happy holy daze

Christmas spirit had taken a nearly twenty year lull, maybe more.  A child of divorce, there were three Christmas's a year:  Eve at my Gramma Bruggners, morning at moms, afternoon at dads.  The presents were awesome, but I do vaguely remember being around ten years old and groaning Christmas night somewhere, at somebody's house, "Another one?"  Somehow the holiday got less exciting in adolescence, getting that coveted walkman and hiding in a corner with cassette tapes.  I think I was about 22 when I came home one year from some western state that my dad and stepmother had separated.  She and my brothers were living in a rental near my Gramma Doe's house.  My father was in a rental someplace else.  I think it was the 23rd when I came home, and I was given a choice: "Well, you can spend Christmas eve with your dad and his friends, or with you sister, her family and your mom, or your stepmother, brothers and Gramma Doe."  I decided to go solo instead, and went to the beach and cried.

The years after that were characterized by flying home from Oregon or Colorado or wherever I was living at the time, my dad picking me up at the airport and taking me out for sushi.  I bounced around from family home to family home, eventually settling on a routine that would last over the next ten years.  It was always nice to be home and see everyone, but it was also always so hectic.  The eve and morning, with my stepmother and brothers, the late morning with my sister's family and mom, the afternoon with my dad and Gramma Doe.  I'd fly home with a bulging suitcase with new hats and sweaters from my three Christmas's.  It was exhausting, and continued like this for years.

Skip ahead another ten seasons or so with boyfriend turned fiance turned husband.  Good stuff.  Always warm and lovely to decorate the tree, fun to give gifts to my stepdaughter and hang out with her before she did the split day and left for her moms, and then quiet with my husband, Annie and Zuki.   In the afternoons we'd play with a new gadget or take a walk.  One year we took the dog to run at a local state park.  When we got there we'd discovered someone had shoveled off a rink on the pond.  We raced home and got our skates, went back and spent the afternoon on the ice, Annie running and sliding between us.  Best. Christmas. Afternoon.

And now, here we are, the third Christmas with our child, the first that she is cognizant of what Christmas might mean, the thrill of the tree, the awareness of all the presents underneath.  This is the first year I've put Christmas music on my ipod, created playlists and intentionally listen to Johnny Mathis, Elvis, Ella Fitzgerald, etc.  My nearly 14 year old stepdaughter came in the other day in the midst of my baking and singing Winter Wonderland and said "Auuugggh... I HATE Christmas music!!!" And I laughed in recognition.  Cassidy in the meantime walks in circles singing, "Frosty the the snowman.  Jolly Happy Soul.  HEY!  Frosty the snowman.  Jolly Happy Soul.  HEY!"  When the music is playing and Ella's Frosty is on, she bellows,"Again! Again! Again!"

The Christmas spirit has been creeping up to me the past few years, and now I think I've got it.  I actually don't think it's ever been this good.

shots

Cassidy turned two, and so follows her two  year check up.  I put off the chicken pox vaccine last time we were there, saying no, too many shots in one visit.  Actually this chicken pox thing I wanted to put off altogether.  I mean, chicken pox was a rite of passage when I was a kid. It's not fatal.  Why a vaccine?  I argued in my head over and over, and relented.  Fine.  We'll get the shot.

I changed her appointment twice.  One legitimately, as we were out of town. The next because it was just more fun to see a friend.  I wanted to cancel again.  I dread shots.  I hate them.  To watch my daughter go through them?  Torture.

We talked about what was coming last night.  "...And the doctor will look at your eyes, and your nose, and your ears... and we'll see how big you're getting when she weighs you and measures you... and then you have to get a little shot."  I poked her arm.  "It's just a little pinch of medicine so you don't get sick.  You'll be really brave, and it will be fine."

And she was so brave.  We looked at a book to distract her, the shot descended on her arm, and my girl didn't even flinch.  "All finished!" the nurse said.  "What?  That's IT?" ... my brave girl.  "Here's your papers for the lab work.  It's for lead testing."

Crap.  Are you kidding me?  Blood work?

I told Cassidy what was coming next as she shuffled proudly with the snowman sticker on her shirt.  "...another shot, Cassidy.  But you'll be brave, and it will be fine.  Mommy has to give blood sometimes, and Daddy has to give blood sometimes..." The whole time in my head just feeling so awful.  Bloodwork is nothing like a shot.  It sucks.  A lot.

We checked in, waited in the laboratory waiting room, we were called.  Two flobotomists went to work strapping her, tapping her, while she sat in my lap, so far, brave.  They poked her left arm, jabbed and searched, and Cassidy screamed.  Cried.  Screamed.  And no blood.
"No blood?" I asked.
"Nope, we're going to have to find a vein in her other arm."
Are you bleeping kidding me?

They finally got it.  I got dizzy watching her blood course through the thin tube, while singing Frosty the Snowman to her, which we'd listened to the Ella Fitzgerald version of nine times on our way to the doctors.  Her new favorite song.  She screamed, she cried, and it was over.  "Would you like a sticker?" the blood man asked.  "Yeah," she sobbed.  And picked out two.

Bandages on both crooks of both arms.  And it was over.  And we could leave and go home.  And we don't have to do this again for a long time.  And she was fine, singing her version of the snowman song to herself as we walked down the hall of the tiny hospital where our doctor's office is.

All that dread for fleeting moment, over so fast.  Nine more rounds of Frosty the Snowman on the way home, a grilled cheese sandwich and some juice, and down for a nap, just another day.

I can't help but feel this certain "hmph!" of realization about time.  The moments, the movement, the dread of one single moment, one that comes and goes so quickly, as they all do.  All that time I spent, all the moments I spent, bracing myself for one, single moment.

Next time I won't cancel.

the progression of love

I'd heard and read all the stories about that overwhelming love I could expect to have as soon as Cassidy was born.  "Nothing like it," and "You won't believe it," and "You'll never love anything so much, so immediately in your life."
Is it weird that that wasn't true for me?
When Cassidy was born nearly two years ago to the day, this baby I had been waiting for all my life, all I could think was "Wow, what a little alien!"  It's true and it's hard to admit.  I loved her, sure, of course I did.  But not as much as I do now, and not as much as I likely will tomorrow.

For me it's been like a slow steady stream turning into a river, approaching the ocean.  I have fallen in love with her more by the day.  Fiercely.

I used to feel a little guilty when she was a tiny infant.  Where was this epiphany that was supposed to overwhelm me?  Well.  I've got it now.

There are also moments, so many of them, that I want to bottle and save.  There is also awareness that this stage of cuteness that is almost crippling (I might fall down one day, more enamored than I can bear).  Sometimes  when we get busy, like when we were stacking wood last weekend and Cassidy was sliding ducky down her little plastic slide, singing songs and picking up ducky to hold and rock and make sure it was okay, I called a time out to my husband.  We stopped stacking and took the next 15 minutes to just play with her and bask in her joy.

I am also very much aware that all this cuteness will turn south one day when it won't be so fun when she's 12 and thinks her momma's an asshole.  Or any of the other altercations to come in her future.  Or worse, how many many strained, awkward and unsatisfying adult mother/daughter relationships that exist that must have been at one time this; this utter cuteness and depth.  What happens?

Maybe we are just gathering our reserves when they are toddlers.  Loving so hard and deeply that one day when that our patience isn't quite as easy to access, we have this whole well we've collected to dip into.  I don't know.  I hate to think that one day I might have rely on resources rather than be perpetually enamored and delighted my whole life.

I do know that she is going to wake up any moment and I can't wait.  And that the journey is different for every mother, every child.  And that I am going to soak up these moments, days and years while they are here in my present time.

big cook book

Cassidy loves books.  She loves to "read."  She particularly loves to read "cook book," and even more particular than that, "apple pie."

"Where cook book?"  We go on a search for the little yellow spiral bound Edmond's Cookery Book that a friend gave me as a parting gift when I moved back to the states from New Zealand 15 years ago.  I don't know that I ever actually used it, and hardly remembered owning it before Cassidy discovered it in my scant collection.  She just loves turning the pages of that book and looking at the odd pictures of scones, soup or baby carrots.

I went to the library tonight on a whim.  I came home with some cook books, about all I have time to read before passing out in bed, a few recipes to generate some new ideas about putting food together.
It must have been the pictures on the front of the books that gave it away, because Cassidy got all excited: "BIG Cook Book!!"

So this evening we sat together and read recipes.

Some kids love Pooh Bear or Clifford.  Mine loves Apple Pie recipes.

isn't it ironic...

The last post was about lack of time and look how much time has passed from this entry from the last.  Blah!!!  She is a rocket, my little Cassidy.  Who says mothering is not a full time job?  Not a mother.

She's talking.  And I don't mean just talking, but she quantifies everything.  Not even two years old, and everything is wet, dry, awake, asleep, hot, cold, in, out... where does she get this stuff?  Amazes me just about constantly.

I had no thought and still have none as my fingers fly except to get some words down before she wakes up from her nap.  I am enamored by her.  I can't get enough of her.  I watch her break into spontaneous dance, or listen to her spontaneous song from the back seat of the car, and I burst.  Where did she come from?

And, I.  I've been waitressing for about 6 months now, and baking a couple times a week for my friend's cafe.  The other day when I told a friend "I'm so busy for a stay at home mother!" she said "Colleen.  You are not a stay at home mother.  You are a working mother."  Oh, right.  Duh.  My schedule is such that I work at night or on the weekends when my husband is home so I don't feel like I'm away from her too much.  

Money is tight.  It's stressful.  I wonder if I should be doing more, or how I could be doing more.  We live in a rural community and jobs aren't exactly stacking up in the classified section.  Not a job I would want, anyway.  I don't mind being a broke but happy momma, though sometimes the seeming monotony of it catches up with me, takes hold, and squeezes.

I am a mother, a wife, a waitress, a baker.  But wait a minute.  What about the adventurer, the writer?  Where did the spontaneous lover go, the rollerblader, the cartwheeler?  Where did the hiker go?  Where did the thinker, the discusser, the philosopher go?  I ask myself this, and sometimes with intensity.  The woman who barely squeezes in a shower at times.

And I tell myself this is temporary.  Cassidy won't require as much attention one day, and then I'll miss this.  I know that.  But there are days, one of them just recent, that I grieve my former self, my former life.  I look back on it wistfully; sleeping late on the weekends, planning day long hikes, discussing new strategies with fellow teachers... Seeing live music, staying up late, driving around for hours just to see where we might end up...

She is squawking now, my daughter, crying out my primary name:  "Mommy!!! Mommy!!! Mommy!!!"
I know I will miss this.  And that I will be back.  Some days it can't come fast enough, and other days I never want this to end.

the end of time as we know it

I'm getting deeper into this lack of time thing.  Cassidy is like a comet, all the time.  If I could bottle up and eighth of her energy and take small doses of it for the next month, I'd be good to go.  It's not that I mind the chasing and maintenance of what this does and means to my mind state, the condition of my house, the lack of words, but I am exhausted. I can't even have a phone call for more than ten minutes without peeling her off the edge of the staircase or saving the cat from her grip.


She learned to walk by hiking in the woods, and now she is a pro at manuevering over and around sticks, stumps and rocks.  She is fast.  We've been picking string beans from the garden to munch on, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries from all over our yard, but there are those bright red berries I have to make sure she doesn't get her hands on.  I love the fact that she is fully aware that food comes from the earth.


I was lamenting to chris yesterday after two full days of waitressing the coming home to the bathroom I still haven't gotten cleaned.  Chris HAD to mow the lawn, it was already sprouting new batches of dandelions, and our lawn is like a football field so this is no easy task.  I can't remember the last time I cleaned my car or even dusted my bedroom.  I asked Chris for a few minutes to sit on the front porch and call a girlfriend, and after ten minutes or so I could hear Cassidy from inside: MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!  Having been gone long days working, I hung up the phone.


"I love Cassidy," I told Chris.  "I just miss having 20 minutes to sit around and do NOTHING."  Chris has a 24 year old, a 13 year old, and a 1.5 year old.  "Colleen," he said, "I haven't had time to do nothing in 24 years, and I'm looking at another fifteen, at least.  I see cars go by, guys my age with bikes strapped to their cars..."
Perspective.  I had twenty years of running around the planet.  I remember freedom.

It's another day.  I can't even finish a ramble on blog post without pause. She's napping now, and I quickly stripped my bed, got laundry started, cleaned two bathrooms and unloaded the dishwasher.  I paid a couple bills .  Now I'll write for a few minutes and maybe vacuum the rugs before she wakes up, if I'm lucky.


We went to Old Sturbridge Village this morning, where we have a membership.  It is a restoration village set in the 1840's, a living history museum.  We go there often.  Today we took a ride on a stagecoach pulled by two thick horses, and then we went on a river boat for a short putter around the lake.  I was armed with a bag of diapers and juice boxes, crackers and her favorite blankie.  There are dirt roads she can safely run around, amidst a village of salt box and cape houses, working tin and blacksmith shops, farms and women dying wool in pots over open fires outside.  I get snippets of history and information which I would eat if I could, but I am too busy  maintaining the safety of my daughter.


Cassidy's language development lately is so delightful.  She rested her head on my shoulder the other day and said "My Mommy."  Melt.  She has yes and no down, so I ask her a lot of questions.  "You wanna go hang out on the front porch?"  "YEAAAAHHH!!!!!" she says back.  Or, "Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah!!!!"  She cracks me up all the time.  She also gets pissed if I won't let her do something she wants to do.  She screams and runs in the other room and hides, sneaking peeks in my direction to glare.  Of if I'm holding her, she'll pull my hair or squeeze my face.  I put her down immediately and tell her she's hurting me and I don't like it.  And I ignore her until her tantrum subsides.


Oh, what fun it is.


That mango smoothie on some mountain road in the tropics of Captain Cook, Hawaii, sitting at a little table outside listening to birds, the scent of plumeria in the air, alone with my journal and my thoughts... The Trident  Cafe in Boulder sipping a vanilla latte from a pint glass in the cold of winter, snug all alone with my journal in the bustle of a busy coffee shop... Under my favorite tree in Yellowstone National Park over looking the lake in a secluded place sitting on the little quilt my college friend made for me, taking a nap in the warm sun... Walking the beach in my back yard looking out at White Island, the active volcano smoldering away 30 miles off shore from where I lived in New Zealand... Riding my bike through the red clay dirt and rocks in Sedona, Arizona,to the little sandwich shop that made the best pineapple malts ever tasted...


Life sure is different these days.  And I wouldn't trade it for the world.  There are moments, however, when I am wistful for days gone by.  And, as if on cue, I can hear that Cassidy is now awake.  

tick tock tick tock

Where does the time go?


Cassidy still naps in the late morning, at which time I have about an hour and half and a choice to make:  laundry?  shower?  clean the kitchen?  clean the bathroom?  rest?  read a book?  write an e mail?  pay bills?  write a blog? waste it away playing words with friends?


She's napping now and there are remnants I need to attend to: books carried, dragged and scattered on the living room floor, a cookie sheet full of flour that overspilled on the kitchen floor rug (she loved smearing it around with her hands), the open dryer door full of laundry I haven't quite finished folding... and boy could I use a shower.  And the playroom floor needs to be mopped.  And don't even ask about the laundry piled on my grandmother's old cedar hope chest in our bedroom that hasn't been put away.


Cassidy requires much more maintenance these days.  Otherwise she's stuffing her mouth with dog food kibbles, or opening daddy's box of unused checkbooks on the bookshelf by his desk for me to find in a trail to the kitchen, or picking bits of folded laundry off the coffee table that I just spent 15 minutes folding.  Ah, what fun is life with a toddler!


I don't sweat it for the most part.  I'm getting used to living in trails of chaos, constantly picking things up off the floor.  But when she goes down for a nap, I want to rest too.  I don't want to vacuum the pile of flour up left in the kitchen, even though I knew it would be a messy activity.  I don't feel like moving everything around in the playroom and mopping the floor, even though under the rocking chair among the collected dog hair is beginning to look like a good place for mice to live.  I don't feel like sweeping the stairs or cleaning the bathroom.  I don't want to re-fold all that laundry.


Long gone are the blissful days of the tiny infant, sleeping, eating, laying on the floor on a blanket, immobile and perfectly happy.  I am wistful for those days.

Cassidy shares her breakfast

These days are full of wonder and discovery, uttering new words for the first time, testing limits and screaming tears when yes, I am serious that you may not stand up in your high chair and now you may not sit there at all anymore.  And no, you may not have a sip of my coffee, or eat that dog food, or climb the outside of the stairway.   And, oh, that laugh that makes my heart bubble up and spill over!  And yes, that IS the dog, a ball, a boat, a bee!  


I was at work the other day when Cassidy was stung by a bee.  We still re-animate the story in baby language:  bee, zzzzzzz, ow!  Waaah!!!  She cracks up laughing every time she tells the story and pretends to cry, or when I tell the story and pretend to cry.


Even though I am often exhausted, I know that I will look back and be wistful for these days, too.

first baby

Zuki's not doing well.  He is my guy, my friend, my feline.  I got him nearly 12 years ago after he was dumped at a vet's office in Vancouver, Washington where I was living and teaching.  One of the parents of my kids worked at the office and happened to mention it, and I was wanting a pet, though knew it might be a sketchy decision with my kind of wanderlust.  His full name is Godzuki, named by the son of a man I dated.  The seven year old was obsessed with Godzilla at the time, but of course that wasn't gonna fly.  "How about Godzuki?  That's Godzilla's son's name."  Godzuki.  Zuki.  I liked it.

Zuki and I lived in two different apartments in Washington.  When I moved back to New York, my brother flew out to take the cross country trip with Zuki and me.  Zuki has camped in a state forrest in Idaho, Montana, driven by the geysers of Yellowstone, and crossed the Badlands.  He met my college roommate in Minnesota, and my cousin in Michigan.  He didn't like all that traveling, but as my little dude, he had to get used to it.

For a year we lived with my dad in New York.  My dad was not a cat person, but Zuki is a man's man and wanted to be buds.  My dad started calling him "Zuki Up My Ass."  My dad would complain, but I caught him working with Zuki snuggled up on his lap many times.

Zuki and I moved to Vermont and lived in two different apartments over the course of the next few years. Then I met my husband, from Massachusetts, and we made a final move here.  He couldn't be happier about his retirement home.  Zuki has had 6 acres to roam around, cool hiding spaces under barns,  and plenty of birds, mice and chipmunks to hunt.  He adjusted well (though it took some time) when we got a golden retriever puppy, Annie.  Though let's be very clear here: Zuki is definitely the boss.


I thought Annie would be the favored pet for Cassidy, but Zuki has been more patient by far.  As a small baby, Zuki would walk right over her to lay on my stomach while I fed Cassidy a bottle.  He is so patient with her screaming and squealing at him, blowing kisses, laying her head on his body for a snuggle, and sometimes he even stretches his nose out to kiss her.  Cassidy is so happy and excited to see Zuki, like every time is the first time she'd ever seen him before.  She is just crazy nuts about him.


He really is the coolest cat ever.  And my heart is breaking to see him slowing down.  He's on a daily dose of prednesone for asthma and now has a mysterious ailment to his hind legs so that he walks wobbly and can't jump like he used to.  He's 12.  He's a senior.  We nearly lost him a few years ago after he threw a clot.  After he fully recovered from what most cats don't survive, I think I figured he was immortal.


Cassidy probably won't understand when Zuki finally passes.  Because I am her mother, my heart will break twice.

He's still with us for now and who knows?  It could be a few months, it could be five years.  My vet told me it could be a 9-1-1 anytime.  All I know is that he's been my traveling buddy, my companion and witness to my stories for all of these years.  I wish he could stay forever.

ticks while I'm away

I've been working all day on Sundays; Cassidy stays with her dad.  One time I came home in the late afternoon and found Chris pushing her around in a wheel barrow.  I think it was the cutest thing I'd ever seen.  Another late afternoon (this past weekend) she was splashing around a little kiddie pool I'd bought last year and forgot about, a bright colorful beach umbrella tilted against the sun.  He takes her hiking in the kelty backpack we recently scored at a second hand shop, and she helped him plant potatoes with her little plastic gardening tools (a minor mishap or two when she dug up the potatoes he'd just planted, but she sort of got the idea).  I also tutor in the afternoons on Tuesdays and Thursdays; again, she hangs with dad, and takes her second nap of the day (I wish this would last forever) while he works out in the barn, monitor on the workbench.

Today was the first day I'd left her all day with a babysitter.  Not just one babysitter, but when I found out Chris was going to be late home from work, I got a second sitter to relieve the first one.  Fortunately the bakery is a one minute ride up the street, so I came home for the transition.  My sister in law was with her until 230, then our high schooler came after school for the next two hours.  I came home for the in between with my dirty white apron still on, which might have been a mistake because my heart broke as I tried to make a graceful exit, Cassidy chanting Mama! Mama! Mama!


We were up to our ears in whoopie pies, muffins and cupcakes.  I got home a little after five and I could hear Cassidy was just waking up when I got home, Chris coaxing her out of her stupor.  She didn't sleep long and came downstairs whiny and needy.  We had no idea why she was screaming and complaining, whining and crying but when she went into the living room and pointed at the tv, I was right there with her.  We don't let her watch tv every day, in fact, we don't let her watch much of anything aside from the Old School Sesame Street DVD's I bought for her entertainment as much as my own.  Watching them for the first time my memory was so jarred into childhood I had to call my sister: "Remember that one with the two girls and the dollhouse?  The two little dolls, two little beds, two little spoons, two sleepy heads?  And then the cat came and busted in the dollhouse?  Oh my God, do you remember that?"


So I put on a little Sesame street and sat with her on the couch, though she had no interest in snuggling with me.  She pushed me away like "you think I'm gonna snuggle you now after leaving me all day?"   Ouch.   Still, I sat with my hand draped over her head, and played with her hair.  She let me, after all.


And then an unmistakable bump.  I've felt them on Annie about a thousand times and every time, even with the dog, go into a slight panic and call for Chris.  This time I was no different, and yet it was very different.  "CHRIS!!!! she's got a TICK on her HEAD!!!!"


I jumped up and ran into the bathroom for bacitracin and a tweezer.  Chris came over with a magnifying glass.  "It's too big for a deer tick," my husband said.  "Are you sure?  Are you sure?  Should we save it and have it tested?  Oh my God!"


I hate ticks more than anything, except for maybe leeches.  Ticks on my daughters head?  Nothing I could have done, but I still felt like the worst mother that I wasn't here to flick it off immediately.  Not that I would have, or even could have, prevented anything, anything at all.  


I know I can't be with her every single minute of every single day.  I know I can't protect her from every single thing that comes her way.  I know I can't soothe every hurt, cry and whine.  I know I can't stop the bumps and scrapes and falls. 
But Oh My God, do I want to.

Home Momma

A long time ago imagining a future that included having children, I think I remember myself adamantly saying that I would be a working mother; of course I would be a working mother.  I grew up with working role models; my mother with her nine to five job, my stepmother an executive editor.  Women could do it all.  Of course I would work.


Boy did that change.  I worked with children for nearly twenty years before I had my own (not my plan, but so life goes), and who better to raise my own child than me?  I couldn't even imagine going to work and leaving my baby.  And with the cost of day care, who could afford it anyway when half my paycheck would go to someone else?  By the time I had Cassidy, I didn't give a crap about being some kind of wonder woman.  I wanted to stay home and be mommy, full time.


I don't regret one second of this.  The first months were bliss.  Eat, sleep, lay around a coo; what could be better?  I had time to read books, clean the bathroom, gaze at my daughter  and marvel at her tiny toes and eyelashes.  I was there when she smiled, laughed, and rolled over for the first time.  I was there for tummy time and the bewilderment of her first bite of rice cereal.  I witnessed her rock, crawl, pull herself up, take steps.  I have been the primary one to bathe, feed, change, rock, sing, and play with her.  And it has been awesome.


It's a crime that most women don't have the luxury of this choice, and it's a shame that I had to lose a parent in order to have the option.  It's ironic that what's allowed me to be with my daughter on one income is the small inheritance from my dad.  Having just about exhausted this resource, I'm trickling back into the work force slowly, and, I'll admit it, not unhappily.


Being with Cassidy all the time is a full time job, and not.  I dreaded her walking, thinking that I would have to have an eagle eye on her at all times, but that hasn't been the case.  We are reasonably child proofed, so there are definitely times I leave her in her playroom while I clean the kitchen or straighten the living room or fold laundry, etc.  I peek in at her looking at books, or banging on her drum, or making her stuffed animals kiss one another with an enthusiastic "Buh!"  I'll talk on the phone and she'll toddle around, looking out the windows or squealing at the cat who's sleeping on a chair in the dining room.


My sister in law came over the other day.  I left Cassidy with her for awhile and went out to do some errands.  When I got back, she said "My God, how do you get anything done?" and, "Sorry I left you with such a mess!"  There were books and toys all over the floor of the playroom.  It almost made me feel guilty.  I imagined them, full on playing, the hour and a half I was gone.  I could see the trail of what they'd done - read books, built with blocks, shaken maracas, maybe had a few cheerios (or were those from yesterday?).  I do those things with my daughter, but not constantly.  I do those things with my daughter, but oftentimes she does them herself while I am doing other things, myself.


I'm working part time now, doing several different things.  I wait tables all day on Sundays, I tutor a couple times a week for a couple hours, and I've started baking for a friend with a cafe in her old bakery barn up the street.  I'm usually happy to be out in the world, away from the house, being productive in a way that results in cash in my pocket or a beautiful cupcake (and cash in my pocket).  When I get home, I can't wait to be with Cassidy.  I don't mean I can't wait to put away dishes while she hangs out in her playroom, I mean I can't wait to get in her face and sing silly songs, ask her what sound does a lion make?  a rooster?  a pig? and giggle our heads off.


My husband gets the heroes welcome every day.  As soon as he pulls in the driveway, Cassidy is screaming Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!  like she hasn't seen him in weeks.  They have a photo worthy reunion every single day.  Me?  I'm not gone long enough for her to miss me that much, except for the one day a week I waitress all day.  And when Chris told me that last Sunday at his parents house walking in the fields, for twenty minutes Cassidy yelled "Mama! Mama! Mama!" as if I were going to walk out of the woods at any moment, I couldn't help it; it made me feel pretty good.

if I could save time in a bottle

Yesterday I'd heard over the monitor that Cassidy had woken from her nap, so I went in her room to get her.  
"Hey, cookie!! You ready to get up?"
"No!"
"No?  Are you sure you don't want to go downstairs?"
"No!"
Hm.  This was new.  "Alright, then I'll come back in a few minutes."


I went down the stairs, expecting her to protest, but she didn't.  I dawdled in the kitchen for ten minutes, pondering this new word she's recently discovered.  When I went back upstairs, I found her snuggling in her bed, amusing herself with Teddy Spaghetti and a frog bath toy she's been carrying around.
"Heyyyy!!! You ready for some lunch?  You wanna go downstairs with Mommy?"
"No!"
"No?  Are you SURE?"
She made no move to get up.
I sighed.  "Alright then... I'll leave you to it!"


I'd been dreading this, knowing it was coming.  She's been practicing yes's and no's, nodding and shaking her head, testing them out.  I first noticed a couple weeks ago during our bedtime routine when we talk about what we did that day.  "And then we went to the farm and saw the baby goats, remember?"  I watch the wheels turn and she smiles and nods.  Or, "I think it's time to change that diaper!"  Shaking of the head.  "No! No! No!" ... and that damn game of chasing her around the house to get her pants down and wipe her butt, and the fun of her writhing like it's a game while I try to hold her down.


Oh, where has my baby gone?


I went upstairs a third time.  There she was, content as can be.  "You wanna get up and go downstairs now?"
"No!"
"You don't want to come downstairs and have some lunch?  Then you can have a bub?"


That was it.  The bub did it.  My husband's word for bottle.  Her eyes lit and she pulled herself up for me to get her.


Though I did have some grief understanding the change that's coming, I also had a spark of pride when I left the room that first time, and secretly celebrated her growing independence and self construction.


There are worse ways to encounter "no," and believe me, I know they're coming.  And so departs the spirit of my ever agreeable, easily re-directed, sweet little baby girl.  Here come the no's and the tests and the need for firm limits and boundaries.  


Welcome the spirit of my independent, ever growing, funny little girl.  Sorry in advance for all the times I piss you off for not getting what you want.  And I forgive you in advance for your wailing and tantrums.


Somehow I feel like raising my fist and yelling out, "Let the games begin!"
Phew.

food

I'm sensing a shift in food consciousness.  It seems like there are more organic groceries available in mainstream shopping centers, and at least here in the country, many people I know have food shares from local farms and/or get produce and fruit from farmers markets or vegetable stands on the side of the road.  There's a strawberry farm up the mountain from us, aside from the small crop growing in our yard.  There's an apple orchard up the road where every year we gorge on fresh picked apples and blueberries.
I've been frequenting food co-ops and farmers markets for years, and it's good to see, in general, people shopping the parameters of the grocery store, making better choices about what to eat.  

I suppose one of the advantages of living in a rural town is the proximity of the good stuff.  It's a drive, but a few times a month I drive 30 minutes or so first to a phenomenal bakery in an otherwise sleepy town just for their bread.  All organic or locally hulled wheat and spelt, it is so worth the drive.  Just up the road from there is a family owned cow farm that sells their own cheeses, yogurts and milk as well as any cut of grass fed beef from couldn't get any more local cattle. There I sample cheeses, buy locally made yogurt flavored by locally made maple syrup.  I don't have to buy any beef, because we already have a freezer full from our own little bull.


We bought a cow some months ago.  It wasn't a very big one and older than would be considered veal, but we went in on it with our neighbor friend who volunteered to feed it organic corn the last couple months of his otherwise grass fed life.  It grew up just down the road from us.  I deliberately never went to meet it for fear my heart would hurt when it was slaughtered.  Now that it's meat from my freezer, I savor him with gratitude when we have a meal of the Best Beef I Have Ever Tasted.  Not only that, but the cost of him works out to about three dollars a pound.


My husband is upping the ante.  He'd been talking about getting pigs for a long time, despite my protests: But aren't pigs really smart and cool?  What if I love the pigs, how can I eat them?  How can I not get attached to animals living on our land that I am feeding and caring for?
Guess we'll find out the answers.  I reluctantly gave him my blessing, and it seemed like minutes later he had ordered a couple black baby pigs that were born in upstate New York.  They're still too young to leave their mama, but he and the same cow friend are going to pick them up in three weeks, one pig each, that will grow up in a pen out back.


On one hand, I'm really excited.  Cassidy is going to be in her glory with baby pigs to help care for and watch grow.  It will be a great lesson in feed and care, as she watches her father and I feed Hammy and Bacon.  On the other hand... then we'll eat them.  Hmph.  Even though I'll be keeping that in mind for the six months they'll be living here, I'm betting that I'll probably cry when they're on their way to the slaughter farm.  And I'm not sure how I'll explain it to Cassidy, their absence or the freezer suddenly full of pork, though she might not register the difference.


I'm hoping that next will come a few hens.  We'll have all the eggs we could ever want fresh from the back yard, and nobody gets hurt.

remnants

A stuffed lamb hangs from the doorway that separates our kitchen from our dining room.  A gift from Granny Smith (wouldn't it be so great if we just called her Apple?), there are knobs on it's back to make it sound like singing whales, a mother's heartbeat, ocean waves, or rain.  Cassidy always preferred the whales.  This lone lamb signifies a time in her life when mobiles and hanging things were all the rave, which this family took to a whole new level.


I started sewing birds (I can hardly remember what it felt like to actually have time to sew!), and pretty soon they were hanging from the ceiling and light fixtures.  My husband upped the ante when he added stuffed animals and wind chimes.  We would blow or push on the elaborate menage, and Cassidy would squeal and coo.

Pretty soon it was not just for Cassidy's entertainment.  It became a great source of amusement for my husband and I.  Without ever speaking of it, when the other wasn't around, bits would be added for the other to discover.  Forks, socks, the scotch tape dispenser, sunglasses, it was all fair game.  It got to a point where I think Cassidy's parents enjoyed it more than she did.


Alas, everything has it's time, and there's a time to let go.  Cassidy started crawling and really didn't give a hoot what was hanging anymore, so piece by piece, the hanging things were disassembled.  Now the lamb is the only remnant left.


I was thinking about this a few weeks ago when I got on a spring cleaning binge.  I bagged up old sheets and bedcovers we haven't used in far too long to justify storing them.  I got rid of shoes and sweaters that I just might have worn again one day, but never did.  I tidied the knick knacks and stuff that collects on top of book cases and other level surfaces, where I had to confront the painted pot that used to belong to my dad, and held a stack of sympathy cards for the last year and a half that I just left there, dusting around once in awhile.


I don't hold on to occasion cards.  I display them for a reasonable time, and then they're tossed.  Our house is too small to save every trinket and paper memory.  The chances of me wondering who sent me cards on my 40th birthday are slim to none.  Although Cassidy has given me a new appreciation of greeting cards.  She was fascinated with the artwork on the birthday cards she received, and can be pretty transfixed over art work in general.  She has always noticed what hangs on our walls, and takes notice of what hangs on walls wherever we go.  She's particularly fond of flowers and birds.


I finally went through the sympathy cards again that I'd gotten after my father died.  These occasion cards were the exception, though I knew eventually that I would get rid of them, too.  Some had a paragraph of a specific memory shared, and those I put in a separate pile to keep for another little while.  The rest I went through and chose the ones with the most compelling artwork, and wouldn't you know, sympathy cards are full of flowers and birds.


I put them in one of baskets in Cassidy's playroom with her books.  Cassidy discovered and pored over them, studying the pictures, then tossing them on the floor.  When I tidy the room, I put them back in her basket to look at again, later.  Sometimes she carries them around with her and I find one on the floor of another room.  They feel like paper bits of love.  I know one day they will be tattered and worn and maybe even chewed on and I will get rid of those, too.  But for now, I like having the remnants around.

the country mouse and the city mouse

I recently got back from a visit to my hometown.  It's funny, the "home" in "hometown" because although it has not been home for more than half the years I've been alive, it is still the place I know most intimately.  I can navigate the "back roads" like nobody's business, and still know where to get the best pizza, bagels, sushi and Greek food.  Amityville, the south shore of Long Island, where despite the busy crazy suburbian traffic and my leaving it behind, still feels like somewhere I belong.


It couldn't be more different than where I live now, where I have lived for the past six years, the longest I have ever lived in one place since leaving Amityville as a college grad.  Here at home in Massachusetts, we live on six acres of land.  Our "yard" is the size of a football field with a gentle slope with some fruit trees and a roto-tilled garden ready for some planting (soon).  Beyond that there are woods, rocky ledges, and more woods behind the yard and the barn.  Trails weave in and out of Oaks, Maples, Birch, Pine, Mountain Laurel, dirt, rocks, acorns, moss, deer poop, chipmunks, squirrels, spiders and other insects and etc. on a floor of dead leaves.  A couple years ago I even turned around and hurried away to avoid a bear.  Cassidy and I kick through leaves, feel the textures of different kinds of bark, close our eyes and point at the direction the bird calls come from.  We smell the flowers, the rocks, the dirt.  She collects sticks and acorns.  We come inside with dirty knees and hands. 

In the yard, we go up the slope and Cassidy turns around to run back down.  Over and over and over.  We blow kisses to the baby peach tree.  We swing on the hammock.  We throw toys to Annie (our Golden Retriever) who runs around wild and pat Zuki (our beloved feline) who never strays far when we are outside.  I push her around in her little tykes car.  Daddy takes her for rides on the tractor.  She plays in her sandbox Daddy built for her, or swings on the swing he hung between two trees in the woods.  We have so much room here, so much freedom to explore.

In New York, we visited three age appropriate parks in one day, two in walking distance, where Cassidy squealed and screamed exploring the bright colored structures.  She flirted with other children.  We went to Captree State Park and watched the boats go in and out while eating clam chowder.  We went to Robert Moses and dug in the sand, watched the waves crash, collected shells and inhaled the sea air.  We held hands on sidewalks and docks, stopping to throw the ducks bits of bread.


When we needed milk, we drove to Stop and Shop and were back at our family's home in about ten minutes.  When we went out for breakfast, I met a woman with a daughter one week younger than Cassidy and told her I would meet her for play dates if I lived closer, and I totally would have.


In Massachusetts, I've yet to find the nearest age appropriate playground.  We go to the local elementary school playgrounds, but Cassidy is not quite ready for them.  The closest grocery store is 25 minutes away, which makes going shopping not just a chore, but an event.  We drive to State Parks close by and walk trails around ponds and lakes.  If we go anywhere, we drive.  We have to.  Though we often just stay home and spend time getting lost in our own yard.


In New York, the mostly small fenced in yards abutting one after the other feels claustrophobic.  The traffic on Merrick Road on a Saturday is astounding, as are the poor manners of many drivers on the Island.  The amount of things to do, places to go, people to see is almost overwhelming.


I love the freedom and expanse of raising our daughter here.  I miss the easy proximity of friends.  I love the thrill Cassidy gets carted around at the grocery store on our weekly trips.  I miss the easy access of whatever I forgot to buy.  I love the woods.  I miss the ocean.  I love the quiet, privacy and solitude of the country. I miss the hundreds of things to do at the drop of a hat.  I love that our yard hosts visits by deer, wild turkey, critters and sometimes even bears.  I miss the feeling of neighbors and community. 

Aside from the birds at the feeder, I just watched Debbie, our mail lady, drive by in her jeep and stuff the mail in the box from my dining room window, where I sit and write.  The postmaster in our town, Jan, calls me at home when a package arrives in case I want to pick it up earlier than the next day scheduled delivery.  When Cassidy was born the ladies at the Post Office sent me a card.  When my father died (and I don't even know how they knew), the ladies at the Post Office sent me a card.  And yes, I get a Christmas card, too.  From the Post Office.


The grass is always greener on the other side.  I ache that Cassidy won't grow up with the ocean in her blood as I did, with sand between her toes on boats and docks.  She won't learn to swim in saltwater or go to the city see shows or museums as much as I did.   I love that Cassidy will grow up with a love and appreciation of nature and farms and a slowed down style of living.  We heat with wood and get our water from a natural spring up the road.   I'll say it again: The grass is always greener on the other side.

It's kind of weird that Cassidy and I won't share that same sense of home with the same place.  But it's kind of cool, too.  It's also cool that I'll keep bringing her back to visit with family and the home where I came from.  And who knows, maybe she'll grow up to live on a beach and claim a new home, like her momma did.

Baby talk

I thought I would be the hip mama that would do all the cool stuff.  Organic food, natural toys, wearing her on a sling - I've done all of that.  I suppose when it came to sign language, I just got lazy.  I never bothered to look into it seriously, though I was always impressed by the idea of it.


My stepmother was telling me recently about a family she'd met who's 1 year old, younger than Cassidy, has been signing for months, and now is speaking.  At one.  She said he was just amazing.  It was remarkable.  Blah blah blah blah blah.  (What is it about that wall of defense that comes up and says "do not tell me about any baby that is smarter, cuter, more coordinated than mine because I don't want to hear it?")  After the polite "Wow, really?" I thought about it a few moments more and said, "But I love Cassidy's language right now.  I would be sad if she were speaking so soon."


And it's true.  We have the longest, silliest "conversations" that go something like this:  
"Doot doot doot doot DOOT doot doot dee dee?"  
To which I will answer, "Deet deet DOOT doot deet deet DOO doot dee."   
And it will go on and on like this.


Or there are her long soliloquies complete with dramatic hand gestures and unfathomable words that are left to my interpretation:
"What?  Are you serious?  You want to make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich and we're out of BREAD?  Wow.  That really IS a bummer!"
She cracks me up with the theatrical flair, and I crack myself up deciding what it is she must be saying.  I can't get enough of this game and this, too, will go on and on.


And then there's the "Eh! Eh! Eh!" and point.  
And usually I know what she wants.
"Oh, you want your water bottle?" 
 And when I take it off the table and give it to her, there is such a gratified glee, her smile practically breaks her face.  It could be her blanket, or a toy, or a cracker.  It's usually not hard to figure out and we are both so smitten with satisfaction when the request is delivered.


I wouldn't want to miss any of this.  And of course I understand there are great benefits and joys that must come with signing, and that signing isn't even necessarily a precursor to early verbal language.  But just thinking of a one year old who is already speaking made me feel even more grateful for this time that I find so enormously delightful.  I don't want to hurry one minute.  Of anything.

one of your own

I didn't have my daughter until I was 41.  Of course I had plenty of family, friends and peers who were procreating long before I did.   Wanting a baby of my own for years, there was nothing worse than the secret language of parents, or that refrain: "You won't understand until you have your own." It was always like the click to a lock to a club I couldn't get into.  I was surrounded by children my entire adult life, having taught preschool and elementary kids, even being a "group leader" at an infant center.  I thought I could imagine what it was like, and wanted to kick the door down to that club and insist that I could relate, and that I should have honorary membership.  Did they think I lacked imagination?

After Cassidy was born, long time members would say things like, "See?  Now do you understand?"  And though I of course I was enamored with my new baby and completely overcome with love, it was exactly as I had imagined.


When I was a kid, I landed myself in the hospital something like 9 times before I was eleven years old.  I put a paintbrush full of paint remover in my mouth sometime between my first and second year, prompting a stomach pump.  I fell off a bar onto a the rusty bucket I stood on to get there when I was two, and got 2 stitches between my eye and nose.  I ran into a book case, fell out of a tree, smashed my head on a radiator and got 50 stitches on my forehead and later, plastic surgery.  And then, perhaps most dramatically, I got hit by a car when I was nine.


I've told these stories throughout my life over and over.  I'd tell them the same way, detached and amused, adding that I must have put my mom through hell.  Recently my sister in law was talking about the antics of her son when he was a kid, and I countered with the concussion I had when I got hit by the car.


"I'd always wanted to ride in an ambulance and I finally got to after I got hit by the car, only I had a concussion so bad I couldn't see.  I didn't know where I was.  I can remember saying Mommy! Mommy! Where are you Mommy, I can't see you!"
I looked at Cassidy in the room with me, flipping through her books, that sweet little face, and I started weeping.
"And... I... (sniff) And my mom was touching my face saying I'm right here, Colleen, I'm right here...."
Sob.
"I'm sorry.  I've told this story so many times and I've never... wept... (sob) before ... (breath).  I said But Mommy, I can't see you...."  Full on tears down my face.


Oh.  Um, that club.  Maybe I didn't belong there yet.


The other day I got an e mail from a dear friend who has a daughter three weeks younger than Cassidy.  We were trying to make a date to get together.  Instead I read the story of how, turning for just a minute to get a hat, her daughter fell down a couple stairs and knocked her two front teeth out.  "The blood," she wrote.  "I nearly had a heart attack."  And,  "Those two little teeth she worked so hard for."
I started sobbing.  That poor baby.  More so, my poor friend!


So I get it now.  The exclusive rights.  You can't be in the club if you don't understand.  And unless you're in the club, you truly don't understand.  Until you have one of your own.


And I'm thinking now I might send my mother some flowers...

Grandpa, aka Black Poppy.

He was clearly dying, but he did wait to meet her.
She was only three weeks old when we drove to New York.  It was a surprise to us, but he was in the hospital with intense edema; fluids filling his belly up like a balloon.  So we snuck her in to meet him, my daughter.
My sister has three kids who always called him Black Poppy.  Her oldest daughter named him.  He had black hair, her other grandfather had white hair; Black Poppy, White Poppy.
He reached for Cassidy like a drug, and she was.  They laid in the hospital bed, she nestled in his neck, and they slept.  "Champion nappers," he'd said.
My dad was dying.  My daughter, brand new.

I wasn't sure what to call him.  Black Poppy?  Poppy?  We called my grandfather Pop.  Pop?  I sort of fumbled, averting any term, until I just asked him.
"Dad, what do you want to be called?  I don't know what to call you."
He closed his eyes for a long time.  I waited.
"Grandpa," he said.  "We haven't had a Grandpa for a long time."
And so it was.  Not that he would be around long enough to hear Cassidy call his name.


We spent good time with him, Cassidy and I.  We went back after that weekend and spent long days just sitting with him in the sick room.  They napped, I read, they woke, I fed.  We listened to music and MOTH stories, we talked and talked until words made him sleepy.
"I just want to die," he said.  "I just want to go now."


We talked so intimately, about his regrets and his triumphs.  We spoke of what he learned, of what he knew and what he didn't know.  We spoke of love and relationships, of our relationship, a sometimes painful and rocky road.  We spoke of all of it.

He wanted us to sleep over, so we did, on a bed in the same large room.  He didn't move much anymore from his chair.  I got up to feed Cassidy at 2am and when she was finished and back sleeping, my dad was coughing and uncomfortable.  I went to him.
We stayed up that night until it was getting light outside.  In those wee hours of the morning he spoke of regrets, but also of acceptance.  "I accept my mistakes," he'd said.  "I accept them too," I'd said back.


I don't even have to say how unspeakably tender and precious this time was.  The trajectory between life and death, the polar opposites in one room.  My brand new baby girl, my cancer riddled old man.  When Cassidy and he napped together, she in the crook of his arm, there were moments when electricity would fill the room and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.  I imagined them, communing.
"Don't worry, Grandpa...  I'll tell you all about where I just came from..."
and he, responding;
"Alright, baby grand daughter ... here's a few things I know about life..."
I just knew.  I just knew their meeting was meant to be.  I just knew, right then, that they needed each other.


They had that.  And I am so, so very glad.


Back at the hospital when they'd first met I'd caught sight of a woman wearing long maroon and golden robes.  She was there Saturday and again on Sunday.  My husband, Cassidy and I were leaving just as she was, and we shared an elevator ride.  She cooed over Cassidy.  She explained that she was a buddhist nun, visiting her sister.  I told that my daughter had just met her grandpa for the first time, and that I was so happy they'd met.  We had both come from the cancer ward so there was no need to explain, but she looked at me with such kindness and said "This must be hard for you."
No kidding.  And because I'd been thinking about it, I told her "It is.  Yes.  But what I'm really fearful of is when he passes.  I'm afraid I'm going to be so in my grief I won't be able to take care of my daughter."
"THAT is the most SELFISH THING I've ever heard in my LIFE!"  this stranger buddhist woman blurted out.  "Excuse my french, but that is BULLSHIT!"
Talk about a memorable moment.  And she was completely right, and I needed to hear that.


As it turned out, all that time we'd spent with him the four remaining weeks that he was alive, the four and five day stretches we'd packed up and spent with family in New York, eased my grief.  We had made so much peace.  Together and alone.  We had come to so much peace between us ("Dad," I'd told him, "I think we've transcended the father/daughter relationship and now it's more just like adult to adult."  He nodded, eyes closed, squeezed my hand and said "I know what you mean").  He had come to so much peace with himself (can't beat acceptance), and I had come to peace, as much as I could, with his pending absence in my life.


When he died, I was really okay.  I was really, really okay.  I still am.  I miss him, of course.  Some days, terribly.


Not too long ago I had a quintessential day.  It was beautiful out.  Sunny, a perfect blue sky.  My friend had just opened a restaurant and Cassidy and I drove 45 minutes though back roads, passing farms and hills, cows and horses.  Beautiful.  We had an outstanding breakfast, went to a baby Gap across the street and scored a sweet little Easter dress, and then to a park down the road from there.  Cassidy watched all the big kids, ran up and down a grassy hill, squealed and screeched and laughed and pointed.  I wanted to put her in a bottle.  I wanted to save her in that day forever.
As we drove home, all was well and right and good in my world.  Pure happiness.  Simple joy.
And I wanted to call my dad.  My dad would have appreciated that moment more than anyone I know.  I wanted to call my dad and once again that huge presence of his absence.
So I called him anyway.  I pretended to call him on my cell phone.  I said "hi, daddo..." and burst into tears.  And I told him how happy I was, what a great day, how joyful and delightful Cassidy is.  I glanced at Cassidy in the rearview mirror, sleeping in her car seat.  I rambled on and on.  I told him what I was worried about, what I wished for, what concerned me.  I told him everything.  I watched the rolling farms go by, the red barns and the blue sky.  I told him I miss him, but that I knew he was hearing me.  When I pulled into my driveway and shut off the car, I said, "I do believe you hear me, dad.  But do me a favor and give me a sign.  A little sign would make me feel a lot better."


Later in the afternoon my husband came home from work.  My 13 year old stepdaughter came home from school.  I was still feeling joyful from a beautiful day, and wanted to take her out and maybe buy her a dress or something.  Chris stayed home with the baby.  Charlotte and I drove to the store and found a couple of things for her to try on.  One of them didn't fit so well, but the other was perfect.  She handed me the reject dress and the hanger to sort out while she changed.  I dipped one sleeve to fit the hanger and noticed the label on the dress:  BLACK POPPY.
"Oh my God!  Oh my God!"
What?  Charlotte asked.
"Oh my God!"
What?? Charlotte asked.
"Black Poppy," I said.  "It's my dad."
I laughed and I cried.  And I smiled. xo