Honeymoon on Hold

In the past, the end of the Honeymoon phase meant the end of the relationship. Not necessarily because it stopped being exciting but because one day I'd wake up smothered, unable to breathe.

It was my own fault. I insisted on spending every available moment with "his name here" until one day I was like "I kind of want to eat alone actually" or "Get your hands off of my boobs. I'm trying to work!"

The heart's tendency toward fickleness is (wo)man's greatest defense against responsibility. For when the heart turns, the body and everything else must follow AKA love is a gypsy hopping truck beds, her open suitcases in the sand.

Er, it was. Until rock paper scissors became kids marriage freedom but that's a blog post I've written a thousand times before.

For the past nine months I've been home with Fable. I've slept with her and shared my food. Clutched her little body, her skin to mine, our exhales in unison, our gazes eternal. We've been inseparable friends madly in love with one another, entwined like the trunks of old trees. 

And in that time my body has belonged to Fable as much as it has belonged to me. And I've adored every second of it.

Until now.


I woke up last week and couldn't breathe. Fable was nursing and I looked down at her and instead of feeling comfort and love I felt frustration and anxiety. I felt stifled and suffocated and trapped as her little hands scratched at my face. Suddenly, I was consumed with the need to get her off my body and out of my bed.

I put my finger in her mouth, breaking the suction of her latch. She glared at me before closing her eyes, snacking her lips, searching my chest until she latched back on... to my bra. She screamed, angry.

"No more," I said. "All gone."

For the last few days I've been struggling to keep it all together, especially because this feeling of wanting my body back has coincided with Fable's inability to sleep anywhere but my bed, in my arms, or inches from my body.

My need for space seems to have made Fable's need for me grow exponentially. If I so much as turn my face away from hers, she cries. Sweet, sure but also frustrating because "I can't just look into your eyes all day, okay?"

Of course, as soon as the words leave my lips I feel horrible guilt. Like I'm cheating on her with my life. A life full of lists and overflowing to-dos I've been unable to get at. People I need to call. Vet appointments, yesterday's lunch and oh yeah, how about MY OTHER CHILD!

Come on. She'll only be little once. This is it! Right now! This is the time when I'm supposed to be at her beck and call!

Little shmittle. She's nine-months-old now. And you're nobody's bitch.

But I must hold her! Allow her to cling to me! Cling back!

Is that what's best for her? For you?

I don't know.

Yes I do.

I don't remember whether or not I had a honeymoon phase with Archer. He never nursed nor did we co-sleep so there was never a time when I woke up and felt suddenly claustrophobic. There was never a need to push him off my body, kick him out of my bed. He was always in his crib. Napping healthily, drinking from a bottle, a sippy cup, his own glass.

But Fable was born a different child and from the get our bond was unique, our dependency mutual, which is why I'm having a hard time reconciling these new feelings, understanding where they are coming from and where we go from here.

GGC

Sunday Snaps

1. She leaned in and kissed him

on the field of the same park

I first fell in love with a boy.

2. We shared a glass of wine

Two old friends and our two children

"Can you believe how much has changed?"

3. On the Ferris Wheel he was fearless.

"You have to sit down," I said

but he shook his head, held my hand instead.

4. He named the snails in Nana's garden.

(I used to do the same)

This right here is "treelocke" and this one's called "bubblebasket".

5. We had to drive separately home
so he drove his car behind mine and
we talked to each other on speaker phone.

GGC

Chapter (Month) Nine: Call of the Child

This month's Fable film celebrates our girl's ninth month of life. A milestone I clutch with shaky fingers because nine-months to a pregnant woman means the birth of her baby. And so, in a way, it feels like she's been reborn. This time as a child. 

She was born ten days early so she has officially been living outside of me several weeks longer than she existed within. Even still, it hurts to draw nines on the top of her charts, to hold my belly and feel emptiness. To celebrate a milestone that meant something so different when last I counted down. 

Now, I must count up. And pretty soon, I'll be out of fingers. 

GGC

musical credit: Unison Falling Into Harmony by: Great Lake Swimmers

The Long Lost Labor Footage

Nine months ago, today, I was breathing hard into my hands as Hal ran around my hospital room with the camera, making faces, talking about his teeth, laughing at the fact that I was writhing in agony. 

The usual "husband as labor coach" type stuff. 

Editing this video I couldn't help but think of Britney and Kevin's Chaotic (remember that trainwreck?) and how WTF I was watching it, how refined I felt my relationship with Hal was in comparison. 

HA! PSYCHE!

I also couldn't help but think, "Yes. Thank you. Yes." 

Today also happens to be Hal's 35th birthday, which means he is now of "advanced maternal age" aka if we ever have another baby I'm going to make him get an amnio just because. 

(Hal, Thank you for continuing to make me laugh through life's many labors. I love you.)

BEC

Sunday Snaps

1. There's no place like home
when you carry it all around with you:
One child on each hip.

2. What a wonderful world it would be
if we all rode around in skyboxes
with grins the size of the Pacific.

3. I rested my head on his back,
His hair smelled like sunscreen.
We closed our eyes.

4. They looked like the cover of an Adventure Guide
for Boys who Like to Roll Down Hills.
Doesn't matter they're fifty-one years apart.

5. We dried our swimsuits side by side by side.
Three generations of women
who love the water.

GGC

For more on our ten-days of summer vacay, go here. I'm posting, in real time, our to-dos. Hope you're all making lovely memories with your people!

Changing Rooms

"Beautiful things come in small packages," they say and so do I, writing this post from the tiny box that recently became our bedroom. A room we needed our architectural thinking caps to make work.

I'm always hunting for treasure. Coveting the home down the block with three-bedrooms and its office space in the back (with a skylight! How modern!) Daydreaming over bigger and better cars and homes, new clothing, shoes, furniture et al.

Because shiny new things sparkle and glow. No scratches from being repeatedly dropped on their faces. No stains.

We live in a world blessed with riches and a society that bribes us with new boxes. It's box cars and box homes and box television sets. And sometimes it's impossible to turn our heads because new cars always smell better. So do new homes, built on the wood of freshly cut trees, with their new bedrooms and clean slate of design ideas.

Same goes for people so we fantasize about shiny, new, carefully constructed bodies. Men seemingly cut from stone and women, pure, unused, even untouched.

We are told from ages young to dream of new life and new homes, to fantasize about the virgin in all her unattainable forms. Because wouldn't it be nice to be the first? The first family to live in the house. To own the car. To leave footprints in the sand. To steer the boat on her maiden voyage before her paint chips and her body belongs to the sea.

To feel what has never been touched.

... ... ... ... ... ...

Last night Hal and I stayed up until 2am talking. I had made a comment in passing that upset us both. I had embarrassed myself on accident, bragging about past exploits, grasping at the peacock feathers of my past - before there was a family or even an us. Desperate to clarify to all with ears open that wild things never forget the open field.

Sometimes I catch myself saying things I don't want to be remembered by. Or maybe I do?
But why? Because people take great offense to the truth. Because the things most exciting to talk about are most often the things left unsaid.

Sometimes I find myself publicly dipping my toes into the pools of my past. Hard not to when for many years, I defined myself solely as one who stood in the center of my own puddles, completely submerged from the neck down.

I'm a married mother of two, now. I write about food and how to get my child to eat it, post photographs where my nursing bra shows and people praise the biology of it all - the beauty and bonding of mother and child. But sometimes I want to be more than that. I want to be looked at and talked to and treated like a piece of meat. Like someone not afraid to open her mind and her mouth and yes, even her legs. Someone empowered by her inner "slut," frustrated by the virgin and how she is placed on a pedestal for crossing her legs and closing her mouth and talking only of safe things.

Last night I felt the need to apologize to Hal for being a used car with mileage, a woman in a stained dress who burps and farts and squeezes her friend's boobs in photographs. For revealing too much with the lights on. For speaking publicly about private parts without blushing. Because I'm supposed to blush. And cross my legs. And keep my voice down as not to wake the neighbors, spook, embarrass, shame.

"I'm sorry I'm not the kind of woman who dabs the sides of her mouth with linen napkins."

"You think we'd be together if you were?"

Touche. 

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Before we moved into the small bedroom this past weekend, I thought, maybe we should just find a new place and live there instead.

"If we're going to move we might as well just move homes. This place is stale. We've outgrown it. I'm ready for a change."

But just like a marriage, a body, a home, old can become new. And better than fantasy reality can be. Truth like sugar in the raw. 

The first night we spent in our new bedroom, I told Hal, "this is my dream room."

"But it's so small," he said.

"Exactly."

There's a direct correlation between changing identities and switching bedrooms overnight -- rearranging the same old items in a new and different space. I carry my past with me in my back pocket and every now and then, walk into the wrong room, expecting to find my bed when, Wait! Where did everything go? Oh, wait! That's right. That's not my room anymore.

This is my room:

Full of old things new and new things old, everything differently placed and rearranged and mirrors fresh out of their plastic wrap.

They say that airplanes aren't safe to fly unless they've flown a thousand miles. And ships are more likely to sink their first day at sea. They say that people can change if they want to. But changing will never change the past and thank God because what a ride that was. So many memories made in old bedrooms, sprawled across dirty sheets.

They say that beautiful things come in small, unassuming packages. Like the old room that came new when we finally rearranged the furniture. Like peacock feathers* folding inward toward the body.

*Nevertheless, always there.

GGC

Food for Naught.

When he was little he ate everything. He stuffed his face with tofu and Quinoa, spinach and avocado omelets. Now? Not so much. I've written about my struggles trying to feed a picky eater (I should own stock in Annie's Mac & Cheese) before and it's nothing new:

Of course, picky eating has been going on since children were first invented so what I'm dealing with here iis nothing new and I'm pretty sure not entirely uncommon. In fact, can I get show of hands of parents whose kids live off nothing but macaroni and cheese?

Thank you.

I'll be honest. It makes me feel like a better mom when women I love, respect and admire are in the same boat. 

Behold:

I like to think this is a phase and Archer will soon be back to eating organic greens out of the bag, preferring goat cheese scrambles over a handful of dry Cheerios in a baggie. (WTF is that about anyway?)

In the meantime, I have a few minor pointers for parents like me who wrestle with children who don't eat as well as they should/could:

1. Eat Outside - I bring fruit and nuts pretty much everywhere I go and Archer will gladly accept all berries, bananas and the occasional peach when outdoors. We attend our local Farmer's Market every Sunday as a family and Archer will polish off three baskets of raspberries under the tent. At home? No way, no how.

2. Smoothies - We live blocks away from a Jamba where Archer will totally down a giant Acai smoothie. Months ago, twas my mom's idea to ask the smoothie makers to mix a shot of wheat grass in with the smoothie and voila! Three days a week, people. That is some expensive vegetable trickery. 

3. Dessert bribe - Sometimes this works. Maybe 42% of the time. Oh, who am I kidding. 22% of the time. Might have something to do with the fact that the BIG EXCITING DESSERT is a square of dark chocolate because I'm the food gestapo and am absolutely insane when it comes to processed food and corn syrup OMG I will END YOU with my HATE!

I just hope Archer's rejection of all the best foods doesn't turn into rebellion. I seriously would rather come home to a pack of cigarettes in his backpack than a fast food burger wrapper because that shit is JUST as bad for you but I'm not going into that or else I will probably cry because bad food hurts my feelings. 

Anyone have any tips to add to my short-list? What do you do to ensure your kid's well-eating? What has worked for your family? Or are you one of the lucky ones* whose kid snacks on Asparagus and eats something other than rice at a Chinese Restaurant?

GGC

*HOW DID YOU DO THAT!!????

Sunday Snaps

1. He blew on her rice

Even though it wasn't hot. 

"Just to be sure."

2. Archer counted the screws,

In neat little piles. 

"I'm helping Daddy build my bed!"

3. Still warm from the dryer,

I pulled her sheets tight

around the crib mattress. 

4. Hal ordered three ice-creams.

"But what about Fable?...

...Here," Archer said. "Share mine."

 

5. It was the first night that

both children went to sleep

in their own room.*

(They're still sleeping.)

GGC 

*after a very long weekend the bedrooms are almost completely finished. There will indeed be an after soon! Hooray!

** I forgot to link this post about Fable's most amazing kick-ass nanny who we have dubbed in our household, Senorita Dudafuego because she IS the same exact person as Mrs. Doubtfire, except she's actually a woman and not Robin Williams in drag.

***For those of you trying to access Straight From the Bottle from Australia you *can* but only through your google reader. Thanks to Little Miss Moi for the heads-up!

**** I also want to thank you so MUCH for all your help re: Archer and music lessons. So many amazing readers commented and emailed me contacts so we can find a kick-ass Suzuki teacher for Archer. (Archer's most interested in playing violin so we'll start with violin and see how it goes.) You're AMAZING. So many resources I'm so grateful. Love to all of you for being so generous with your information and advice! Also looking into Colburn school for singing classes.

Boy Wonder?

I suppose it happens to all parents. We wake up one day convinced our children are geniuses of the highest degree, worthy of prodigy status. It happened to me a year and a half ago, when Archer unable to speak, was able to sing. It was the only way he could speak coherently. It was more than a miracle. It was a relief. We had attended various sessions of the speech therapy prescribed through Early Intervention but for Archer, it was music that finally got him using his words.


We pulled him out of speech therapy, upped the dosage of Bach and Debussy, Mozart and Bizet, surrounding Archer with melody until his songs became sentences and his sentences stories.

Beyond vastly improving Archer's speech, music has become Archer's co-pilot. (In the last year Archer's language has progressed so rapidly we've been told he could easily start Kindergarten a year early. To put that into perspective, this time last year? Archer was three-years-old with the language ability of a 12-month-old.) He's come a long way, baby. Partly thanks to music and its whisper, like angels in his ear.

Archer has always been unique, quirky, his own beast. His ability to concentrate solely on music and sound was cause for concern in the beginning. He had a sort of reverse ADD which made it difficult for him to focus beyond whatever it was that was consuming him. This waved a red flag to many specialists at the beginning who believed he might be on the Autistic Spectrum. (Einstein Syndrome? Perhaps. I like to think Archer Syndrome is a more accurate label.)

I wrote about our preliminary experience dealing with IEPs and Speech Therapy quite a bit in my book if you happened to read it and although I always knew Archer was not Autistic, I was very much aware of his differences, communicative struggles and the fact that he was not like other children.

Of course I never wanted to "fix" him. Whatever it was and whoever he wanted to be would emerge beyond the tests and the milestones he was slow to overcome. What was most important to us was nurturing his strengths and for Archer, clearly it was (and still is) music.

From an early age, Archer listened to music with his eyes closed, his little hand in the air like a Southern Baptist at church during prayer. He still does. And his voice? Pitch perfect.

"We have to nurture this," I said.

Hal agreed.

So for the past few months we've been on a mission to find a boy's choir, music program or magnet school (if they even exist) specializing in music in the Los Angeles area.

Unfortunately for the past few months I've come up empty-handed. Unable to find a school or choir-program for children under six years of age, which is unfortunate, even shocking for one of the most creative cities in the world.

This is why I'm writing this post. I'm on a music mission for Archer who craves it, who sings to himself all day long, who constantly corrects me when I try to teach him the sounds of the instruments.

"Do you hear the trumpet?" I say.

"It's not a trumpet, mommy. It's a French Horn."

And he's right. Which is crazy.

Archer's ability to differentiate clarinets from oboes, violins from cellos and memorize melodies after one listen far surpasses my ability and expertise, even Hal, a music major and classically trained pianist, guitarist, former CBGB rocker has nothing on Archer's pitch perfection.

His ability to pick up drum sticks and without every having practiced or performed, play without missing a beat:

Of course he's my kid and of course I'm going to think he's the raddest in the land, but after everything we've been through, I can't help thinking maybe he has something - an innate gift, divine inspiration, an ability beyond what is the norm for his age or any age. And what kind of bonehead parent would I be to not do encourage the hell out of that shit?

Especially after last week when Archer sat down to the piano to play Carmen (his favorite song like crazy omg he's obsessed) near perfectly and completely by ear, his hands in proper position.

So... help?

Boy's choirs or other recommended music programs in Los Angeles for four-year-olds? I've been searching but all I have been able to find are youth choirs and music schools for children aged 6+.

You're always so helpful and insightful and full of secrets and knowledge of undisclosed locations, good advice. (Thank you so much in advance.)

GGC

Birthday Gifts

Every day I look at myself, my life and think, "you're so lucky."

"Crazy lucky."

"Insane lucky."

"Holy shit, how did I get so lucky," lucky.

The very luckiest.


(Because) Every day I get to wake up in love.

I'm in love.

I'm in love.

I'm in love.

No need to blow out candles to make a wish.

GGC