Here's Ike

I'm a proud mother. Look at that handsome face.

Pink and Pretty

A neighbor of mine had a tea party this morning. It was a mother-daughter tea party. All the little girls wore sun dresses. We sat outside on wicker lawn chairs and fanned ourselves in the 95 degree sunshine. The cheese sandwiches sweated, the chocolate melted. The ice cream was a joke.

The invitation asked my daughter to bring her favorite tea cup. My daughter brought a brown handmade ceramic mug.

I have a lot of good friends here in this small town but sometimes I think that the only thing I have in common with them is that we are all mothers.

I Like Ike

I had a baby. A boy. Isaac Oscar Petersen. Ike.

I like him. I really really really like him. I love him. I did right from the start. Right when they handed me his bloody sqirming screaming body I loved him. I just want to eat him up, I love him so much.

I didn't feel this way about my daughter. Immediately after she was born, I kept repeating, "A baby came out of me, a baby came out of ME." It was so amazing and strange. Here was this baby. It had been inside me. I held her and nursed her. I looked at her quite a bit. But I just felt a whole lot of wonder. Where had this little thing come from?

I certainly liked her. I thought she was beautiful and wonderful but I didn't feel like she was my child. I just felt like she was in my care. I think the difficulty of the task (not killing this little living human) made it pretty tough for me to think about anything else.

I loved her after a while. And of course now there's nothing on this earth that I love more than her. But it really had to grow over time.

But Ike--right away I loved him. I could tell he was mine (and Todd's). I could tell that we had made him and that he was our son. And I could tell that I was really going to like him.

I don't know why it's been so much easier this time. Probably because I have done it before. I know what I am in for. I know that he is going to grow up to be a real live person (not stay an infant forever.) And there's probably more than that too, I don't know. But I can tell you that I like the feeling. I really really really like it. I love it.

Do I Kick Her Out?

Zoë has been sleeping in our bed a lot lately. She wakes up in the night, pads down the long hallway in the dark and enters our bedroom. From there she always walks all the way around the bed so she can get in on my side. I pick her up and plop her down right in the middle of the bed. It's amazing that she doesn't get smashed between us.

Todd thinks she gets cold in her own bed. That's probably a big part of it. But I can understand not wanting to sleep alone when everyone else (Todd and I) are in one bed on the other side of the house. It probably just doesn't seem fair.

This has happened for over a month now. Probably two. We were sick for a few weeks there in the middle which just made it worse. Now I don't know what to do about it. I sort of don't mind waking up together with our whole family. But she can't keep sleeping with us forever. For one thing, she really hogs the bed. Most nights she turns completely perpendicular to Todd and I. We just turn her back straight three or four times a night. Last night she actually worked herself around and her head was down under the blankets, near our waists. Also, I am pregnant and in just a few months we won't have as much room as we have now.

So I'm not sure what to do. But for now, it's kind of cool to share a bed with a two year old. Last night I dreamt that I was in a high-pressure newscasting job. The whole dream was stress. Zoë saved me from my dream when she called out from her dream, "No, it's not a beehive. It's NOT!"

Our Own Yard

My husband and I recently bought our first home and we've been in it for about 10 months. So each season is new for us. I have some thoughts about it all.

First, each season brings with it tons (tons) of work. Winterizing your house, raking leaves, shovelling snow, mowing the lawn, clearing out the flower beds, preparing soil for a garden. Second, each season comes around very quickly. It seems that Todd just drained the sprinklers and closed up the swamp cooler. Now they're both up and running again. It seems to me that if you do that much work, it should last for a while. But it doesn't.

So here's what: we've been doing a lot of work in our yard. It feels like a lot. But our yard looks terrible. It's covered with ratty old grass (which we've been raking out), wilted blossoms from our fruit trees, tall grass around the edges where our mower can't reach, bits of cardboard, plastic and styrofoam that blows in from who knows where.

And the other day a friend of mine came over. She was friends with our home's previous owner. We walked to the backyard, she looked around and said, "Jeanne really kept that border up. It must have been a lot of work." Yes, it must have been a lot of work. She was an elderly widow in good health. All she had to do was take care of her yard. She did not work and she did not have a two year old. Of course she could "keep that border up."

I just wonder how other people can have such nice looking yards. Do they spend all their time on it? OR do they pay someone? Good grief.

Time for a Change

This is the last day of class. That means gearing up for finals, pushing through them, then going home for the summer. The last day of class always feels so big and open. It's standing on the edge of a big big change. New daily routine, more free time. I always love the last day of class.

But I am not a student.

I don't have any big projects due. No finals. My work schedule will not change. But I still have that big open feeling. And I have it at the end of every semester.

I work at a university library and my husband is a professor. So although my schedule won't change, his will. And the pattern and routines of people all around me will change. So it will feel like I am changing. Which is wonderful. I love when things change. I get bogged down when I'm stuck in the same routine for too long. And I like rearranging the furniture.

On the other hand, I need some stability. I can't move every 4 months. It takes me a really long time to get reorganized when something major shifts in my life.

So I think I found the perfect situation for myself. I am surrounded by good change every couple of months but I don't have to actually pick up my stuff and move. I get my change fix, I guess. Without any real effort or discomfort on my part. Cool.

Through the busy, I've been happy.

Our family has been so busy this week. Incredibly busy. Two or three functions a day on top of our normal work schedules. We've had way more sitters than normal--sometimes two in one day. And we've had house guests and company for dinner. I had a small presentation which was a pretty big deal to me. And my husband's got a book binding project that we've been rushing to finish on time. It's been great.

We can hardly breathe for how busy we are and I'm actually loving it. I don't know why. Maybe because the relief of finishing things on time, marking them off the list, just feels so good. That's probably it. I'm ready for a slow down but through the busy, I've been happy.