not for a second.

welcome to the jungle

2009-08-12T16:01:00.006-04:00

i haven't posted about the garden in a while, mostly because i haven't been there. but because i recently got a written warning for the state of my two plots at the community garden, i've stepped up my game. (it seems that childbirth does not exclude you from weeding and planting.)
so this is where we spend two or three mornings a week, unless it's 100 degrees outside. we've just started planting for the fall and so here's what we're growing so far:

deer tongue lettuce
boston lettuce
french breakfast radishes
sugar snap peas
spinach
okra
parsley
carrots
celery

getting hungry at the garden these days is no problem as we have nectarine and fig trees to provide us with snacks. as much as i love the goldfish, there is nothing better than letting your two year old pick her own nectarine off a tree and watching her devour it. and we still have asters, zinnias, and sunflowers for the kitchen table.

this is such a constant cycle for me. work in garden and love it, disappear from garden. work in garden and love it, disappear from garden. hopefully i'll stick with it this time.

i am so thankful for the time and energy i have to bring the kids to the garden. it's not an easy trip, as harper has to eat at least once during each visit, and that means keeping an eye on amelie while feeding her. like most places you go with children, it's not worth it unless you can settle in for at least an hour because it takes you way more than hour to prep and get to your destination in the first place. five weeks into harper's life i seem to be out of the cloudy funk that is new motherhood. back to juggling work, home, me, our kids.

next up on the agenda?
the all-important, totally predictable, but all together necessary post baby haircut.

our own little eden, complete with a lawn chair and tree stump nursing stool. i feed harper here, under the shade of the sunflowers.

amelie shovels dirt and water, water and dirt, dirt and water.

our gorgeous, dirty, two year old.

why the secrets?

2009-08-05T15:15:00.008-04:00

one day

one week

one month

everyone tells you you won't believe it's possible to love anyone else as much as your first.
no one tells you that your first child may confuse your love for the second.

everyone tells you that if the first one is easy, the second one won't be.
no one tells you that your second child could cause you to question what you believe about parenting.

everyone asks you, "does she sleep through the night?"
no one asks, "how have the nights changed you?"

everyone asks, "who do you think she looks like?"
no one asks, "what does she smell like to you?"

everyone asks, "so, is this it for you?"
no one asks, "how much does it hurt when you think about this being the end?"

to my sweet harper,
just one month and already you are my teacher. for the first couple weeks after you were born, i though i might love you more than amelie. i wasn't sure what her place was in my heart when i looked at you. i was really confused when she stepped into the hospital room and i felt a tinge of resentment for having our space invaded. it took days for me to accept that my heart was only human, that just because things change in an instant doesn't mean that our bodies are ready. what i know now is that, were it not for amelie, i would not have been able to love you so wholly and so immediately as i have been. she taught to me to be a mother. you taught me how to love my children.

your needs as an infant are so different than that of your sister's. you much prefer to be held, and tightly, by someone. being swaddled by a blanket is not a substitute for human arms. we cannot put you down and walk away. you are all about being touched and made to feel secure. this is new to me, not just as a parent, but as a person. i have never sought safety in someone's arms. for that i am thankful to you, for teaching me how to hold you and making me realize that i've always longed to be held.

a couple of nights ago your dad and i accepted that you would sleep in our bed. for now. no matter how much we try, you will not sleep as soundly and comfortably anywhere else as you do there. if someone had asked me five weeks ago how i felt about co-sleeping i would have ranted on about how that's simply not for me. but as of two nights ago we've had the best sleep since you've been born. you are warm, secure, and at peace lying between us. how else will you force me to question what is true?

to me, harper, you smell like a truly long, deep breath; like total relaxation, and warmth, and reassurance and confidence and painfully true love that can never be lost or broken or taken away from me.

when i think about not having any more kids i am torn. your dad and i feel that we want to focus on the four of you and the little time we have with you these days. we are also thankful that we have you and amelie and gunter and annika when it is so much harder for other people. i guess the thing that makes me sad is thinking about missing out on a chance to have someone else tear into me so deeply that at the end of each and every moment i am left reeling and dizzy from being so deeply and divinely in love.

you are the answers to questions i never knew existed.
harper, i love you.

with gratitude

2009-08-03T19:22:00.001-04:00

to the moms who read my post and commented, thank you. some of you wrote here on the blog, some of you sent me e-mails, some of you sent me messages on facebook. thank you all. you are reading and moving on to write your stories down. you are telling me that you felt the same in many ways, some of you even years after you’ve felt the pain. you are reminding me when i feel like walking away that it is normal. you are helping me define what birth is and what it can be instead of what it should be. please know that your words of response are an inspiration to me. i am amazed at the support i feel even when many of you are so far away. it is a true testament to the power of mothers. today i felt loved, by you and your words. and for that i will always be grateful.

christy

love's labor: part 2

2009-08-02T21:42:00.002-04:00

for those of you reading this on monday morning with your coffee (ahem) and donut, you may want to put that donut down if things like poop and amonitic such and such make you woozy. then again, you know me, so you should know better.

this is part two of my labor story. you can read the prequel here and part one here.

at this point i’ve just gotten to the hospital and i am contracting heavily and regularly. we’d arrived at the hospital at 2:45 a.m. and i was three centimeters dilated. two hours later, at 4:45, the contractions got even more intense and closer together. there seemed to be very little time to recover from the contractions, for me, emma, and tom. i sat upright in the bed and i did not want to move. everything that i thought i would want and need to provide relief sat packed in my bag. i did not want to sit on the exercise ball, i did not want to change positions, i did not want to listen to music, suck on jolly ranchers or popsicles, look at flowers, nothing. by 5:45 i started vomiting with my contractions. there was very little left to throw up since i’d gotten most of it out at home. when i felt i was going to be sick, i would tell tom and emma. emma would get a pink plastic basin and i would throw up. tom would wet a washcloth and wipe my face and mouth. it was ugly, rough, it was labor. and i was at my breaking point. by this i mean i was beginning to lose control, not stay on top of my contractions. i was screaming and wincing instead of breathing and relaxing. and i was letting the door in my mind open to the idea of an epidural. i did not say it at first, though. i said things like,

-i don’t think i can do this much longer.

-i don’t know how much more i can take this.

-i am losing control.

tom and emma heard me but they did not respond. if i was going to get an epidural it was going to be me that had to speak the words. i wanted so desperately for them to offer so that i could pin the decision on one of them.

they did not.

the knew what my birth plan was, to have a natural childbirth, and that i did not want people offering up medication. as it was i was had to be hooked up to a fetal monitor because of my VBAC (the first sign of a uterine rupture is decreased heart rate in the baby) and i had an IV antibiotic because i had tested positive for group b strep. it would be no trouble to just add another drug.

soon after i felt the need to go to the bathroom again. i knew i had to poop. i made the short but excruciating trip to the toilet and tom and emma held my hands while i both pooped and contracted on the toilet. the nurse was afraid i’d completely dilated since needing to push feels like needing to poop.

-christy, are you sure it’s not time to push? we don’t want a toilet baby here!

i answered:

-i’m sure!

i asked emma to leave while i wiped. i don’t know why it was such a big deal since everything else had pretty much been laid out at that point. then i made my way back to the bed. this whole trip to the bathroom, though seemingly insignificant, was enough to really sway me towards the epidural.

a midwife came in to check my cervix. i was hoping for some real progress. i was hoping to be told that i was in transition, somewhere between seven and ten centimeters, the most painful but shortest lasting phase of labor. but in fact i was found to be at four centimeters. four. just four. not seven, eight, nine, or ten. just four.

i asked for the epidural. i’m sure tom was relieved. i could see that emma was disappointed. i cried. i felt i’d given in, let everyone including myself, down. getting the epidural was very painful because i had to stay so still through the contractions. i was sitting on one edge of the bed, tom on one side of me, emma on the other, the nurse in front of me. i looked at emma:

-just tell me what to do.

-hunch your back, just push your back toward the doctor. good, that’s it. just breathe. you can do this.

by 7:30 i was resting with the epidural. all of a sudden the mood changed. tom and emma took breaks from the room. the tv went on. someone read a magazine. they told me to sleep but i could not. the epidural was not working on the left side of my pelvis, so for the remainder of labor i had to keep requesting extra medicine. even then, though, nothing was as bad as i’d had it earlier so i really couldn’t complain. the epidural still allowed me to have feeling from my knees to my feet, so i kept moving my legs while in bed. i had a catheter put in because i obviously couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom. with the exception of a few ice chips, i’d had nothing to eat since about 7:00 the previous night. it had been about twelve hours since i’d put something in my stomach. at one point when emma was checking on me, i was crying.

-i’m disappointed inmyself. are you disappointed?

she said,

- i think you did what was right for your situation. i’ve never seen contractions like that.

and then she comforted me with her personal birth story and her hopes and dreams for her family’s future. let me be clear that i was not in this to impress my doula. i felt a strong bond with her, as if we were good friends, and the fact that she shared her stories with me made me feel so amazingly calm and comfortable in that room. i hope that she and i will continue to keep in touch.

at 8:15 a doctor came in to explain that we might want to consider breaking my water to speed up dilation. we wanted to think about it and discuss it with emma. we knew that once the water was broken that there was only so long that they would allow me to go without delivering. and even though we had insisted on having a midwife deliver, the doctors from our practice we hovering like sharks near bait down the hall, waiting to perform a c-section at any time. because i had in fact been progressing, albeit slowly, we decided to let them break the water. at 9:45 a midwife named karen came in to do it. at that point i was five centimeters dilated. i did not feel her break the water, but i did feel a warm rush of what felt like gel between my legs. they all marveled at the amount of liquid that came out. the liquid was clear, a good sign. thirty minutes later i had soaked through all of the pads laying under me and through the sheets on the bed. i was amazed. the nurse changed the sheets and put down new pads.

by 11:45, when the next midwife came in to check my cervix, i had dilated to seven centimeters. harper’s head was at zero station. (zero station means the baby has dropped or engaged well into the pelvis and that his head rests right at the level of the ischial spines.)

things were moving along and by 1pm i began to feel a low pressure and some pain. my cervix had dilated to nine centimeters. i asked for epidural medication because the pain on my left side was becoming more and more intense. the nurse and midwife told me about how i would eventually feel a very low pain with a feeling like i needed to poop (again!) and that at that point i could push. they explained how they prefer to let the baby “labor down” which meant that i would not just push when i got to ten centimeters, rather i would wait for my body to need and want to push. i appreciated this opportunity to have a small connection with my self again despite the fact that i’d had an epidural. for the next hour and a half i kind of wriggled around in bed, very uncomfortable, unable to stay still. i was trying to listen to my body, pay attention, so that i would not miss that “feeling.” oh i didn’t.

at 2:30 p.m. i felt it. a panic, a need to poop/push/make some kind of move. things were different. emma had been explaining to tom how the pushing stage would work, how they would each hold one of my legs while i pushed, and let me rest by lowering them in between contractions. at this point many midwives had come through but i was now with the one that would deliver harper. her name was angel. angel checked my cervix and explained that i was pretty much fully dilated but that there was a little bit of cervical lip still in the way. she was able to just move it back so i could start pushing. she lowered the bottom half of the bed a bit and sat down on it, getting comfortable while i was getting more uncomfortable. and that was when it began. she said,

-it’s time to deliver this baby.

tom starting to cry immediately. sobbing really. i gave him a look and said,

-you better pull it together.

at the next contraction i pushed. if you’ve ever been constipated and had a huge mound of shit that’s been sitting inside you for days without budging and you’ve been afraid to push it out but are finally done with having it just sit there, then you now know what it feels like to push. naturally, given my past experience with colon issues, i was a pro at pushing and they let me know right away. thank god!

i was so afraid while pushing and i felt a great deal of pain. my epidural had finished off at that point and they weren’t going to give me more medication. i really felt as if i could not get to the point of pushing out a whole baby. they kept telling me to “push through it,” which was exactly what i needed to do, it just was very hard. i wanted to stop, give up, go about it a different way. with every contraction i gave three to four hard pushes. i asked someone to count for me, which made it easier. i asked people to stop chatting (they were really chatting.) i grunted, groaned, i cussed, cried, but i also pushed. i asked angel if i could squat and she told me that i only had a couple of pushes left. and twenty six minutes after i had started pushing a head came out. i relaxed. i gave another push for the shoulders, and then out she slipped, just like a wet peach. angel held her up so that tom and i could see and say for ourselves that she was a girl. and then she put her right into my arms.

prior to this day i had wondered if i would mind all the blood and amniotic fluid and general cheese and messiness that comes stuck to a newborn when she was handed to me. not for a second. all i wanted was to hold her. she was huge and warm and wet and all that i ever wanted in that moment.

-hi harper. hi. it’s mommy.

i had torn from the pushing and her size. she weighed nine pounds seven ounces, four ounces more than amelie. i had a first degree vaginal tear and a second degree perineal tear. they cleaned amelie up and did her apgar tests while i continued to contract and push out the placenta. i asked to see it a little later. they handed her back to me while they sewed me up. i did feel that a little. not so great but i really did not care. you don’t care. you really don’t care. i began nursing her right then, an opportunity i did not have with amelie. and then i asked for a coke. god help me all i wanted at that point was to hold my baby and drink a coke. and believe me they produced a coke within seconds and it was the most delicious thing i had ever tasted.

the room was buzzing with four additional nurses. there were a good 8-10 people in the room at this point. things were hectic, i was lost in love, tom was sending out texts and twitters, and that was our birth story.

today harper is four weeks old and i’m so glad i’ve written this down because it has already started to fade from my memory. like so much of our children’s lives, the details come and go and we are lucky if we are able to recall even a fraction of what happened. so i’m thankful for this memory, this story.

i am so thankful that we had emma there. she was so comforting, so exactly what tom and i both needed in this new and scary situation where things so easily slip into crazy. she was there for me, and i dare say that only a few people in my life have really ever been so unselfishly there for me and i will never forget her support.

and tom. my husband, the father of my children, my best friend. i know that this birth was an entirely different experience for him than it was for me. i know that it was painful for him and that his pain may have been worse than my own. because there is nothing that grabs and twists and slices at your heart more than seeing someone you love suffer. and that is exactly what he had to see. me suffering, hour after hour. and he survived it. and he helped me survive it.

i love you, tom. we made it. we made her.

we. made. her.

reality check

2009-07-29T23:25:00.001-04:00

let me say this. marriage. having kids. running a business. it’s really freaking hard. because nothing is ever quite what you want it to be. because at some point something has to give. because you spend every moment wondering what should give. because you think in extremes when subtle changes don’t seem like they are going to be enough. because when you feel you are drowning you feel so incredibly alone. because you are so angry you say ugly things even though you actually do know how precious life is. because you don’t know how to ask for help or where it should come from. because you don’t feel like being funny or witty. because you can’t walk away. because you can’t find the balance. because you can’t remember that it gets better and you look back at this and know that it wasn’t the end.

and so you pray, just out loud because you don’t have the grace and dignity to make it a daily thing, and you ask just to survive this. just to survive this. just to survive this.

love's labor: part one

2009-07-21T14:32:00.005-04:00

warning: labor in real life was stronger and harder than it may appear here. the posts on my labor are detailed and graphic. in other words, don’t read this if you can’t handle the truth.

in all fairness my labor began at ashley’s wedding. on july 3, 2009. you may want to catch up on that part by going here.

on saturday, july 4, we came home late morning from the hospital, with our tails between our legs. i cried because of the confusion, frustration, and disappointment. how is it that i could labor for so long and then have it completely stop? we went to bed because we were so exhausted. (a reminder that my parents had amelie in cape may for the weekend, and gunter and annika were away with their mom.) later that afternoon tom went to work. if nothing was going to happen, well then, duty called. i went over to my sister’s house and celebrated the fourth of july with her and my brother-in-law’s family. i was in a horrible mood when i arrived there, still sulking from the false alarm, but i was starving and so after two full plates of bbq i was in a much better mood. we sat on our butts outside for hours. my sister was on bed rest and i was happy to be her lazy companion. it was a relaxing day and i stayed long enough to eat there for dinner. i heaped another pile f food onto my plate only this time i felt sick after eating about half of it. this was to be my last meal before labor really began.

late that night i went home. tom and i went to bed, watched some tv, and, on the advice of our doula, decided to try and have sex. let me tell you that sex while nine months pregnant is bad enough. but sex while nine months pregnant when you’ve just been through false labor and you know good and well you’re just doing this to try and bring on the real thing is downright exploitive. did that stop us? nope. in an effort to save some face i’ll spare you too much detail but suffice it to say it was an uphill battle. but God bless my husband, he wasn’t going to give up. and you know what? it worked. it really freakin’ worked, because minutes later a great orgasm (on my part) turned into the worst pain i’ve ever felt in my entire life. (i’m not sure what this means for future sexual activity, so we’ll have to see.) this was about 12:15 in the morning.

to literally go from ecstasy to agony is no joke. i screamed, crawled out of bed, crawled down the hall and crawled onto the toilet. my body told me i had to poop and RIGHT NOW. i screamed for tom, who ran in asking what he could do. he knelt down on the floor in front of me as i sat on the toilet and i threw my arms around him. i squeezed him, screaming in pain:

-i don’t know what this is but i can hardly take it! is this labor ? I DON’T THINK I CAN HANDLE THIS!

and this continued for a while. i was having contractions, long contractions, that were just a few minutes apart. this was my body forcing itself empty, in preparation for childbirth. i was going into labor for real this time. it was actually happening. i sat on that toilet and pooped maybe four times. than i started throwing up. i sat on that toilet with shit coming out both ends, bad enough, but made worse by the fact that i was throwing up that bbq at this point and the chunks of food were making me choke. i know, it’s disgusting. but i warned you. and remember that tom was right there the whole time, witnessing, hurting for me. i know that it hurt him to see me like this. but he did not leave me. after what was about forty five minutes tom called the hospital. and i’ll take a second to note the difference between this and the previous night’s false labor:

-last night, i called the hospital. this time there was no way in hell i could talk on the phone.

-the midwife said to come in when i could not walk or talk through a contraction. last night i showered, shaved, braided my hair, put on deodorant. i couldn’t even stand this time.

-last night we were timing, this time were trying to survive.

-last night i put on clean clothes. this time i put on last night’s clothes.

- last night the midwife at the hospital had asked me to rate my pain on a scale from one to ten, ten being the worst pain i’d ever felt. last night my answer was “about a five.” tonight, when tom asked me, i screamed ELEVEN, OK?! ELEVEN!!!!!

the walk to the car, about half a block, took about ten minutes. the contractions were merciless, i was so scared. in the ten minute ride to the hospital i only had one monster contraction. i think that for a moment i thought it might be stopping again. we parked in the closest lot possible at the hospital and i rolled out of my seat and onto the parking lot pavement. really. there i sat in the middle of the night, on all fours, looking raggedy as all get out, on the ground, contracting, trying to breathe, trying to stay on top of it, trying to accept the pain for what it was. tom ran away. to get a wheelchair.

the emergency room entrance was the only open entrance at this hour, so he wheeled me in. i only had a pillow at this point because i had to hold onto something. we’d left our bags in the car. a nurse came and took the wheelchair from tom. i started having a contraction, crying in pain.

-just try your best to breathe now, honey, she said. try to breathe.

i know that tom was relieved to have someone else’s help at this point. the nurse wheeled me to the desk in labor and delivery and the very same woman from the night before was sitting there. she took one look at me and said:

-now THAT’S a little more convincing!

she had all my paperwork laid out, ready to sign. i signed four different sheets of paper, then i was rolled back to a room. my delivery room. the room i would stay in until i gave birth this time. our doula emma showed up shortly after we did. i was contracting regularly about every five minutes, but some of the contractions were lasting up to four minutes. with each wave of pain tom held one hand, emma held the other. i tried to breathe, relax my shoulders, control myself, even while seeing the disbelief on their faces as they watching my extremely long and intense contractions scratched out on the monitor.

i know that leading up to labor i wanted to know what a contraction really felt like. when they started at the wedding they were just tight squeezes, no pain. when i really got fired up they were pains that went from by back, around my side, and into my uterus, from top to bottom. they came and intensified very quickly with only a few seconds warning before the pain was really hard to handle. the pain was dull, not sharp, and felt as if a giant was squeezing my organs as tight as possible, choking the life out of them. after a certain point i could tell that the pain was subsiding. this was the height of the contraction, the point at which the end of the contraction, if measured, is noted. my face grimaced, my shoulders tensed way up by my ears, i squeezed emma and tom's hands because i felt so alone in this pain each and every time it came. i had no awareness of time, modesty, possible bad breath, appearance, nothing. and this was just the beginning.

more to come...

the gaggle goes out

2009-07-21T11:51:00.001-04:00

last night, two weeks after harper’s birth we had our first family outing. thanks to jennie, we can afford to go to baskin robbins without dipping into our savings account. she gave gunter and annika gift certificates as big brother and sister gifts at the hospital. she’s a great gift giver.

p.s. i am not.

what may seem like an easy event actually takes more coordination than you may think. we’ve got to get four kids fed then make a run for baskin robbins before harper starts screamin’ bloody murder because she’s gotta have mom’s boob again. trust me, the baskin robbins on capitol hill is just sketchy enough that i might actually get hit on in front my husband and our kids if i tried to nurse there. don’t get me wrong, i’m all for nursing in public, but not at the expense of my family. and we did pretty well. we got ice cream, harper started screaming, but tom held her, and it worked out. on our way back to the car, i noticed something that i hadn’t noticed before. people were staring. at all our kids. at our gaggle of kids. at our soccer team of kids. and tom turned to me and said,

-this is hard. this is nothing like three kids. the difference between going from two to three is nothing like going from three to four.

and he was right. when we go somewhere they just spread out like ooze that covers a city. it’s hard to keep track of them. it’s wonderful and frightening all at the same time. what if we go on a road trip and one of them flies out the window? what if we go hiking and the one in the back gets silently swallowed by a bear? what if we forget to register one of them for school?

i’m thinking all of these scenarios are fairly realistic, right?

and so begins the adventure of what it’s like to parent two, sometimes four kids at once. this should be fun.

coming soon to a blog near you

2009-07-16T16:13:00.002-04:00

the birth story is in the works. in the meantime check out two other women's recent birth stories:

here

and

here.

and while you're here, a picture of amelie eating an apricot.

summer love.

history repeats itself

2009-07-15T09:15:00.005-04:00

the power of sleeping babies. annika holding amelie in 2007.

annika holding harper yesterday.

tutu much love

2009-07-14T15:42:00.006-04:00

amelie puts on her tutu from aunt jennie in celebration of jennie's homecoming!
you are the epitome of strength and survival.
read more about our amazing aunt jennie here.

one week old

2009-07-12T15:56:00.002-04:00

adorable, indeed.

what's in a name?

2009-07-12T14:40:00.003-04:00

as yesterday was harper’s original due date, i believe it’s a good time to explain the reason we chose the name harper. no need to mess around, i’ll just jump right in. my sister, my mom, and i moved from georgia to virginia when i was eight years old to live with my now stepfather and his three children. my stepfather worked as a lawyer in the voting rights section of the justice department, a job he would have for twenty years.

his job and experience working with voting rights discrimination taught us more than the average kid had to know or learn when black history month rolled around. he used to bring home huge black government binders filled with voter registration forms that turned away african americans for insane reasons like hair or eye color, inability to spell correctly, or items left blank. i remember flipping through the pages and imagining the person behind each rejection and what it must feel like to spend your life fighting, most of the time unsuccessfully, for life’s most basic rights. very early on i felt a sense of pride that my stepfather was a modern day carpet bagger and was trying to make things right for people in his own way. he is still doing it today.

a book (and subsequent film) that played a huge roll in our lives as kids was Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. we came to know the characters of this book intimately: jem, scout, dill, calpurnia, aunt stephanie, bob ewell, mayella ewell, boo radley, tom robinson, mr. cunningham and his son walter, and of course atticus. in the film gregory peck gave us a face to match the tolerant, fair, and heroic man that is atticus finch. but our real life version was my stepfather.

just a few years ago my four siblings and i received first edition copies of the book. one of these is hard to come by. our parents found five. the covers are ripped, the pages brown with age, but it is one of the gifts i treasure most in my life.

so there it is. a book, a film, a cast of characters ingrained into the fiber of our lives. and the author, harper lee.

and a it turns out, yesterday, july 11, harper’s due date, was the 49th anniversary of the publishing of to kill a mockingbird.

how’s that for crazy?

and by the way, sabine is a family name from tom’s side. one i have always loved.

and like everything else in our lives the name we chose had to have a deeper meaning, beyond the sound, beyond the popularity, beyond peoples' opinions.

so welcome to the world, harper sabine.