What happened to May?!  Both my husband and I turned another year older. My baby is now over 6 months old and I can hardly believe it. I’m nearly done as a graduate teaching assistant. Next year I get to write and study (only one or two writing theory classes) in luxury (time-wise)... well, except I’ll hopefully have a part-time job. That doesn’t sound like much luxury, trading in a part-time teaching job for a part-time unknown as of yet job, but the teaching gig was much more than part-time—a mistake I won’t make again (of course I won’t be applying for another teaching assistantship again, so that solves that).

After a first year or so of happiness in the Northwest, we are seeing the cracks in the veneer, so to speak. It isn’t as bad as it was down south with all of the rude and angry people, but there is some of that here too. Of course, I am curious if the way we (hubby and I) view these things is actually a reflection of our own angst and moods. We are a bit less happy with this place and the people as we first were, so of course they all seem less friendly than before. Perspective is perspectivey that way.

My students this quarter are absolutely fabulous compared to a time before that will hopefully soon be forgotten. Although they are probably just a rather typical class. Perspective again.

I’m holding back my excitement for my thesis which is barely begun and still mostly just floating dust particles in the ether of my mind. I feel very much as if I’ll call down the mother of all jinxes if I talk about it too much. So, I’ll simply say I’m excited, but trying not to be too excited (this is a much better state of mind than what I felt a few months ago, aka dread).

Now I get to watch June flitter away and wonder where it all went… then July…

Once a month is rather pathetic for blogging, but I may remain pathetic for awhile. We’ll see.

Last week, I began teaching creative writing to middle school kids as part of an afterschool program. After the first day I felt as if I was in over my head. It wasn’t as if I had any expectations and then got blown out of the water; I had very little in the way of expectations, yet their energy was so much more than I’ve experienced in a long, long while that it threw me (out of the water, perhaps?). I think the last time I was around tweens and young teens was when I was one. So, a few *coughtwentycough* years or so.

This week I was much more prepared. I didn’t run out of writing activities. In fact, I over-planned which was predictable for me (I seem to usually have too much planned for many of the classes I teach...just in case). In fact we only got about halfway through my lesson/activity on the short story, so I have next week’s class all ready to go.

Anyway, back to the students. They talk. They talk a lot. Did I talk that much at that age? If there was a “talking” event at the Olympics, kids this age would be winning all of the medals. They are great. I find myself listening to them and forgetting momentarily that we’ve strayed from the writing stuff. Luckily, it isn’t a normal class, but an afterschool “club” of sorts, so we’re more free to go at our own pace. Did I mention that they’re great?

On a different subject: My daughter likes the chorus of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” She breaks into giggles and laughter when I sing it. I find myself singing the strangest snippets of songs to her since I don’t know many (okay, hardly any) nursery rhymes or lullabies.

She’s in the 90th percentile for length and the 50th percentile for weight; that makes for a long, lean baby. And more importantly she’s healthy.

She had a crying jag at the doctor’s office on Friday possibly caused by actually “seeing” the doctor’s facial hair. The last time she saw him was a few days after birth. Though the more likely theory floating around the house is that she was tired since her appointment was right in the middle of her “night-time” (7-8 hours) sleep pattern at 1:30 in the afternoon.

It doesn’t seem strange to us that our daughter would adopt a counter-societal sleep pattern. In California, both hubby and I had some night jobs, on-call jobs, and hardly any 9-5 jobs to speak of, so we were used to strange sleep patterns. Up here in the eastern part of the Pacific Northwest, however, it is difficult to maintain that lifestyle. There are very few 24 hour stores or restaurants. And very little to do after 9 or 10 at night anyway. Basically there is no pay off to staying up all night and sleeping all day.

Of course, our little girl could care less either way, so long as her needs are met. And we’ve been meeting them, of course.

I’ve been reading about different parenting approaches, namely scheduled and on-demand parentling. They sound like what they are: setting a schedule and keeping your baby to it (like waking her up for feedings and so on) or following your baby’s needs for things like feedings and meeting those needs when they are demanded from the child. So far, we’ve been an on-demand household. We’ve had the luxury of not having traditional jobs to pull us away and enforce a schedule. But, now I do have a bit of a schedule to keep and responsibilities outside of the home. So, things are changing somewhat.

I’ve read what people say for and against both parenting approaches and mainly I don’t much care for other opinions. I much rather trust myself and my ability to read my daughter’s needs. So, we will likely end up somewhere in the middle of the two approaches, setting (hopefully) a sleeping schedule for the actual night and letting her show us the way during her day. This may not work out perfectly, but we will see how it goes.

Today, to break up the afternoon, we took a walk in the brisk air. As the temperature was in the low- to mid-thirties, we were bundled up.

We are under seige, or so it seems. Really my husband and I are struggling with our lack of sleep and taking it out on each other. The culprit is our adorable baby who is simply getting used to life still and such things as sleep patterns. We, on the other hand, are older and set in our ways and find it hard to handle the brief naps and split shifts that we’ve managed for the past week or so while I’ve been back at school, teaching and learning.

It is usually the crankiness of exhaustion that fuels our bitter tongues, blaming the other for everything including the blindingly bright sun that shone today. But in our saner moments, when we’ve had more rest and time to gain perspective, we do apologize.

I wonder how long this cycle will last of acrimony and apology. I wonder how long we will last in the cycle, and if it will break before it breaks us.

During the wee hours of the morning, when the sky was still dark and the neighborhood was quiet, when all in the house were asleep except for me, I quietly assembled the device. Some components were small attaching to some that were large. I attached the power source and connected the tubing. I tested all of the connections for tightness. Then I attached the device to my skin. A torture device.

Or so it seemed and yet it offered relief.

And I quickly realized that I must be one strange duck to have such a cinematic, spy-like experience while getting ready to pump breast milk. 

I watched The Wiggles for the first time this morning with the baby girl in my lap. We bopped, bounced and kicked to the songs, and I liked it. There must be something in motherhood hormones that make this happen. How else can it be explained? (I hear dads pay exorbitant prices for live Wiggles’ shows too, though.) Soon I’ll be watching all of the kiddie cartoons I’m sure.

The girl is gaining weight like a champ. At her one month doc visit she weighed 9 lbs. 1 oz. And they didn’t measure her length, but I did at home and she is at least an inch longer. It is strange the things I am now proud of…

Last weekend we had our first frantic scare for our daughter’s health. Being first time parents, every small change can seem huge and perhaps critical to our daughter’s health. Saturday, she was sleeping more than usual. Feeding just about as often as usual, but not necessarily as long as previously. In the evening, I took her temperature and she was above normal, though I did doubt the thermometer’s accuracy since it was used in her armpit and not the ole reliable tuckus. After a call to the on-call pediatric nurse, we took her to the ER at the nurse’s suggestion. She had also been having pain before her bowel movements or passing of gas, which accompanied by whining cries, sharp cries or sometimes piercing screams had only begun 3-4 days before.

As seems to happen with our family, our daughter recovered her health once at the hospital (my hubby’s ER visit had the same reslut when he had what we assume to be gall bladder pain). Her fever was gone (assuming it existed), after being taken from her car seat carrier for examination she was wide awake and alert like her normal self, and the bowel movement she had in front of the doctor on duty elicited no more than a wiggle and sigh from her.  The doctor did hear gas bubbles in her tummy, and my husband and I got to experience her cries as we held her for a couple of tummy x-rays (just to be sure). The results: gastric disturbance. In other words, she was having normal baby bowel probs.

It didn’t end there though. Being the first time parents we are and more than likely over-reactionary, we turned the heat down in the house. The result was that our duaghter the next morning was still unusually sleepy and her body temperature was low. This time we used an rectal thermometer that my hubby had purchased at the 24 hour pharmacy in the late hours of the night after the ER. We debated phoning the on-call nurse again, but decided first to get her warmed up. Body to body contact being best, she and I laid down, belly to belly, chest to chest. She warmed up, perked up and became her usual wiggly, alert, hungry self again.  She’s been back to normal ever since.

My husband and I realized just how isolated we are up here, with most of our family about 1,300 miles away. It made me appreciate support networks of family and friends. I wouldn’t change how may life has worked out in the past year and a half. I’m glad we moved. I’m glad to be pursuing my degree. And I’m completely overjoyed that our daughter is in our lives. I am happy with my life and all of its facets. Plus, I’m a bit humbled to know just how different life is that I have a small being completely dependent on me for her survival.

This is her earlier this week (after the taxing weekend):

I’d like to note two three things: 1) I don’t believe in headbands or bows on girl babies, but my mom bought them and I decided to take a picture with one to humor her. 2) The little pixie absolutely loves to lie on her changing table and stare around her room. She is most calm there (and also while breastfeeding) and hence the ability for mommy to take pictures (without the inclusion of a mammary shot). 3) As she gains weight, she gets even more cherub-like. Her cheeks and double chin (not so visible in this pic) are evidence. Her legs and arms are filling out nicely too. They were very skinny at birth. I was surprised to have a skinny baby considering her parents, both at birth and in their current physical shape. 

Last week the miracle happened. On Friday, the 11th, I gave birth to a baby girl. She was and still is a long skinny thing, weighing 6 lbs 12 oz and 21 inches long. She is totally beautiful (and yet I recognize that most babies are quite ugly as newborns—so either parenthood blinds me or she really is quite stunning). She makes a million and one different facial expressions over the course of a million and one seconds (or maybe just half that much). And in those moments when I’m not on the verge of passing out from exhaustion/lack of sleep, I look at her and am overwhelmed. And as a friend with a 3-year-old agreed, overwhelmed is an understatement, but it will have to do in explaining the feeling that comes over you when you hold, touch, smell and hear this tiny thriving being that your body somehow created. Perhaps even mind-blowing is an understatement. And I was tempted to blame the reaction on my hormones dancing the samba, waltz and the lock-and-pop of the robot all at the same time (a very confused dance as I’m sure you can imagine), but even my husband commented on the feeling of being overwhelmed. So, it is more than hormones to be sure.

Unfortunately, photographs don’t do her justice. Or maybe it is the photographer. I’m still figuring out the camera I bought for my trip to the UK. Anyway, she is a thousand times cuter in person, at least. And when she smiles (which I still have yet to capture on camera in a non-blurry shot) she is a bazillion times cuter. I’m in love basically. Luckily my husband understands how my love for my daughter usurps my love for him, by a fraction of a millimeter. And luckily I understand how he might feel the same concerning her and me. I knew parenthood would be good, but I wasn’t ready to fall completely, overwhelming in love more than I ever have before. The feeling is miraculous.

Still waiting. My mom arrives tonight. The hubby is looking forward to having her here so he doesn’t feel guilty leaving the house for short periods of time. We’re both anxious, excited and all the rest.

My doc’s office is great. Great people, fully competent, but they jotted down my due date wrong, or at least changed their minds somewhere down the road and didn’t tell me. They have written down that the baby was due yesterday, but originally they told me she is due this coming Tuesday. I think it must be easy to think an 8 looks like a 3 and write it down wrong. There was a number written incorrectly from my first visit as well (about my weight… making me lighter) which normally wouldn’t have bothered me, but I felt it was important to be accurate for the baby’s sake. Thankfully my doc believed me and corrected it (the nurse practitioner sort of looked at me cross-eyed when I pointed it out… as if I was loony for wanting the chart to say I weighed more...)

So, if the lil girl doesn’t come on her own, We are pretty sure we are going to induce. Part of me is leery. There are risks associated with inducing birth. We took the 5 week childbirth preparedness class and saw all of the videos (some very frightening when you’re preggers) and read all of the literature. And I thought then that I’d never induce. No way. But… now that I’m as big as a couple of houses and there are loads and loads of pressure in the pelvis area and some days I just feel ready to get that pressure off of my hips and lower belly, well inducing doesn’t sound so bad. It sounds pretty good.

Time is going to tell. But either way, by next week our bundle of joy should be here in my arms instead of in my belly. Woot!

She is her own self, and yet for now, for a few more weeks she and I are linked, not quite one and not separately two. And then she’ll decide it is time to be whole and complete outside of me. It is exciting to think of this moment for her and me. It is saddening to think of it too. I will miss the silent link through the fluid and movement. She will give me somethnig else in its place.

My thoughts have shifted from what they used to be just 365 days ago. I’m consumed by this new life. Before I was consumed by a different sort of life that lived not in flesh and blood. And before that a life imagined and full of possibility. And before that I dwelled on a life unlived. And through each I’ve pushed forward because somehow I remembered movement is essential to life.

I’m ready I tell myself optimistically. I’m nowhere near ready I fear deep down.

Three weeks. Maybe two. Maybe tomorrow. She’ll decide and while it still seems far away, I feel like I need more time. Let’s go back a few weeks. I was able to visualize the end—the new beginning—without the fear of it sliding right up to my nose with a smile and a hello.

But she decides. And I will remember that she is whole and one and not me. And though she’s mine in the sense that she is from me, I don’t own her. She owns herself. And I’m looking forward to whoever she is.

Yesterday was rough but today is much better. This is something to keep in mind for those rough days.

The baby flipped around a few days ago, getting her head pointed downward in anticipation of her future escape from the womb. Of course, we didn’t know that’s what she was doing at the time, but hindsight is really useful just not when you actually need to know what you figure out later. So, she was going wild, crazy wild like I haven’t felt (and my hubby and I haven’t seen) in a few weeks. I had the thoughts: ‘what did I eat?’ and ‘what a crazy monster child we’re getting!’

The next morning, she was hiccupping. The regular pulse of it made me smile. My child is getting ready to breathe, using her lungs. Thatta girl! But wait, the hiccups were down by my pelvic bone. And voila, that wonderful hindsight stuff kicked in and I knew she had flipped around. Unfortunately, her legs, feet, and rear-end were not exactly feeling so good against my ribs, stomach, lungs and whatever other insides are squished up high in my body. It was a rough night sleeping too. I could lie on either side pretty well, but rolling over across my back was excruciating.

It wouldn’t have been too bad, but I have family in town. My mom, aunt, mom-in-law, uncle, cousin and my cousin’s two-year-old daughter. So, I’ve been busy. We went to the fair yesterday and saw all of the 4-H animals and crafts. Shortness of breath and aching ribs kept me from having as much fun as everyone else, but I was still glad to spend time with my family.

Last night, I didn’t sleep well, but it was a mental insomnia and not the physical pain so much that kept me awake. This morning it felt as if the baby read my mind or my body and shifted a little more into my pelvis, just enough to keep my ribs from aching or causing me shortness of breath. And it has been a wonderful day.

Now that I’ve prattled on about pregnancy, I’ll try to get back to my point. Basically, it can be hard to remember on the rough days that there will be good days to follow. And for folks who are having catastrophically rough days, eventually there will be a good day.

To make a good day happen for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, you can give a donation at The Redcross Website.

All right. So, I know it has to be expected that there will be some truly uninspiring assignments. I mean some true pieces of intellectual feces. Of course, it may not be entirely the assignment’s fault. Which may be what has happened with this assignment I just completed (and the result is a giant turd of grand defecatory powers). The fault may be that the assignment-giver has not adequately explained either, A) What the assignment is (thereby causing confusion and wonder) and/or B) Why the assignment exists (thereby restricting from the assignment-doer the feeling of accomplishment even in the face of extreme piles of shite).

As it is now, I feel like I just wasted hours of my time writing a bunch of useless crap. Not how I wanted to spend my time here. Maybe in our session today, some abstract angle of light will be shed on the whole thing that will make it seem like glittering gold. But I doubt it.

Now, maybe something a little uplifting… Or just creepy… Who’s to say… I was walking home (even in Oxford it feels like I have a home… yay!) from the bus stop and two drunk old Brits hit on me. Called me gorgeous and everything. I’m sure they were slurring their compliments at every female that was walking solo, but it made me laugh because just like in the US there are dirty old men who fall into their drink and lose all sense of their tongues.

Ta.

I’ve realized that everywhere in life at all ages people are going to form groups. And inherently with the formation of a group others will be excluded. This is true in graduate school as much as in undergrad, high school, junior high and so on. Perhaps some of the intangibles become more subtle, meaning one might go from having the best snack to the best hang-out room to the best car to the same love of German folk music to the same ability to engage a certain individual, perhaps the leader of said group, for an extended length of time. I mean wouldn’t it be great if joining a group at age thirty had to do with having and supplying good snacks? Betty Crocker watch out!

Anyway, I was missing the gang from my old school as I was trying to get involved in a similarly composed group in grad school. I was volunteering for this new group, and I was confident I would be accepted because I had previous experience and a true desire to be involved. I was quite wrong. There seems to be more to it, some small intangible that I failed to grasp. And though I was still volunteering my time, I was not invited into the inner workings of the group.

Of course this didn’t surprise me too much upon reflection. I actually tend to belong to groups through my closeness to one or two core people within a group. I’m not the sort of person to strike friendships of any depth with a lot of people. I connect with a person maybe two and that’s it. And to tell the truth, I didn’t connect with anyone in this larger group I was attempting to join. So, failure.

But I did connect with one person who is part of another project that I enjoy. So, I’m switching my focus to that. It is strange how things work out, because I’d really like to learn more about the first group’s workings as it is a field that intrigues me and I can see in my future. This second group is good and I enjoy it, but I feel proficient in its inner-workings that I don’t feel I have much to learn, though I have plenty to contribute.

I know this is all in abstraction. I haven’t labeled the groups or named anything, but I mean not to. I’m still working among (or will be once school starts back up for me) everyone in the grad program and I’m not even writing this to complain. This is just something that I’ve become more aware of in the past year of school.

About groups: I know I need them just as anyone else does. I also know I can have difficulty joining them to the point that I often isolate myself because of the difficulty involved. So, it is a balance of joining in enough so I don’t become isolated and depressed (which I’ve done to myself before) and trying to do too much in order to fit in where folks don’t want me.

I do have my primary group of my family, which consists of two of us right now in proximity and many more down south. And of course a new addition is on the way to the group. I can’t go very long without thinking about the baby. She makes me smile everyday.

The baby was kicking or punching or head-butting me hard last night. For the first time my hubby was able to put his hand on my belly and feel it. Before now the baby has been more fluttery or at least more internal about her movement. This was definitely more like right before the alien pops out of the body of Sigourney Weaver. It was pretty cool, though not necessarily totally pleasant for me. Of course I’m glad the little kadiddle is getting her exercise, but sheesh she’s a flailer!

The new house closed escrow. Today, we started tearing down wallpaper in the kitchen, put in a ceiling fan and had our new frig delivered. Fun!

I’ve been thinking that I don’t think (ponder, contemplate, etc.) like I used to when I lived in So. Cal. I mean, usually, I’d come across someone who would do something strange or mean or whatever and ponder the human condition. I do much less of that here. Probably because there are less people. Life is a bit different, more mellow up here. I’m more consistently happy. Is that a positive or a negative? I guess it depends on what terms you want to view it. So, right now my answer is I don’t know.

One thing I’m learning to like about this strange summer weather here in Washington is the sunshiny rain. Reminds me a bit of Hawaii.

And now that I’ve posted a bunch of nonsense, I’ll get back to things (and let you, who kept reading because you are quite determined, get back to your life as well).

There’s so much going on lately. I’ve finished up my first year of graduate school (Yay me!). We’re buying and closing escrow on a new house in about 5-8 days, and so we’ll be moving in to it very shortly. The ultrasound showed that the baby is “probably” a girl. No boy parts found, though the shy little thing had her (sticking with the female gender) legs crossed and tucked in, covering the genital area for the most part. And I’m still planning on going to England for a month from mid-July to mid-August to take a writing/literature course and do some traveling.

And now, my blog has got a pretty new look! (And more to come too!) I’ll be fixing up the left sidebar stuff soon, hopefully in a day or two.

So all of that said, I’ve been taking it easy for about a week now. But looking at that list, I’m a little intimidated by all there is to do. It’ll get done, even if I have to bribe someone to do it for me.