Ready...

In my backyard I can see some mud and grass. And a huge puddle beneath the rope swing that hangs from our neighbor's giant sycamore. This is the most glorious February mud and grass I have ever seen. It makes me dream of daffodils and crocuses and budding trees. I ache for Spring. I want to walk. I want to take the dog to the park and watch him run. I am ready for new life. Ready to move on. Ready to push this baby out and take him outside for some fresh air, even if I still have no place for him to sleep or anywhere to stash the clothes my friend has generously set aside for him.

I am seeing robins everywhere, and right now it's six o'clock and it's still not dark. Harbingers of Spring.

I am ready for baseball and open windows, even if the street noise where we live is louder than any city street we have ever lived on. I am ready for rain and wind. For March, in like a lion, out like a lamb. For Easter. Renewal. Resurrection. I feel like I too am about to be born.

What are you waiting for?

The Wood

We have a wood stove in our house. I've probably mentioned it before. I actually credit the wood stove with preventing me from feeling the low-level anxiety and depression that I used to feel for much of the winter. Somehow, a fire helps to keep that at bay.

But wood stoves are a good bit of work, and we don't even go out and chop wood ourselves. We have it delivered to our driveway...but then it has to be stacked in the woodshed. And that's where the trouble starts. For some reason this brings out a lot of unreasonable behavior in the younger two boys. They have trouble working together, and fight instead. But to be honest, the mere thought of having to stack the wood sends them into a tailspin.

We had wood delivered on Friday. I explained then that sometime over the weekend, it would have to be stacked. Some kind of storm will be here Monday...though (thank God! -- and I really mean that) it looks mostly like just a cold rain. Nothing happened with the wood stacking on Saturday. Everyone was happy to be lazy, and Son1 had his girlfriend over all day. So this morning when I got up, I announced to the younger two that they should expect to be stacking wood this afternoon (their older brother wasn't up yet, or I would have told him too). They went over the edge in about a second flat. Son2 announced: "I hate the wood, I hate the stove, and I hate this house." Okie dokie. "Go to your room," was my response, because a certain someone has an ongoing problem with gratitude and perspective and complaining. I knew he was lucky that his dad wasn't up yet to hear that announcement. Things would have gone way worse for him. Indeed. When I told the husband what Son2 said, his response was, "If I were my dad, he'd have to sleep in the garage tonight. Then he'd be thankful for the wood stove and any roof over his head." Yup. He was not an easy dad to grow up with.

Somehow there's nothing like chores to bring out the lectures around here. Son3 said, "I hate the work that has to be done again and again."

WHAT? "Umm, that's all work, kid. The grocery shopping, the vacuuming, mowing the lawn, and going to work. It all has to be done again and again. That's called life. And when you grow up, are you really going to complain every day that you have to go to work? Get a grip," I said.

How is it that they don't understand this yet?

Waiting for Spring

I feel like the snow is serving as some sort of insulation for my brain. These storms and all that they have left behind have made me feel muddled and lost in time. Like my life is in a state of suspension. Which, of course, it sort of is, and that may be why the snow is having such a profound effect.

I've lost whatever groove I had. My days are caught up in some strange, sleepy rhythm despite the fact that we plowed ahead (no pun intended) with school throughout the storms. No matter that the public school kids didn't have school for over a week and will be delayed two hours every day this week. That's too bad, I tell my kids. We have a baby coming. We are wasting no time. Plus, quite frankly, they are driving me slightly crazy with their energy and endless chatter. I can't imagine if there weren't any schoolwork to occupy them for hours during the day.

Nevertheless... I've enjoyed the lazy rhythm of these days. Scrabble and yahtzee and hot chocolate and all of that. But I've been trapped inside while everyone else has gone out to play...and now I just feel lost. How do I organize my time? How do I get work done? Can you remind me? Because I feel like I've forgotten. That and all the other practicalities -- paying bills, planning meals, buying groceries...it all just seems to get done by the skin of my teeth. Did there used to be rhyme or reason to this?

In the movie Elf, Will Ferrell refers to himself as a cottonheaded ninnymuggins...and that is just how I feel.

I am a cottonheaded ninnymuggins waiting for Spring. Crocuses and daffodils and this baby. A little more sunshine and even a soft, warm breeze. And then maybe my head will clear.

Poets in the Making

I have said before that poetry seems to have left me. I still see life through that lens. The snow. The birds. The dog curled up at the foot of my bed. And yes, the heartache too. But none of it bubbles up to words that pour out on paper.

I am really enjoying a new book I'm reading: Lit by Mary Karr. Karr is a poet, and this memoir, thus far, seems to tell her tale of the struggle to become the poet she always knew she was. It is also about her own alcoholism as well as her mother's and father's -- the craziness she grew up in and ran from, only to live out herself in her own way. I heard her interviewed a few months ago on NPR and knew I had to read this book. Through it all, somehow, some way, she recently met up with God and converted to Catholicism. Here's a quote from the book jacket:

"If you'd told me even a year before I started taking my son to church regular that I'd wind up whispering my sins in the confessional or on my knees saying the rosary, I would've laughed myself cockeyed. More likely pastime? Pole dancer. International spy. Drug mule. Assassin."

It's a long book, and I've only just begun...but I'm enjoying hearing about her journey to prize-winning poet. Which got me thinking about my friend's daughter, who I mentioned months ago.

Last year, as a seventh grader, she had to write some poems for English class. My friend sent me one of them, to get my opinion. It brought tears to my eyes. I was just amazed that this 12-year-old girl had written something so evocative. Her family had recently moved from northern New Jersey to North Carolina, and their new home is so different from their old one. This poem perfectly captures her first home and her family heritage. Happily, I have permission to share the poem with you.

"Where I'm From"

I am from a shack red house in Englewood,
potato chip bags and soda cans in the front yard.
From a huge old tree that stood over the years,
only to be knocked down by the wind.
I am from sweltering summers and freezing
winters, from Bear Mountain and the Bronx Zoo.
From a restaurant business father and an english
teaching mother.
I am from running like the wind, and writing like
fire, from doodling and drawing on gray rainy days.
I am from a line of teachers and mentors on both sides
of the street, and this I will become.

I am blossoming like a pansy in the spring, yearning for
sunshine, needing earth and love to grow.

All that Gets Undone

I am weirdly obsessed with fruit right now, and I have been for the past seven months. Apples. Endless apples. But also grapes, oranges, and mangoes. Every piece of fruit I eat seems like the best fruit I have ever had. In the past month I can't seem to eat enough mango. Too bad enjoying a piece of fruit can't be something I check off the to-do list that grows longer with each day.

I'm having so much trouble accomplishing anything lately that if I felt more energetic, I'd be near despair. Fortunately, I don't seem to have enough energy for despair. So I just kind of wander about my house, noticing all that I should do -- clean the kitchen, put things away, wash more clothes, make some space for the baby -- something, anything. Instead, I often just sit back down and somehow manage to avoid the work that awaits me on the computer. Actual clients who want things from me. I get their work done, but it feels like I just barely do.

Here's the trouble. My drug of choice is usually the drug of getting something done. Let me accomplish something, anything, and I will likely feel a little better. But I'm not accomplishing much these days, and I don't recognize myself. Tonight I had to call my friend, my pecan sandie best friend, to try to restore myself, to find a way to feel like me. Hearing her voice helped.

Because we have weirdly parallel lives and a few of the same frailties, she told me that lately she is consciously trying to spend more time doing things that can't be undone. She says she spends too much time doing all the things that get undone -- namely, the household chores that dog her hours when she's not at work teaching high school English. She says she's trying to take more time for things like laughing with her girls, reading a book, walking the dog, and even taking a nap -- things that she says can't be undone.

After we talked, I ate a mango and read a chapter of the book I've been slowly enjoying lately: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. Enjoying a mango can't be undone. According to the ultrasound I had today, this little dude has gained a pound in the past two weeks. (I won't mention how much I've gained.) I savored the mango and tried to find a way to live with myself as I am right now -- a person who accomplishes much less than usual. I tried not to wonder if I'll ever be myself again. I did wonder how I would ever find the energy to clear out some kind of space for baby clothes and diapers. I thought about the process of partially dismantling Son1's very small room to make way for a crib, because that is where this kid will have to sleep -- in a room with his oldest brother. I thought about the process of baby proofing this very un-baby-friendly house.

I didn't proceed to actually do anything, but I did enjoy that mango and the chapter that I read. Then I played a few rounds of Boggle with Son3.

I expect that sometime in the next nine weeks we'll bring this little fellow home -- it will happen whether I ever actually find a place for the baby clothes, whether my husband sets up the crib, and whether I finish my work. Of course, I may very well get organized and find a place for the baby clothes and diapers, my husband will likely set up the crib, and surely I won't let my clients down. Right? I hope so. Nevertheless, I will keep eating fruit and this kid will keep packing on the pounds, and I expect that won't be undone.

Pecan Sandies

When I was a kid, I loved to sleep over my best friend's house. They had a cat and a dog, and their household was entirely different from mine. They also had dessert every night. The thing is that I could have dessert whenever I wanted to as a kid, a million times a day if I wanted, because my parents were desperate for me to eat and gain a little weight. But I wasn't particularly interested in food. Yet dessert was somehow different at my friend's house, because it was something sort of official, like dinner. And I liked that.

Every once in a while, though, there wouldn't be anything good for dessert. Sometimes there were only pecan sandies. I think if I were to eat pecan sandies now, I would actually like them. But at the time my friend and I thought they were gross, and her brothers thought so too. And that is precisely why her father, who did the grocery shopping, bought them -- because he got tired of always having to buy more food. And if he bought pecan sandies, then he could always claim that there was a dessert available...but he also knew that no one would eat them. It's quite a tactic. He found a way to never run out of dessert!

When we were kids, we couldn't understand why he did this. But now it's crystal clear. There comes a point where you just get tired of buying food and having it run out. It sounds absurd, I know. But I ask you: how many granola bars can you buy in one week? No matter the number I buy, they all get eaten -- in three days! So I think, I could just never buy granola bars again and save all that granola bar money. Sometimes the food disappears so fast, It's as if I literally can't buy enough. You can only fit so much food in the cart, and I'm not going to turn into one of those people who uses two carts. At this point, I find grocery shopping to be an exhausting endeavor anyway. I walk through the store having contraction after contraction, hoping they are harmless and not leading me to some crazy early preterm delivery.

And so another boy, who will surely eat a lot, is on his way. I heard some statistic about how it costs over $200,000 to raise a child to age eighteen. I believe it. And that's why sometimes you lose your mind and start buying pecan sandies for dessert.

Insomnia and Sarah Palin

Well, it's 5:43 and I've been awake since 2. Two in the morning! I am beginning to agree with the husband...maybe God really is getting me ready for a baby who just won't snooze. But I'll be honest: I hope not. Really. Everyone should hope not. I am more human when I sleep. I found out this week that I'm anemic, and in my mildly obsessive quest for information online, I learned that one symptom of anemia is insomnia, so I am hoping that this lovely iron and herbal potion I am downing twice a day will take care of the anemia and the insomnia.

Yesterday morning I was watching the news and decided that we really have lost our collective perspective. Apparently back in August the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, called some liberal democrats "f***ing retarded" for attacking the president's health care plan. Now Sarah Palin is calling for him to resign over the use of the word retarded. Umm, really? If we ask people to resign over such things, would anyone be left in DC? And honestly, we don't seem to ask them to resign for lying to us over weapons of mass destruction and taking countless innocent lives, so I fail to see the urgency here. I know, that's a tired old axe to grind. But, right?

Here's my question: can she really not see that Emanuel's use of the word retarded, while in poor taste I guess, is not actually an attack on people with disabilities? Is her mind really that dull? Umm, don't answer that.

I'm sorry, but this woman annoys -- and terrifies -- me. But what scares me more than her are all the people who think they want her to lead our country. This is a person who couldn't even hang in there for her term as governor of Alaska. That there are people who would still gladly elect her to our country's highest office offends me a lot more than anyone's use of the word retarded.

See? I'm a little cranky when I don't sleep.

Books & Movies

Son2 is really looking forward to the upcoming release of the Lightning Thief movie. He's been reading his way through the series throughout the school year, and he's enjoyed them quite a bit. I read the first two (the books were were recommended here when I was begging for book recommendations), and I especially enjoyed the first.

I am just hoping that the movie lives up to Son2's expectations. That book to movie transition isn't always smooth. In fact, I've enjoyed very few movies based on books I love. The Lord of the Rings movies are the most notable exception. I loved The Lovely Bones when I read it, but I wouldn't dream of seeing the movie, and that's usually how I feel about such things. I like to preserve my feelings about a book and not let a movie wreck it. You know?

So, I'm wondering whether you've read any books and subsequently enjoyed the movies...

Sometimes I think that it's just whatever you first experience. A gzillion years ago I saw the movie Unbearable Lightness of Being and just loved it. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend it. Then i read the book and didn't love it so much.

Son2 is pretty critical of things. He has strong feelings about music and stories and movies. We would not be surprised if he grows up to be a filmmaker, or at least gives it a good shot. He's always making these goofy movies and posting them on YouTube. More important, he's always dreaming up the next one. He had one cooking in his brain throughout early December, and as soon as Christmas break started, he devoted himself to three days of filming. He played all the parts and did almost all the filming. It was a total manic creative episode. When he finished, he sat down and edited it for hours. The result was his most well thought out and interesting movie yet, though it is a bit lengthy. We were so proud of him.

All of this to say, he loves Percy Jackson and he loves movies, and I hope he's not disappointed.

****
On an entirely different note, I had another ultrasound the other day, and the little guy decided to show me his face, which I appreciated. I brought home the pictures, and brothers 2 & 3 announced that they thought his nose looks awfully big. (In all fairness, it does look like kind of a turned up pug nose.) And I thought, poor guy, not even born and already being criticized by his brothers. Regardless, we all keep wandering over to the refrigerator to sneak peeks at the little buddy's pictures hanging there...