full moon, snowy sky

it is dusk and snowing
everything feels soft and distant right now, even though the snow and the dusk makes thing seem closer in some ways.
I am feeling insulated here in my office space.
no lights on except the white lights that drape around my window and the glow of the computer.

I am feeling off today, a bit tender, a bit raw
My darlin's have both been sick, and so far I've escaped it.

Rumors of a terrible fevery stomach flu going around have me scared, I do not have the resilience to cope with it.  Having it, tending it, dreading it.  We have one bathroom.  One is barely enough many days, and it is never enough when those bugs hit.  I just want to not get it and I want, just as much, to not be worried. Daycare does not begin again until next wednesday for us. I am hoping that through some miracle this built in delay between now and then will somehow stop the bug from spreading through the school. I do know it moves quickly.

As of January I am dropping back to three days a week until business picks up a bit. This does not feel good either.  I know it is a seasonal slump, but it feels scary, when my mosaic-ed work construct feels scary anyway due to the inherent lack of stability and uncertainty. I am hoping that it will be a soft time, with much playing with Della. I hope I can let go of the worry enough to be as present as I can be. She is miraculous.

She sings and now plays with her doll house (a little one we got her for christmas). She talks more, dances, laughs, is very very bossy, very particular, very funny with eyebrows that raise quizzically, and shoulders that shrug, and a busy-ness that takes her around and around and around, back and forth, back and forth, room to room.  She still loves her tractors, loves to swaddle her toys in dish towels, wants ever so desperately to play with the cat.  She loves Phineas and Ferb, Bo on the go, yo gabba gabba and some fairy thing Doug found on netflix.
Personally, I love Shaun of the sheep.

She can count to 20 missing only 14 and 15, asks the names of things, and is totally engaged or not, not much in between, when we do anything at all. We adventure together, out and about. She has a new car seat thanks to santa (grandpa Mark), so hopefully that will work better in my car.  She loves people watching.  There is a kid's science center up in Norwich VT, TOTALLY worthwhile if you have a little one under, say, 6. Or if you are kid-hearted.  Fun stuff, stimulating, good bathrooms.... loads to do. We'll be going again.

Sky, snow, and ground are all the same blue gray right now, the pines nearly black. I'll sign off now, but wanted to check in. Funny how when I feel unmoored a bit like this, I am called back here, a touchstone I guess, a grounding.

Wishing you all peace this snowy night, under the big quiet moon.

non-weaning, an update

First, thank you.

Thank you B and Sprogblogger. Thank you Emily Erin and Trece.  Thank you Michele and Jenn and Lori.

I so appreciate your stories and support.

I realized, re-realized really, that I am just not ready.
I'm just not.

I realized that I am, however, feeling more and more socially awkward about it, and while this sucks for every reason, it is still true. So, for now anyway, screw social awkwardness. I acknowledge it but am not willing to change my immediate choices to do anything about it.  I no longer nurse in public if I can help it, I did make that change already. But my little one is vocal and also clear with her signals, and we've had many conversations with strangers as a result.

The facts are these:  This is my one time through all of this, and while I hate some parts of it (to be detailed shortly), I love the closeness, the magical fact of it. Della is thriving. She is no where near ready to stop, so it may be a battle judging from how things are going as I try to cut back at key times.  See next point. I will need to be ready, or be ready to follow her lead. I will need to play this by ear.

Here's what I am missing:  Sleep.  So we will work on this. We will be continuing to transition Della out of our bed into her own, and hope that those stretches of time begin to lengthen. Right now it is intermittent success, with stretches of 1-3 hours.  I am hopeful and we will persist.

Here's what I hate:  I'm sore.  Sore sore sore.
I hate that Della needs (OCD needs) to play with the opposite side while she nurses. I am sure this started innocently, so innocently that I did not even notice. Now it is rough and irritating and annoying and painful and unfun and Persistent.  She *will not stop*.  We're working on it, talking about it, but at night when my own resilience is low, it really rots. I make her stop, or block her, and she has a flailing freak out. Our place is small folks, it's an apartment with neighbors. Even if I did not give in I would give in.

I also hate pumping, and if I need to go away (should I be so lucky as to have another business trip), I will need to very mindfully schedule travel and my time away to make room for really great pumping since last time I was both engorged and had a painful blocked duct. And yeah, those things sucked rocks. So did pumping at the airport in the bathroom stall.


So-- yes.  I am not done.
So weaning has time to begin on its own or wait for me to be ready.
I realized that following my own feelings on this one will be the way, as it almost always is.  It is just complicated by the social climate.

life by chocolate

Today, instead of just surviving, I've decided to live.
This took more work than I care to admit, but I've stacked the cards in my favor.
I began the day with tea and chocolate, and a sunrise under a clearish sky for the first time in days.
A few minutes of guitar.
A conversation with my sister. (Please check out her beautiful site, and be sure to go to this page for some amazing writing.)
And a conversation with a dear friend.

I'm ok.

This has sucked. Other tragedies (9/11) have struck in the midst of other personal horrors or somehow have not felt quite so personal (like the tsunamis).  Maybe they were just too big. Or too far away. This one, wow, this one struck me to the core.

I have finally realized that there is nothing I can do to make it not have happened.
But there are things I can do now.
I can keep loving people. I can pay attention. I can listen. I can be compassionate. I can think about consequences. I can apologize.  I can be kind. I can be honest. I can cultivate peace in my heart, in my home, in my family, in my community, in my world.

I'll write again soon with an update on my not-weaning. But for now, I just wanted to say thank you for your kindness. To hear your voices here, to know I was not alone in my struggle and sadness, it has made a difference.

broken, apart, open

I do not even know where to begin


falling apart
pulling back together
hugging Della maybe a little too long, a little too tightly
trying to guard myself against images and image-provoking language that I know from experience can cause me harm, while also feeling that as a human being on this planet, those kids deserve my brokenness, my hurt, my horror, my attention

I pull it together, and then, stare at the curls that somehow know what they are doing, sproinging up from Della's beautiful head, and I think of all of the parents that will never look down and see those on their child again
and

wow

I just care barely cope.

Today, I feel nearly poisoned. If you told me I ate something toxic I would believe you.

And then I just watched/listened to a video sent by my Reiki teacher, prior to the events on friday, and I have to say I was both surprised and not to find myself sobbing.   The beauty stuck me so much deeper than it would have because I am so broken open.  No amount of intellectual over-ride would let me do anything other than watch and cry, truly touched by the beauty of the music.

How can I possibly turn this openness into healing good? I don't know, but I do know I am going to try to stay more connected to beauty, to my lucky life, to the minutes of thrown food and tantrum, to those crazy curls.... to love, the big loves, the small loves, the whiskers on my cat.

Here's the video.
The name gives it away, but the beauty really struck me.

*speechless*

My heart is just simply broken for those parents, those families, for Newtown, and for all of us. Violence against children should never ever ever ever ever happen.

push me pull you

Ok I'm going to do it. I am going to talk about my push me pull you relationship with the idea of weaning.

I don't want to do it.
I want to have it be done and over with and onward on the far side.
But I do not want to do it, I don't want to think about it, deal with it, experience it, strategize about it, fear it, mourn it.

There are parts of it I am still truly loving.
But there are parts that I am getting more tired about, fatigued by, and will not miss.

Della is showing no signs of slowing down in terms of her interest and desire to nurse.

But here I am thinking and thinking and feeling and feeling and I am just not comfortable with any way through this that I can envision except my dreamy expectation that it would just magically happen.

I imagined this: Baby led weaning.
Unicorns.
Rainbows.
Della would grow up and get more and more independent (CHECK), she would become more and more interested in other things (CHECK), she would eat more foods (half CHECK), and find other ways to connect with me (yes?) and that along with that, nursing would sort of quietly diminish in importance for both of us.
Gently.
Slowly.
Organically.

Ha.

I did not think I would have to *do* anything, expect respond to the natural turn of events.
And I did not want to mourn.

And, boy howdy, I still don't.

I know nothing that seems to ignite strong emotions and opinions as much as breastfeeding. The whole who/what/where/when/why of breastfeeding is about as sticky with intensity as any other topic I can think of. (pardon the dangling participle)
I am not trying to start a debate here.

I more just wanted to state my ambivalence because I know other folks out there might be feeling what I am and not quite know what to do either.
I just don't know how this will turn out. I just want it to be gentle. And I just don't want to be sad.

perfectly imperfect

I kind of did not want to post since I didn't want to bump Susan's photos out of the way. So I will include one here to make myself feel better.

Seriously? How incredibly lucky we are.

Ok, about the tree.  

Every year that we've had a tree (not too many now) there's been a bit of drama.

One year it was a Christmas eve sort of thing when my sister's family had to flee their home after an oil spill. 

One year it was me falling in love with a fat little live tree that we planted at  the edge of the woods at the house, and, as far as I know, it is still there. The face toward the house thriving, the face toward the forest, nearly entirely denuded of needles.

I don't remember the next year, or maybe those two were reversed.

Then we were here.

And I fell for a charlie brown tree up in maine, brought it home stuffed inside the car. 10 bucks or something.

And this year, we went out in the foggy rain yesterday, to The House By The Side of the Road in Wilton, and there were rows and rows of perfect trees.

But I already knew I was not looking for perfect. I was looking for the one that maybe no one else will want. 

And after walking up and down aisle after aisle of perfect trees, I saw it a few rows away. When it is clear like that, like so few things are, it is *totally delicious*. We pushed through as if maybe someone else might beat us to it. 

12 bucks I think. MINE.

At home last night we stuffed it into a large flower pot filled with compacted soil.  We strung lights, and decorated, and it is looking rather magnificent. 

A friend once gave me a bowl she had made in a pottery class. She had stamped cool symbols around the rim, and glazed it.  I Loved it.  The reason it was so lovely was that it was perfectly imperfect. I would have been anal about stamping at regular intervals, at making sure things lined up. And the bowl I would have tried to make would have not had nearly the life and love of the bowl that arrived into my grateful hands.  That bowl taught me something so very TRUE about beauty, that it is the irregularity, the imperfection, the rhythm of some kinds of uncertainty or surprise that catch my eye and my breath.

So, little tree.  Your needles are already stuck in my socks. Welcome.