a period of rest

dear monkey puzzle,

i have a picture of you on my cell phone. you are wearing your red baseball hat and green jacket and you look awfully grown up. i look at that picture of you throughout the day when we're apart and i feel connected to you.

daddy finished with his chemo last week. at least, we are pretty sure he is done--when his oncologist comes back from vacation we'll know for sure. daddy has another ct scan scheduled for monday, so next week will tell us a lot about what we might expect over the next few months: more treatment or a period of rest? based on daddy's last scan, we are both expecting another clean scan and a few months off, a period of semi-normalcy. you will be happy when daddy feels well enough every morning to get out of bed early and play with you while i brush my teeth and get dressed for work.

you continue to learn many new words each day. i was keeping a list until it became too difficult to keep up. at last count you had over 75 words. by now you have well over 100, i would guess.

you have also started combining words. you did this once a couple of months ago when i left you at daycare. "bye mommy" you said, and surprised your teachers. but you hadn't done it again until recently, when one morning when daddy did not get up to see you you said, "daddy tired." then you saw the cat sleeping and you said "kitty tired". you've had a number of other combinations since then, with "yellow turtle" being my favorite. you are also repeating multisyllabic words and multi word phrases like crazy. and you seem to understand just about everything i say.

you've also started to have some tantrums, and they're really no fun at all. you're usually so much fun and so easy to be around (active and exhausting, yes, but not difficult) that it's a shock when we're suddenly on opposite sides. most of the tantrums seem to happen when you are tired and you want to do something for yourself that i can't let you do (play with the latch on the safety gate on the stairs, for example). as you seek more independence, we will probably see more of these unwelcome flare-ups. one thing about you is that you are dramatic and expressive, and have been since the day you took your first breath.

i had hoped with these letters to write more often and to paint a clearer picture of your early life. but as daddy gets better, i am getting more and more burned out and i don't have the energy to think very well anymore. i use up my mental energy at work, and at home i do my long list of chores at night and finally collapse into bed.

i do give you lot of love when we're together. and you are very attached to me, so i must be doing a few things right. if i am unable to tell you your story in the detail i had intended, i hope you will understand.

i lu lu

dear monkey,

it's been a long time...

you have become very confident on your feet, and you are taking on new challenges such as climbing the stairs and climbing onto and off of chairs. you have happy to go up and down the front porch steps over and over again. working on mastery. now you are interested in the big staircase, and you also want to open and close and lock the safety gate at the bottom of the stairs all by yourself.

we are having some struggles with these wants of yours. your fascination with the safety gate is dangerous, but when i try to divert your attention and scoop you up the stairs you squirm and howl over the injustice of it. i know how you see it. you are growing up and you can do lots of the same things that we can. you have been watching us and you know how things work. now you want to try it for yourself. you are ready to get going. but you don't have the balance yet, the coordination, the judgment to know when you are headed for trouble. so now we are sometimes adversaries. very often, actually, and although it is typical and expected, it still makes me sad.

that said, have you ever loved me more? you want me all the time. you do not go as easily to your daycare teachers anymore. instead you keep coming back to me, knowing that any minute i will say goodbye and disappear out the door. when daddy holds you, you often reach out for me to take you instead.

you are a talker. i mean, a serious talker. here are some of the words you can say:

mama
dada
kitty cat
banana
apple
ball
yellow
flower
book
bird
shoes
jacket
blanket
stairs
star
moon
blue
poo poo
purple
yum
cracker
cheese
pizza
water
bottle
bubble
popper
bear
tiger
elephant
outside
backyard
hi
moo
baa
neigh
baby
quack
gobble
night night
bye
name
rock
light
yogurt
eye
elmo
door
turtle

you can also say the cats' names and the names of some of your classmates at school. and i'm pretty sure you also say "i love you," but it comes out more like "i lu lu" and sometimes the context makes it hard to tell.

last month i had a parent conference at your school. the director told me that you are doing well across the board, but that you are exceptional in your social skills--good at staying out of struggles and disagreements with your peers, and very willing to share with others. she said that your teachers just smile when they hear your name, because you are so good natured. she also said that you are very compassionate in the way you relate to the other children. she said she has never seen anyone your age act so compassionately in all her years of working with children, and that it brings tears to her eyes.

you bring a smile to my face too, monkey moo. i lu lu.

fever, mr. clean, and 12 other things

dear rumplehead,

you are asleep in your crib, finally at rest after battling all afternoon with fever. you roasted and parched with heat and when the tylenol didn't work i consoled you as best i could until it was time to try again--with motrin.

about life. other people seem to make progress, but for the past couple of years i have only been moving in reverse, so i took this last week off from work to catch up. (my sudden vacation was triggered by me almost burning the house down a couple of weeks ago while you slept in your crib. it was nearly midnight and i was multitasking so i could get some sleep. i put something on the stove and left the kitchen for minute, completely forgot about the stove stuff and 40 minutes later, "what's that burning?" i ran to the kitchen to find 2 foot flames licking out of the pan, managed to get the fire out while wondering why the smoke alarms--batteries still good--did not alert me. still haven't figured this part out. scared the bubblegum out of me and i realized i HAD to find a way to get some control of things.) anyway, my to-do list for my week off was much too long and i knew i would not get to everything, but i did my best.

things i accomplished:

-removing everything from the shed and installing shelving
-putting most everything back in the shed, in a more organized fashion
-cleaning a bunch of unused junk out of the kitchen cupboards
-organizing the two kitchen "junk drawers" (w/bamboo organizing inserts from bed, bath, and beyond) and learning they are not full of junk after all
-cleaning off the top of the desk (look at all those crumbs and dust bunnies!)
-cleaning out the desk drawers (more bamboo organizers) and finding the title to the purple car that i've been wanting to sell for more than a year
-taking out the trash and recycling
-grocery shopping
-getting some non-toxic nuby sippy cups for you
-taking daddy lunch at the hospital on chemo day
-taking 6 months of mail and other personally identifying whatnot to the paper shredding place where you drive in and they shred it while you watch

still on my list:

-sleep (since it's almost 11:00 on sunday night, i'm running out of time on this most important of tasks)
-get rid of all the shed stuff that didn't go back in and is just sitting around our yard for our neighbors' viewing pleasure from their upstairs windows
-get the cleaning people in for a thorough cleaning (especially the 4x vomited-on floors)
-call scott about carpeting the stairs to lessen the chance that if you accidentally fall down them you will die or be seriously injured
-call blue cross to see if the outstanding claims for $10,000 from the hospital have been resolved
-call the hospital to be sure they are providing blue cross with the needed information (blue cross said they had asked and asked but not received)
-find that other bill for $2000 from ?? and figure out why we have to pay that much
-find that several month old bill for $250 that i paid (even though i didn't think i should) and triple check with blue cross
-double check that your dad qualifies for social security disability and figure out how to apply
-fax in the medical and dependent care account claims so we don't lose that money
-find 5 or so slow cooker recipes to make during the week so we can eat well and at a reasonable hour, enabling me to go to bed earlier and not be so sleep deprived
-make a shopping list from those recipes
-make a chart of the dates my monthly bills are due so i won't continue to forget one or more bills a month
-call at&t and be sure they got my payment sent wednesday and won't disconnect my service like they threatened to in that mailing they sent me, and in the automated phone call they sicked on me on friday
-find out from the credit union why my at&t bill stopped coming through my bill pay account three months ago
-take the car in to get the window fixed, finally, so it will close
-make an appointment for a mammogram
-clean all the clothes out of my dresser that i don't wear or that look awful on me
-get a few new things to wear that don't have to be ironed all the time
-find an appropriate place for a downstairs smoke alarm and get it installed
-weed the yard before the mammoth interlopers squeeze the life out of every other living thing
-tell you about everything you are doing: walking very well; talking the ear off of anyone who'll listen; saying "no" or shaking your head no; reading and reading and reading (can't get enough of the books!); taking the same book first to one parent and then to the other to get a different interpretation; rolling/bouncing/throwing various balls (your favorite); pointing out balls in books, in other people's yards, etc.; napping well and sleeping well at night (when you're not sick); trying to feed the cat little pieces of whatever you're eating; telling me about the bird you hear outside; imitating me when i say "caw, caw"; trying to imitate me when i say "cock-a-doodle-doo"...
-and about 12 other things i can't think of right now

but here's some good news: daddy had a ct scan this week and it's clear. no evidence of growth. this is 5 months out from his surgery, and halfway through his chemo. something seems to be working. we are not celebratory. there's too much uncertainty for that. but truly truly truly, we are grateful.

rivers and tides

dear pumpky,

where do i even begin? how about with practical matters:

1) you've had a birthday! you're one!
2) you got very sick on your birthday. you were miserable for days and we had to cancel your party. when monday rolled around and the doctor was finally open, i learned that you had bronchiolitis and an ear infection. you had a 10-minute mist treatment with albuterol in the doctor's office (for wheezing, which i couldn't hear with my bare ears, but the np heard with her stethoscope), and got a prescription for an inhaler and antibiotics.
3) you are feeling just fine now and i'm really, really glad.
4) although you've been cruising around holding onto the furniture for months, and taking a step or two on your own for a few weeks, as of yesterday you are officially walking
5) you've been talking up a storm. some of your more recent words: bird, dirty, diaper, uh-oh, star, night-night, piggy, gobble, book, yeah
6) you've gotten to be pretty good at getting food in your own mouth with a spoon, and you have fun with it if you're not in a big hurry.
7) i love you.

and now on to philosophical matters:

daddy and i watched a documentary last night called rivers and tides, about the scottish artist andy goldsworthy. i ordered it from netflix, and when daddy heard what it was he teased me about ordering a "physics lecture." he said i would fall asleep in the first five minutes of watching it. so i wish you could have heard all of the "wow"s out of dad's mouth as we watched the movie.

i have seen pictures of goldsworthy's work before and i always liked it. but it is completely different to see it alive, in motion. a chain of leaves snaking through a stream, a stack of rocks drowned by high tide and then re-emerging as the tide recedes, a line of sheep's wool capping a long rock wall, the wool, in sunlight, a brilliant illuminated line curving up and down and around the line of stones at the top of the wall.

today i keep thinking about this artist's pieces, and the look on his face as he worked, and how sometimes when he was almost done with a piece the whole thing would come apart and he'd have to start over. that happened a few times, and it became clear that that is just part of the nature of his work.

i hope you will watch this documentary one day and listen to this man talk. then you will know something about what it is to be wise. i don't know if he is wise about other things besides the art he makes, but when he talks about art and about making things, he is deeply invested in what he is saying, consumed with undersanding how the elements of his work affect and are affected by their surroundings--wind, water, light, etc.--and time. listening to him talk, i learned something about what it means to look, to pay attention, to understand, to be.

walking and talking

dear little sprout,

i am having so much fun with you this week. besides all of the fun outings we've had--to the grocery store, the bank, the park, the beach, luma's house (once for his birthday party and once for a playdate)--just being home with you has been great, too.

you have been very sweet to choose this week to get really interested in walking. we've been walking all over the house together, and i think you just need a little bit of confidence to do it all on your own. sometimes you can walk halfway across the room very steadily, just holding one of my hands. i keep thinking that maybe tomorrow will be your big day, but you are taking your time. and that's just fine.

you're in the middle of a little language explosion. a few nights ago you said "night night" when i was putting you down to sleep. then next morning you fell down and said "uh-oh." later that day when i was changing your diaper you said "star". i didn't see which star you were talking about, so i said, "little bear, did you say star?" you said "yeah." then i noticed that the toy you were holding in your hand was a star.

so you are really communicating with me now. i like it.

luma's 1st birthday

dear baby bear,

today we went to luma's 1st birthday party. you brought him a dinosaur puzzle and he really liked it. i think it was his favorite toy.

everyone at the party thought you were very cute. and m. also said you are loud, which is true. you are loud. always hollering and banging, but with the best of intentions.

you were the most mobile of the four babies there, and just generally the most active. one of the babies your age stayed on his parents' laps for most of the party without complaining. like you would ever do that for more than 10 minutes. ha!

the more i get to know other babies, the more i realize how engaged you are with the world around you. eager to figure things out and get going. the worst thing i can possibly do is to help you when you are trying to do something for yourself. i am learning to intervene only when i think it's a safety issue, like when you put that huge piece of bread in your mouth today and i pulled it out to tear it in half because the crust was so hard i thought you might choke. you got mad, mad, mad--you pushed and pushed on me trying to get away, rejecting every offer i made to give you the bread back. until i distracted you by turning you around to watch the gift opening. then i slipped you some more bread and let you take your chances.

it's nice to see daddy feeling so much better. this week he went to his studio almost every day to do some recording. i admit i sometimes wish he were doing more to lift the burden off of me rather than holing up in his studio, but i know how much this recording means to him. and it's important to me, too. so i keep my trap shut and plod along and remind myself every day how lucky i am.

the momentum of love

dear snuggles,

i want you to know that i write you letters in my head all the time. while i'm cooking, cleaning the kitchen, filling your bottles and packing your food for daycare, brushing my teeth. but it's hard to find the time to sit at the computer long enough to get it down for you to read one day.

daddy started chemo yesterday. i went with him, just for the first time to see how it will be for him. we were at the hospital for seven hours in a small, drab room with no windows and an overly chatty woman in the 2nd chemo chair nosing into our business. daddy is doing okay so far with the folfiri. he only had a half dose of the irinotecan this time--the oncologist is starting cautiously and will increase it each time until he finds the limit of daddy's tolerance for the drug.

you are happy as ever. your favorite foods right now are hard boiled egg yolk, sweet potato (chunks of home cooked), banana chunks, and plain yogurt. you love feeding yourself, and now that you have mastered putting food in your mouth, you have started to put other things in your mouth, too. last week you found a small mystery object on the living room floor and popped it in before i could intervene. i stuck my finger in your mouth to get it out, but came out with nothing. you didn't choke, so the identity of the particle you ate will remain one of life's mysteries. today i had to fish two things out of your mouth: soggy paper from a magazine ad (you tore out the page while playing) and some orange peel (daddy gave it to you to hold, but you decided to eat it). so we're at that stage now. i hope we both live through it.

i have been thinking a lot about what kind of mom i want to be for you. what thoughts and behaviors do i want to model for you as you're growing up? what ways of seeing the world could i help you adopt that would be beneficial to you in your life? how can i help you see yourself as a strong person, a helper, a contributor, a speaker of truth, an upstanding human being?

i don't have a word for my religious beliefs. other people might call me an atheist, but that doesn't feel right and i don't use it as a label for myself. agnostic is wrong, too. i can tell you that i don't believe in "personal" god that thinks like we do and plays us like puppets. what i do believe is that the laws of nature are the ultimate truth. physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, compassion, empathy, love. i am telling you this because it occurred to me this week as i was standing at the stove that the idea of god that so many people have, a god that listens to and answers the prayers of human beings, though farfetched in my opinion, is no more farfetched than the idea of you being born from nothing but will, biology, and luck. no more farfetched than the experiential arc of a single human life, the bewilderment of existence, the purposelessness of it, the joy of it, the suffering that sits on the sidelines for some and for others dominates the game from the very beginning.

i still don't believe in a personal god.

i do believe in getting up every day and doing the best i can.

i believe in the thrill of small beauty.

in the growth potential of hardship.

and most of all, in the momentum of love.