Brooke

Infanta Robustica

Temple turned 3 months old this week. 

Hearty and robust, she has delectable baby chub in the cheeks and thighs.  Her wrists grow rolls.  She has eyes that sparkle and she coos like a pigeon.  Lately she has begun to perfect the baby squeal and even the beginnings of a baby laugh.  When we tickle her chin or laugh at her bobbly head, she laughs back - a throaty almost-giggle that reminds me of a revving engine - hhhh, hhh, hhhh.

This girl takes her food seriously.  She smacks and slurps and gulps.  She wraps both arms around the boob like a wolf with a bone in his paws.  She furiously nurses with her fingers sunk deep into my flesh, holding on as if for dear life.  When finished, her eyebrows waggle like one of the Marx brothers and then her eyes roll back into her head with a grin, drifting off to milky dream land.

Her eyes are like tempting sirens on the rocks.  Risk a deep look into their clear blueness and you could fall right in, disappearing forever.  The blue pools beckon and the lacey eyelashes usher you straight to the tempting depths.  She is dangerous this girl.  All cool sultriness, sensual and dreamy yet there is fire in the center.  Fire like hot lava.  While she camoflauges her intensity with girly smiles, giggly happiness and arms that flap with joy,  I see the will that lives in this baby girl. 

Lately she has found her toes.  Her fingers dance in front of her face and she is amazed.  She rolls back and forth, almost ready to turn over.  Each discovery is a delight and I watch with great joy as she awakens to the world around her.  Everything is brightness, hope, promise.

I wrap my hands around her silky hair, her sturdy skull, her round cheeks and I look at her thinking:  holiest holy, most perfect perfectness, littlest lovely.  What baby isn't?  I know.  She just happens to be my own little slice of heaven.  My hands look so aged and wizened next to her delectable freshness.  My skin so brown next to the whiteness of succulent baby flesh.  She is purity in flesh and bone and spirit. 

For me, there is a sense of stepping aside so that she can step in.  As if I am usher and guide and container for her to bloom.  And I am excited by this realization.  My femininity is an developing one, a motherly one.  I am here to teach her how to be a woman and then to allow her to teach me.  This is a complete and utter joy to contemplate.  How did I get so lucky to have a daughter??? 

This daughter.  This drooly, bald, slobbery, beautiful, sparkly daughter.

Retrospective

How did this happen???

Satchel, Two and a half.  First day of playschool.  (September 2005)

 

Satchel, Five and a half.  Last day of playschool.  (June 2008)

Grinning and squinty-eyed, exuberant and hesitant all at once, Satchel "crossed the Rainbow Bridge" at Busha's school Friday, marking the journey from playgarden to kindergarten, baby to boy, only child to big brother, nestling in the midst of a large family to fledgling flying off to Vancouver Canada on a grand adventure.

May your peace follow you into the world where you will dance and dance and dance along...

Road Trip

Tomorrow we pack the kids and the car, two grocery bags of snacks, one package of Seventh Generation disposable diapers for Temple, three duffle bags of jammies and clothes, one GPS navigation system, a handful of phone and email contacts, one fuzzy lambskin, three passports and one freshly inked birth certificate, a portable cell phone charger, one ipod with over 12,000 songs and a portable DVD player with a selection of Satchel's favorite videos and we head North towards Vancouver, Canada.

I have recently discovered that Vancouver, BC is the most excitedly received cities I have ever visited.  Mostly, we hear responses that go something like this:

Vancouver is my most favorite city EVER.

If I wasn't living here, I'd be living in Vancouver.

I visited Vancouver 12 years ago and I'll never forget the...(you fill in the blank)

What a cosmopolitan city!  It is so European in architecture yet so Asian in culture.  You will love it!

Vancouver is the one city I've always wanted to move to.

And so, Vancouver, here we come.  I've never been there but Matt has.  The funny thing is, we are going to Vancouver to find an apartment, meet Satchel's Kindergarten teacher and interview for a job.  After years of discussion and precipitous changes here in the wine country, it is time for a grand adventure.  We don't know if we will meet the immigration criteria or not, but we have 6 months to try just because we are American and we are driving across the US/Canadian border.

This time we are visiting for 6 days.  We are 97% sure we are moving to Vancouver this summer/fall but next week will be the final decision maker.  I need to walk the streets, see Satchel in action in his potential home and really feel this place out with Matt - can we raise our family here alone, without 21 relatives in a 4 mile radius? 

Mostly, I am excited.  I am ready for change, ready to be back in a city with all the advantages and disadvantages this brings.  I want my children to grow up in the midst of diversity and nature.  I want them to hear Mandarin and French spoken regularly.  I want them to see whales swimming by and snowy mountain peaks.  I am even willing to brave the plentiful rain. 

But I am also sad to leave.  I am sad to steal Satchel away from doting grandparents, from the only home he has ever known.  I am sad to take away our safety net, our Friday night dates when Satchel sleeps with one grandparent or another.  I am sad that Temple will never know the immediate love of grandparents who live a bike ride away from home. 

And yet, life needs to be lived.  This is the time for change, for movement, for experiment and adventure.  I have nothing against this wine country town.  I grew up here, felt love here, met my husband here, gave birth here, raised children here, grew gardens and made friends.  I enjoyed sunshine and vineyards and organic, farm-fresh food.  I worshipped the frost on autumn grape vines as the sun rolled over the hillside.  I drank in the springtime grass, vibrantly green and speckled with newborn lambs. This valley is home and always will be.  Yet the world beckons...it always has.  I have wanderlust.  I need change.  I crave diversity and wildness and ethnic food and shopping that does not entail an hour's drive or an internet password to order online.  Matt wants mountains and rivers and wildlife.  He wants to ski, to flyfish, to mountain bike.  He wants to teach Satchel the thrill of these adrenaline sports.  I want Satchel to know the many hues of humanity, the languages and foods and faiths of people from all over the globe.  I want to walk to coffee each morning, not get into my car and drive and drive and drive from strip mall to freeway to market in a rural suburban place.

Fortunately, we get to keep our home here in this peaceful valley and we can come home if we want to.  We get to live on our savings for a while, to try things out, to see if we are happy in a magical city like Vancouver.  I get to have friends an hour across the border in Northern Washington.  I get to know that my family will never be discouraged by miles, that both of my children will be loved and adored from afar, with lengthy visits throughout the year. 

So tomorrow, we pile into the car -  one car seat more crowded than ever before - and we will drive North.  We will sing and snack, change diapers, visit friends, eat burgers and ice cream cones, swim in funky motel pools, stop at roadside rest areas to nurse, we will watch movies and play car games and then we will arrive in a city we hope to call home soon.  From there, we will journey back to this beautiful wine country valley and we will begin the process of goodbye.

Wish us luck.

Two Months

The Temple girl is two months old today. 

 

Full cheeked and rosy lipped, she coos like a little pigeon - oooohing and gggrrrringwith her top lip in a gorgeous little pout as though she were about to whistle; squealing now and then with such delight that she surprises herself.  Just before sleep she likes to 'chat.'  We aah and ooh and babble back and forth for a long time while her arms flap and her toes point with the sheer pleasure of communicating.  She is vibrant and talkative, this one is.

But she is also mellow, serene, as if she is sashaying through life with ease.  Her eyelashes flutter with the confidence that the world is her oyster.  Sometimes I imagine that a silky, Southern drawl, dripping with sugar is about to come out of her mouth and ask me if I might bring her a Mint Julep.  Which of course I would if Satchel or her Daddy hadn't jumped to do it first. 

And then there are moments of intensity, her brow furrowed in concentration, her big blue eyes staring boldly into the world.  Someone said once that she looks 'concerned.'  She definitely has that flavor too.  I have been warned that this double Aries will keep me on my toes, take me task if I am inconsistent, hold me to her own high standards.  So I prepare myself for this life's work.

 It has taken me some time to know this little person.  But now we have anchored ourselves to one another.  She, this amazing gift, has been unwrapped in the days and weeks until now and I am getting my sea legs.  I am learning how to be her mother - which is both the same and different as being Satchel's mother. 

If it didn't sound so unlikely to describe a newborn this way, I would say that she is, well, very self-possessed.  She is a thumb-sucker, a self-soother, a sleeper.  She is happy in all the loving arms and laps that surround her.  She will gaze up at the clouds or the leaves of the trees or the lazy ceiling fan for long stretches of time.  She makes great eye contact and she smiles these big, heart breaking grins punctuated by dimples.  She is a bubble-blower, a bath lover, a watcher.  She takes her food seriously and is a lip-smacker.  Matt has taken to calling her Munchie-Munch - a name we both hate but somehow it fits and we can't resist.  The balance to her night time sleeping is her daytime wakefulness.  She is a cat-napper and a dozer.  And while she loves to be in my arms, she only mildly likes to be in the sling.  (which is why it took me two days to finish this post.)

Temple adores the small faces of other children, especially her brother.  She takes his exuberance - and all the bumps and well-intentioned jostling this entails - with easiness.  Her face absolutely lights up in his presence and she follows the sound of his voice around the room waiting for his attention.  Satchel loves her back.  We have had little in the way of resentment or adjustments even though I expected this.  Instead, he attempts a baby-worthy falsetto and says Oh, you are such a good baby Temple or Look at me, Look at me, Look at me while he makes silly faces or belts out preschool songs.  When I delay even a moment before feeding her, he says She is smacking her lips Mom.  She is huuuuungry.  Basically telling me to hurry it up.  He knows her cues and watches closely to identify them.  He wants to hold her, to carry her, to wear her in a sling, to feed her, to stick his finger in her mouth like a pacifier.  He wants to climb in the co-sleeper with her and he says that soon the two of them will finally leave our room and share a big kids' bedroom.  I couldn't ask for more.  My son waited so long for her to come and now he is happy to be a big brother.

I remember looking into Satchel's eyes when he was born and thinking Oh!  It is you.  When Temple was placed in my arms for the first time, I felt profound wonder at Who are you little girl?  As though I both knew her and didn't at the same time, this little mystery in my arms.  As though I needed to discover her a little piece at a time.  And both meetings are a joy in their own ways.  Both come with an ocean of love behind them.  It is just different, something I didn't expect.

The other day we visited with our dear friend and astrologer.  She told us that Temple appears as Venus in my 8th house and that I appear as the Moon in her 8th house.  This is the house of Scorpio - the house of transformation, death, mystery and magic, resurrection and rebirth.  From an astrological perspective this means that we share a gift of intuition and insight, psychic ability with one another.  And, I was told, we share layers of existence that imply a connection as though we were "Priestesses at the same temple."  Those were the astrologers words, not mine.  And yet, this spooky sense of knowing, the fact that I never doubted her arrival, only her timing, this sense that my daughter would not come until her home was a temple, is exactly why I chose her name. 

And so, little girl, I honor you on your two month birthday.  Thank you for choosing me to be your mama.  Thank you for pushing me to my limits so that I could be the soil that grew you.  We are all waiting to see what unfolds...

 

Shining Bright. Temple @ 6 weeks.

As if this little girl doesn't already have enough names, Satchel has added yet another pet name for her:  Shining Bright.  Temple Lova Tiger-Lily Shining Bright.

Excessive?  Yes.  But shine brightly she does.  Her eyes startle me with their clarity - deep pools of arctic blue.  She stares and smiles and babbles herself silly.  Growing ever more chunko this girl, at 6 weeks, is already over 13 pounds.  You can see it in her cheeks especially - wildly edible and delicious. 

The dust is beginning to settle around here.  Hopefully I'll be back to brave the crowds of cranky readers soon...lots to share.

 

Walking on

The terrain I walk is treacherous.  Not fitting into a particular category, afraid to reach out to friends - other mothers - because in my grief, I betray them all.

I conceived a child, carried a child.  My child is alive.  Healthy even.  I labored at home for 16 hours and rode the tidal wives of birth, yet I cannot claim to have birthed at home.  Or even naturally.  I am sad.  Awash in tears some days and yet I am not on the doorway of medication...yet.  How can I complain?  I am relatively 'lucky' in so many ways.  How do I share the grief that is so real for me?

It is hard to share this here.  To write of this wasteland, of this paradox that has both the coos of a one month old baby and the despair of grief all at once.  The comments that shame me are not new, no one can be more ruthless to myself than I can.  Romantic visions of birth they say?  Possibly.  A sense of entitlement about birth?  Maybe.  I beat myself up alot over these thoughts.

Desire though is what it really is.  A deep, pulsing yearning to wipe slime and blood off my own baby and to revel in the freshness of life.  I want that moment of Creation.  To hold the wildness of all that has unfolded through magic and will.  And the truth is, I feel robbed and I feel angry at my body.  Betrayed by my own self.

I am angry, full of rage and disappointed in my body.  I feel like damaged goods.  There.  I said it. 

I have been so silent out of fear for sounding greedy, ungrateful, petty.  And then, this morning, I heard an interview with Louise Erdrich and she said that writers must write as if nobody will read what they are writing.  That this is the only way to write.  So I will tell my story, whatever it is.  It is the only story I have to tell.

Yesterday Temple turned one month old.  The time slips by and with each new milestone, I realize that there are no do-overs.  It is done.  The story has been written.  She has graduated from smiles to cooing.  She gazes into my eyes and lets milk slip down her chin when she smiles.  All of this is healing of course - the eternal blue of an alpine lake in her eyes, the lacey, spidery eyelashes that flutter.  The hands that flail, feet that kick with urgency, legs so strong.  I am blessed beyond belief.  I know this.  Her sweaty neck and soft tummy, her rashy newborn skin, each of these tiny markers - that she is real, she is here, she is mine - make me swoon.  I have a daughter. 

There are so many highs and lows in this postpartum time - fragile and joyous and overwhelming all at once.  It is part of the initiation into the tribe.  We all celebrate and suffer in our own particular way, we integrate our story, we move on, life changes.

So here I am, walking my particular terrain and sorting through the narrative of our birth story - Temple's and mine, the story that made us two people after being one for so long.

Where I Am

Some days I just pretend it didn't happen.  I spend many hours avoiding certain thoughts as one might avoid a nosey neighbor.  The memory peeks over my back fence and I bolt to another part of the yard or I scurry back in the house where I can hide from the tears that will undoubtedly fall.  If I ignore the memory of the cesarean, if I focus instead on the joy I felt when she was delivered into this world, I can maintain.  I do not dissolve into tears.  I am not flooded by grief.  I am not filled with the craving need for a do-over.  But when I am blindsided by an unexpected memory or when I let my guard down and I gently dip my toe into the vast lake that is her birth, I am lost on a wave of sadness so deep I could drown.

There was a moment, after hours of labor and reaching inside my body to touch her hair, a moment when I was so close to birth that I could taste it, and then a moment following close on its heels when I realized that it was not going to happen after all, that I consciously chose to haul my laboring body into the car and drive to the hospital so my daughter could be born.  In that moment of choosing, I said goodbye to the jubilation of reaching down to gather a squirming wet body out of my own and I embraced the fact that I needed to rely on all the preparation I had done for a spiritual cesarean birth. 

Outside the morning air was cool and hazy.  The oak tree towered above me, solid and unchangeable, birds chirped in their nests, the backyard fountain trickled peaceful sounds.  Everyone waited inside the house while I made my decision.  Or rather, came to an agreement with my decision.  I would choose this transport, choose this birth with all of the possibility for drugs and needles and scalpels and suction, and I would delay the grief until later.  I would not waste another birth shaking with trauma, fighting, birthing my child in fear.  Instead, I would embrace the circumstances and birth my daughter with a full heart even if it meant her being pulled from my body by gloved and unknown hands.

But you can only postpone sadness for so long.  Now, home with a chubby-cheeked and smiling two week old, the grief has walked back in the door and asks to be welcomed in.  Sadness has come to visit and asks for her due.  She gave me a joyful birth and now it is her turn. 

Once again, my body could not give birth.  I know I can grow a baby.  Twice I have done this now.  And after Temple's birth I know I can labor.  I know my cervix can open and so another doubt has now been fulfilled.  But I still cannot deliver my baby earthside without modern medical technology and this is a demon I cannot shake.  In another time, another era or place in the world, we might all be dead because my body does not work as it should.  To know that I cannot give my own children life without medical support is a mind-fuck all its own.  There is a fundamental loss of feeling whole when one's body doesn't work.

So my days are spent holding it all...the joy of my daughter, the sensual pleasure of nuzzling a newborn, the shame of a body that won't work, the sadness and grief, the vivid memory of sounds and sensations from the OR, the undeniable hope that I will have the chance to try this all again, the fear that my desire to give birth - really give birth - will never come true and even the resentment - the tiny, greedy seed of envy - that lives in me for all the people who can do this birth thing just fine on their own.  For all these reasons, I am overwhelmed and virtually silent.

Know that your words and hopes and congratulations mean alot to me right now - even if I am lost in the postpartum integration, trying to piece myself back together. 

The Littlest Birds Sing the Prettiest Songs

Words escape me right now, like nothing quite captures these tender days, this sweet and fragile cocoon.  I offer instead a few images of our first week home.  Thanks to our friend Sophia for taking some of these photos for us.

Love to all...

 

HEY-LA, HEY LOVA!

                 After a long, challenging & fully rockin' labor at home, surrounded by love,

                 our baby girl was joyfully born on Sunday evening, April 6, 2008 @ 5:45.

                              

                                             Temple Lova Tiger-Lily

                                                       IS HERE!

                                                           born by cesarean

                                                         9 pounds, 9 ounces

                                                              22 1/4 inches

                                                                 Sublime

                                                             Love, Sweet Love.

                                                             Lova, Sweet Lova.

                                                               We are home.

Meet Me @ 42nd, week that is.

Me, last night.  Obviously still in a delicate condition.  Delicate like a Mac Truck. 

Balsamic moon with Venus conjunct tonight...hmmmm????

Thanks for all the love coming our way.