a somewhatwhere prayer

I've decided that we have not the money to dye my hair nor do I have the time to pluck the greys. In Minnesota my mother stands next to me in the bathroom, ruffles my hair, "Aren't you a little young to..." she trails off, leaving her question there.

I shrug out from under her hand, trying to duck the physical manifestation of Time Passing.

We are there to celebrate my sister, who has built and birthed another baby. She is a beautiful girl, tiny and quiet.

Here are our three children in a room. We clamor around them. I can't seem to get my head around the way life moves. Why doesn't everyone else seem so amazed? Yet, you must be thinking: Aren't these boring revelations? To sit around oohing at the stars, talking about infinity?

We vascillate between this lucidity and the slow sound of PJ Harvey's voice steady in the air, "Is that all there is? If that's all there is, my friends, then let's keep dancing. Let's break out the booze..."

We attend a wedding in my hometown of Fargo, North Dakota. We visit Dave's family in nearby Thief River Falls. His great-great-grandfather's homestead proudly marked "1904." Dave's father still owns the land and farms there, every season. The horizon just sits there, a cornflower blue sky floats silent & still atop the empty fields. What are we doing, running around like rats in the city?

The thought is full. For a moment. We drive back. Every choice we ever made bringing us back to what we've chosen.

I accept this dream we've built. Knowing it's ours. The dream of us. The dream of our family.

New babies & future babies we tightly love. The weddings and funerals that tick off Time for us. The grey hairs that grow. With life so full of gladness & sadness.

May all of our baggage be full of blessings. Amen.

Dax in front of his great-great-great grandfather's homestead in Thief River Falls, Minnesota

From the Trenches

Things change every day as a parent. Being a parent requires extreme flexibility. It requires quickness and sharpness of mind. It requires creativity. Being a parent, especially of young children, teaches you how to be a Buddha.

One of the main teachings of zee jolly-bellied Buddha is that attachment leads to suffering. This is so true in the parental trenches. If you are attached to a particular outcome or if you become accustomed to the way your child acts in situations, when that changes, it will lead to pain (read: insanity).

In that sense, Dax must make me a better person every day as the patience grows and grows. I have to let go of my vision of things, the way the ego WANTS things to go, and just let them BE. Parenting a baby and remaining sane requires that mentality.

If I'm saying, 'Dax will go down for a nap now and sleep for like two hours.' I try to erase it immediately and say, 'He might not nap, and if that is the case, that will be ok.' Otherwise, the mind goes berserk.

In some ways, having a baby requires you to plan MORE. But on the flip side, having a baby also requires you to plan LESS.

To adapt to the new mommyhood and keep the sanity, here's a few things done around here to maintain the Buddha brain (i.e. not lose the mind, cultivating peace instead):

1) We listen to Pandora all day long when Dax is awake and we're at home. Listening to music adds magic to the moments. It helps one use the adult brain and think adult thoughts and feel adult things. It adds background to the smiles and laughs and goings-abouts of Dax.

2) Traded cars with my husband so that we can leave every day if need be. Not sure how thrilled Dave is to be driving my no-AC little old purple pickup across San Diego county every day (p.s. I love you babe), but it sure beats the craziness that ensues if Dax and I sit home all day .

3) I sign up for my mom's groups meetups that intrigue me & agree to lots of other plans that do the same, EVEN if they are during Dax's naptimes or make his nighttime schedule a little off. I don't know how, but 92% of the time it works out just fine. I don't do it all the time, but I find that a little faith goes a long way.

4) Quit worrying about what to do about Dax in the sleep department. The kid is gunna sleep just fine someday. Right now, he's happy as ever, so what the heck does it matter? Let's just gunna ride this out and not bang the head against a brick wall for the next year or so. See how Buddha that is? Non-attachment to solutions? Check.

5) Learned to clean as the day goes. Well, gotten better. Dax is friggin messy. And this house induces hives if a couple days go by without a clutter-clean, a kitchen floor sweep, a wet mop on the tile. It gets messier, quicker. And I suck at cleaning, so this is a revelation. It's become...more habitual. Out of necessity, of course.

6) Aiming to go to bed at a decent hours, letting go of the need for solitude. I suck as a parent when tired. That must override the ridiculous need to browse the net till midnight. However, sometimes the numbness of the web is necessary. And that's ok too.

There's prolly a thousand more examples. What about you? What things help you let go and flow within the mommy moments?

inquiring minds want to know...

Letter to an Eleven-Month-Old on His Birthday

This month has been insane, buddy. Remember how we said last month was the baby proofing month for us? NOPE, this month has been the baby proofing month, as you've quickly discovered all the cracks in our system.

We have four gates, I repeat, four gates, at various points in the house. Rundown of areas in which you are not allowed: The Bathroom of Danger. The Front Room of Inescapable Problems. The Stairs of Doom. The Tiny Hallway of Cat Doo-Doo. AND The Patio of Thorns and Concrete.

We have purchased foam corners for half of our house. I remember seeing them on the shelves months ago thinking, "A little overboard people, eh?" Now that my son loves to ram his head at full-speed into any edge that might crack open his skull, I cleaned that whole shelf in an afternoon. Budget be damned.

Since your big increase in mobility, I have to love to take you out of the house.  You get uber-fussy if you're indoors all day. There's a neat little play place nearby. It has a special area just for little babies like you that are crawling, but not yet walking. It's padded (phew) and has all sorts of fun stuff for you to explore.

through the door

playing piano

You're seriously the most social kid ever. Whenever a new baby arrives in "the pen," you squint up at them with your new-toothy grin (two bottom and four top!) and point. Then you immediately crawl to them and try to hit them square in the face. I know it's a friendly love tap, but I can't imagine the other mamas are too impressed. I try to say "gentle buddy, gentle" and guide your hand, but I think you're a little too young to grasp what I'm saying.

While most babies ignore you, you connect with other similar social babies and you crawl around the play area together having fun. This month, I've gotten a few adorable glimpses of the joy your future friendships & bro-mances will bring you.

In general you don't really care for toys. In fact, you care mostly for things that are distinctly not toys. I don't know how you know the difference, but I swear you do. If it's designed specifically for you, you tend not to be too impressed. Of what you do like? The trend is: Things that make a loud noise and things that you can fall from climb or ride.

You have however found a renewed interest in books. Which of course makes me giddy, because books are my sanctuary and I hope you find peace there too. You love to turn the pages and when we read to you, you get all interested and quiet and thoughtful and you coo and point at each page. In a room full of your toys, you'll head to the bookshelf every time.

Daddy & I now take long walks in the neighborhood with you. You are so serene on these walks that Daddy & I actually get to talk to each other. We feel like we discovered a loophole :-). We stroll you to the two parks nearby our house, both of which have your fave: the baby swings!

You now wear 18 to 24 month old sized clothing. You must not be aware that YOU ARE NOT YET ONE YRS OLD, LITTLE MAN! I love dressing you so much though, anyone who says boy clothes are not adorable has not seen your wardrobe. I kick the day when you want to dress yourself.

Your nickname officially seems to be "Munchkin," because that's exactly what you are: an adorable & charming little baby who loves mischief. That's the definition of munchkin. Look it up.

this is what a munchkin looks like

Your sleep is all over the place again. I thought your naps were all set, but it's so random now. Sometimes they are three hours, sometimes they are 30 minutes. Sometimes you take two naps, sometimes you only want one.  I thought it was too early for that? I wouldn't be surprised though if you transitioned to one nap early, because as we all know, you sort of suck as a sleeper. Truth be told, I look forward to when you're officially down to one nap--I think it will be easier to manage your sucky sleeping.

I took some mommy breaks this month, which means you spent some fun time with the family. At the beginning of the month, your Nonnie took care of you for a few days in Carlsbad so mommy could go to a conference in downtown. You hung out on the beach and charmed the pants off of everyone.

Dax chillaxing on the beach with Nonnie and fams!

You weren't the best napper (surprise surprise), but your cousin Tatum would do pretty good by whisking you away and holding you and bouncing you until you fell asleep. Then she was smart enough to know that you needed to sleep right there on top of her if you were gunna sleep at all.

taking a nap on your cousin Tatum

Then later on this month, I drove with James to our cousin Katie's wedding to Vince in Pine, Arizona! AND I left you and your father to just bond all weekend long! He LOVED it & so did you! You did better than I thought you would, and that made me pretty darn happy. I think I had the hardest time of all--I missed you so much! I was literally just dying to hold you and listen to you giggle! When I got home, Daddy was schooling me on all sorts of new fun stuff about you.

While you look an awful lot like your Daddy, your Daddy says that your spirit's got an awful lot of me. For example, when you poke people and then laugh like a maniac? Your Daddy swear that comes from me! I have no idea what he's talking about :-).

Your eyes light up and you laugh when you see people you love. Your eyes are full of fire when you're excited. You bring us such ridiculous joy little buddy. What an amazing blessing to have you in our lives. I can not believe that in one month you will be one year old. Blows my flipping mind.

Breakdown in the House of Danger

This house is a minefield. It is NOT, I repeat, NOT baby-friendly. If we were looking again for a rental. I would not choose this house. I would use my big-girl brain and say, "Tile, marble, lots of steps, fireplaces? Naw....sounds like a lot of sharp corners and hard surfaces. Not a place for a baby. Let's move on babe," I would say to my lover. He would laugh and smile at me knowingly, and we would drive as fast as we could away into the San Diego sunset without another thought.

Instead, our pre-baby selves couldn't see these things, and only saw 'nice big tub, large windows, lots of light.' We put our deposit down based on "good vibes." Granted, I love this house, its windows, its vibes, being surrounded by hills and pretty landscape. I've painted it and moved furniture around to make it mine ours. But lately, I want to move into a two-bedroom apartment made out of foam. I want it to be furnished with inflatable coffee tables. I want the drawers and the cupboards to be fashioned out of bubble wrap.

Dax is insane. My precious little sweetie pie is officially the most active little 11-month-old on the entire planet. He has no sense of caution. He goes for things with all his might, as fast as he can, determined, without care for the fact that he has not the balance nor the strength yet to support his will. This causes lots of little scrapes, and owies, and oh my god, that cry! In playgroups, well-meaning mamas have observed that Dax is:
     "very physical."
     "really adventurous."
     "All-Boy."
     "Quite a handful."

Dax runcrawling in play area

Not only does he love to runcrawl all over the hard kitchen tile, it leaves his little baby knees red and tender. Yet he refuses to be deterred. Try to stop him, and he'll SCREAM bloody murder and kick his legs as if to say, "Mooommmmmm, I want to GOOOOOOO there PLZZZZ don't get in my wayyyyy!!!! So I let him back down again and figure if his knees really hurt, he wouldn't runcrawl  on the tile right?!

And he WANTS. Like really really really WANTS things. For example, I am getting ready and have to do something simple like brush my hair, and Dax sees this from afar and sprintcrawls to me with a crazed look of determination indicating that he would like to see that brush RIGHT NOW!!! And then he starts to claw at my knee, and pull himself up, whine, and pound incessantly on my thigh.

As he starts to cry, I'm wishing my hair wasn't so darn long and I'm thinking "I can't just give this kid everything he whines about." So I hide the comb, and when I do, he sees where I put it and precedes to full on break down into a mental case on the floor. And my hair still isn't brushed. And it's not even noon yet.

This continues all day long for absolutely everything I touch. Of course, sometimes I just give him the things he's aching for because it's easier, and they're safe so whatever. And sometimes I don't. And I never really know if what I'm doing is the right thing or the wrong thing and I think about that all day.

Dax with brush

What a willful child. Not sure where he got that from.

The other day, the worst thing happened and it scared me so bad that yesterday I was having little mini-panic attacks. Dax was playing in a drawer--the designated "safe drawer"--that I've left open so that he can explore, but removed all dangerous things. So there he was standing next to the drawer and then he took a step towards me, but lost his balance (because he forgot that he does not yet know how to walk at all). And he fell. Face forward. Onto the corner of the drawer. The right side of his face.  The tender bone by his eye. Hit the corner of that drawer so hard. On impact, it made my entire body ZAP with pain.

After his face hit, he fell to the floor and screamed. Louder than I've ever heard him scream. He hit that drawer right on the corner with his face. Harder than I've ever seen him hit anything. And oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my f**king gosh. Scoop up the boy and try to calm down that SCREAM. He hurt so bad he was kicking me because he didn't know what else to do. It took atleast 10 minutes before it passed.

I called everybody and sent pictures and shook with tears & guilt, while everyone assured me these things will happen. He got a nice big shiner on his eye and I'm pretty sure passerbyers are calling CPS on me.

Now the whole house looks like DANGER to me. Everything, even the walls, that are just sitting there. My little baby boy loves to climb things and throw himself into things and fall down on sharp things and it's freaking me out.

Dax's first shiner

I'm not quite sure how my mom did it. I broke everything as a kid--my leg, my collar bone (both of them on separate occasions), and my teeth (more than a few times I broke my face on steel handlebars and hills of frozen ice). My bro and sis? Sustained almost no injuries, and definitely no broken bones. Did my son inherit my risky, broken-bone prone playstyle? So far, it sure seems so...sigh...it's gunna be a long road to college.