Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mom. Show all posts

Monday, June 7, 2010

the sweetest thing

i love birth stories...be they about adoption or biological births. i didn’t always love them, but ever since we started the adoption process, then got pregnant and especially since i had caleb, any story remotely related to giving birth makes me cry. big drippy continuous tears. i would probably even cry about a horse giving birth. definitely an elephant.
today i read the birth story of a 6th child on design mom’s blog - yet another site my sister turned me on to. my fabulous sister. from the first line tears came, and it reminded me of caleb’s birth. since that day i knew he had a mind of his own...suffice to say 9 hours at 9 1/2 centimeters, 3 1/2 hours of pushing, oh and throw some back labor in on top of that. he teased us for quite a while. but my favorite FAVORITE moment was of course holding his squirmy little body in my arms. i cried and croaked, “it’s you! you’re finally here!” caleb cried. even josh cried. at that moment, i grew my second heart. fast forward, and yes, i am already saying it - time goes by so quickly. 3 more blinks and he’ll be 18. i just want to drink it all in. every moment, every noise, every new expression. 
i can’t believe that 8 1/2 months ago i was struggling to get him to nurse (jaundiced and really lethargic), and now he is grabbing the spoon from my hands and sticking it backwards into his mouth. as i am sitting here (yes, crying) saying to caleb, “i love you. i just love you!” i can’t believe he’s performed his first crawl, pull up, and clap all in one small weekend. he’s getting tooth #3 & 4 and he bops his head like the talking heads on that one music video i can’t remember just now. he ooches forward in his peggy leg style then sit backs and does a little bouncy bottom dance and claps.  
he’s my treasure. my very special one. my extra limb. my second heart. and by far the greatest creation to ever come from these two hands. though he’s not really mine...he’s already his own little person who flings his arms around my ever-loving neck with such almost 9 month old intensity. i can’t wait to get more. 

THIS is the sweetest thing and exactly where i want to be. 
p.s. - to see other hand made goodies like caleb's VERY practical oilcloth bib, visit my etsy shop! i am uploading new items regularly.

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Saturday, April 24, 2010

sometimes spontaneity is all you need.

this morning my mom called, and in a voice laced with excitement and a little mischievousness asked, "can you take care of maizy tonight?" when she sounds thrilled about leaving her little furless wonder, you know something is really up. she loves that dog. maybe even more than she loves us! it is sometimes easier (and i speak from experience) to love a dog. i mean they are always happy to see you, they don't talk back, and they sit when you say sit...at least when peanut butter is involved. anyway, my mom apparently woke up this morning and decided she and my dad needed to get out of town. so they did, and i have her dog. for a moment i felt a pang of jealousy....i wanna just get up and get out of town! but 2 dogs, 2 1/2 cats, a baby, and a planner of a husband keep you pretty homebound on spontaneous saturdays.
but i just realized i had my own little burst of spontaneity this morning. we went to a 3 year old birthday party today, and i woke up with a penchant to make him a collage. not necessarily what a dash around ball of energy gets up and asks for on his birthday, but something i hope he will appreciate later. lying in bed a few images danced around my sleepy head. then i got out my scissors, photoshop, and my "collage items" picture file - all before a cup of coffee! and voila! my whirlwind spontaneous burst of creativity! so i didn't hop in my car, windows down on a breezy saturday, and head for the hill country, but my imagination took me away. and you know, sometimes i love what gets born in a matter of minutes as much as i love the piece that evolves over months. check it out...
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Saturday, February 13, 2010

what can i say?

okay, this feels so completely out of character. i don't facebook (my friends update my "status" and add pictures more than i do); i don't twitter (or as my dad says, i have never twatted); i am not prompt with emails (unless i happen to be sitting at my computer at the very moment i receive your email); BUT (it was coming, right?) i journal. i suppose journals are and should be far more personal than blogs, however the similarities are they both seem to attract thoughts worth preserving. thoughts too big or wonderful or sad to keep to yourself.
let me rewind a little....the part of me who is - and quite likes - being counter culture has been known to say, "i will never kiss a boy" (i did); "i will never have sex" (i have a baby now); "i will NOT get a cell phone" (i have an iPhone - albeit a hand me down); "blog?!?! are you crazy?" (and look at me now). i just never thought i had anything worth saying among all the other soundbytes out there. it's all been said, right?
but this morning i woke up, sticky eyed and sleepy, with words i read last night still playing themselves forward and back through my head. and i wanted to share them. i don't, by the way, recommend staying up til 2 am when you have an infant who wakes up before dawn....but i did. i stayed up finishing belong to me by marisa de los santos. i had one of those experiences that is so hugely universal but feels, at that moment, made uniquely for you...or me in this case. i wanted other people to know, "look! this is how it feels! how i feel!" and it felt too big and important to keep to myself (and my very sleepy husband who grunted and fell back asleep when i read it to him). of course i am not the only mom in the world who has been touched by the miracle and wonder of her most perfect baby, but marisa de los santos seemed to be writing for me. when i read what i will share in a bit i wanted to shout, "yes! YES!! that's IT!!" from the proverbial rooftops and add a little jig of my own.

i picked up belong to me a few weeks ago not remembering i had read love walked in a year or so ago. as soon as i started, though, i remembered how much i truly loved love walked in and that i had in fact read it. you know how they (the ubiquitous they) say, "a picture's worth a thousand words?" well sometimes i think words create a thousand pictures. marisa de los santos writes in a way that creates vivid touchable REAL pictures for me. i am an artist, so it's not a stretch for me to think visually as i am armed with pictures long before the words come, so reading a book that is so satisfactorily visual and palpable is near holy to me. so much so that i take a day or two to mourn when the book is over. so since i am in mourning and not quite ready to let this book go, here are the words that prompted me to start a blog today, on a very regular saturday...
That evening, when we got back to the hospital, Teo ran into a radiologist he knew from New York, and I made my way to Miranda and Toby's room alone. As I walked in, I heard a shower running and saw Toby sitting on Miranda's otherwise empty bed, his back to me...."Toby! What is it? Something's happened to Jasper?"
But Jasper was there, in Toby's arms, hatless and perplexed and adorable, and Toby was wiping his own wet face with the corner of his blanket.
"Jasper's great," said Toby. "I just..." He broke off.
"Tobe?" I sat down next to him on the bed. "Honey? Is it Miranda?"
He shook his head. Without taking his eyes off his baby, he said in a hoarse voice, "It's just that this, right here: this room, this day, Jasper. This is my life."
"Oh, Toby. It's a lot to take in. It makes sense that you're feeling overwhelmed."
He smiled at me. "But that's the thing. I'm not"
"You're not?"
"I mean, yeah, it's big. It's colossal. But I get it. I belong right where I am. That's an amazing feeling....I'm Jasper's dad, and it's like that's who I was all this time, but I didn't know it because he wasn't born yet."
"And now he's here," I said, softly....
"And now you're here," said Toby. He was talking to his son.
perfect words. i am toby in this picture. if you ever stumble across this blog, marisa de los santos, thank you.
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