Animal, Vegtable, Miracle

You may have noticed recently that I'm part of an online book-club.  We read books and then write an essay inspired by the book; since the conception of C this has basically been the only thing I've blogged about at all.  (Sigh)

Our current book is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.  I was so excited when this book was announced because no less than a million people have strongly suggested I read it in the past few years.  I picked it up and set it back down after just a few chapters...and went to fetch my husband.  I knew this book would (once again) change the way I looked at feeding my family and I didn't want to change alone.  We're reading it together now, and loving her insights, adventures, ideas, and fantastic writing.

But this is meant to be an inspired essay, not a review.

Now I'm left with a problem - what one thing to write about?  Shall I continue the musings I began years ago?  Should I tell you about our garden? About my farming friend who's eggs we love buying?  About my conundrum with organic vs local vs whole foods (not the grocery store) vs good animal treatment vs budget? About all the things I've found that carry the right labels but don't actually make a difference? About the various farmer's markets, CSA's, and suppliers I've tried (and canceled) in my area?  The complexity of working this out alongside a family?

Alas, there is so much I could write about this topic, but my children are small, and they are sick, and I am exhausted. Original thought is not a luxury I can afford today, so I will leave you instead with what someone else said, and very artistically at that; I'm pretty sure Barbara would be proud.

Could you live an entire year eating locally or the food from your garden? Barbara Kingsolver transplanted her family from the deserts of Arizona to the mountains of Virginia for their endeavor. Join From Left to Write on February 21 as we discuss Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. All opinions are my own. 

Suffering and Silence, Sometimes

I recently finished reading a beautiful book called The Art of Hearing Heartbeats in which a woman who cannot walk falls in love with a man who cannot see.  The two create a truly symbiotic relationship - he carries her on his back and she leads him by describing the path into his ear.  But beyond this practical arrangement they find a deeper connection.  Living in a village in rural Burma, they are each unable to take life at the pace of an able-bodied individual.  Without eyes to guide him, he must listen, listen deeply, to all that is around.  Without feet to take her, she must wait, wait deeply, for nearly everything she wants or needs. 

Each finds a kindred spirit in the other because each drinks from the same pool of wisdom that is available to those who dive into the depths of experience; who live life below the surface level of things to do, beyond the constant barrage of images and input.

I love so many things about this book, but this aspect stands out to me.  I am so often hurried, so often distracted by tasks and busyness; so prone to fill silence with noise, to replace quiet with words. But there have been times when I have spent an hour watching a snail walk across the sidewalk, or sat silently in a forest glade waiting for the very earliest signs of spring.  I have looked out my suburban window at a tree waving in the wind and learned things that you cannot find in books. 

It is rare that we take the opportunity to slow down and learn without words.  The characters in my book had no choice.  The wisdom and beauty they encountered was lost on a world that saw them with pity, that assumed their difference meant they had less and not more. 

As I ponder this, I consider my children.  Into each day I carve out times of silence, spaces where they can hear the song of Creation and the voice of Wisdom. But this blind boy and lame girl gently show me more than simply that, and this is the most challenging of lessons for me: that often what is most beautiful comes in our lives from that which is most painful.  As I pray for my children I find that I ask again and again that they will be people of wisdom, faith, and compassion.  But I know that these qualities come when we are refined, and on reflection I tremble at what I am asking for.  I want for my children and myself the beauty these two characters found, but who would willingly ask for such a trade off?  Sometimes the pain of life is refining; other times, it can be consuming. 

Just before this book I read The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating - a memoir of a woman who encountered a devastating virus that left her bed ridden for a decade.  During this time she had the silence to slow down and listen to the Song, to dive into the Depths.  She, too, came through suffering with deeper wisdom. 

Once again I am reminded that we don't always get what we want, but sometimes this is exactly what we need; though this is a lesson much more easily learned in theory than in practice. Life does include suffering and it is my prayer that we will use these inevitable seasons to grow in our spirits a pearl of beauty.

As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of these books. All opinions are my own. If you'd like to read the responses of other members to the book, head over on February 1st.

Meditation

My online book club gave me the assignment to read Quiet by Susan Cain and then write a blog post inspired by the book (rather than a review of the book).  As I read this important and thought provoking writing I knew exactly what I wanted to say and realized that I have already said it.  So here you go, re-posted from almost four years ago!

One of the primary spiritual disciplines within Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions is meditation. I have found meditation described in different ways, with slightly different goals, but ultimately through meditation we sharpen and strengthen our minds.

Eastern religions abound in metaphors describing our minds as fish flopping and thrashing about out of water; as a busy, chattering monkey that can't sit still even for a second. The mind that has been trained in meditation, however, is like an archer who can aim his thoughts and hit the mark; all others struggle to hold the string taunt, their arrows going in all directions.

Try it for a second. For just two minutes, try to think of one unmoving thing. If you get more than 10 seconds down your path, I'm impressed. The image of the monkey is potent to me, because my mind is indeed prone to race all about. Most of the time I'm busy enough that I don't even notice; but try to sit and stop it and this problem becomes all too clear.

Proponents of meditation remind us that our thoughts and minds go deeper than we will ever dive. Deep below our consciousness, our subconscious is doing much of our choosing. Have you ever gotten more angry than you wanted? Have you ever felt out of control of your emotions or your actions or your responses? We all know first hand that our minds are as fathomless as they are fidgety.

In order to live a healthy life then, we must somehow gain self-awareness, gain wisdom, gain strength over the chattering monkey that is our thoughts. In developing the ability to hold ourselves in silence, we slow down, developing the ability to hear, to know, to gain wisdom and insight. Insight into who we are and why we act and choose as we do - which allows us to live with a greater level of intentionality. Insight into how things are, wisdom as we quiet ourselves and can hear the voice of life around us and even, all religions suggest, the quiet and loving voice of God. If I can slow myself down enough to realize the events in my life that trigger a reaction, and then choose how I will respond - wow. And if I can focus my thoughts, I can focus them on God rather than on a multitude of distractions. If I can quiet myself, I can sit before God and not drown Him out with rambling chatter.

This is not a major focus of Christianity as we know it in most Western forms, but meditation is certainly in agreement with Christian Scriptures and teachings. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says "we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." How are we to not only take captive every thought, but make them each obedient to Christ, if they are coming a mile a minute, and out of our control? In 1 Kings, Elijah learns that the voice of God is not in the roaring wind, or the earthquake, or the raging fire...but in the gentle whisper. How are we to hear God's voice when our lives are so very noisy? In Psalm 46 we are exhorted to "be still, and know that I am God." In Isaiah 26 we are told that he who trusts in God will be held in perfect peace if his mind is steadfast. Jesus implores us in Matthew 22 and Mark 12 and Luke 10 to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. In Romans 8 we are told that those who submit to God will set their minds on what the Spirit of God desires. Again and again we are told to set our thoughts on God. How are we to do any of this if we have not disciplined our mind as athletes or musicians discipline their bodies?

Here in the West, our society is set up with the very opposite goal in mind - never, ever to be alone with our thoughts, to have as little silence as possible, to fill our mind with as many things at as fast a pace as possible. Radios and DVD players in the car; ipods and cell phones to our ears when we walk or run; television and internet always on at home. I recently saw a high chair with a DVD-player option. Our innovations are making it more and more possible to be plugged in at all times, to interact with fast-paced media input constantly. Our minds are being trained not to quiet, to focus, and to submit to our instructions, but to race ever faster down countless bunny trails that something outside ourselves is dictating.

As I study meditation and the importance of developing one's mind as one would any atrophied but pivotal muscle, I've thought with irony about our society's insistence in being ever stimulated. What does this do to us, I wonder? What are we losing control over, what are we losing period, that we have not even realized was at stake or might be attained?

My own thoughts are especially fidgety. This blog is in large part an attempt to relieve my weary mind by placing some of my constant ponderances outside of my head. Ever since I was a toddler, my thoughts have made falling asleep difficult. For about 15 years I would go through rigorous mind exercises, attempting to both clear and control this incessant monkey. I would walk myself through the alphabet, allowing myself to focus only on things which started with the letter I was on. I would imagine my mind as a large cluttered room that a man with a broom was slowly, steadily, sweeping clean; when we finished the room, I would force myself to hold the nothingness that was left. I would focus my inner eye on an imaginary orange, and concentrate on not letting it roll, on not let my mind peel the orange, or change its color, or thinking of something else. Some nights, I would succeed, and sleep. Other nights, I was forced to listen to my own chit-chat until dawn.

I realize now that these late-night exercises in my early life were the very rudimentary exercises of early meditation - learning to somehow control one's mind, rather than being controlled by one's mind. Keeping the tail from wagging the dog.

Why are we not doing this? Why are we giving so much control over who we are to something admittedly quite out of control? There is no need to convert to or even study an Eastern religion (or any religion for that matter) in order for us to begin exercising our thoughts.

And there is literally everything to gain.

Thoughts?

This post is part of Left to Write's online bookclub, where we just finished reading Quiet by Susan Cain.  A copy of this book was given to me at no charge. 

Two Tall Tales

A says, "Check out my cool fall move! I made it up during time out!" He falls dramatically from his bed to the floor.

Then he rises, realizing the potential implication of what he's said.  He tries damage control by adding "because if the person I've hurt is downstairs, it really helps me to think about what I've done by falling towards them, and then sort of lying right above where they are."

Despite my best efforts I start laughing. "You must be making that up" I say. "No!" he insists... but then a laugh escapes from him as well. "Well...I guess I just do it because its fun."

During this conversation B is sitting on the toilet, going on and on about how his tooth was loose and then it fell out.  He insists that quite a few dramatic and unlikely maladies have befallen him and his former tooth in the short time he's been in the bathroom.  He teeth are actually fully intact when I check on him but he is insistent so, in an effort to understand, I suggest that he might be pretending.  "No!" he insists adamantly.  "It fell out when Jesus died on the cross. That is when it really happened!  When Jesus died on the cross!"

Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing

Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning;

Jesus, to thee be glory given!

Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!

Oh, come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

First Snow Magic

I was getting dressed this morning in the moments after dawn when I heard the small voices and footsteps that mean my sons are awake. I peeked into their room and suggested they look out the window.

Immediately they stopped in their tracks and raced to the window, bright eager faces straining to see, reflecting the magic of what they hoped to find. "Snow!!"  As they stared in wonder and excitement, B shouted "Let's call Santa and tell him!  On the phone!"

Several moments later I was walking out of the house and turned to see if I was being waved on my way.  There in the upper window was nearly-three-year-old-Little-Bee, jumping up and down with pure enjoyment.  I hope I never, ever forget that sight.

A few hours later I returned home from sharing the Christmas Story with my coworkers in word and song to an armful of still-excited children ready with hugs, kisses, and cookies.  We turned on Handle's Messiah for the "First Snowfall First Listening." Snowpants have been donned and mittened hands have tentatively brought the cold flakes to inquisitive lips for a taste. 

There is joy all around us, and on moments like these you can almost see it.

 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. - John 1

Five Month Old Cutie

You just might find you get what you need.

I recently read this article about women and/or couples who, after spending thousands of dollars and years of their lives on fertility treatments, find themselves pregnant at last...with twins.  But because they were not wanting twins they undergo yet more medical interventions to reduce the pregnancy to a single baby. 

Of all the responses this article elicited in me the strongest was in the reasons many of these women gave.  They said, essentially "it is important for me to be a good mother; to provide my children with enough attention, financial stability, patience, experiences, etc and I already have a five year old - I don't think I could stay sane and be a good mother if I had twins right now." 

This hit me so hard because this is right where I am.  Both my sanity and my "Good Mother" card are in jeopardy every minute these days. I am the sort of person who likes control, structure, plans - but every moment of my day, every meal that I eat, every night that I (don't) sleep is filled with chaos, interruptions and noise.  Nothing goes smoothly.  Patience has long run out.  Standards and hopes such as "being a good mother" or "giving my children values, educational experiences, and coping techniques" have been replaced by one lofty imperative - survive.

I am also reading an amazing book about Martha Beck who, while she and her husband were working on their fifth and sixth collective Harvard degrees, discovered that the child she carried had Down's syndrome.  Even before her diagnosis she was hardly surviving the severe symptoms of her pregnancy, relying for the first time in her life on the grace and acceptance of generous souls who saw her need and met her where she was.  After the diagnosis she encountered nearly unanimous pressure to terminate; yet though she was staunchly pro-choice she carried her baby and is caring for him still.  She said:

my entire life hinged on knowing that there were people who would continue to love me unconditionally, even if I were damaged, even if I were sick.  Such love was the only thing that had sustained me during the turmoil of the past months. If I eliminated my child because of his disability, if I put him out of my life, I would be violating the only thing that was keeping me alive. I"d be ripping the rug out from under my own feet.

In her gripping and compelling story Martha's idea of good life and success is shattered and replaced by  something much, much better.  Over-achieving, workaholic, control freaks that she and her husband were, they learned to live and value in an entirely different way - because of, and through, and by, love.  Love not because of achievement or worth, but because of love itself. Love brought them this not-perfect situation that they deemed a tragedy, and love showed them that it was instead a blessing, a gift, an opportunity for them more priceless than all those thing the world had taught them to want.

I think this lesson is so often taught us by our children because it is the lesson of life itself. For me, it has been the biggest, most pronounced lesson of pregnancy, labor, delivery, sleepless night, and parenting in general - there is something in surrender, in acceptance, that creates life and beauty and joy.  There are my plans, and then there is life. Life is often much, much more painful than my plans were, but resistance brings yet more pain, while surrender can bring joy as vivid as the sorrow. No amount of working and planning can make life into what we want it to be, and neither can it bring us love. Love and joy, which are always there waiting for us, come into focus by contentment and surrender.

But how can we know this if we live our lives with our fists clenched?  Either we must open our hands or, eventually, they will be pried open.  We will eventually be broken, but we can also be healed. Things will not go as we plan. Chaos will come, disappointment will come. And if we are willing to meet suffering and chaos and disappointment with our eyes and heart open these things can bring us to a place more beautiful than anything we had the perspective or imagination to plan.

I am (unsuccessfully) trying to teach my 5 month old daughter to sleep longer than two hours stretches at night. While she cries to get up and I thwart her desires to nudge her towards the sleep she needs I often find myself singing to her:

You can't always get what you want, but sometimes you just might find you get what you need.

This post was inspired by the book Expecting Adam, by Martha Beck. I was given a copy of this book as part of From Left to Write. Read other posts inspired by Expecting Adam on Thursday, November 10, at From Left to Write. We'll also be chatting live with Martha Beck at 1PM Eastern on November 10 on From Left to Write.

Three (and a half) month old Cutie

(For fun, here's B at the same age.)

So much happens in 10 years

Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing
less than nothing.
Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.  

 - from "The End and the Beginning" by Wislawa Szymborska, as quoted by Mary Schmich in the Chicago Tribune, 9/11/11

For my sons, who wonder what today is all about, and who can't quite imagine anything happening that long ago...

What Shall I Do Tonight: A Story *now with bonus drinking game*

At 8pm I held my sleeping baby in my arms, knowing that my husband was nearly done putting the boys to bed in the next room. "Wow!" I thought to myself, "All three kids asleep at 8pm!  This has never happened before!  What shall I do with my evening?"

I will tell you what I did, and just to make it fun, take a drink every time I say the word "stairs." Ready?

8:10pm: Laid baby in her bed, assuming all kids were tucked in for the night (of course, C wakes up every few hours).

8:11pm: Walked downstairs and found A in the kitchen. Sent him back upstairs.

8:15pm: Heard C crying in the monitor.  Ran upstairs to put her back to sleep.

8:45pm: Finally laid now-sleeping C in her bed and headed downstairs. Was stopped half was down by B crying in his room.

8:46pm: Discovered that B was crying because he couldn't find A, and indeed A's bed was empty.  Went downstairs to look for him.

8:47pm:  Found A reading books in the living room.  Walked him upstairs because I had also promised crying B I would rock him.

9:03pm: Came downstairs after tucking boys in and started in on cleaning the kitchen.

9:10pm: Heard B crying from the top of the stairs "I have to go to the bathroom!" and went upstairs to find a very sleepy, disoriented B with wet pants.  Put him on the potty and started cleaning his room, then got him back into bed.
. 
9:40pm: Said "I think they're all finally asleep - so much for a quiet evening!" and walked into the living room.  When I entered I realized that the monitor was lit up because C was crying again.  Went upstairs to reapply pacifier and soothings.

9:50pm: Came back downstairs; finally managed to not only enter the living room but actually sit down...when I heard C start crying again.  And I headed for the stairs.   This time for the last time because its now my bedtime and I know I'll be getting up every two hours anyway. 

You can put your drink down now.

Summer Bounty

Now that we have a yard, my dream of having a garden is finally fulfilled.  Here is what we harvested today alone. The barrel of basil we turned into pesto is not pictured.

(Please leave me comments with ideas and recipes of how to transform tomatoes and sweet peppers into something that can live long in my freezer - my lifestyle does not lend itself to a lot of cooking right now. We've already made our weight in tomato sauces.)

My Little Bee flavored ice cream

Little B is a scoop of ice cream.  He's an ice cold half-lemonade-half-iced-tea on a hot day.  He's so delightful, so just-what-you-needed, but impossible to put into words - you have to experience him yourself.

Since he was born I've found this to be true - he a difficult blog subject.  I simply do not know the words that would paint the precious delight that he is.  Its not so much what he says, but the way he says it; not so much what he does, but the way he does it.  Who he is. Every word and movement like the ice cold half-lemonade-half-iced-tea on a hot day. 

He is running through the lawn, his toddler body wiggling and shaking like only a running toddler body can. He is stopping to rest his soft blond head on my leg for just a moment.  He's pointing at me, yelling "Jou!  Jou!  I want jou!  I want jou!" He's putting himself into my path asking "Do you hold me, Mommy?  Do you hold me, Mommy?"

He is sitting on my lap and we are swinging together...higher...higher.  We swing for ages, he never wants to stop.  He calls it "rocket ship" and I have to call out "3-2-1-Blastoff!" when I push off the ground with my feet.  His little blond head under my chin, his little body on mine.  We swing for ages.

"I want a Watch Puppy, Mommy" he announces daily - his way of asking for a watch dog, though the purpose of a watch dog eludes him somewhat.  "I want a Watch Puppy with my own money.  To watch videos." 

I love you, Little B, I love every day with you.  You are just want our family needed.

Homemade Peas

At lunch today A handed me a pea pod and asked me to open it. "I like eating the seeds inside" he said. "Actually" I replied, " did you know those little seeds are peas?"  He looked at his now-opened pod with amazement.  "Wow!" he exclaimed, "homemade peas!"

The other day I put our "Music Machine" CD on (I know!  Blast from the past!).  When the Conductor was introducing Stevie and Nancy to the machine A corrected him: "Its actually called a Karaoke Machine."

For his birthday I bought him a few super-cool science books, one of which had words like "Quark" and "Protozoa" and "Paramecium."  Half way through he snorted in disgust. "Why do they even make kids books like this?" he demanded.  "All kids know this stuff already."  I told him that, actually, most four-and-five year old kids don't know that much about single celled organisms and atomic structures; I asked him where he had learned it. "From Fermi lab" he replied.  Which, considering how well he matched the World-class particle accelerator laboratory with its field of study, it seems he really might already know these things.  

While my young physicist was eating his homemade peas for lunch I commented on his manners, telling him that when I was little eating with your hands would earn you a comment like "were you born in a barn?"  With a mischievous smile on his face he replied "Well, how would Jesus answer that question?" 

Life with three is a major handful.  The fact that I have a moment to type this out with one hand while bouncing is amazing - normally I'm bouncing while taking someone potty while heating up lunch while running for the phone while cleaning up a spill on the floor.  But who ever heard of such wonderful kids as these three.

Last day being four

Today is A's last day being four.  When I made this happy announcement at the breakfast table he got very quiet and after a few other people joined in the excitement he burst into tears.  "I don't want to talk about it" he said. 

He's never been one to get excited about birthdays or even really enjoy them.  Since Little Bee and I both adore birthdays and plan for them all year this is a fairly foreign concept to us and I don't often do well at remembering.

So we have tried to avoid all discussion of what tomorrow might be and what the implication is for today.

But as I was snuggling with him during nap/quiet time he asked if I would still call him a four year old after he turned five.  "That will make me less sad" he said.  When I asked him why he was sad about leaving "four" behind he said "I've just had such a great time" and then teared up again.

I remember being young, knowing that kids who were ten were very different from kids who were six and not fully understanding that the change happens gradually; the way we talk about ages it does seem like birthdays are a graduation from one level to the next, all at once.  I assured A that he wouldn't look or feel or act differently tomorrow - and that things between he and I will be just the same. 

He was quiet for a moment and then cheerfully went back to his imaginative play.  I managed to bite my tongue and not wish him a happy last four-year-old naptime.

Heart melt

This week Little Bee ran across the yard to catch up with me - is there anything more adorable than short, pudgy toddler legs running through green grass?  When he reached me said "You're a great Mommy" and hugged my leg. 

He's never said anything like "I love you" so these were big words.  It wasn't the 97 degrees and 97 percent humidity that made my heart melt. 

Third Time's the Charm

When I'm alone with all three I wonder how I managed to think that one was a handful. 

But when I'm alone with just her I remember the constant bouncing and holding and feeding that even one newborn demands. 

She is crying.  With her mouth open to wail she is just barely holding her "Cutie Patootie" pacifier with her tongue.  We've been bouncing, we've been singing, we've been soothing.  I lay my head just next to her's and continue my song.  Her eyes catch mine and she breaks into a smile from behind the pacifier and between sobs.  We smile at each other and her eyes close.  She quiets, the room quiets, my heart quiets - and fills. 

The Silver

Lest I get too wrapped up in my worries to remember, let me acknowledge that there have been moments when the silver lining has peeked through the clouds.  For example...

...seeing the huge, beaming smile on A's face as he held and talked to his baby sister for the first time.  I have never seen a smile so big, so beautiful in all my life.

...watching the boys warm up to her in their own ways.  A was an easy sell, having fallen for her at first sight.  He insists that we should have several more because "babies are my favorite kind of person" and "she's so precious."  B is much slower to warm but he is coming around.  He has asked to hold her and is always the first to start singing her baby song if she seems to be in distress.  And - in the true test of his heart - he is beginning to invite her along in the things he's doing, even though they are far from age appropriate activities - "maybe my baby sister can do it too!"

...holding my daughter this morning when she smiled at me for the first time and tried to "talk" with me.  The precious way newborns stretch when you hold them up in the air - hands in fists and arms raised above the head, feet and legs lifting up pretzel style in mid-air.  The sleepy, satisfied "milk nirvana" expression she makes (and my other two made) seconds after nursing.  How very, very entirely precious and loved and beautiful she is. 

I've regretted that with our fears for her safety my anxieties so easily dwarf these silver moments, and I've chastised myself to fully enjoy every newborn moment I have.  But then I realize that this is what newborn moments are like - since the dawn of time these early, vulnerable days have surely been met with as much anxiety for their survival as relishing in their wonder.  Instead of missing out somehow I am, in fact, truly joining in with mothers-of-newborns from ancient times until today. 

B would like to call her "the hot dog man" but A thinks "Caterpillar" is a better nickname. I personally prefer the name I gave her myself, but since I already have an "A" and a "B" and since Caterpillar does start with the right letter let's just go ahead and call her "C" while we're online. 

Thank you for praying for her health - we still have about another week before she's out of the woods.  But there's also been the silver. 

Sometimes grace comes in the form of vomit

Three weeks ago today my daughter was born.

On the same day, while I was laboring, Little B was at home vomiting with the stomach flu. Before we came home from the hospital we discovered that A had what we assumed to be a bad cold.  Between the two viruses we were worried for our newborn and put a tremendous amount of effort into keeping the boys separate from her. Two days after we came home from the hospital, Little B came down with the same "cold" virus. A week after we came home A came down with the stomach flu, on top of his cold.  By the time we had been home for two weeks my husband and I had gotten the cold, and so had all the grandparents who had flocked to care for us.  My husband and I had just a minor version but most of the grandparents were very sick. It had been over two weeks so we figured the boys were healthy enough to see and touch and hold their baby sister finally, and if I was sick too there seemed no point in continuing the quarantine.

In the midst of all this we had water leaking into the basement, into the attic, and even a big pond forming one night in our family room.

I got through all of this the same way I got through labor and delivery; when the contraction (or crisis) peaks, throw yourself into it and get through it.  When it abates, even though you know its not over, even though you know a bigger and harder one is coming at any moment - don't panic; relax while you can.  So whenever someone was not actually throwing up or water was not actually leaking and no one new was getting sick and no one was close enough to cough on the baby I made myself stay in the moment and relax, knowing the next crisis was just around the corner.  I pictured bright lights and reminded myself what a privilege it is to be alive and kept the darkness - always so close to a postpartum mother - at bay.  

A few days after we ended the quarantine I got a call from the Pediatrician.  The boys had tested positive for Pertussis.

I still see spots when I remember this conversation.  I hadn't seen this coming at all.

By the time we got this call we were already over the worst of it.  But apparently we were still contagious and had been exposing the newborn especially in the past few days. This was Thursday night and the days since  have been a blur of Doctor's appointments, trips to the pharmacy, being interviewed by the County Health Department, and more calls with still more doctors.  (Parenthetically, I have interacted with some of the most frustratingly unprofessional doctors during this time).  But mostly, me staring at the ceiling in disbelief and enormous anxiety.  Because all these conversations with doctors and health departments cannot help me forget what we all know well - what often happens when newborns and pertussis mix.

As of now, she is still entirely healthy.  We are all taking meds, waiting for our contagion to end, and for the baby's incubation period to end.  And watching very, very closely.  And worrying a lot, despite my best intentions. My "relax between contractions" strategy is no longer working for me.

As if all this weren't enough I woke up last night vomiting - presumably a reaction to the medicine I was given.  Between heaves I said to my husband "we have a lot of challenges right now."

But the bright side is that vomiting has forced me to stay in the present moment so entirely that my anxiety has gone down, a bit.  I'm still watching just as closely, still acting just as carefully to keep germs away.  But not worrying so much as I just try to keep food down in the present moment.

Sometimes grace comes in the the form of vomit.

Astonished, again

For months I carried you under my heart
But I could not conceive that once again I was carrying a person, a baby.

For weeks I prepared clothes and furniture and brothers for your arrival
But did not prepare myself to discover that a baby could once again take my breath away.

For days I slept with your empty bed beside mine
But could not believe that soon you would fill it and sleep next to me.

For hours I labored and struggled to give you life
And was astonished when you were here, and you were you.

With each of my children I have been taken completely off guard by their birth into the world.  Three times now I have held a small body against my chest, my body trembling with the words I didn't know it was you.

I have no reason to call you a surprise, but you have astonished me again, Little Daughter.  You are a blessing.