Gabriel playing in the Union Square Playground. 

This Weekend Was Family Time

We didn’t go out to eat or play softball or even the park. We didn’t even go out for a walk.

We stayed at home, cleaning, doing laundry, working on projects that have been neglected for the last two years.

The boy spent his time with us. Running around trying to get into things he’s not supposed to get into, tossing the ball around, chasing the kitty.

He also started dancing. It was adorable. We played music for him, Doo Wop, I think, and he held his arms out and twirled around the room, singing along. I kept wanting him to dance like his friends were—kind of bouncing on their knees, but he never got into that. If he danced, it was always more a bop of his head. Now I’m so glad that I didn’t try to train him to bounce, because he found his own dancing.

He also started scribbling for the first time. I gave him some washable crayons and he drew all over a page, in multiple colors. He also chewed on the crayons and ended up with a purple face. Oh well.

And he played on the deck. He doesn’t usually get to, because I feel that it will require too much close supervision, but Papa was there. He danced and sang around the deck, playing in the planters, and generally being the boy.

He’s a very artistic boy, I think. All the singing and dancing and drawing. He even demanded to play the piano, then sat there on Papa’s lap, playing with the keys. I believe in fostering his interests, but I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that both Papa and Mama are artistic.

See more progress on: Go on adventures with Adventure Boy!

Yes might mean more than I thought

I have spent so many years saying “no,I can’t” to life, that saying “yes” has come to mean accepting opportunities and taking chances and being active—DOing stuff.

But I am in a stage of life right now that is limited by many things—the responsibility of taking care of a child, having a limited budget, having very limited free time, also the physical limitations of being pregnant mean I just don’t have the energy or focus I normally do.

My adventures have to pull back to fit my life. It doesn’t mean I should say ‘no’ to everything, but I have to be reallistic about what works for me, for us.

So I was just thinking about what it means to be saying “yes” in this situation. Maybe it’s also about saying “yes” to my life—as it is. Accepting life for flaws, loving the positives, knowing it can’t ever be perfect. Accepting, even the limitations. Realizing that they aren’t about stealing something from my life or denying my happiness, but just my life as it is. Limitations add shape to life, they do, but my life is still my life, within those boundaries.

So maybe I can say yes to my apartment, a cozy and comfy place, even though it is always in transition, between cleanings, or big projects, cluttered with the stuff of living. Maybe I can say “yes” to my relationship, even though we don’t spend a lot of time alone together, because he is working to provide for us, and I am working to raise our son and keep our home, and we both still need time to ourselves. Maybe I can say “yes” to my need to nap whenever the boy naps, or constantly graze to feed myself, or being unable to remember my phone number or keep a conversation—because it means I am growing another human being inside of me. Accept who I am and the place I am in my life.

That doesn’t mean that I allow it all to fall apart. Let go of dreams and responsibilities. I still have those, I still want to write my novel and see the world and have a great, fulfilling relationship, and a gorgeous home and good friends, but perfection will never happen. I don’t want to keep looking down on what I do have because it doesn’t look like the perfect picture I have in my head.

Saying “yes” might now mean, “Yes, this is my life, and it is good.”

See more progress on: say yes to life

I am an Improved Brain Power

I have been putting energy into not giving in to my baby-brian. Getting sleep is a big thing here. Plus actually thinking about things, actively, as opposed to passively watching tv.

However, I’ve also decided to accept the state of my brain power. I am actively trying to use it, but I am not going to fight the power of hormones, either.

Did you know that studies have found pregnant women lose around 2% of their brain. Something about protein or acids or something that the baby sucks right out of your garbanzo bean. I’d give you exact details on the studies or percentage or what actually is being removed from your brain, but those are the facts that have been taken over by baby making. Oh well.

See more progress on: improve my brain power

Creative Blocks and Momhood

Grab the moment when you have it. Grab the inspiration when it arrives. If the moment and the inspiration come at the same time, is it really better to do the dishes? It’s easier, that’s for sure. It’s far less scary. You don’t push any boundaries by washing the dishes that have been sitting in the sink. You can stay in the nice, safe territory of “but I’m a mom and I have so much to do and I have no time/energy/opportunity to create.” It’s a lot riskier to sit down and face the demon of the blank page.

I’m stuggling, right now. My urge to create has evaporated with my energy and my concentration. My excuse is that I am pregnant, again, and just recently escaped the first trimester. My last pregnancy, I didn’t write or paint or journal or craft or sing or dance or even listen to music, I just gestated. I sat and gestated—surely a creative act, as is raising a child, but not an artistic one at all. I was like a chicken sitting on her egg. I was broody hen. I was brooding. Am right now.

I can’t bear to lose another nine months of creativity. Nine months and more, if you think about the long months after birth when you have a tiny creature totally dependent upon you, who wakes you up every hour to nurse. The exhaustion nearly made me psychotic. I’m terrified of becoming this exhausted, brooding, non-creative thing. I’m worried about sinking into this new being and losing my old one. But I can’t do it. I need to be creative, both for myself and for my child/children. I need to do it for my relationship with their father, too, because the less I create, the crankier and meaner I get.

These are my issues right now. But anytime you create, you are going to be faced with issues. Come to think of it, these have really always been my issues—exhaustion, feeling ill, getting distracted by other tasks, putting myself and my needs last, procrastination, depression, lack of self confidence. It’s almost like being a mother and being pregnant institutionalizes what once was just my individual bugaboo. Now I’ve got hormones to blame, or a baby who needs my time, or morning sickness, or the energy drain of chasing after a toddler, or needing to keep the house from becoming a permanent pig pen, or making sure everyone gets enough of the right kind of food to keep on chugging. So many “mom” things to do.

And it doesn’t always feel so victorious when I push through my blocks and get creative anyway. What once would feel courageous now feels selish. What once was considered focus now feels like neglect of child and home and partner.

How to reconcile this? Who comes first, the mom-role, or the artist-role? Does it have to be one or the other? One over the other? Can’t a mom carve the time out of the day to be both, to do both?

It seems like it should be possible. The busiest people are often the most productive—I know I’ve always gotten so much done when I had the most on my plate, strangely. Maybe it’s about having the will and determination to do it. Maybe it’s about overcoming your fears and flaws and excuses, just like it is for everyone. Maybe it’s about figuring out what works for you and your family and your work. Maybe it’s about what the sneaker company says. Just do it.

A Lovely Poem by Mary Oliver

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

by Mary Oliver.

Back From Vacation

I’ve been away, off on adventures with Adventure Boy!

We went to Florida to visit Grandma and all the family down there.

It was nice to get out of the city and smell green trees and have the boy meet his uncles and aunts and cousins and get to spend time with his Grandma—whom he loves, of course. He also got to explore grandma’s house, and all the various toys in the shelves. Some were toys actually meant for boys, some were things like books, or newspapers, or dog toys. Adventure Boy! makes no distinction. He did get to hang out with Grandma’s doggie, too, and chase Grandma’s cats.

Adventure Boy! went to the beach and into the ocean for the first time. It was the Gulf of Mexico, and it was so soft and warm and salty and clear. He enjoyed it and even dunked his head which made him sputter, and then laugh, so he did it again—dunk, sputter, laugh. And we went out for food and live music and saw a wild egret come down from the sky and sit next to us at the table. We drove all around and played with a second cousin who was 8months old (who I hadn’t even known existed) and… what else did we do? Oh, so much.

All great fun.

The plane ride was not as much of an adventure for him as you’d think it would be. He prefers people watching. And animal grabbing. And eating.

See more progress on: Go on adventures with Adventure Boy!

Exhausted!

We went to the Central Park Zoo for adventure Thursday, today. We saw penguins and polar bears and harbor seals and little jumpy monkeys. We saw goats and sheep and pigs and a cow that went, “mmmm-ooooo-oooooo!”

Adventure Boy!’s favorites were probably the penguins and harbor seals—oh, I mean aside from the farm animals that he lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-oves. He demands to be put on his feet, and then sticks his hand through the bars so that he can touch the animals, and he laughs hysterically when they lick his fingers. Of course, that’s in the petting zoo. No sticking hand through bars of the polar bear environs.

We did see two polar bears wrestling underwater. Just about the coolest thing I ever saw. Didn’t realize how big they were. I think they were too big for Adventure Boy! He spent more time watching the big girls watching the polar bears than watching the polar bears themselves.

All of this journey was on my back. No stroller. I carried him in an Ergo carrier, which I love, but didn’t keep me from getting exhausted and achy.

After, we stopped at Barnes & Noble for a coffee and a break from the Ergo carrier. I showed him a book of paintings. That counts as adventure, too.

See more progress on: Go on adventures with Adventure Boy!

Moving along at a steady clip

Writing about a thousand words a day in my novel. Today, I even stopped myself when I could have gone longer… why? Well, I had other things to do. Unfortunately, my full time job is being a stay at home mom—that’s taking care of the munchkin and the house (not that you’d be able to tell I was taking care of the house by the looks of it right now).

It would be nice if writing could be my full time job. It would be nice to write ten pages a day. Shoot. It would be nice to have it part time, even ten pages a day on the weekend would be nice—but, alas, such is not to be.

The baby cries, the cats meow to be fed, the laundry begs washing, the plants wilt with thirst, the dishes moulder in the sink.

And I STILL write. Yeay me.

Not only that, I also did some research online about the publishing business—specifically in the SF field. This is important, because writing is not only an art, but it is also a business. And I think that is a place where I can get hung up. I start thinking no one would want to read my book, let alone buy a copy or want to sign me for a contract or represent my book or what have you.

So, I start my research when I have only 36 pages. (Did I mention I have 36 pages? Weehee!) By the time I am ready to send out my book, I will know how I’m supposed to do it, and to whom I should send it, and what I can expect.

That’s business. Along artistic lines, I was quite amazed today how the story is coming out. Characters come out of nowhere, and after a few pages, they are necessary to the story. Details are added that flesh out a whole world and its laws and politics and history. Someone says one small thing, and the story takes on a whole new, completely logical and utterly necessary spin.

This is what I love about writing a novel, even more than short stories, or poetry, or painting a picture, even—it’s how the world of the piece builds and gets deeper and richer and more real.

It breathes!

See more progress on: write and publish a novel

It's True, I Am a Geek

Just incase anyone was doubting. Here is my evidence.

I Am A: Neutral Good Elf Ranger Bard

Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Secondary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.

Deity:
Mielikki is the Neutral Good goddess of the forest and autumn. She is also known as the Lady of the Forest, and is the Patron of Rangers. Her followers are devoted to nature, and believe in the positive and outreaching elements of it. They use light armor, and a variety of weapons suitable for hunting, which they are quite skilled at. Mielikki's symbol is a unicorn head.

Find out what D&D character you are. NeppyMan had the plan. http://neppyman.irulethe.net/dndwho/index.html

I miss playing D&D. And I think I really might be a Neutral Good Elf Ranger Bard. I shall name myself Milliandra Scalarion the Gwynedd. And I shall sing for my supper, tra la.