pregnant

Last night I was sitting on our bed, relaxing in the air conditioning, wearing Brian's Snoopy t-shirt. I was looking down at my big basketball belly, Snoopy all stretched out over me, thinking about my mom. Thirty-five years ago, give or take a couple of months, she was just like me - pregnant with her second child, wondering if it was a boy or girl, and wondering if it would possibly arrive on the birthday of her first child. Those who know us well know that my older brother and I share the same birthday, six years apart. He was playing with his new Evil Knievil motorcycle in the hallway of a hotel with my aunt and uncle when I was born, delivered by the impatient Ohio University football team doctor who needed to get to the game. And now, here I am, very pregnant, and only a few days away from Dora's 4th birthday, wondering if we might break some kind of statistical odds and have our own set of kids who share a birthday several years apart. 

Because my mom died before I was pregnant with Dora, I've never really had the chance to "share" pregnancy and motherhood with her.  After she died, I remembered hoping that I might someday have a daughter, to have that mother-daughter connection again. When I was pregnant, I comforted my fears by reminding myself that my mom, someone who I eventually thought had all (or at least most) of the answers, was as clueless and scared as I at one point. During labor, I felt like I channeled my mom, making jokes with the nurses just like I think she would have even in the midst of pain. I've found myself connected to my mom through motherhood when she's arrived on the scene through me in some way, or when she's shown up in something Dora has done or said. It's often been unexpected, but also a gift. So now, here I am again, connected to her through pregnancy, through having two babies born at almost exactly the same time of year, through the wonder and worry that comes with pregnancy and birth.

They don't call it a "pregnant pause" for nothing. Pregnancy is naturally such a time of expectation, of wondering about the future, of holding onto your past, of trying to fathom in your little human mind what is really too large, spiritual, monumental to be fathomed in an entire lifetime. Every year around this time I reflect on Dora's birth day, how amazing it was, how we had no idea how much our lives would change because of it. And now this year, I'm reflecting on it even more, looking ahead mostly with great anticipation, and just a bit of anxiety, hoping that my memory of how spectacular birth was is accurate. I've been going around for 4 years telling everyone that birth is great, "you can do it!" - and now I think, "can I?"

There are other thoughts, too, of course. I'm so tired of being pregnant - it's been so much more uncomfortable this time around. I climb out of bed in the morning and I just hurt, all over. But I also know this might be the last time I'm pregnant. I look in the mirror and think, "I have to remember what this looks and feels like, forever, because when it's over I'll miss it". My husband tells me how beautiful I look with my big pregnant belly and I want to hold onto that moment forever, knowing I'll soon barely be able to find a reasonable set of clothes or time to shower. Experience tells me how quickly this baby will go from being a tiny infant to being a kid, how soon I will look back on this time with fondness and a sense of loss. I worry about how this is all going to affect Dora, how it's going to affect our marriage, our finances, my ability to juggle work and home (which already seems stretched to the limit). I worry about going through the post-partum period again, if I'll have the same challenges and anxieties, and if my plan of attack for that this time (different from last time) will work. 

It's such a time of complexity and mixed emotions, and I think the second time around in many ways is even more complex. You know the joys you are looking forward to as well as the challenges you're about to experience. You know how completely you will love this new baby you're about to meet, and how simultaneously joyful and frightening that kind of love can be. You know how crazy-chaotic it's going to be, how you'll hardly be able to shower or make a meal. But I guess you also know that the chaos is (semi) temporary, and soon we'll have two kids instead of a baby and a kid - they'll soon be playing together and fighting and rolling their eyes at us. I'm hoping the knowledge of how temporary the stages are helps us relax and enjoy it a little more.

I always wanted more than one child, just like I always wanted to be married, to have a job, to have a house full of pets and all the craziness that all of that brings. Knowing you want something and trying to achieve it doesn't mean you get a free, smooth ride. But becoming a parent - just like living in a marriage or a hairy house of animals - means finding a joy you hadn't known possible, even if it also comes with sorrow you didn't know about. It is about as far from a smooth ride as you can find, in fact. But when I look at Dora - or my husband and the challenges our marriage has weathered, or my pets and how much I love them - I know that all of it - the bad clothes, and the sore muscles, and the days when just getting a shower seems impossible - all of it is worthwhile. If not having all of that meant not having her - or any of this - well, there's nothing in this world that could make me want that in exchange for less chaos or an easier life. The proof is in the pudding, you know - it's in the early morning snuggles and I love yous, in the kisses and hugs, in the welcomes home from work when she tells me she missed me so much. It's worth it, it really, really is. And the uncertainty - the wondering when this baby will come - the chance to reconnect with my mom in some transcendental, spiritual, walking the same path kind of way - that's all just a little bonus lesson in humanity, a chance to reflect on how amazing life is. Only a little while longer and we'll know some of these answers, and we'll have new questions as well. It will be unexpected, but it will also be a gift.

portrait

This week Dora drew the sweetest, cutest, most heartwarming portrait of our family. I'm going to frame it and keep it forever. She's been drawing these little stick figure, head-is-the-entire-body kind of people for a little while and they are super-cute, but this is the first time I could really look at what she drew and see what she is trying to communicate. It's obviously two adults and a child, and we are all smiling and sort of looking at each other. It makes me smile and start to cry all at once, and gives me that feeling that my heart is about to explode. 

She's been doing a lot of writing, too - practicing her letters, writing her name, and asking to write my name and Brian's name (with our help reminding her of what letters to draw). I'm so proud to see her doing that, too, but there is something about seeing a drawing of hers that communicates something so specific that is really moving to me. It's like this new window into her mind, into the way she sees her world, into what our little family means to her. It's like getting to know her from a whole new perspective. 

We've had a trying week - no naps during the day leading to really fussy evenings, lots going on at work for me, and Brian out working late every night. Between all of that and being pregnant, I feel completely exhausted. Either I wasn't this tired with Dora or I conveniently forgot. I feel like I have almost no time to focus on this baby. Someone told me yesterday about a friend of hers who said she felt guilty because she had no time to focus her attention inward with her second baby, and I completely agree. It's almost like the baby knows, in a way, to keep making its presence known. If I'm getting upset or stressed in a meeting - even just the slightest bit - it starts to kick and move around right away, as if to say, "hey, don't forget about me, don't let that heart rate get too high because you're not the only one having to live with it."

I was crying with another pregnant friend the other day about that moment, whenever it comes, when we say goodbye to baby number 1 as we're leaving for the hospital, knowing it will be our last time with just them. This is not to say that I am not excited about having another baby, because I really, truly am. All of us are - even (especially) Dora. But even when we have our trying weeks, I love being Dora's mom. She's so amazing and I'm so lucky to have her in my life. It's really a joy - even feels sometimes like a luxury - to be able to focus completely and entirely on her, on giving her love and praise and holding her close. I will love having another baby and, yet, there is a part of me that is sad about letting go of the image of just the three of us with our round happy eyes and smiley faces. 

After dinner tonight Dora said, "I'm not going to be a baby ever again". This was after lots of talk tonight about becoming a big sister, and how when she's 4 we'll be having a new baby. I know of course that she won't be a baby again - she doesn't look or act like a baby anymore, even though she holds on to a few baby habits that, when she's very quiet or asleep, make her look just like she did as a baby. But somehow hearing her say it got me a little choked up. I looked at her and said, "well, of course, but you know you'll always be my baby." She smiled her sweet little smile and said "yes."

Soon Dora will be drawing our family portrait and adding a smiling, happy baby to the mix. Soon none of us will be able to imagine our lives without baby 2, and I know that welcoming him or her into our lives will be a joyful and beautiful experience. There is a grief in that, too, a loss just like there was when Dora came into our lives. Maybe I'm more aware of that now because I've already experienced it, or maybe I'm just tired and emotional. I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that when I look at Dora, or at her little family portrait, I feel like my heart will explode with love for her, feel my soul filled up with the power of this love that's like nothing else in this world. To have the chance to feel that again for another baby, to have my heart expand even more than I thought possible, and to watch that love unfold between Dora and her sibling - that's a sweet, cute, heartwarming portrait of a family, too, one that I want to frame and keep forever.

Dark Chocolate Almond Banana Muffins

What's that you say? A recipe? Shocking I know, as I hardly ever post them anymore. Recently I read Julia Child's "My Life in France" (which I adored), and although I know this is the exact opposite of what she intended, it made me a little more timid about improvising and making things up in the kitchen. That, and all of my recipe-reading, Top Chef-watching, foodie-blog obsessing made me feel a little less-than-qualified to be writing about food. Don't get me wrong - I love food (love it, especially now), and love making things from scratch, reading recipes, taking pictures of the food I make, etc. I'm definitely a foodie - but one who creates her own things? I don't know...

But, tonight, we had this bunch of brown bananas, and it seemed like time to make banana muffins. I've made this Moosewood Restaurant banana muffin recipe many times, but I was missing my usual chocolate chip/walnut combo. Then, I found half a bag of Hershey's Special Dark nuggets with almonds in my cupboard and it was time for a little improv. Just a little. 

Dark Chocolate Almond Banana Muffins

adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts

2 cups unbleached white flour

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1 teaspoon baking soda 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup packed brown sugar 

2 eggs

4 ripe bananas, mashed

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

1/2 cup (or so) coarsely chopped dark chocolate with almonds

 

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil a 12-cup muffin tin. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, using a mixer or by hand, beat together the oil, sugar, eggs, and bananas. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, being careful not to overmix. Fold in the vanilla and chopped chocolate. Spoon into muffin tins and bake for about 20 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. 

Enjoy while warm as a bedtime snack with a glass of milk. And don't forget to improvise.

wannabe

The author of one of the blogs I read regularly has had a book proposal accepted (her second). I read this yesterday and was reminded that I want to do that. I have ideas bouncing around for this in my head, but I never really find the time to hone them, or if I do I find that perhaps the ideas aren't as well-developed as I thought. It's something I really want to do, though, partly because I think I have something to say and partly because I've fallen into the trap of romanticizing the idea of being a writer. There. I said it. At least I'm being honest. 

So after I read this I came home thinking about the things I want to do, the kind of person I want to be - some things I'm already doing and some things I'm only dreaming about. In my mind it turned into something of a mini-photo essay, a words and pictures kind of mini-inventory of where I am, and where I want to go. Mini. As in, not including everything. Here goes. 

I want to be the kind of person who has a dining room table with flowers on it, free of clutter and bills and paperwork waiting to be sorted. I'm almost never this person unless it's a special occasion, or people are coming over for dinner. But it's spring and the lilacs are about to bloom, so it happened on a regular old Tuesday, meatloaf night. 

I want to be the kind of person who brings their kids into the kitchen and helps them fall in love with food and cooking at an early age. Sometimes I am. 

 I want to be the kind of person who makes meals from scratch. I almost always do that. 

I want to be the kind of person who knows how to use a new piece of photography equipment on the first try. I'm not. My first roll of film shot through the Diana is almost all underexposed.

I want to be patient. I'm not always, but every once in a while I am. 

I want to be the kind of person who writes a successful book proposal, who writes in her blog about the new book that's going to be coming out soon, with her name on the cover.

I'm not. Yet.

expect the unexpected

Dora started a new school at the beginning of February. It was bittersweet for us - seeing her leave behind friends and teachers we had all grown to love, leaving the security of the only place that she had ever gone, where she was known for her bottle refusals and strong personality. We are happy about the new school - especially because she ended up going there with a friend - but it's been an adjustment.

Dora has been telling me stories of other kids being unkind in various kid ways. We've talked to the teachers, who assure us that Dora holds her own very well. We've talked to Dora about how to deal with kids when they aren't being nice. And, I realize that some of her stories may be embellished in her own three-year-old way. Still, I had not expected to be dealing with this so soon. I'm responding to it as best I can - trying to be reassuring without being unrealistic, and without making a huge deal out of it so she worries more. I'm not sure I'm handling it exactly right, but I guess I thought I'd have more time to prepare. 

I think I was fairly notorious in my elementary school for being the girl whose mom wouldn't let her have Barbies. My mother didn't like the image of beauty that Barbie portrayed. I think it bothered her to think of little girls playing with big-breasted, super skinny, sexualized dolls. I was allowed to have Skipper - Barbie's undeveloped little sister who came with a horse. I haven't really thought about this in years, until the other night when Dora asked if we could play with Barbies. Again - I did not think I was going to be answering this question yet. I told her that, no, we are not going to play with Barbies, and that we're not going to get any Barbies either. I told her how, if Barbie were a real person, she would not be able to stand up because her body proportions are physically impossible. I'm sure this really meant a lot to my 3-year-old. We moved on to reading Personal Penguin. 

In a way, I should not be surprised by any of this, for the theme of parenthood really is "expect the unexpected". I can't even count the number of times I've been surprised, sometimes pleasantly and sometimes not, by being a mother. I'm surprised by myself - how great I can be sometimes and how sometimes I can be really impatient, really unfair, really not the mom I want to be. I'm surprised by my daughter - how smart and beautiful and funny she is, and how she can frustrate me so much so easily. I'm surprised by my fears and my hopes and by all the thoughts this experience brings up for me. It makes you see parts of yourself, your partner, your world you never even knew existed. 

Tonight during yoga our teacher told us it was our last class - a surprise and disappointment to all of us, including our teacher. I realized in class tonight for the first time the power of controlling your breathing as you do in yoga, of forcing yourself to slow down and get quiet. I felt the power of the poses, of breathing through them with purpose. I looked down at my hands in Downward Facing Dog, at my turquoise ring that belonged to my mother, and my hands looked just like hers. I don't remember ever seeing that so vividly as tonight. 

As I snuggled Dora into bed tonight, stroking her hair and her cheek and her perfect little ear, I thought about how I had touched her face this way on our first night together. Awash with the power of labor and the overwhelming new love I was experiencing for the first time, I learned my first lessons of motherhood, of how it opens up the depths of your heart as never before. I look back on it now and think how much more I might have loved her then if I had known what she would become, if I had known how completely central and essential she would become in my life. There is really not much I would change about her birth, but I do wish I could go back there knowing what I know now, so I could really soak in those first moments of her life, really look at her then while knowing what she would become. This is not to say that I didn't love her perfectly then, because I did - it's just that my love for her has grown so much, I wish I could whisper in the ear of myself as a new mother, "you think you love her now? Just wait. It's going to get bigger and stronger every single day, even if you think that's impossible."

Perhaps there will be some sense of this our second time around. Perhaps we'll be able to soak in the weight and depth and breadth of our new baby in his or her first moments. Or maybe to do is physically impossible, like Barbie in real life. I'm excited to find out, and certain that whatever the experience is like, it will also be unexpected. 

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect. 

--Oscar Wilde

help us to show our love

Yesterday at dinner, Dora and I said grace before we ate. It seemed like a day that needed that - a moment of silence or simple words to thank God for our blessings, and to pray for others. I confess that we don't normally say grace unless on a special occasion - something I picked up from my own childhood. But last night, it was just the two of us, and an edamame, cabbage, chicken, and noodle stir-fry on a regular old Monday night. Nothing special. 

I was somewhat surprised to find myself reciting a prayer we said as children, one I hadn't heard or thought of in many years. We've taught Dora the short child's prayer, "God is great", etc., and on special occasions I recite the Runser family traditional prayer, based on Psalm 145, and referred to in our family simply as "the Eyes". But this prayer - I can't even think of the last time I said it: 

Lord, thank you for this food, 

and all the blessings of today, 

help us to show our love, 

by being kind and good, we pray. 

After this, we prayed for the people of Japan. As with any disaster of epic proportions, I am overwhelmed and saddened for all of those who are suffering from this tragedy. As news reports come in of tens of thousands of lives lost, villages destroyed, displaced people going hungry, and possible nuclear crisis, I am reminded of how small and helpless each of us are. It feels like even those of us who want to help can hardly do so, as what does a small donation really mean in the face of such loss. 

I look at my safe, warm, beautiful little girl, my loving husband, our sweet little life, our new baby on the way, and I know I should be saying grace at every meal. I should be thanking God at every turn for all of the grace afforded to me in so many ways, the abundance given to me that is embarassing in comparison to the needs of others. It simply doesn't make sense, how some can have so little while others so much, how some of us are in peril while others are us are warm, safe, fed, and dry. 

I know only one person in all of Japan, my friend Hiroshi. I heard from him yesterday and I know that he, and his immediate family, are safe. He is traveling around the country, trying to document through his photographs what has happened, and hopefully keeping himself safe in the process. In a short message to me he explained that he and his family are safe, and not directly impacted by the earthquake. But, he added, "this is not a matter of where they live and where we live". He went on to say that everyone in his nation must unite to face this crisis. 

This is true for all of us: it is not a matter of where they live and where we live. All of us need to unite with our brothers and sisters in Japan, as we have done for others in the past, to face this crisis, to help one another, to lend a hand, even if we feel small and helpless and like our tiny contribution won't make a difference. 

Help us to show our love, by being kind and good, we pray. 

For a list of ways you can help the people of Japan, click here.

parallel universe

On Monday, I happened to be in the car for most of the day and caught a Fresh Air interview with physicist Brian Greene. Now, I took physics in college, from the illustrious Dr. Baker, and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit (in large part because Dr. Baker found ways to make his class funny, somehow). But I don't pretend to understand what Dr. Greene was discussing. Basically, he was discussing a theory that states that matter can only combine in a finite number of ways, and if the universe is infinite, then that combination will occur repeatedly throughout the universe. In other words, in an infinite universe, there may be many parallel universes, within which matter has organized in the same way (as in, we are all there in the parallel universe, living our lives like we do here, I guess). 

As mind-boggling as this concept is, I have thought in the past about the possibility of different moments in time happening simultaneously - like envisioning that my mom is her young, healthy, witty self somewhere else in the universe. Maybe then I'm some sort of inter-generational tie between my mom and my daughter, who will never get to meet in this world, connecting them as I reach one hand into the past and hold onto Dora's hand stretching into the future.  

 And there's a sense of parallel universes when you think about all the joy and pain that simultaneously take place in each moment, day, year, life. In my own little life we have an amazing, flashing light of joy among us - another baby coming to join us later this summer. We have dreamed of this for so long and are overjoyed that our sweet Isadora will get to be a big sister. Yet in the midst of our happiness, we have friends as well as strangers in the greater human family facing unimaginable sorrow. Just today I learned of one friend involved in a serious car accident and another, whose courageous journey I have mentioned before, who needs our prayers now more than ever. Perhaps only quantum physics can explain how such beauty and such pain can at once be contained within this world, how the blessings and the sorrows get tossed out across the universe like so many shining stars.

As I put Dora to bed tonight, she said to me, "I wish I was in your belly". I asked her why and she said, "so we could snuggle". I promised her that she will always be my snugglebug, that I'll always snuggle her. We talked about her being a big sister, all the things she will teach her little sibling, how she'll help me with the baby. Dora refers to this baby as a girl, even though we don't know (and won't find out) the sex until the baby arrives. After a few minutes of quiet she said, "maybe she'll like James Brown." I squeezed her close and laughed, wondering how many three-year-olds are so into the Godfather of Soul that they hope their siblings-to-be will share in their musical tastes. 

Maybe not so many three-year-olds would say it now, but maybe on some other plane in the universe there's a 1960s kid about to become a big brother or big sister, hoping their new sibling is going to get up offa that thing, too. Maybe in the parallel universe Mike made it home safely from work yesterday, and Rachel is so healthy she hasn't had so much as a stuffy nose in the past three years. My prayer is that, if matter really can only organize itself in so many ways, these realities in the parallel universe become reality here. I pray for wholeness for the entire human family, for health and healing for all those who need it, for wisdom for those who provide medical care, and for an unending capacity for love and forgiveness among all of us. With all of these things, the universe truly is infinite.