check ya later

requisite picture of the baby:


damn, she is adorable.

that being said, some non-baby-related things:

we had our first farmers' market of the season last saturday. with the help of anika, i sold out of focaccia and cinnamon rolls. i think i made about two bucks profit, but in my opinino-- a raving success.

i can't believe hillary clinton is still running, and i can't believe how far i've come from being willing to vote for mccain. every time the man talks he gives me the heebies.

i really, really want a cow. but i got wind of a guy with jerseys, so maybe we can work something out.

this evening, k and i moved our boat into the building on main street to avoid the whole theft thing. wade, our 84 yr old barber, came by and refused to let me take my end of the boat. he carried it in. i love this town.

anika has been here for the last two weeks, and she is amazing. my closets and cabinets are IMPECCABLE. and she's good company to boot.

my dad's probably not going to meet his first and onlygrandchild this trip either, despite my offer to lunch at a spot 60 miles north of manhattan with a train station. the whole thing makes me very, very sad. until i get impatient with the whole boring situation and move on.

oh: and my husband rocks. spa mani, pedi, and massage for mothers' day. i am one PAMPERED princess.

see y'all soon.

early Sunday morning

On Sunday morning, I left my family sleeping and made myself a big bowl of coffee and milk. I sat on the porch, looked out at the new morning, and wrote in my journal. It was the kind of time that has always been and still is precious.


We head north on Wednesday. Annaliese has never spent a night elsewhere than this house, and so I'm a bit nervous- abou the sleeping, about the 14hrs in a car, about the bedding down in a new place. But so many good things are going to happen on this trip....Annaliese will meet her godfather, who is flying in from the West Coast; she will sleep in my childhood room, visit our VT cabin, and meet her VT aunties for the first time.

Here's to hoping that moments of stillness still find me.

thank you

for all the nice people in my life.

especially the person who leaves poems as comments. I love them.

Stinkerina came to visit.

She did a lot of babyholding while I did things like grocery shop, wash the dogs, and go to the bathroom.

Oh. And play with the baby.

4 months ago...

I was still laboring. Let's forget that, shall we?

Though I occasionally have fantasies of empty, soundproofed rooms, we're doing ok. And you've learned how to do all sort of things-- most recently, an undulating dragon-baby noise, which you prefer over all the other cutesy sounds you were making. I'm going to wait it out. In three days, you'll be entranced with something else.

Your papa and I had a serious discussion regarding you and television this morning. Already, you like glowing boxes. My vote is for movies like the Swiss Family Robinson and Peter Pan, but your papa says you'll end up scared of pirates.

We'll see, eh? In any case, no dumbo or bambi, because the moms die.

Your sleeping is not so bad. But honey, it's ok to go to sleep; I promise you're not missing anything, other than me and your papa collapsing onto the couch and staring at each other. The occasional hand of rummy-- that's it.

In any case, I'm very proud of you. Other than the milk regurgitation, you're doing a great job being a baby. And you smile at me when you wake up, which is the best kind of thanks there is.

Annaliese is just two days shy of being four months old, and I've got to say-- she rocks.

Right now, she's beginning to amuse herself by making buzzing noises with her lips. It is the cutest thing EVER. Bring on the puppies-- my kid could kick a puppy's ASS.

on books (and don't worry, the bebe)

Shameful confession #568: I want to be an author, meaning I'd like to make my livelihood from having people buy my books.

And yet-- I do not buy books.

Despite this, I went to the kickass bookstore in O-town today. This is what I do: run my hands over the thick smooth dustjackets of the latests hardbacks, then make my way upstairs, spend a dollar on a cup of coffee, and read the used papers on the balcony overlooking the Square.

I do not buy books because I read about five a week, and I don't like to purchase paperbacks. So I go to the library, and occasionally, if there's something really fine that I just have to own, I take a chunk of my quarterly clothing allowance or some birthday cash and buy it.

I don't buy books because how would I pick just one of the lovelies on the display rack? Books are expensive, the price of a decent dinner out, and so I read them first and purchase selectively.

That being said, I'd like more books. Mainly, first signed editions, because I'm getting kind of snobby in my old age.

The aforementioned book store happens to have such a program, and man alive, I am itching to join it.

Since K.'s planning on getting an Iphone, maybe we can work something out.

Now, in recompense for my rambling, a bebe pic:
A little fuzzy, but the cuteness conveys, eh?

She's been impossibly fun lately. We're doing Pantley's no-cry sleep training routine, so we'll see how that goes.... not bad so far.

Sleep or Be Happy: Your resistance to snoozing when cranky and tired better not be a permanent personality characteristic

I'm not sure what's going on with Annaliese.

Three nights ago, she fell asleep at 8.40 (yes!), woke an hour later, got burped and rocked back to sleep in her crib. K. and I went to bed, braced for whatever the night would bring.... and then we woke up at 5.30 in the morning. I had milk soaked through my nightgown and K. was convinced Annaliese had died.

She hadn't.

But on the two subsequent nights, she's woken up 3-6 times; last night, it took a full two hours to soothe her to sleep, so she wasn't out until 10.30. She'd fall asleep, and then push her face into my shoulder, whipping her head back and forth until she was awake and unhappy.

Self-sabotaging behaviour, but whatever.

This morning, despite being TIRED, she would only nap while on a pillow which is shoved between me and the computer desk. And nursing.

The pillow-nursing position is something I'm quite familiar with from her earlier months, but it's been awhile.

Maybe she's going through a growth spurt. Maybe she's going to be a total crankypants for the next eight months as teeth make their way through her gums.

But it doesn't really matter why her sleep schedule is so schizo right now, because really, there's little to do but wait it out.

Babies-- especially the ones who veer between being sunny and being difficult, like mine-- are really good practice in relinquishing control.

But that doesn't mean I'm happy about all this :(

Annaliese's first playdate

As much as I like it when it's just the two of us.....

Billy came to play for the morning since his mum (a pal of mine and a working lady) had a client conference. As an 8+-month-old, Billy initiated us into the ways of a crawling man-child. It was big fun. And the two bebes seemed kind of...entranced with each other, which Billy demonstrated by trying to thwack Annaliese's face, and Annaliese did things like smile and grab her lady bits. Any gender lessons we can take from this?

In other news, gardening is uber fun, we've finally shaken our colds, and K. made banana bread today.

Hope you're having a happy Wednesday!

It's 4 pm and I haven't managed to do much today. Dogs walked, me showered, baby fed, changed, fed, changed, down for a nap, entertained, etc. Some laundry folded and a going-through of the novel to square up days and dates.

Not so very much, but here it is 4 pm. Babies take a lot of time, even when you put their red teething telephone in front of the computer and balance them on a knee, trying to get some work done.

Which I do. And then I worry that I'm not stimulating her appropriately, so I play with her on the floor. But then I worry I'm not working on the whole getting-published goal.

And I only have one kid! And few real-world deadlines! Not to mention a small house that takes about 2 hours to clean!

How do all the mothers in the world manage?

the cousins are gone. but:

the cousins are here

Why You Should Not Offer Us Things Unless You Want Us To Take Them

We had a lovely Sunday, picking up cow sh*t and cutting a wood piece for the back of our boat.

See, our neighbor had two boats piled under leaves in the back of his yard. We offered to buy one, because I have visions of family afternoons spent on a lake. And after a few months, with a daughter's wedding reception imminent, when I just happened to be lurking near his yard with winsome daughter in tow, the nice man gave us one. With a trailer. For free.

So now we have a 15 foot aluminum boat with a trailer, and it needed a new back wooden piece thingy, so we cut one.

Right after we called up the friends who had said "anytime! Call us and we'll open the pasture for you and let you scoop up cow manure for your garden!"

They said it, we believed them, and hence we did call. And spent an hour or two trundling through pasture, picking up poop and yelling at the dogs, who were--as always--trying to eat it.

Actually, Dido got herself so filthy that when we came home, we washed her in our boat (full of rainwater).

That's right. We got a boat.

She's Back

These pictures don't really convey.

But obviously, the hair that took me so long to grow is gone again.

(Mama feels like a rock star.)

Great things are happening.

1. Our neighbor gave us a boat. And a trailer. He's happy a young family wants to use it, and so he passed along this 15', aluminum fishing boat for FREE. Isn't that AWESOME?

2. Annaliese will never need clothes. Ever. Our church gave her (and another new baby girl) a shower over the weekend. I asked for toys, and we got some of those, but we also got outfit after outfit after outfit. And two eyelet-covered Baby Bibles from Belks. Gotta love Mississippi.

3. We all slept 8+ hours last night. Not straight, mind you, but after a very tired mama said enough! she's going in the bassinet! she's begun sleeping in it. She goes down at 10, wakes at 12.30 for a bottle from her papa, wakes at 4.30 for a feeding by her mama, and then wakes for good at 7, and comes in the bed with us for some morning happiness and more food.

So, so, so doable.

Being me, I had some guilt about whether or not I've perpetuated our sleeplessness by cosleeping for the first three months. But I don't think so...A. really did come into this world as a suspicious little baby who need to touch us all the time, and so we did. Cosleeping was the only way we got any sleep at all for the first three months, so I can't regret it. Now, she's more confident in us, in the world, and her night-day patterns are established... she's ready to sleep on her own.

It's fabulous.

After Bathtime...and Easter Sunday

another wordy post sans pics...check back later this week!

I just returned home from an all-day trip to Memphis with Annaliese. K. was at work, and though I was nervous about the whole sole expedition with an infant...it went brilliantly.

She napped on the way there, ate and had her diaper changed pre-a Wild Oats run. Rode peaceably in the Baby Bjorn for an hour's worth of grocery shopping, then napped on the way to the midwives, then ate/diaper again so she was bright-eyed and chortling for the hour with Amy and Andrea. Another small feed and then an hour-and-a-half nap back to WV. Brilliant!

We're now thoroughly stocked up on meat and I'm once more cognizant of how much I miss sisterhood...I love visiting the midwives so much, and unless I get knocked up again, I'm out of reasons to go back there. And I just don't love them that much.

Finding funny women who speak the same pregnancy/parenting language as me is so affirming. The moms I know locally are all overbooked with little time for socializing, and my good friends are sans children, so the only people I get to talk to about my child and random parenting thoughts are my husband and my mother. And whining about my post-partum body isn't really what I want to do with either one (though I still do.)


It's not what I expected, since I've always heard about moms groups being hotbeds of sisterhood...but of the few moms in my age group I know, they're working full-time, and with small children and husbands, that leaves them less than zero time for get-togethers.

Maybe my circle will expand when Annaliese enters pre-k, but that's a long way off.

In the meantime...

the three writers I'd like to meet

So we all know I'm a reader. The girl who got grounded from reading, who checks out 10+ books a week from the library, etc. etc. (I'll add that I often read junk. I love me some good junk).



But despite all my reading, I don't often come across authors that I recognize as kindred souls, as people I'd like to meet because we have stuff to talk about.



I can count three: Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Penny, and Pearl S. Buck.



I've always loved Kingsolver's fiction, but it wasn't until her essay book Small Wonder that I felt like I wanted to meet her....I think it was this line, "I do my best thinking looking out over a clean plank of earth"--- or something like that, I'm writing from memory, though the book is in the living room. Of course, why it took the woman nearly 20 years to move to a farm in southern Virginia from her adopted hometown of Tucson, I don't know. It brings out the handwaving in me... (what, you want heaven on a plate?) Because they had the farm the WHOLE TIME... gar.



Louise Penny writes mysteries from her home in Canada. They're wonderful. She's created what she calls an idyllic village populated with people she'd be friends with, and since I want to move to southern Canada every time I read one of her books (ME. ME!), I think we'd get along and enjoy many savory cups of hot chocolate together while talking about how much we adore our husbands.



And now, Pearl Buck. I read the Good Earth many years ago and re-read it probably once a year-- it's not at all one of my kinds of books...instead, it's a gem, and unlike anything I've ever read. Probably why she got the Nobel. But now, I'm reading her autobiography, and the woman and I agree on so much!!! She's writing in the 1950s about local and seasonal eating, raw milk, the evils of technology, the virtues of community.... so naturally I find her extraordinarily wise. She also admits to being really happy making a house and gardening, and that she could not write until her surroundings were in harmony.



Always fun to read someone and go, me too!

I spent the weekend and my free hands (since my mother-in-law was here!) working in the garden, shoveling up dirt and earthworms.

It was a blast.

Couple that with the long walk K. and I took solo-- sans bebe and dogs-- on Friday night before going to dinner ALL BY OURSELVES and it was an outdoorsy weekend, good for the soul and my back. Ain't nothing like shoveling for the back.

Sometimes I think living in town is pretty great. I can walk to the drugstore, the library, the post office. But give me a field and a big blue sky and the realization that no one can see me, and I remember why I want a farm of my own; it's exhilerating, rejvenating. Myabe someday I cna have a farm within walking distance of town.

That would be way cool.

In the mean time, I've got my bamboo-fenced plot of land, where I labor mightily over plants that will probably die. Given my history. (But this year it will be different! This year I have a SYSTEM, a PLAN, and it will be oh-so-GLORIOUS!)

Appropos of nothing, here's some baby pictures:

Annaliese is growing, growing, growing, and more fun every day. Tomorrow she gets shot up by the pediatrician. Pray for us.

I'm not a fan of gadgets.

But this kicks the iphone's ass.