"That Da-Da."

My husband has been away a lot in the past few weeks. He works with schools around the state that have been identified as needing improvement based on their students' testing scores. Many days he drives to these schools and back in a day, but has also been away some overnights because some of his schools are up north in The County, Aroostook County that is, also known as God's Country, the land of potatoes, or what I quietly think of as a Hell of a Long Way From Home. These trips and travels have coincided with Noah getting his first serious cold. I have to say first that he's never been sick in 15 months, so I know that we have been doing well overall, but this one was a doozie for his first. Lots of flowing green goo, a rumbling growly cough, and several long nights with his wide open fish mouth glommed onto my breast. Two days after he got sick, I did too, which made all of the above even more trying and pitiful. The first marathon-length day when the pressure in my head made me wonder if my sinuses would in fact blow up in a messy green and red display was Matthew's first day away on one of these overnights in Aroostook County.

I lowered my expectations drastically for the day and went into keeping-Noah-alive-while-I-try-to-remain-in-a-prone-position mode. If we happened to have any fun too, well, that would just be gravy. The first day passed peacefully, though I wondered at nightfall if I was wearing the skin off my knuckles from all the handwashing I was doing. Noah, bless his heart, remained his cheerful self for the most part, so I took his lead and did not descend into the mild despair and self-loathing which often accompanies me being sick. We stacked blocks, read books, and rolled matchbox cars on every inch of the furniture, the wood floors, our bodies, and the cat. When Matthew called in that night after Noah went to bed, I was glad to report that we'd gotten through the day just fine, although I felt terrible.

The next day, I woke with complete laryngitis. This changed the options for the day considerably. I could not read books to Noah, could not sing him to sleep at naptime or bedtime, could not ask him to do anything, and could not answer his questions - "Dat? Dat? Dat? HaDaaaaaat? (Translation: What's that?)." The last time I had laryngitis was my wedding day. My wedding week, actually. I wondered then, as I did now, what kind of symbolic meaning it had that my voice was gone. Was it to keep me from marrying my soon-to-be husband? To literally make it impossible for me to speak the vows? I thought then it was to help me step back and let the day happen without too much of the usual verbal direction on my part. To just let the joy come to me. Hopefully I won't ruefully look back on this in 10 years as an angry, divorced woman cursing the day I met my dear husband in the first place and wishing I had kept my mouth shut instead of rasping out an "I do." The only reason I can write that mean old sentence at all is that this was the spirit I was in on that second day of my cold - I had let's say a smidgen of resentment that I was home taking care of our little sick baby while I was sick myself with no one to take care of Me.

So it was laryngitis again. I whispered my way through the day with Noah, and since he was still his usual cheerful self, we again made it easily through the day. The real reason this is worth writing down is that I suddenly noticed that the more hours that went by when I didn't have to listen to myself talk, the happier I became. By nightfall I realized how incredibly sick of listening to myself talk I was. Listening to decision after decision after decision, talking both sides of the conversation with Noah and sometimes Matthew, communicating or overcommunicating with everyone in my life. The more hours that passed with me moving silently through the house, cuddling and playing with Noah without describing outloud what we were doing every second, the more I thought I might have to start living like this all the time.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a word-lover. I love to write of course, and I also love to talk. I love to find the best words to match the intention, to use words to find clarity, to lift an idea even higher by the way it's expressed. I'm a Leo as I think I've mentioned in this blog before, though a Leo perhaps lacking some confidence, so rather than just liking to hear myself talk, I like to be pleasantly surprised when other people are interested in hearing me talk. And while Noah is a captive audience, and is certainly sponging up lots of what I say, it's not scintillating around here in the word department because he knows less than ten syllables. And let's face it, conversation with oneself and a 15-month-old can only take you so far.

The daylong hiatus from speaking turned into two, and three, before my voice returned to more than a forced squeak. My husband came home that Friday night, and was exhausted and needed taking care of. I threw a drop more resentment down the well, promised myself I'd pump it out later, and made fresh biscuits for dinner.

Now it's almost a week later, another Saturday when we've had to make the difficult transition from it being the two of us to my husband and stepson being around the house too. I still have a bit of a whisky-voice, and cannot sing to Noah without sounding like a teenaged boy all gutteral than suddenly choir-worthy, but fortunately or unfortunately I'm back to talking a lot most of the time. I have to say, I miss the peace and quiet. Not that that has kept me from starting all kinds of uncomfortable conversations with everyone in the house, and feeling a bit like I have three children here instead of one. Terrible thoughts and feelings, and Matthew does not deserve this. His presence has shaped so much that is good in my life.

While Noah napped upstairs moments ago, Matthew and Colby raked leaves together in the backyard, and I've had this time to write, things have crept into balance again. For the afternoon that is left I want to quietly offer this, to try to suck up some of the water in that well: I'd like to whisper more, or show instead of tell, or sometimes just let more things go out into the silence without comment or interpretation on my part. Sometimes my words crowd things out, besides my own sanity, and these long recent days I have missed my husband so much, thinking at times that it's all up to me. As Noah simply and importantly reminded me this morning when he pointed to Matthew and spoke his first sentence, "That Da-Da. That Da-Da."

Giving so much to our kids doesn't leave a lot left over for each other, or for ourselves. But we are still a team, even though neither of us feel much like starters.

What does a car do? A car goes "Brrrrrooommm"!

Well, life as a mother just gets better and better. I don't remember people saying to me that 15 months old was a favorite time with their children, but this past several weeks has been wonderful. I think I've moved past the total shock of being out of a full-time job for the first time in 10+ years, and am starting to feel truly peaceful about being at home with Noah. Even on the evenings when I am still trying to put him to bed after 45 minutes of reading books, nursing, and singing, and he is restlessly rolling his body around while still nursing and keeping his thumb sunk into my belly button, I find him an endless source of joy and hilarity.

Probably three weeks ago, Noah discovered matchbox cars. I often have to gently pry them from his fists when he has fallen asleep at night, so deep is his love and attachment to them. They sit on most of our windowsills around the house, where he can roll them back and forth, send them careening off into the air, or closely examine the wheels from eye level a few inches away. My husband and I have been trying to teach him to make the car sound, you know, brrrrrrrooooom, but for a few weeks we got just a birdlike trill.

Then two weeks ago a high school friend and her husband visited, and it was a beautiful October day so they drove their motorcycle to my house to enjoy the foliage. As the Harley Davidson Road King/Ultraglide cruised into our driveway, Noah heard the unmistakable sound of the engine and ran to the front window to see. Then I heard him say, "Brrrrroooommmm" in his tiny voice, obviously understanding how engines roar and growl. Now when I put him to bed, and we lie in the dark, often before he lets go he gives one last little "Brrrooom" in his sweet tired baby voice.

The explosion of matchbox cars and accompanying sounds in our house has made my husband very happy. Matthew has a particular love of cars, and is famous for being able to name just about any make and model of car that drives by us on the road, as well as detailing various interesting nuances of the engine. My stepson Colby has asked me on more than one occasion, "How does he know that?" I think perhaps Matthew doesn't actually have a job, he just goes off to the library every day and memorizes car data from old Consumer Reports magazines. In any case, with Noah at this moment, it seems to be quite beautifully like father, like son. And I, for perhaps the first time, am learning to appreciate the details of cars, through Noah's studied observation of every line and spin of the tiny wheels. And then just this weekend I wrote "ca", on the piece of paper on the fridge, the tenth word we have been able to make out from his ever blossoming speech.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Many blogs ago I expressed sadness that my boy Noah had no interest in the book Goodnight Moon, which is one of my favorites and of course a classic besides. Well, all that has changed. We read this book almost every night now, and have for the past few months. Several weeks ago, though, something happened when we were reading, that made me think twice about my earlier lament.

I am interested to hear if anyone else already knew what I'm about to tell you, so please, let me know...As avid readers of the book Goodnight Moon know, there is a red balloon in the room, and it hangs out in the upper right hand corner of the little bunny's bedroom. Well, one night when my husband and I were reading the book outloud, my 1-year-old Noah started pointing intensely at the wall in that area of the picture of the room. "Dat! Dat! Dat!" I was confused because there was nothing there to name, and kind of glossed over it and kept reading. At the next picture of the room he did the same thing. "Dat! Dat! Dat!" with a much more disturbed tone in his voice. We continued reading until he stopped us and made us turn the pages back to those earlier ones. He pointed again. Slowly it dawned on us that he was telling us that the balloon didn't appear in those pictures in the middle of the book. We flipped ahead to the last page, when the room is dark, and the balloon was there again, but it was GONE in the middle pages. Noah began perseverating on this, going back and forth between the early pages and the middle pages, then to the end page and back to the middle, getting more and more agitated, pointing and whimpering, and at one point sounding very sad and near tears. And it didn't just happen that night. It happened every night since. After a week of it, when he would sadly give his "Dat. Dat. Dat." when we got to those balloon-less pages, my husband suggested that we hide the book, but I said no, let's work through it. We half-heartedly made up some explanation that the balloon was on the floor, but it didn't convince him or us, so we dropped that and just talked about how it happily reappeared on the last page.

Why is the balloon gone, is there something subliminal to be known here? Is it altering the myth in a way I should know? After reading so many books where the illustrator is careful to include the little butterfly on each page, or the tiny mouse dragging a banana, so children can look and point to them every time, to leave a detail out of this magnitude seems like it could only be intentional. Especially when all the other elements of the room remain from picture to picture.

We just read the book again tonight, and thankfully Noah seems to feel better about it. After weeks and weeks of dogging that balloon through the pages, he has begun to focus on the glowing red fire and the wood beside it, instead of the balloon. But I am left with lingering thoughts - with the hundreds of times I've read that book in my life I am impressed that Noah noticed this striking omission when I never did, but more importantly, why, Ms. Wise Brown, why?

The Universal "Duh!"

There is a wonderful old comic strip, and unfortunately right now I can't remember whether it is Doonesbury or Bloom County - my apologies to both artists, Mommy Brain strikes again - and it depicts someone, either a person or Opus the penguin, watching "Lassie" on television. Lassie is barking at her boy, Billy or Tommy, again, no recollection of the actual name of the famous child character, and it goes something like this:

Boy: Hey girl, what is it?
Lassie: Woof, woof!
Boy: What, someone's in trouble?
Lassie: Woof, woof!
Boy: What's that? Someone's trapped in an abandoned mine three miles away and needs insulin fast?
Lassie: Woof, woof!

Now, aside from the fact that there is nothing funny at all about the tragedy of real people trapped in mines, the essence of this comic has stayed with me for over twenty years and still tickles my funny bone.

Fast forward, to my living room a few days ago. My husband and son and I had just finished dinner, and I was cleaning up while they played together in the living room. The bigger context here is that many of Noah's initial words - "Guck!" (duck), "Gat!" (cat), and "Dat!" (that) - have given way to him uttering "Duh!" or sometimes "Dah!" or "Dur!" probably sixteen to twenty thousand times a day. It means everything - "What's that? I want that! Look at that! See the wheel on that little car? I want to chew on the toe of my new shoes! See me poke the eye on my doll Lukas?" Because I am with Noah all day, I have learned to read the whole communication, which as educators and others know is much more than what is actually said outloud. This amazes my husband on a regular basis even though when he watches Noah's eyes and what Noah points at and leans toward most times he can hit the jackpot as well as to what Noah is talking or gesticulating wildly about. Note the following exchange, though, which represented a real leap from relying on body language and other nonverbal cues, with Matthew and Noah in the living room and me out of sight in the kitchen washing dishes.

Matthew: Do you want to play ball Noah?
Noah: Duh! Duh!
Matthew: How about a book?
Noah: Duh! Duh!
Me, calling from the kitchen: He wants his little flag out of the yogurt container across the room.
Matthew: Huh? Okay. (He walks across the living room, reaches for the hand-held flag and hands it to Noah.)
Noah: (Blissful silence)
Matthew: What the...?
Me: (Blissful silence)

This is a moment when I felt so good to be Noah's mother. In the light of today, of course I recognize he could have wanted something totally different but been thrilled to be handed his flag which he also loves so much, but in that moment from the kitchen sink I was so sure it was the flag that he needed and wanted that the connection was made real between us in ways that I often don't feel, like when he is flailing wildly and kicking my shoulders and head if it's close enough while I am trying to change his diaper.

And if this happening wasn't enough to make me feel as if the universe was really noticing how hard I am trying at this parenting thing, something else drove it home. After I tucked this moment and recollection of that comic away for purposes of this blog, my husband and son and I got together a few days later for breakfast and a hike with the family of a friend who was actually my high school sweetheart. As we all walked in the early afternoon sunshine, his kids excited to push Noah's stroller up the initial incline, my friend quoted the comic outloud to his son, who really appreciates a good joke. I couldn't believe it. I had introduced my friend to that comic all those years ago, and it had stuck with him as well. So for anyone who thinks that high school experiences don't count, or that good humor isn't really the stuff of life, or that the universe doesn't provide signals all the time to us if we just pay attention, chew on this! It makes for a wonderful meal.

Helloooo Out There...

I have been lamenting lately that I don't know any women or men with children my age whom I am really close with who are staying home with their children. Lamenting is maybe putting it too strongly, it's more like noticing. I am blessed with great friends, and am not necessarily looking (or even able to make room) for more close friends, but do notice that I don't have that commonality with those in my close circle around being a new mom and most recently, an at-home mom too. I have gotten out to one library story hour, but have yet to attend a play group, mostly because the people energy I have goes towards maintaining my existing friendships and family relationships. So there it is. I can't even clearly measure how important my need is to have additional connections, I only know that the isolation that I feel around being Noah's primary caregiver goes beyond what I can talk about easily with most people in my life right now.

Saying "I feel isolated," just doesn't seem to carry the emotion I have about it. "I feel massively responsible," gets closer. "I feel alone in this full-time mission to keep him not just alive, but happy, healthy, and thriving, while being a full-time witness to his early life" might sum up the whole kitten kaboodle, but still isn't specific enough. It's that it's tough luck if I don't feel like putting him to bed on a night when it takes an hour instead of ten minutes. Or how annoying it is wiping slung food particles off the kitchen tile after every meal, trying to focus on how exciting it is that Noah is learning to eat and sometimes even with a fork. Or how when Noah gives a glowing smile after walking, or stacking a block tower seven blocks high, there is no other adult for me to turn to and say - "How amazing is this?" Or when my husband is at work, how it is just me and Noah here. For many days in a row.

There is nothing like it, and I know the answer is not to whine for a long time but to go out and ask the universe for what I want. So my goal is to start engaging a bit more in the blogosphere to find some similarly situated bloggers - perhaps cyberspace is the new YWCA group for a mom like me? Where I can connect without taking on more than I can handle? Here I go - I hope to see you in the ether.

My Recent Experiences as a Clothes Horse: Bad Luck or a Reminder from the Universe?

The past few days I have had many thoughts of clothes. Yes, clothes. We've had an influx of clothes for Noah lately - from his birthday, my husband's finds in Uncle Henry's (the local swap-and-sell guide), and a friend who gave us bags of hand-me-down boys clothes when she found out that her baby-to-be is a girl. So I've been washing and folding, sorting and refolding tiny little rompers, Hawaiian shirts, sweaters, bucket hats, and many other wonderful and precious pieces that he'll be able to wear in the coming couple of years.

I used to think I would keep all his outfits, because they were all so sweet and tiny and wonderful. Now as they overflow his bureaus and lie in piles on the twin bed we set up in his bedroom, it is becoming more of a blur in which just a few pieces stand out as being favorites. And even these just pale in comparison to the adorableness of the boy himself, so I've found myself wondering how long we'll hang on to these things. These precious things.

Some of my ability to anticipate letting go of probably most of his baby clothes has come from my own recent experiences with precious frocks. After Noah was born, I packed up my maternity clothes into a large trash bag and stowed it in the trunk of my car to loan to a friend who was pregnant. That weekend, my husband and stepson went to the transfer station (the dump) in my car and mistook the bag for trash, throwing it into the hopper along with the scraps from the previous night's meal. I looked in my car a few days later and noticed the bag was gone, but assumed Matthew had taken it out of my trunk. I asked him that night, and cried when it became clear what had happened. He was mortified, so I ended up feeling badly for him and moving on quickly to the mindset that it was just clothing. Just clothing. I had that special time, and have pictures of it, and now of course the baby. It's just clothing.

Then this spring when I was cleaning out my closet, I slid my wedding dress out and unzipped the garment bag to take a look. To my horror, I discovered that the bag had stained my dress. I took it to the dry cleaner immediately and their best efforts could not remove the stains, and made the silk dangerously weak in spots. The dress was ruined. I am pursuing a complaint against the store that sold me the garment bag, but am not hopeful this will yield satisfaction. Even if by some miracle I could squeeze some money out of this huge corporation, I couldn't replace the dress. So what could I do? Be sad, but again, tell myself, it's just clothing. Just clothing. I had the wedding, and have the pictures, and the husband. It's just clothing.

Dave Ramsey, author of the book The Total Money Makeover, talks about "stuffitis" and how it can lead to financial woes when we think buying things will make us happier, more peaceful, more satisfied with life, and we end up broke and stressed out instead. I think it also leads to more general emotional and spiritual woe, when objects and stuff start to take the place of actual experiences, moments in time that come and go, and need to be replaced by next moments. While heirlooms seem a different sort of category than perhaps other sorts of things that accumulate uncomfortably, I still think that my wedding dress, and maternity clothes, and Noah's precious newborn onesies can only speak hearsay about those special fleeting times. They don't hold something better than what is inside me or Noah for having lived through those moments so prettily dressed.

Dumber, But Still as Stubborn

All day today I've been thinking about my 20th high school reunion, which is tonight. I've been trying to decide what I will wear (how to look hip and still be able to breastfeed at a moment's notice), whether I'll put my hair up or leave it down (neither mattering to me as much as the fact that I have a lot of gray), and what it will be like to see friends, especially my closest high school poet friend Amy whom I haven't heard from almost since we graduated. I'm excited to bring Noah, who just turned 1 last week, and Matthew my husband, and hope that other folks have found as much joy in their lives as I have. All in all, I've got a mix of positive anticipation, and dread. My usual emotions before going to an event with lots of people, ramped up by the fact that this is revisiting the past and who knows what these lots of people will be like now.

So a few hours ago I went online to see who else had signed up to come to the reunion, and saw that it is actually next Saturday, not tonight. I looked at the screen and re-read the webpage several times, not believing that I had the date wrong. I then went and checked the flyer, still thinking that I was right about it being tonight and the website had a serious typo. The flyer said it is next week too. I think I went into shock briefly. I walked into the living room and said to Matthew, "The reunion. It's not tonight. It's next week. I don't know what the hell is going on with me." He commented that the way I was driving earlier in the day was pretty bad too - I couldn't remember where the highway exit was, even though I've driven by it every day for the last two years. I guess I was relieved enough that I didn't have to go tonight that I found this more humorous than insulting. On another day I might have unleashed the hounds on him.

The last couple of months I have referred to myself as having "Mommy Brain", but this is the first time I've gotten mixed up about something of any real importance to me. Usually it's just not remembering the name of something or someone while in a conversation. But this afternoon if I hadn't gone online, we would have gotten dressed up and gone over there only to find ourselves all alone in the parking lot of a country club of which we are not members.

So does being a mother mean that whole brain cells become co-opted or flat out call it quits? My dad said to me recently that even though I was feeling like I had half a brain, that half still probably works better than many other people's. He's my dad, so he has to say that, but it still felt good to hear. I'm fortunate that others in my life have also offered me validation that I still can be rational, even while in a swirl of parenting a baby. On my last day of work a few weeks ago, the Office Manager who is famous for re-writing well known songs with personalized lyrics sang me a tune from The Wizard of Oz that went "If I only had a brain...like Kate's." That is not to say that I think I'm all that, but I do greatly enjoy and constantly practice organizing things, schedules, systems, spaces, and people. I would hate to see this go. It brings me peace to sort a junk drawer, or to spell out my schedule a month in advance. It feels right. Which is why getting a date wrong rocks my boat. One mistake like this can only lead to others, and to chaos.

And so my by brain, quickly accelerating to avoid this possibility, jumped from shock at our need to change our plans into the thought, "This happened so that you would have something to blog about, you've been neglecting your blog for the past several weeks, and this would be a compact story, sort of humorous, sort of insightful, sort of stupid, kind of like where you're at right now. Share the wealth!" Ahhh, lemons into pleasing tarts, lined up in rows. Makes things right again. Have a bite with me?