Bless us all, that as we live
We always comfort and forgive
We have so much, that we can share
With those in need we see around us everywhere

Let us always love each other
Lead us to the light
Let us hear the voice of reason, singing in the night
Let us run from anger and catch us when we fall
Teach us in our dreams and please, yes please
Bless us one and all

Bless us all with playful years
With noisy games and joyful tears
We reach for you and we stand tall
And in our prayers and dreams
We ask you bless us all

———
Thinking of all of you.

Solstice midnight has just passed, and it feels like time is standing still.  I know this feeling.  At 12:00 on the new year, time will grind back into motion.  But now, now is the time for reflection, for auld lang syne.

I feel like I am moving through jelly, like the one still person in a time lapse video.  I am inside myself, my thoughts, and standing outside observing at the same time.

And all around the world whizzes past, never noticing.

• I started writing when I was dealing with infertility — it took almost four years to get pregnant with Mini, and then only 4 months of trying to get his sister, Smaller . They’re 21 months apart.  We want to have one or two more kids if we can, but we’re taking a definite break to a) let me completely heal from the last two pregnancies b) get at least one of them out of diapers and c) to hopefully get at least a full night’s sleep at some point.
• I’m an engineer by profession, watching my career slowly evolve into management.
• I got all the way through my coursework and passed my comps for my PhD, but I couldn’t deal with the dissertation with two kids, so I dropped out last summer.
• I’m a PC and I have a droid.  I’m probably one of the few people who finds the iPad completely non-intuitive.
• I enjoy red wine, amaretto sours, cross-stitching, classic sci-fi, and strong coffee.  I used to enjoy yoga, but haven’t had time to go to a session in years.
• I’ve gotten turned on to feminist blogs and now I see the patriarchal/corporatization of our culture everywhere I look.  Once you know it’s there, you can’t not see it.
• I’m starting to explore simplifying/downsizing my life.

Welcome — I look forward to meeting all of you.

The days are shorter and shorter now, and I can feel the clock ticking down in my head when I look outside. The trees have finally dropped all their leaves, gnarled branches stark against the dim sky. It feels like time is pressing in against me, an urgency — for what I don’t know — spurring me to GO! DO! before it’s too late.

I’m resisting the urge. This year, I’m sitting with my thoughts.

————————————

I opened my email from Gwen Bell the other day, and the topic was frictionless writing.

“…As in: what does the writer have to write about if she’s living a frictionless life…”

…
…
…
Sigh.

I saw my friend for lunch the other day. She asked what was new in my life. After a moment of mental deer-in-the-headlights, all I could come up with was that the baby had found her toes.

Frictionless? I’m fucking teflon.

————————————

Sitting. Processing. Reflection.

I can’t remember another time when I was this lucid, this conscious, about what I am doing. The last six years have been a blur of desire for a baby, pain at not having a baby, excitement about the future baby, and exhaustion at the reality of a baby. Rinse, repeat.

Two days ago, I sat down and tried to articulate “at this time next year, what do I want to have accomplished? what do I want my life to look like? how do I want to feel? how do I want people to see me?” and I was actually able to do that in a healthy way.

I am Ebenezer Scrooge, seeing the present, remembering the past, and deciding to change the future.

He pats my opposite leg. “Baby!” he demands.

Obediently, I scoop her up from the blanket beside us and prop her in the designated spot.

She giggles and reaches out, fat hands spread out like stars, open mouth and leaning to him. She is like marshmallow fluff: irresistibly sweet and delightful and dense and addictive. The duckling fluff that we call her hair brushes my nose and I have to pull back and tuck my head around so I am not a barrier between them. I can smell the top of her head, an intoxicating mix of Johnson’s bedtime wash and her own delicate scent. He takes possession of her hand, shifting over so that she is cuddled against both of us. I bounce both of my legs up and down, pressing them in to me and squeezing them close. It was only a few months ago that my lap was full of her in my belly with no room for him; I make good now on my promise to him that soon there would be space for both of them there.

Manly glances down at us with a bemused grin. I meet his gaze, raising my eyes so that my head stays nestled with theirs. He shakes his head, sighing at the tiny demands for mama-mama-mama. He gets the short end of my attention these days, but we both know from experience that it will get better with time. He turns back to the movie he’s watching, his face in profile to me. My memory tells that if I could touch him, I would feel the roughness of his beard, his hands, the thick silkiness of his hair through my fingers. Even sexier to me now than when we met, the father of my children.

Our little family, finally here.

97th percentile height (26 inches)
97th percentile head circumference
9(mumbled)th percentile weight (17 lb 5 oz — mumbled because she’s off the chart. Somewhere higher than 97th)

She’s wearing 6-9 month clothes comfortably; the brand new 3-6 month clothes that haven’t been shrunk in the wash over time can usually fit, but not always.

She screamed at her shots this time.  Last visit, she ignored the first shot completely.  It was only with the second needle that she realized that she didn’t like it.  This time, she remembered and knew better.

She rolled over from her belly to her back tonight after we got home. Multiple times.

She talks.  She yells.  She laughs deep, beautiful baby chortles.  She bites her toes.  She blows raspberries.  She likes to swing around, raised high to the ceiling and dip upside down to the floor.  She loves to play baby “claw.”  She does this full-body lunge at the boo or the bottle (she just started accepting a bottle).  She gets mad at her caterpillar when she can’t get the bit she wants into her mouth. 

She has long fingers and long toes, and fat rolls that go for days.

She has green eyes and the most fabulous baby faux-hawk.

She embodies every reason why I wanted her.

I love you baby.  Happy four-months.

I was dumbfounded, having assumed after last year that the best we might get was a picture of a suspicious Mini clinging to a parental leg somewhere in Santa’s vicinity.  Somewhere in this experience is a lesson about not underestimating the resiliance of your child’s imagination or their capacity to stretch their courage when cocoa, cookies, and chocolate covered marshmallows are at stake.

Luxurious.

I drink in moments like these.  This is what we fought for, and I will not let it pass me by unacknowledged.