fingerfold

apropos of nothing

2012-01-26T09:05:00.000-05:00

I've noticed this weird driving etiquette in Providence: if someone is trying to turn left and there's an unending stream of on-coming traffic, some driver will invariably slow and flash their brights so the left-turner can sneak through. Actually it goes for right-turners, too, and buses, and pretty much anyone caught in a tight spot.

This city has some serious traffic-flow problems -- lots of one-lane streets, wonky five-street intersections, and chutes-and-ladders interchanges -- so it strikes me as a creative and uncommonly civil solution to give a fellow driver an extra inch to squeeze in.

There are plenty of assholes on the road, don't get me wrong (high on my pet-peeve list are those who sail through red lights just because they feel they've been waiting long enough), but the courtesy of other drivers trumps them. Incredibly, it's the perfect antidote to road rage. I've actually started looking for opportunities to let people in, and I feel bad when I miss them.

Huh.

I have a head cold and feel like I'm wearing a diving bell, which may be why I'm writing about traffic and seriously contemplating further research into it.

Carry on, then!

*

from the workshop

2012-01-25T11:04:00.003-05:00

Here's a little sample of what I was up to last month (you know, aside from weatherproofing):

(well, this is kind of like weatherproofing, if you're like me and have feet that are basically never warm from November to April)

All of these were made to order, so they're not for sale, but I still have most of these fabrics so if you see something you like, give me a holler.

I haven't been painting lately, which is frustrating, but at least I still get to play with colors and textures.

It is satisfying to have warmed & prettified lots of feet this winter, though.

weatherproof

2012-01-13T20:38:00.000-05:00

Hey! I've been MIA for the past couple of months. It's been one of those so-much-to-say-that-I-forgot-what-I-was-going-to-say kind of seasons. But mainly I've been sewing slippers, watching Portlandia, and weatherproofing my windows.

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a project that has pretty much sucked from the start, and has steadily gotten worse and worse to the point where you're questioning how worth it is to finish, but the reason you can't stop now is because LOOK HOW MUCH TIME I HAVE PUT IN ALREADY. Giving up now is like losing to Father Time. Regret, woe, wrinkle cream ensue.

It has taken an embarrassing amount of time to weatherproof the windows. Fortunately for us, the winter has been unseasonably mild, but really that's just another excuse for why I don't have to finish weatherproofing the windows TODAY. So the plastic has been lying in a heap in the front parlor all week, partially obscured by books and toys and shame.

The only fun part of this process is using the hairdryer to shrink-fit the plastic so it's tight as a drum across the window. Sadly, that accounts for the last 90 seconds of two hours' worth of work getting the tape up and cutting plastic sheets to fit the windows. This took twice as long for me because our windows are 64" high and the plastic is only 62" long. I ended up using the double-sided tape to add extensions to the bottom of each panel, but there was lots of cursing under my breath and hating the people who designed the kit for, I don't know, 20th century houses or whatever.

High ceilings and tall windows are so charming!*

*only in the summer time

Yesterday Auden was horsing around in the front parlor doing who-knows-what while I was in the kitchen having a snack with Isla. Moments later I heard the unmistakable crash, tinkle of a window breaking.

By the time I came out, he was already mid-flow in a steady stream of I'm sorry's, as if to physically retract what had just happened. Which was that he threw some duplo legos up in the air, and instead of going up, they went over there, to that window. That window with no plastic on it yet.

I'm not sure how old a window has to be in order to be broken by hollow plastic blocks, but I'm guessing pretty old. If the wavy uneven funhouse-mirror effect of glass returning to its liquid state is any indication, I'd say it was pretty old. If the drafty joints and rotting sashes are any clue at all, I'd say.... okay, you get the point. This house was built in 1890, maybe these windows are originals!

So now you can see them, the Telltale Legos, lying between the inside pane and the outside storm window, surrounded by shards of broken glass; sad, forlorn, maybe a little guilty. The storm window keeps the weather from totally coming in, but the irony of the timing of this accident is pretty poetic. The plastic is fairly laughing at me from its heap, not three feet away. And of course now I can't finish weatherproofing until the carpenter comes to fix the window and replace it.

On Monday.

Happy Weekend, to you too!

*

merry and gay

2011-12-22T14:14:00.000-05:00

(We've been watching an awful lot of "Pee Wee's Christmas Special" around here)

Me: [singing] Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock...
Auden: What's that boy's name, the boy who sings that?
Me: It's a woman, her name is K.D. Lang.
Auden: No, it's a boy.
Me: No it isn't, it's a woman.
Auden: No, it's a boy.
Me: Why do you think it's a boy, because she has short hair?
Auden: Yeah.
Me: Well, I have short hair.
Auden: ...
Me: Did I stump ya?
Auden: Yeah!
Me: Ha ha!
Auden: But the one who sings that song is a boy.
Me: No, it's not. It's a woman.
Auden: No! It's a boy!
Me: Nope, it's a woman.
Auden: But papa has short hair, and he's a boy. And I have short hair, and I'm a boy.
So... I'm K.D. Lang!

*

Sir Auden the Brave

2011-12-14T09:52:00.002-05:00

I now have the feeling that when Auden is grown up and working at the Renaissance Faire as a jousting knight, he will say, "I've been wanting to do this since I was three years old." And it will be totally true.

He's been writing his name on his drawings more and more, to our great surprise, but now he writes it perfectly backwards:

(with some variations in spelling):

I have no idea what to make of it. He arranges the fridge magnets from right to left, too. He has great... spatial... understanding?

Here is his letter to Santa (with a little help on some of those letters):

"Sir Knight Auden" -- the 'brave' to be added after school

It kills me how singularly dedicated he is to being a knight. There are other toys, sure (including the $3 Buzz Lightyear we scored at Savers the other day: Mom, I'm hugging Buzz! Mom, Buzz is my friend!), but there is really only one game:

This weekend we're going to the Armory Museum in Worcester, and I'm reeeeeaaaalllllyy looking forward to seeing him lose his ever-loving mind.

*

stars upon thars

2011-12-02T12:03:00.001-05:00

I thrifted this awesome star sweater a couple weeks ago and finally made it into this sweet shirt:

I finally figured out that candy is the secret to a successful photo shoot.

And even then I only get a small window of time before the sugar (and the mischief) kick in.

This one's for sale too! (er, the shirt, not the kid, although some days that's debabtable...)

It's 60% cotton, 40% acrylic, wash cold and tumble dry regular heat. It's a double-thick knit, so it's really cushy & cozy. Size 12 - 18 months (unless you're Isla, who is 22 months and barely 20 pounds. Still pushing the chocolate pudding).

$15 for the shirt
$3 for shipping

I still have some fabric left if you love it but want it in a different size!

slipper season!

2011-11-29T20:29:00.001-05:00

I got out all my slipper-making materials again...

I still have acres of this brown velvet, and even though it's maddening to work with -- the nap makes the contrasting fabric catch and shift like crazy, even after I've pinned it -- the end result is so nice that I'll put up with the hassle:

I went back and forth on the yellow buttons... it was either those or a pair of more subdued pearly grays. I chose COLOR, can you believe it? And you know how much I love gray.

Now I'm going to make it really easy for you to buy them: Click a button! Wheeeee!

(They're $30, with $5 for shipping & handling)

All the slippers I make are mostly recycled materials, thrifted and repurposed curtains, skirts, jackets, and suede pants. (Trust me, no one was EVER going to wear those pants again. They were hideous.) The flannel lining is store-bought, as is the thread and the cushion insole between the lining and the leather sole. This pair is a size 6, or 23.5 cm. I've got materials leftover, though, so give a holler if you want them in a different size!

I'll be posting other new pairs soon... so watch out for more awesome fabric combinations and candy-colored buttons. I know, I know: COLOR. I'm amazed, too.

*

ps. the genius behind this design is Cheri at Shoeology on Etsy... you can buy the pattern there.

at attempt an an objective report

2011-11-15T08:49:00.001-05:00

It's the Season of Hard. It's the Season of Whining. It's the Season of Kneecapping. I know I'm prone to exaggeration with an embellishment of martyrdom, so I'm going to try to say it plain:

I wake up at 5am, hear Isla talking to herself in her crib, go back to sleep. Auden comes to our bed for the second time (first time at 2:30am), but we don't go back to sleep, because soon Isla is yelling and throwing things. I get her and take her into bed, too, all four of us sandwiched on the full-sized mattress. I nurse her while Jason sets up a movie for Auden in the living room. After 20 minutes I pry Isla off me and tell her to go watch the movie with Auden. She doens't like his movie. It's 5:45, Jason gets up and starts the coffee. I put a pillow over my head and try to go back to sleep.

Auden wakes me up at 6:08. Isla spots me from the kitchen, is ecstatic to see me again, and commences hanging on my legs. For the next 30 minutes I try to go to the bathroom and eat breakfast, cannot do either one without interruption. I try several ways to occupy Isla with toys, and then to mediate disputes about unfairly pilfered toys. Someone invariably wipes their snotty face on my pant-leg. I reheat my coffee. The house is already a mess of discarded toys by 6:30am.

Jason is miraculously already dressed, gets the kids dressed, and is suited up to head off to work. There is a brief display of camaraderie between Auden & Isla as they pretend to go back to sleep in Auden's bed. But then he hits her and squashes her, and she's bawling and I'm trying to go to the bathroom and Jason's trying to get out the door.

Auden doesn't want to go to school, cries and carries on and tries to negotiate our departure time. Spends his "10 more minutes" negotiating for more time. I get dressed. Isla wants more milk. I have the brilliant idea of making a smoothie instead, figuring this will give us all a project to focus on and get some calories into them both. For a few minutes they are content to eat frozen berries while I blend. I pour smoothie into cups with straws, and an unblended blueberry gets stuck in Auden's straw, so he tips the cup up and spills purple glop all over his clothes. Is devastated that he can no longer wear his dinosaur hoodie, and wails on the floor. Isla pulls the legs off a fridge magnet monster that Auden made at school, which adds another layer of injustice and fuels his tantrum.

I completely lose my cool and yell at Auden to STOP IT RIGHT NOW! STOP CRYING! I'VE HAD ENOUGH! THERE'S NOTHING TO CRY ABOUT!

"You're too loud!" he tells me.
"WELL SO ARE YOU!" I respond maturely, sensibly.

We simmer down, he wants me to apologize. I do, and try to explain why I get so frustrated when he whines.

"It's hard for me to keep being patient with you when it seems like you get so upset about every little thing," I say, maturely and sensibly.
"But... but," he says, "I can't find my sword!"

And I realize that I AM THE CRAZY ONE HERE. For trying to reason with someone who is constitutionally unreasonable. Meanwhile, the smoothie sits on the table, mostly unfinished.

I start to hustle us toward the door, but Auden still doesn't want to leave, resumes previously forgotten negotiations. Pokes Isla with his sword, hits her with his helmet. Doesn't want to sit next to Isla while we get our shoes on. Doesn't want to wear a jacket.

I realize on the way downstairs that Jason has my bike key, so we can't take the bike trailer, which I'd told Auden we would. I briefly attempt to alter reality by willing my bike lock to come off.

Auden cries about not being able to take the bike trailer. "Well, we can't do anything about it now." I say, foolishly trying to reintroduce reason.

I get Isla buckled into her seat, but Auden won't get into the car. I put my head down on the door and count to ten, imagining the ways I'd like to physically force him in. Instead I get into the driver's seat and start the car. Auden thinks I'm going to leave without him, which I suppose was my intention, starts crying again, and clambers into his seat. I feel guilty about using fear to manipulate my child. Is that worse than grabbing his arms? Is it worse than hissing commands? I am not capable of anything nice.

As I buckle him, he is crying that he wants to lock the door. "No," I say, mainly because I don't really hear his request and don't understand it. This prompts a fresh outburst. I get into the driver's seat, try to breathe deeply again. I reach back and push the window button, then show him where the lock button is, this seems to appease him and he's finally amenable and chatting happily as we drive to day-care. I look and feel like I've been through the ringer.

Now it's 9:30, and I think I'll go back to bed.

*

journal art #8

2011-11-14T12:18:00.000-05:00

You Could Choose Anything

journal art #7

2011-11-07T12:15:00.000-05:00

What Does It Mean

journal art #6

2011-10-31T12:14:00.000-04:00

Every Layer Has Its Purpose

sketches

2011-10-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

So, because I'm in this limbo-before-the-breakthrough, I've decided to return to my roots. My drawing roots, that is.

I love my babies' bodies, and since they were born I've been wishing I would take the time to draw them more. But they don't sit still, and I'm cross-eyed, and I'm out of practice, and etc, etc. I have lots of excuses to stay stuck.

I have tried to draw them a few times, and I end up with a scritchy abstract jumble of lines because, seriously, they just keep moving. So I decided to cheat. I took some pictures of them in the bath, when they are most gorgeous, and did some sketches from those.

I have a great idea for a painting I'm going to do based on these sketches. You know, after the breatkthrough.

*

there might not be a design, in certain cases

2011-10-25T11:31:00.000-04:00

Body in knots, head in a muddle. I keep thinking I can get to the bottom of the thoughts -- if I just keep pulling them out one by one, I'll come to the end, or The Answer. It's faulty, to say the least. It's a trap.

I did a little of a lot of things today, nothing felt very satisfying. And of course I blow it up to be so huge that the daubs and swishes of paint that I put down today were NOT GOOD and VERY UGLY and WHAT DOES IT MEAN ABOUT ME AND MY FUTURE. So easy to get stuck there... then I go to the thinking, determined to think every last thought; to think an answer, to think relief.

I know I am ornery and tight and caught up on these same familiar snags. I wanted to do something NOT MYSELF -- how did I end up doing this utterly and completely MYSELF mark on the canvas? And I don't know how to make a different mark, so I'm stuck with this daub-daub, wipe-wipe approach that is maddening, and my colors are all wrong, and on and on.

I went to mess up the two encaustic collages I made years ago when Auden was a baby, because it had worked so well with the "There Is a Design" piece, and that felt so good.

Now I've covered up too much with paint. Patchy calico paint that's at once too dark and too chalky and makes no sense and there's no sense of freedom in the brushstrokes, just that same dense willfulness, contrived and badly executed.

Struggling with each layer.

Struggling with painting in general. I feel as though I'm on the verge of breaking through something SOMETHING and this period before the breakthrough is agonizing. Full of doubt and distress, so uncomfortable to hesitate making any mark, to be dissatisfied with every mark. I mix the same colors in the same proportions and wonder why I get the same mud every time

Reworking these hand pieces, I'm baffled. What do I do next? Which color and where? I'm fighting with the surface, the composition. Trying to stay available to answers that are still unseen. Unseeable. So hard to comprehend that there could be any kind of resolution. How can I call myself a painter when I hate painting and don't know how to do it? So go the voices in my head.

Can I allow that each piece is important, even if it's never right or beautiful or finished?

I read a quote by Albert Einstein: "It's not that I'm so smart, it's that I stay with a problem longer."

So I'm trying to stay with the problem.

*

journal art #5

2011-10-24T12:13:00.000-04:00

Earth Points

palanquin

2011-10-18T12:00:00.001-04:00

The commission that I started back in May, resolved, finally:

It was fitful toward the end, as it usually is for me, when I sense that I'm close but can't settle on how to put final touches in their right place.

These paintings turned out to be so much more quiet and soft than I'd originally planned, and I was really fighting with myself about how to bring back the boldness and rhythm of the first layers. There is always tension between what I think I want, and what the painting itself is doing.

So, I pulled my hair and bit my lips and dabbed and erased and huffed and puffed, and somewhere in there I mixed the sweetest gray and it found its way in, balancing and brightening. Even as I was overthinking it, each panel gently found its completion and waited for me to hush my mind enough to see it.

I guess I didn't want to allow that the final step could be so small and subtle... I was hoping for a flourish! Some drama! But no.

I was also waiting to feel finished, and that didn't happened right away. Now they're packed and shipped, and I'm waiting to hear that they've found their home and match the wall color. Then I'll exhale.

I had another fit trying to name them, and after brainstorming a list of words, I felt like I usually do while playing Scrabble -- that certainly these letters add up to something? Plene is a word, right? How about palanquist? Dictionary.com was no help, nor Thesaurus.com, but when I told Jason, he suggested maybe I was thinking of palanquin. It's good to be married to an academic.

Palanquins, it turns out, are canopied chairs carried aloft by porters, used to bear noble people or royalty, or, with a more crude construction, to bear the wounded from the battlefield. One definition says, "a wheel-less vehicle, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of persons." They also look a little like omikoshi in Japan, which are ornate gilded little shrines, held in the same way, used in festivals to carry the gods through the streets.

I like the idea of my vertebrae, especially the atlas, as a palanquin. A human-powered vehicle, for the transport of my person, my head, my gods, my silly ideas.

Thank you, MV, for the opportunity to make art for you, I truly hope it works just right in your space. If not, you're going to have to re-paint that wall.

*

journal art #4

2011-10-17T12:10:00.000-04:00

A Hasty Decision

potty talk

2011-10-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

Auden and I have this very weird recurring potty conversation. You know, the one that happens when you're helping your kid on the toilet? You don't have that one? Well, here, enjoy ours:

"What's coming?"
"I don't know, a train?"
"Maybe it's a slug!"
"A slug? Ew."
[poops]
"What was that?"
"I don't know, a snake?"
"A snake came outta my butt!"
"Gross, dude."
"I have a surprise for you, mom!"
"What is it?"
[gets off toilet]
"A POOPIE!"
"Wow."
"Is that just what you always wanted?"
"Uh..."

*

journal art #3

2011-10-10T12:09:00.000-04:00

Any Thing

train table

2011-10-04T12:44:00.001-04:00

I got a great home-made train table from my cousin -- her boyfriend had built it years ago, and their kids weren't playing with it much anymore. I was running around like a mad-woman in the days before our move, but I'd been wanting a table for the kids for ages, so even though Jason was at the point of "LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF, oh my god how do we have so much stuff?" I was happy to go pick it up and load it into the moving truck.

Once we were moved in and more or less set up, I hauled out my collage materials and dove in. It felt really good to have a project -- it had been about a month, the point at which I start getting a little itchy.

I don't have a good "before" shot, but you can see that it was white with your standard green-grass-blue-water-gray-rocks motif:

I pasted a bunch of different paper on it, including some cool topo-maps and Japanese train time-tables -- so, abstract but having a little something to do with land and trains:

Here, a rare shot of the artist at work (well, the artist's backside, anyway, along with loyal side-kick in underpants):

Auden was very helpful with the gluing part, but in general does not have patience for these kinds of projects. Specifically, the part where he's not allowed to play on it yet:

OMGcaniplayonityet.

Look out Sir Bevis, a T-Rex and a giant sloth behind you!

Next I did a layer of paint, sticking with quiet colors -- "desert hues" as Jason calls them. I added a few more scraps of paper, and a cool stencil that I'd made years ago from the shadow my plant cast on the wall:

And then there was another break in production to test out the surface. Suitable for cars and trucks:

It was interesting to work on this surface, because it's big like a painting, but is horizontal and doesn't have a top or bottom. The composition needed to be balanced but not too focused. I added some paper circles, and some curved lines in paint to create some more geometrical shapes, and that felt just right:

Then I painted the sides and the legs a dark honey-brown color, and then sealed it all with polyurethane. I wanted the whole table to blend in with our furniture and not scream PLAYROOM like the original paint job was doing. Besides, white gets so dirty, and this way you can't see all the paw-prints from the many beasties who come to play.

And play they do. It may be the single best investment I've made, for how much use it gets (although, I should point out, the only thing they DON'T do on it is build train tracks):

Here's the finished table, in our front parlor:

Now, carry on with your mock-battles and lego dismemberment:

journal art #2

2011-10-03T12:08:00.000-04:00

Deer Spine

journal art #1

2011-09-29T12:05:00.000-04:00

Back in July I had this great plan that I would schedule a bunch of posts of images from my journal to go up during August while I was settling in and in a dark cave without internets. Of course I did no such thing, but it's still a good idea.

I try to let my journal be the place where I loosen up and try different stuff, but sometimes it just becomes a repository for left-over paint and odds & ends. I'm so frugal, I can't even waste little bits of ideas. Save them! They might be useful! I'm an idea hoarder.

*

the play-by-play, the re-cap, the commentary

2011-09-26T21:50:00.015-04:00

I do not recommend moving with small children. Stay put, if you can.

If you can't, rally all your friends and family to help you; you will not make it without them. (This is, of course, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who was there to celebrate and then cry a little and then toss a box into the truck -- and everyone else who made it so hard to leave in the first place)

Actually, packing up was way less stressful this time around, both because of all the help and because we got a realistically-sized truck. What, you don't remember? The move from Milwaukee, when I Tetris-ed all our belongings into a truck that was about 7 cubic feet too small? Okay, me neither. We're seasoned movers, now.

The kids were so excited about the truck, especially Auden:

Who was then devastated when he learned he wouldn't actually be driving it:

So we let him control some other things. Random, Canadian-rest-area things:

We stopped at Niagara Falls on our road trip, and of course it was breathtaking and appropriately rainbowed, but it was so hot, and the kids were so out of sorts, and it was SO PACKED with people, that it ended up being a quick and kind of hectic event. Not the least of my stressors: the fact that Isla kept wanting to climb over the railings and get a closer look at three billion gallons of rushing water:

Way more exciting than some ol' waterfall, THE CANADIAN MOUNTIE. "He's a CANADIAN, mom":

Also way more exciting, the Hotel room in Niagara. There was a PHONE. And a SAFE. (I swear, we do take our children out of the house now and then):

From there we went to Albany, NY, where we stayed with my brother & sister-in-law. They made us fresh pesto from their garden and took us to a little nearby lake to cool off. I drew a picture for them so they wouldn't feel too lonely after we left:

And I drew a picture for Auden, too, because he is now obsessed with knights and commands me to draw them or be subject to hysterical wailings:

Actually, this knight thing has bypassed "obsession," I would say it's more of a "lifestyle" now.

A little background: we took a trip to Chicago before we moved, where we saw an exhibit of suits of armor at the Art Institute. Jason saw how completely enthralled his son was, and made plans the next week to go to Michigan's little Renaissance Faire, where he could watch real knights, really jousting. Oh, friends, it's been All Knights, All the Time since that fateful day.

Which kind of works in our favor in some ways. Because the portable DVD player that we bought specifically for this trip? Not a hit. WHAT. WHY. I don't know. But the playmobil knight guys that we bought ahead of time to strategically release at the point of maximum road-trip boredom? LOVE. And the fact that there's an old armory in our neighborhood that looks like an honest-to-god CASTLE? Well, here, look:

Castle, your knight has arrived.

And Providence, your Danelys have arrived:

Our flat is the second floor of that enormous house, built in 1890. Right next door to a Guatemalan restaurant. Which sounds good in theory, or it did to me anyway, but in reality sounds like an awful squeaky exhaust fan right in our windows. I've gotten used to the carne asada smell (I suspect all our clothes and furniture have gotten used to it, too), but that damn fan... Grrrrr. Grrrmmmmppphh. Mrrrppphhhgg.

Before this turns into horror-movie-material neighborly resentment, though, I should say there's lots to love about our spot. There's a park around the corner, we're within walking distance of downtown, there's all sorts of urban weirdos and artist-types around, and the flat itself is really sweet. So we'll stay. And I'll figure out a way for the fan to go, because I CANNOT MOVE AGAIN ANYTIME SOON, DO YOU HEAR ME, FATE?

Ah, it's good to be settled in. How's your summer wrapping up?

*

earthquake, hurricane

2011-09-05T14:14:00.000-04:00

"Hello! Welcome to Rhode Island!" says the earth's crust. "Welcome to the east coast!" says the earth's surface air currents.

We made it through the road trip, through the move, and through the dramatic weather (no adverse effects from Irene, but incurred plenty of damage from two small dervishes cooped up inside the house all day).

The hardest part has been that we have no internet connection. It's embarassing to admit that because WOE IS YOU, First World Privileges. But it has made the myriad tasks of settling in and setting up that much more tricky and time consuming. For example, I'm composing this post from a Kindle, which is rather like pecking out morse code on a remote contriller. Oops, let me fix that typo with some white out, hold on a sec...

Those two paragraphs alone took 45 minutes!

So, there's lots more to say but Curious George is over and so's my carpal dexterity. Look for my next post: hammered out on a Smith Corona and stapled to a telephone pole in your neighborhood.

Up next, emotional aftershocks and tropically stormy thoughts!

unveil

2011-07-25T19:39:00.004-04:00

This news is a little tardy, but I'm excused because getting ready to move out of state makes me preoccupied and forgetful.

It's exciting nonetheless, namely because it's been on my list of things to do, and even a few New Year's Resolution's lists, for YEARS. Yee-arrrs. Here it is: I now have my very own website!

My dad put it together for me, and I'm so pleased with how it looks. Go take a look and let me know what you think.

See you in a couple weeks when the dust settles in Providence!

*

big girl skirt

2011-07-20T14:54:00.000-04:00

I made a sweet little skirt for my niece a month or so ago, and her mom liked it so much that she wanted one, too. So I made the grown-up version for her, from the Summer Skirt tutorial at Made:

It has several rows of shirring at the waist, which makes it comfortable and really flattering. It turned out so good, now I have to make one for myself! With all my free time!

*

in medias, rest

2011-07-14T09:57:00.027-04:00

I was aiming to have this commission finished before the Great Move, but I am now conceding that it isn't going to happen.

It's a relief. I can't force things to go when they won't, and at this point I think it's better to put them away for a few weeks. Try as I might, I can't avoid this step: the one where I take a break.

So. I'll have new eyes when I unpack them, and I will know what to do next. I might even know how to solve the problem of color correcting my pictures in Photoshop. Because I am totally befuddled at the moment -- I don't know if this is what they look like, I've been looking at them too long:

In my last post I lamented about killing them -- all but erasing the underlying movement and quirky daubs of orange -- and although I'm still not satisfied with how they look at the moment, I'm no longer on the verge of tossing them on the pyre and starting over completely. So that's good.

Here are some close-ups of the bones, so you can see a little more of the texture from all the layers:

Here's the previous layer, the first resuscitation attempt:

And then I worked some more ochre over the gray and added some more definition to the bones:

They've gotten soft and quiet, subtle. Is that what I meant to do? Did I cover up the best part? Did the paint get away from me, or am I just being reluctant in following where they are meant to go?

Well. Let's let our eyes have a rest, shall we? Let the questions settle. There are boxes to pack and goodbyes to say.

*

wherein I kill them and try to bring them back

2011-07-11T10:30:00.005-04:00

Unexpected things are somehow both the delight and the despair of painting.

When I start I usually only have a vague sense of where I want to go; just mix paint, put brush to surface, and find out what will happen. It's tricky, this feeling of harnessing energy without really controlling it -- when I'm in the middle of painting, it seems best to let the horses run wild and free, but when I step back I think, those horses DO NOT know what they're doing.

So, I had gotten to this point:

And then I lightened the yellow a bit and started closing in on the bones, softening the fields of color and creating some more texture. But the orange went from being nice little accidental blips to purposeful blobs that stood out too much and made sense too little:

So I killed them.

I lightened them even more, covered them up. I tightened the background around the bones until I had all but obliterated the swaying rhythm from those first layers. Each panel looked like a still, cloudy day. With a bone hanging in the middle.

Well, that's not what I meant to do, I thought. How did the paint get away from me like that?

So I tried, Mary Shelley style, to bring them back to life.

I mixed up some soft gray and brought the bones back into some kind of context:

Not bad, I thought. At least next time I sit down to work on them, I'll have somewhere to go. There's a pulse.

But guess what? I killed them even more!

This means they can only get better, right? RIGHT? Dear god, we can't have these paintings raging all over the country-side, terrifying families and seeking refuge in the mountains because of their disfigurement.

I'll post more pictures soon, and hopefully recover my trust-in-the-process in the meantime.

*

four panels, evolving

2011-07-01T10:01:00.010-04:00

The four-paneled commission piece I'm working on is moving right along... I haven't had this kind of discipline & determination since the sphenoid piece a couple of years ago. It feels good. Here are the first three layers of the first panel, the first cervical (atlas) bone:

Once I had transferred the line drawing of the bone onto the canvas, I had to tone down the surrounding colors to integrate it a little better. My technique is usually to start with some bold blocks of colors, and then soften them with more layers on top. I like it when the brighter colors peek through more muted colors on top. It also helps me keep things loose as I go along, almost accidental.

Here are all four of the panels together, from when I was trying out compositions with the bones, to the next, more integrated phase:

you can click to make it bigger, you know

I was feeling pretty good about this layer, but I wasn't sure about the little orange blobs. Are they playful? Do they accentuate the underlying movement of each composition? Are they just weird and reminiscent of bodily fluids?

Stay tuned! In the next episode I kill the paintings and attempt to bring them back!

*

tisane

2011-06-28T11:35:00.003-04:00

The past couple of months have been really good for me. Jason is not working (officially, anyway) and we've been tag-teaming with the kids so we both get some time to work on our myriad projects.

My myriad projects, of course, being the paintings I started before Isla was born. I do this thing where I start like three or four or seven pieces all at once, and they all poke along for a while, then I lose steam or have a baby or pack up and move entirely, and I balk at finishing them.

So.

We're moving again in four weeks, and NOW IS MY TIME. Here's a piece I finished several weeks ago, but haven't posted because the working title -- "B500" -- was just not going to cut it. Naming paintings is harder than it looks. Try it.

But before the name, the evolution:

I started with a collaged background, and went over it with some wash-y gesso and ooh, drips. That's painting with abandon.

Like usual, I wanted to create lots of layers, but have them be transparent enough to show depth and texture.

Then I got a projector! I did some contour drawings on transparency paper and played around with the position of the bones before painting them on. It felt kind of like cheating, but that's what projectors are for. Besides, Andy Warhol did it.

It stayed like that for a while, mainly because I liked the bones too much & didn't want to go over them. Liked them, knew they had to change: my familiar dilemma.

Also familiar, the stage we'll just refer to as "miasma":

I have to mess things up when I can see that I'm protecting something. Most of my pieces get to this point, either "miasma" or "circus." (The commission piece I did in 2008 even had a "massacre at the beach" phase. Oh yeah.) The good thing with this piece was that I was just painting with acrylics, so I didn't feel bad about that step at all. It was a relief, actually.

It was even more of a relief to bring it back:

Most of the time I feel like I'm still exploring what paint can do, and there's something unexpected every time. There's what I can see in my mind, and then there's the inevitable stumbling blocks when I try to manipulate the media.

For this piece I wanted it to look like someone spilled some tea on the canvas.

I was finally getting what I wanted with the layers, so I just wanted to make the bones a little brighter without changing everything else. (There's kind of a lighting discrepancy between the photo above and the one below... I really didn't do anything to the background)

I used a soft pencil to reassert the outline of the bones, then smudged it with water to soften the line. The graphite, together with a little more light paint to solidify the bones, made just the right amount of contrast to focus the piece and finish it up. I'm pleased.

Tisane
18 x 24 inches, acrylic and mixed media on canvas

The bone swooping out and to the left is a rib, and it's articulating with two vertebrae. Stacked like a puzzle, like sculpture.

And the name: Tisane is a lovely word for what is basically herbal tea... but I didn't choose it because I took the tea-spilling idea so seriously. Here's the definition I liked: "an infusion (as of dried herbs) used as a beverage or for medicinal effects.

For years I've been offering up different configurations of bones and flowers as gifts to friends who have suffered injuries, as a sort of charm, or a way to remind them that their bodies are amazing and capable of healing. I know when I'm in pain I get ornery and resentful and impatient; I focus on the discomfort instead of how to take care of myself.

This piece is a reminder, then. A recognition of the body's natural ability to keep itself in right balance.

A visual infusion for medicinal effects.

*

cotton simple skirt

2011-06-13T19:23:00.001-04:00

My niece just turned five, and I made her this sweet skirt, from Dana at Made's tutorial.

LOVED the cotton plant fabric, should have bought more. Now her mom wants one, too. Guess I'll have to try this pattern next! (Did I mention how much I love Dana? In a totally not-a-weird-stalker-from-the-internet way.)

spine

2011-06-10T19:19:00.010-04:00

Weeks and weeks ago I borrowed a model spine in order to do some drawings for this commission piece I'm working on. It took me forever to get around to doing the sketches, but I'm glad I did because these renderings came out so much better than the ones I'd done from blurry internet photos:

I appreciate these bones even more now that I know how they fit together. Your spine is an amazing piece of sculpture. Go give it a massage.

Here's the first layer of painting I did:

And here's the next layer, looking rather opaque and circus-y next to that nice loose wash above:

I traced the bone sketches in order to position them and transfer them onto the canvases (so the paper you see here won't actually be IN the paintings):

I did some more work on them today, and I'm excited to get pictures up of the next steps, not only because this layer was kind of uhg, but because they're really evolving quickly and starting to get interesting.

I think I'm getting better at trusting the process of painting -- of constantly tipping things into and out of balance, and back again -- but it still usually feels like jumping into the deep end. You trust you'll come bobbing back up to the surface eventually, right?

wrap-tie summer shirt

2011-06-06T19:20:00.000-04:00

I designed a little wrap-front summer top for Isla. I started at the drawing board with a sketch and everything. Here's the finished piece:

The only catch was making it reversible. I ended up top-stitching the arm-hole seams, because I couldn't figure out another way to do it. This is where it would be helpful to have a pattern. Or, you know, be trained or something.

Navy and white polka-dot fabric: thrifted, a repurposed placemat. That's what I like about making clothes for little ones... you don't need a lot of fabric. You can repurpose almost anything.

Sweetie sweet sweet.

Excuse me, I need to go nibble on tender babylegs now.

*

smarter than a 3-year-old

2011-06-02T12:28:00.000-04:00

"What street are we on, mama?"
"Division."
"What does Division mean?"
"It means, uh... okay... divide? Let's see... if you break something? Ummm... You have a whole thing, and you break it... No. Okay, like, to cut. When you cut a big thing into smaller things. Does that make sense?"
"No."
"Like if you have a peanut-butter sandwich and you cut it in half. You divide it in half. You... uh, you did division."
"That's silly."

*

there is a design

2011-05-29T20:52:00.002-04:00

Now I'm going to reach even farther back, to a piece I started in 2008. At that time I had considered this finished:

Tidy Little Boring Collage

But as it sat on my art table, leaning against the wall with other projects in various states of completion, I realized I was not excited about it at all. There was no sparkle in its eye. But it had potential! So I decided to mess it up.

I swished some paint on the surface, over the hand, to busy it up a bit and incorporate it into the piece -- I didn't like how it was just sitting on top, all pristine and static. When that dried, I scribbled "You could choose anything" on it, because I was feeling loose-ended and sometimes it's the vastness of available choices that stops me from starting.

Then I blocked out most of the detail from the collage and kept daubing paint here and there on the hand until I felt like it was interesting but not too "done."

Finally, I covered up the little silver pieces at the top with blue, and drew lines like little strings that the fingers are pulling.

The original title was "There is a Design," because of the sewing pattern paper I'd used in the collage. I still like the title -- maybe even more now because it perfectly contradicts my handwritten assertion of free will. Perhaps it's a painting for an agnostic.

*

in between bones

2011-05-26T12:02:00.001-04:00

When the paints are out, no canvas is spared. And oh, the paints are OUT.

I started a bunch of pieces back in December of 2009, and didn't make any significant progress until almost a year later. I quaintly told you to "stay tuned" -- are you still tuned? Breath bated? I know, you haven't been able to sleep.

Less than a year since we left off, our hero looked like this:

I like the composition, and I like the movement of the brush-strokes, but it needed some serious changes. These first few layers have been acrylic paint, and I wanted to shift gears to oil. When I do that, I have to stop protecting what I like about the last layer. Like Annie Dillard says, you have to be willing to take out the bearing wall.

So this felt kind of risky, but I think it clarified things a bit. And now it's ready to be simplified even more... hopefully sooner than 2012! But you never know!

Here's another one in the works, from the same time. It was going to be another bone piece, but so far it hasn't decided what it wants. I started with the same wash-y yellows and browns:

Then collaged in some tissue/pattern paper and made a few hesitant swipes of blue and scratchings of charcoal.

I always want a really exciting layered background, but I clam up after the first layer and get scared to just attack it. I want to be bold, but I'm reluctant to make bold moves. I must move past this.

It's easier to move this one to oils, since there's no real subject yet. It's so nice to see the depth and softness of the oil paints... acrylics just can't compare.

It's kind of interesting to me that I'm doing all these variations on the same theme, with the same color combinations. I used to bemoan the fact that there was no consistency in my art -- it turns out all I have to do is paint the same things over and over. Truly, I did not know this.

I also didn't know it would take YEARS for some paintings to evolve. But I figure I'm doing pretty good, what with the two kids and the two moves. I hope I look back on this time and marvel that I was doing anything creative at all, besides making pudding.

*

new bones

2011-05-23T09:57:00.002-04:00

I'm working on a new commission for a doctor friend of mine. Those doctors, they like the bones. This doctor, in particular, requested the following vertebrae:

first cervical (atlas)

6th cervical

7th thoracic

4th lumbar

I can see why he chose them... isn't it amazing how different they all are? They'll be arranged horizontally, on four separate canvases, like this:

Here is the first layer of paint:

I love yellow ochre and gray.

I have no idea what's happening next, but sometimes that's the most liberating position to be in.

*

old bones

2011-05-21T11:34:00.000-04:00

I finally finished some paintings that I started a year and a half ago. I don't have pictures of the process, but I'll just tell you that they started out as telephone wires. So, there was some evolution.

Thoracic Rising
oil on canvas, 9x12 in.

Lumbar Sinking
oil on canvas, 9x12 in.

It's good to have some finished pieces laying around, they remind me that it IS possible after all.

*

the last slippers of the season

2011-05-12T09:14:00.000-04:00

It's cold down in the basement, where I paint and sew, so I'm still wearing sweaters and making slippers.

And look at how arty my photos are! Wow, I know.

These are for my friend Beth, who lives on a farm in Missouri. She may eschew electricity, but she still needs fancy slippers. In May. SPRING: WARM UP, WILL YOU.

*

pudding

2011-05-11T16:15:00.000-04:00

I've embarked on a campaign to fatten my children up.

I don't believe in percentiles, per se: both of them have been at the absolute bottom of the chart -- Isla is even less than 0%, a statistical mind-boggler, in my opinion -- and they seem to be doing just fine. Isla's weight stalled out for a few months there, mainly because she learned to walk (AT 9 MONTHS, WTF) and then suddenly had places to go and toys to steal and couldn't be bothered to eat. But the pediatrician was concerned, and wanted me to start giving her PediaSure. (He also scheduled a "sweat test" to rule out Cystic Fibrosis as a cause for poor weight gain, and while it's a non-invasive, non-painful procedure, I think it has caused Isla to swear off anyone remotely doctor-ish FOREVAR.)

I know I'm already biased, but when I looked at list of ingredients on the PediaSure, I wanted to swear AT my doctor. Because really? You want me to give my kid chemical sugar milk, like 3 times a day? Aren't we already having a problem with childhood obesity and diabetes in this country? NO THANKS.

I decided to do it the old fashioned way, ie, with actual food.

I made cookies with all the most fattening things I could think of, like peanut butter and flax meal and coconut oil and walnuts and butter and avocado -- surprisingly good! -- and then, because I was on a roll, I found this recipe for chocolate pudding made with avocado. I'll let the critics' faces speak for themselves:

(Okay, Isla looks alternately melancholy and deranged, but trust me, she loves it!)

If you want to try it yourself:

1 avocado
1/4 cup maple syrup (or more, to taste)
2-3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
1-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

The maple syrup and vanilla cover the avocado taste nicely, and the texture is perfectly creamy. Blend and slurp!

*

denim booties

2011-05-09T10:11:00.000-04:00

More booties:

I CAN'T STOP.

(It's a twofer... you get to look at some awesome journal art, too.)

My cousin and his wife recently adopted a baby -- he's four months old, all squishy and cuddly and making me realize that Isla is NO LONGER A BABY. Wah.

But that doesn't mean I can't still make cute baby stuff and give it away... so I think these will go to him.

*

tunnel vision

2011-05-03T13:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I feel like I've crash-landed into this parenting thing.

I lie in bed at night, a quivering mass of pulp where my brain should be, and wonder why I can't get things done. It's only when I'm lying there, perfectly still, that I think of the phone call I meant to make, the email I meant to write, the article I meant to read, the toenails I meant to clip. Then, of course, I'm too tired to even make a list.

During the day, I scramble to keep up. I flail two steps behind the mess-makers, trying to negotiate peace. I yell and cajole. I make deals, I bribe, I entertain, I build things and then wreck them. I wrestle. I prepare food and serve food and clean up food, ad infinitum. I stare into space by mid-afternoon and pray for dinnertime.

It takes so much creativity, this work, something I thought I had plenty of. But my talent is for arranging shapes and colors into pretty pictures, not in coming up with new and different and awesome ways to get toddlers to stop mauling each other.

I'm three years in, and I still can't remember to pack the diaper bag the night before.

I'll do better tomorrow, I resolve. I'll be more willing to play. I won't get so annoyed when they splash water out of the bath.

But tomorrow comes so quickly, usually after someone has woken me up at least twice during the night, and they hardly wait for me to have some coffee before they attach themselves to my legs and start needing things. Then we spend the morning becoming little wind-up toys, ticking the spring farther and farther back until the tension is too much and we must explode into forward motion or we will seriously malfunction. There is inevitably a potty accident involved.

*

Isla is obsessed with balls and dolls, is easily entertained with a set of keys or a serrated knife pilfered from the dishwasher. She's really a sweet and mild kid, but mischievous too, and has learned from Auden the finer points of how to avoid getting dressed, and how to keen backward dramatically when you really want someone to pick you up.

Auden usually wants nothing more than to assign roles and act out some story again and again, which sounds delightful until you've taken turns all day being Nausicaa and Lord Yupa and Super Why and Wonder Red and Pee-Wee and Little Richie and the Wonder Pets and R2-D2 and Luke Sykwalker (and sometimes Luke Skywalker's cousin, no lie), and Caillou... Caillou. CAILLOU. DAMN YOU, CAILLOU, AND YOUR INSUFFERABLE PLUCK.

It's my fault, though, I admit it. I rely heavily on TV when I want to, say, eat a meal, put Isla down for a nap, or indulge in a few minutes of sewing. I'm really good at justifying it -- He's fine! He's super smart! A little TV won't hurt! -- and I only feel guilty when he goes catatonic in front of the screen and throws epic tantrums when it's time to turn it off. Oh, wait, that's every time. Garr.

Isla is old enough to get into Auden's shit, and is lightning fast in grabbing his robots or toppling his lego masterpiece. She's also old enough to understand that I'll come running whenever she screeches about some injustice, whether she provoked it or not. Auden, for his part, is only too ready to be provoked, and no amount of stern talkings-to and stair time seem to disavow him of hitting and biting and tackling to get the toy he wants. Which, of course, is the toy he didn't know he wanted until Isla had it in her hand.

I get it. I do -- he doesn't get nearly as much attention as Isla, and spends a lot of time itching with jealousy. He even pretends to BE Isla sometimes, which has the unintended effect of annoying me even more. Poor kid. The ego blooms only to be totally hammered by wind and rain and little sisters.

So. I juggle their needs with mine, all day every day, and I'm an awkward juggler, tripping and grunting.

*

But there is light (you know, at the end of the tunnel): Jason just finished his semester of teaching, and today we breathed out a huge chugging sigh of relief. We're going to have TIME to do things TOGETHER. LIKE TALK.

And then I'm going to be all, Welcome to My World, Muaahhh haaaa!

Course then I'm going to have to give up the righteous mommy martyr thing. Huh.

*

While it's true that I'll have lots more time for myself in the coming months -- relief, sweet relief! -- it's also true that I've had a lot of help getting through the past few. Okay, eight. Annnnnd it's also true that I can polish any grievance to a high shine with my constant attention and verbosity, making all the normal growing pains into Mother's Lament: The Fugue.

I'm working on it, okay? I'm a stubborn perfectionist, a character flaw that doesn't jive at all with being a parent. As we have seen.

Recently a friend sent me a quote from Marshall Rosenberg, the "Nonviolent Communication" guy, that went something like,

"The goal is not to be a perfect parent... the goal is to be progressively less stupid every day."

Crash-landings notwithstanding.

*

sock, rock, rooster

2011-04-25T10:08:00.000-04:00

My daughter speaks:

Sock: "Cock!"
Rock: "Cock-cock!"
Rooster: "Cock-a, cock-a!"
Cracker: "Cock-a!"

(Dog is, inexplicably, "bo!")

engineer booties

2011-04-21T09:40:00.001-04:00

Lots of friends have had babies recently, and they're all boys. I admit I've been way more inspired to make girlie stuff lately, so it seems like I'm partial, but it's just that I haven't gotten around to taking a picture of the super-hero cape I made for Auden (with, per his request, an "S" on the back -- which, for the record, is THE HARDEST LETTER IN THE WHOLE ALPHABET TO TOP-STITCH).

I should also admit that I've become an unwitting enforcer of gender signifiers in babies. My friend Emily, pregnant with her second, got word during one ultrasound that she'd be having a girl, and I got all squealy and excited for her because her first is a boy and of course boys are awesome but eeeeeee! Cute girl things! And I started knitting a little hat for her right away. Then subsequent ultrasounds pointed in the other direction, and as much as I wanted to, I just couldn't send a cherry red pixie cap to a baby boy. And I thought I was so progressive! So I needed a different project.

I've been meaning to tweak the pattern for booties I made here, and of course all babies need booties.

Without any commentary on gender-appropriate colors, clothes and/or career choices, behold, the Engineer Booties! For boys! In blue! (okay, that was commentary)

I had some Osh-Kosh overalls that never quite fit Auden right, but I LOVED the stripey denim so I couldn't throw them away. I managed to get two pairs of booties out of one pair of overalls.

I changed the shape of the toe piece so that it was wider overall, then added a little elastic for a snug fit.

With the pair I made for Isla, I put fusible web in the toe, but left the sides soft. With these I did the opposite, which makes way more sense, since the sides need structure but the toe needs to be flexible.

Cute cute cute.

*

my ego: fragile, handle with care

2011-04-18T10:23:00.000-04:00

Last night I had a quiet fit about the effect of 10 years of transient lifestyle on my art.

All this moving around has divided up my time and my supplies and my momentum into little bits and fragments, so I'm blaming my utter lack of direction on the fact that I never know where any of that stuff is.

I never get anything done!
I never know what I'm doing!
I'll never be successful!

Commence moping, aimless shuffling, downward spiraling.

I'm also blaming my schizophrenic style-jumping on all these moves too -- just when I start to find my groove it's time to pack up and go. When I unpack my canvases I'm always like, what was I doing? How do I finish? I know, I'll just start something new and completely different!

Recently I finished up a few of the bone pieces I've been working on for the past year and a half, a duration that is excruciating, and also not a record. Do I have to sign it Robin Danely, 2009 - 2011? Gah.

But they're FINISHED (a state of being that may be purely for the saying so).

I just started working on a new commission -- which I'm determined to finish this summer, before we move again. This is great for productivity: hurry up and be creative!

I'm also working on getting a website up, a project that is waaaaay overdue (I think it was a New Year's resolution in 2005), and I'm sure I'll instantly become wildly famous as a result, so leave a comment now and you can say you knew me when.

Going through my archives for images for the site, I came across these pieces, done while we were living in Kyoto and I had nothing but time glorious time to brood and paint:

self portrait summer, oil on glass, 2005

jason, oil on glass, 2005

Yuki, oil on glass, 2005

So, okay, I'll concede that some part of moving has been good for my art. Namely, moving to Kyoto.

These paintings, on glass, you'll notice, survived the flight back to the States, and two subsequent cross-country moves. Perhaps I should see that as a testimony to the resilience of my artistic wherewithal.

*

fate, providence

2011-04-07T16:44:00.000-04:00

It's funny how so much of your life is spent in not-knowing: a part that seems so big and so long and so fraught, and then, in one instant, as soon as you know, all that time in the not-knowing suddenly becomes contained in The Past, and gains character and edifies your faith. If you're lucky.

So, after all these months in limbo (oh, and what a blessed limbo it's been) (seriously, it requires its own separate post), now we know:

Providence, Rhode Island.

The name, even! Can you believe it? It's kind of too much for me... it's like a giant cosmic "thumbs-up!"

We've spent the past few weeks wrapping our heads around this new future, with its new unknowns, and starting to map out yet another move. We get out the atlas frequently to remember exactly where, again, is this tiniest of States, and where are the beaches and the parks and the neighborhoods and the opportunities for each of us... my imagination tends toward big bold strokes -- our new house is FABULOUS and the kids are in preschool and day care and I've got TONS of time to paint! -- so I've got to figure out how to be excited without drawing up elaborate expectations.

Nevertheless: excited!

And so proud of Jason for slogging through this process of applying for jobs with persistence and patience (while I stood on the sidelines being utterly preoccupied with my own daily dramas and stresses) (also a subject for another post).

To Providence!

*

spring hat

2011-03-31T16:45:00.001-04:00

I have a hat I bought in San Francisco ages ago, and it really only looks good with short hair. Now that I have short hair again, I got it out to wear it and realized immediately I needed one in Isla's size.

I sketched out a pattern, and after only one disastrous attempt that made her look like an elfin Shriner, voila:

I realize I need to get better at taking pictures if I'm ever going to promote my wares, but this child is like a hummingbird.

And have I mentioned how much she likes dirt?

*

all of the sudden

2011-03-30T10:12:00.001-04:00

You

Are

Now

THREE!

Happy Birthday, Auden.
*

fashion forward

2011-03-20T20:22:00.000-04:00

It has occurred to me that back in the day when moms sewed clothes for their kids, they didn't also take 20 pictures and format them and post them around the neighborhood to boast about their fine craftsmanship. Or craftswomanship, or whatever. But I can't sew without boasting! I'm so new millennium! Me me me!

And by extension, she she she! Because, so cute:

I used the tutorial for the 90-minute shirt by Dana over at Made. I LOVE her site... it's full of cool, do-able projects, and she breaks it down with great instructions and amazing pictures. Every time I check out her site there's something else I want to try.

This tutorial shows how to make a baby shirt from a grown-up shirt, an option I hadn't considered before, but now am in danger of considering far too often because I already spend WAY TOO MUCH TIME in thrift stores and this just means I have to look through ALL the t-shirts and not just the ones in my size. Really, it's perfect for me because I want baby clothes that are interesting, not just cutesy. And of course I'm Dutch through and through which means I love saving money when I spend money.

Go try it! You'll like it!

*

a slice

2011-02-28T12:49:00.000-05:00

Oh hey! Not much, what's up with you?
.
I've been hiding out, trying to force February to pass through sheer force of will, but the shortest month just takes its sweet time no matter what. There have been many colds! Some puking! Some snow falling and then melting! I know, it's pretty special.

It takes a crazy amount of energy to get out the door every morning, and I'm blaming it on winter. It's like herding cats, and then trying to force them into snowsuits and boots. And strapping them into carseats. And then they're crying and whining cats. I get my undies all in a bunch and invariably I am close to blowing a fuse before we even make it to the car. We're going somewhere that you LIKE, dammit, hup hup hup!

But more than I am sick of winter I am sick of hearing myself whine and complain. I'm worse of a toddler than both of 'em put together. So I'm going to highlight some of the better things that are happening around here:

Auden talks to toilets. At some point one of us must have called the automatic-sensor toilets "robots," so now that's what they are, and they should be properly thanked for their services. Yours truly provides the voices, and you can imagine how awesome it is to be a talking robot toilet in a public restroom. If it's the kind of toilet with a good old fashioned handle, it's a "manual robot." In fact, a lot of things are getting that descriptor lately: his phone is now his "manual phone," his step stool is a "manual stool," and the other day he even told me he was going to clean up a mess with his "manual teeth."

Isla is signing like crazy, but most of her gestures are basically variations on a finger to her mouth, which makes them kind of like the signing equivalent of homonyms. Kitty? Finger to the mouth. Horse? Finger slightly higher on the cheek. Water? Finger in the mouth. Mama? Palm to the mouth. Other signs, like fish and dog and giraffe, which have nothing to do with the vicinity of the mouth, she executes with dramatic exaggeration, the way they always tell you to MAKE THINGS BIGGER WHEN YOU'RE ON STAGE! BIGGER! EVEN BIGGER! It's hilarious and mind-blowingly cute.

She adores books, as long as they have animals in them. Preferably barnyard animals. She hasn't said any recognizable words yet, but she's trying her best to crow like a rooster: "cock-a!" she says. "Cock... cock-a!"

For a little while there was some confusion about head-shaking. If she wanted something she couldn't have, I'd shake my head and say no. She must have associated the head-shaking with her wanting of the forbidden object, so in another context if you asked her if she wanted something, she'd shake her head but actually mean yes. It was kind of like a "Who's On First" routine of befuddlement. But now she's figured out how to nod, and she does it with her whole body. It cracks me up every time, not least because it's awesome to communicate so directly. We can have whole conversations now!

Speaking of conversations, we had this one in the car the other day:

me: "Auden, is Isla asleep?"
Isla: "Daahhhhh!"
Auden: "She's awake!"
me: "I heard."
Auden: "What'd she say?"
me: "I don't know, what'd she say?"
Auden: "She said, 'cugger jugger' and then I laughed about that funny joke."

There's a lot of utter nonsense in Auden's vocabulary, probably because he watches too many Japanese movies or too much Spiderman or because he's almost three. He'll prattle on in Lewis Caroll stream-of-consciousness, describing what his characters do:

"And they fradelay with me, and they gauduban with me, and they listabye with me a little bit."

(And the mome raths outgrabe!)

Or he'll whip them out like insults:

"Come on, you nokker!"
"Move over, you slubber dugger!"

And my personal favorite, an exclamation that I've adopted for my own personal use:

"Cunger my nungers!"

It's surprisingly versatile.

You took EVERY SINGLE BOOK off your book shelf and piled them on your bed? Cunger my nungers!
It's almost March? Why, cunger my nungers!

Every so often, Auden and Isla will actually engage and play together. Mostly it's just toy-stealing and pushing, but then there will be moments like this:

I need to remember these particulars, otherwise I'm only going to look back on this winter and see my unending funk, accumulating and thawing and accumulating again. The things that seem so huge will not matter. The small things will be tilled into loam. And of course I'll marvel at how fast it all went.

Jason's friend, newly a father, summed it this way, "Each day lasts about 1,000 hours and is over in 45 minutes."

So, how about you?

*

not a scarf

2011-02-21T21:44:00.000-05:00

It's the scarf that never was! My very first knitting project, turned into something useful after all.

It's not a cowl, because it's not one continuous piece, but it's not a scarf either. I discovered there is such a thing as a pidge, which this most resembles. I turned a dropped stitch into a button hole, and sewed the opposite end to the inside edge. So here, an accidental pidge:

Cerulean blue is my all-time favorite color, and it predominates in my wardrobe after black and gray. I'm trying to diversify, really. Ask my sister: I have like four green sweaters now. Green!

Anyway, I have a metric ton of this wool left, so this accidental pidge is going to my gorgeous friend Kathy in Kyoto, who just had a birthday, and has some seriously sassy Zara boots that will match nicely.

Maybe I'll make another one on purpose.

*

muse

2011-02-07T13:52:00.000-05:00

I am under Isla's spell. I will make any number of cute things for her.

Most recently, the darling Pixie Cap:

I joined a Ravelry group by the lovely and talented Wood over at Woodcraft, and I love how a lot of the projects are easy enough for me to even want to try them. This pattern is just a rectangle of stockinette that you fold and sew up the back...

...and then attach an inch-wide strap along the bottom bottom, with a little button to secure it.

I love the shape -- it keeps ears warm without getting in eyes, and it looks like a little hershey's kiss, too. I could eat her up! Well, I could do that with or without the hat.

*

the workout on the way to and from the workout

2011-02-05T19:46:00.000-05:00

Today I take Auden to play outside in the snow, and work up a sweat shoveling paths in the backyard so we can run through the maze. Come in, make the obligatory cup of hot cocoa, and when Isla gets up, hustle to get snacks packed and kids suited up to go to the Kroc Center.

Auden runs all over the house when I tell him it's time to go. Isla wants to nurse again. I'm hungry already. The car seats need to be buckled in, and then the kids. Two bags. Brush snow off the car.

Get to the Kroc, wrangle them inside, Isla squirming and Auden dawdling, wrestle them out of coats and boots, deposit them in child care. Work out for exactly 24 minutes while watching lame TLC programming and letting my brain be mush. Hustle to take a shower and get dressed in order to pick up the kids by 12:30pm. Couple minutes late; the child care people give me looks.

Haul coats and bags and children to lobby, give Auden milkshake, Isla wants to nurse again. Try to give snacks, facilitate mess-making instead. Change Isla's poopy diaper. They take turns getting wet in the fountain. I squeeze Isla between my legs while I put Auden's coat on. Oh! Now he has to pee. And where are his boots? Fucking hell.

Kids and bags and boots all back out to the car, buckled in, songs requested, chubby hands full of crackers. Sweating again.

*

mine

2011-02-04T13:58:00.000-05:00

I've got a lot of slippers in the works, production-line-style, for the many ladies in my life, but these are for me:

I'm getting a feel for the materials, and getting better at sewing around the picky curves.

The herringbone is from a thrifted skirt, and the lining -- possibly my favorite part -- is a Donna Wilder design from the fabric store.

This time I didn't even bother with the velcro, because I can slip them on and off without moving the flap, so I just sewed everything together. The top-stitching detail around the upper wasn't part of the original pattern, but I thought it'd look nice on these.

They're holding up nicely, and they are SUPER CUTE for wearing around the house. It must be that time of year: I'm itching to wear pretty, sleek flats but it is full-on boots weather . So. I can have my cake and eat it, too. Or something.

*

your trip around the sun

2011-02-01T13:38:00.000-05:00

Isla, it was a slow magic trick that brought you from here:

To here:

Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

winter, outside

2011-01-31T13:34:00.000-05:00

winter, inside

2011-01-30T14:35:00.000-05:00

slippers, sewn

2011-01-17T19:59:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it is. I'm compelled to make slippers for everyone this winter. If you're nice, you could be next!

These cute flats I made for my mom, from this pattern by Cheri at Shoeology.

The uppers are cotton velvet from some curtains I found at a thrift store, and the soles I cut from a pair of suede pants, also thrifted (for $5!). The lining is a sweet flannel that I saw at the fabric store and couldn't pass up, even though I didn't have a plan for it at the time.

The buttons are total fake-outs... the fastener is actually velcro. It's high time I learned to use the automatic button-hole-maker function on my sewing machine -- I mean, it IS automatic, how hard can it be? -- but I'm impatient, so this pair got velcro.

Then I made (yet another) pair of shoes for Isla, with the same combination of materials. I used the pieces from this pattern by the CoffeeLady. I had made a pair with felted wool, and crocheted the whole business together, per her instructions, and OH MY GOD it took so much time. I should have paid attention to the "intermediate" part of the instructions... but no, I am stubborn. They're adorable, though, and you should go buy some from her shop.

I decided to try them sewn, and here's what I got:

I'm going to need to tweak the pattern a little, but they're awfully cute and they STAY ON! That's a first!

See what I can do when I get some sleep?

*

zen koan solved; sound of one hand clapping amazing, indescribable

2011-01-12T19:49:00.000-05:00

I can't remember what I was going to write about. It was probably awesome, though.

I have not been able to listen to the news on the radio for some time now. All the stories are just jumbles of words that shoot in rapid-fire succession right past me. Or I'll catch every tenth word, plink, plink. My brain is as permeable as a tin roof.

News reaches me, if it does, through the fog, details fuzzed and dull. Meanwhile, I have plenty of attention for gofugyourself.com. I can't explain it. That shit is funny, man.

Simple things elude me. Jason asks me a question, and it hangs in the air while I wait for it to land on something solid in me, to become something solid itself that has a solid answer. But instead I am taffy -- pliable and impressionable, an unwitting philosopher gazing at the very question-ness of the question -- and the ensuing silence is perplexing rather than enchantingly mysterious, I'm sure.

I'm sorry you can't reach me. I have been unreachable.

I have been sleeping in little wisps for the past five months, and that is as much as I can handle.

My pre-baby self would have thought that sleep deprivation would make a person sleepy. Just, sleepy. Sleepy.

That's like calling the Mona Lisa cute.

Okay, it's true that at first sleep deprivation makes you sleepy. Then you get clumsy, then forgetful. Then you get spacey. Then you can't think of everyday words that you used to use, well, every day. Then you get punchy and cross and short-tempered.

Beyond that, even: I have felt trapped. I have wanted words like slouched, smudged, shredded, because SLEEPY cannot begin to address how coiled and raw and sour I am.

I haven't wanted to write about it. I wrote about it enough with Auden -- I fought good and hard against it then, wrung my hands over various sleep training methods and in the end he just figured it out on his own. I didn't want to fight this time. Mainly, I didn't want to let her cry because we're sharing a room, and the thought of EVEN LESS sleep than I have currently been getting, even if only for a few nights, triggered a severe bout of adrenal-coating denial. So I've been getting up with her three and four times a night and encouraging all kinds of bad habits.

I know! If I were reading, I'd say the same thing: You is crazy, woman! Put that baby in the basement where you can't hear her and take some Tylenol PM. Sheee-it.

I justified putting off that kind of dramatic action by blaming her wakings on the move, and colds, and teeth, and more colds, but to be totally honest, I was just hoping there was a gentler way.

I am telling you now that there was not. My Jeckyl-and-Hyde mood swings are exhausting, Auden is learning too many swear words, and I am desperate for the kind of normal brain functioning that allows me to be creative and to carry on conversations with my husband. And my cuticles are a disaster. So, something had to give.

We moved her to the basement a few nights ago, and the first night I slept for 7 HOURS IN A ROW.

This morning I even woke up before she did.

I have no way of knowing if she wakes up at night, or how many times, or for how long. I felt guilty about this at first, but that guilt was an illusion.

But the sleep, oh ho ho! The sleep is real.

*

2011, year of the cute

2011-01-03T22:06:00.000-05:00

I know I'm biased because this is my own child, but seriously. I've had to watch this like 10 times in a row because I cannot absorb all the cuteness in one viewing.

Hope your holidays were full of cuteness and delight, too!

*

my little tyrant

2010-12-17T14:41:00.000-05:00

The other night at bedtime:

"You want a song, Auden?"
"The Matt Song."
"The Matt Song?"
"Yah."
"How does that go?"
"You better sing it."
"I don't know the words."
"You better try."
"Can you help me?"
"Yah."
"Sing it for me."
"Matt, Matt, Matt!"
"Oh."
"Sing it, mom."
"I don't know the words."
"You better remember."
"Can you help me remember?"
"You better pretend to remember.

*

slippers, felted

2010-12-16T11:41:00.000-05:00

I've been knitting.

I learned earlier this year, and made the same first mistake that amateur knitters everywhere make: to knit a scarf as my first project!

The problem with scarves is that they are incredibly boring. Back and forth, back and forth... the satisfaction of finishing waaay off in the distance. I should have started with a potholder. So, even though it's a gorgeous cerulean blue and a mohair blend and a sweet and easy knit-one-purl-one-odd-stitch pattern, that scarf is on hold at the bottom of my knitting bag.

"My knitting bag" -- see? I'm already intermediate.

Instead of downsizing my ambitions, I picked up a booklet about felting a few months ago and wanted to try that, too. I started with a little card-carrying case (ask Jason, it's, uh... awesome), and then jumped in the deep end with a pattern for felted slippers. The inspiration was this pattern, which I saw over at Woodcraft, a great crafty blog. Slightly less knitting than a scarf!

Once I got about 40 rows in, though, I realized how big these suckers have to start out, and I got kind of daunted. I plugged along, though, with nightly updates to the rest of the family about how many rows I had left. I need cheerleaders, okay? Meanwhile Jason was unsure he wanted such a loaded gift, because OF COURSE I AM KNITTING THESE FOR YOU, YOU NEED SOME SLIPPERS. I'm like a Jewish mother that way.

So here they are, from start to finish...

I didn't alternate colors like the pattern suggests, so I just knit one long piece and picked up stitches on the side for the flap parts:
The most complicated part was following the directions to fold the slippers together. Doing it reminded me of a story we read in Geometry about a 4-dimensional house that folds in on itself (go read it, it's crazy!). Anyway, no tesseracts here, just a wonky hexagram:
Wood (at Woodcraft) warned me that they'd look like giant crazy shoes before the felting, and she was right. Actually, once I sewed them up, we decided they looked like medieval boot cozies:
She also said she felted hers in a front-loading machine, but when I did it, I found that they didn't shrink down enough. So I did another two cycles in a top-loader:
And look at that! I kind of freaked out when they didn't properly felt the first time, so I'm relieved they turned out. That was going to be a lot of time invested to just chuck 'em on the scrap heap.

There, that only took three months. Now, back to the scarf.

*

dirty

2010-12-14T14:57:00.000-05:00

There's a potted plant in the front room of the house that is like a siren call to Isla. If she is left to her own devices, she will head straight for it (ignoring nana's attempts at a blockade), and stuff her face with dirt.

A couple of times I've caught her doing it, and she startles like she's got her hand in the cookie jar. But then she cracks up, because she is so obviously pleased with herself.

Oh, and: can you see the TEETH? My god, there are six of them coming in at once. It is no longer any wonder this child has not been sleeping for the past four months.

*

deviant, part III

2010-12-08T13:13:00.000-05:00

I promise, this is the last installment. The first two are here and here.

During the first couple of weeks after surgery, I carried handfuls of tissues with me everywhere, and held them constantly to my face, because my nose did not stop dripping. I taped them to my face at night so the snot wouldn't dry and form a crust on my upper lip. I'm not kidding.

I would blow and blow and blow and not reach the end of it. I could blow forcefully or softly, but it would just slowly drip drip drip.

Many weeks went by, many more neti pots of saline water were flushed through my noggin, many many impressive, formidable, enormous clot-like boogers were expelled, and still I could only breathe through the left nostril. It was kind of torturous, actually: to be so close to perfection, and yet so maddeningly short of the goal. It felt like when you suck on a mint, but forget to switch it to the other side of your mouth, so when you breathe in it's all cold on the one side and dark and loamy on the other. But, like, in your nose. Because, wow! Breathing through my nose! It was only 50%, but already I could tell I was going to like it. I just became a little neurotic in my fears that it was all I would get, and that the right nostril would be doomed to limp meekly forever behind it's more robust partner. Have I mentioned that I'm prone to exaggeration?

So, the other factor was that our fancy insurance, like Jason's position itself, had an expiration date. If I was going to do anything else, it had to be done quickly. This alone is what gave me the gumption to call the doctor back a second and third time and request more follow-ups. Because, you know, I'm a nice person and a nice patient and I don't want to be needy because that's not nice. (I guess I should have warned you that in addition to seeing inside my nose, you would also be seeing inside THE HEAD OF A CRAZY PERSON)

Back in I went, to say Great Job on Breaking My Nose! Can You Fix it Please? She offered to swab the inside of the right nostril with silver nitrate, essentially to burn back the tissue that was still blocking my airway. What do I know about silver nitrate? I just wanted to feel the cool breeze through that nostril, too. So I let her do it. She told me I may get a headache later, and that things would get worse before they got better. I should have known by this point how dramatically and diabolically this doctor underestimated the pain she causes.

Headache? It was like having a white-hot poker shoved into my face. For days. I didn't dare venture back into Percocet territory, so I game-faced it while seething and grimacing inside. It may have been worse than the first recovery. I don't know, it's too long ago at this point, and we forget pain so easily... but let me check: nope, not harder than birthing two babies. Okay, moving on.

On day four or five after the white-hot poker, I noticed a real humdinger of a scabrous booger way back in that right nostril. By this point, of course, I was no stranger to sticking petroleum-jelly covered q-tips halfway to my brain, so I went after it.

Friends, I wrenched that sucker clear, and angels shot out of my nose on cosmic mucous. The nostril was clear, and I could breathe.

A genuine and unedited grin of sheer foolish relief erupted on my face, and I'm just glad I was looking in the mirror at the time, because I SAW how ridiculously happy I was. I may have gone shouting through the house.

It took some more healing after that (and yet more amazing and substantial boogers), but I am now breathing through my nose like a normal person. Nevermind that I am also still swabbing that right nostril with a q-tip from time to time because no amount of blowing seems to get the junk past what I'm guessing is a little version of the Marianas Trench in there, carved out by silver nitrate. But hey! I am satisfied! I am now a nose breather! I'll take the quirks!

Now that you've been so patient and read all the blather, here are the photos.

Jason told me to spare you the graphic picture of my nose all packed and bloody and me looking like a ghost, so, you're welcome. Here are the before and after shots:

a side story: my pores! wow!

You can see it, right? How my nose points off to Lake Ontario in the first picture, and then more toward Superior in the second? Also notice how my right nostril (your left) is actually the bigger of the two. That rascal!

deviant, part II

2010-12-03T10:35:00.000-05:00

If you think this story is unfolding at a glacial pace, I cannot tell you how long it is taking to write it. (The first part is here.) Without further ado:

The spring following my discovery that there could possibly be nose-breathing in my future, when Isla was barely six weeks old, I went to the ENT doc that my friend recommended. She peered up my nose with a little light and what looked like a tiny speculum, and, easy as you please, proclaimed that I had a deviated septum and overgrown turbinates. Would I like to schedule a septoplasty and turbinate reduction for next week?

Before I could even consider that I had something called turbinates inside my nose (I mean, my nose is big, but surely not big enough to support something that sounds like it could generate electrical power), I was in the scheduler's office going over the details of what to do before and after surgery, ie, don't eat, eat, don't blow, blow.

It was such a fast consultation and, well, such a whimsical decision to be operated upon, that I retained absolutely none of the finer points. They'll straighten the septum and then, um, something about turbines? And then I'll take some ibuprofen?

So of course I googled it when I got home, and foolishly followed a link to a youtube video of a similar surgery. It involved a hammer.

(Also, do not expect the internet to take you through recovery gently, either.)

I got nervous the night before surgery, and prayed that the doctor (and her hammer) would be deft and delicate and done quickly. And then, to be honest, I was actually kind of looking forward to being away from the children for a few hours.

The next morning, besides feeling completely out of place at the hospital -- look, these awful blue polyester slip-proof socks, on MY feet! -- and besides much checking of nurses to make sure I was the right patient getting the right surgery, and some bizarrely personal banter from the anesthesiologist, everything was unremarkable and then it was over. I awoke in a thick fog, feeling nauseous, trying to process the doctor's summary: surgery went fine, after-care instructions are mhrruupphh hlllggnnn urrrnngghhh. Blurrhghhhpphh. Mmmkay?

Then my gracious friend Anne brought me a smoothie and took me home.

Then there was THE PAIN.

Oh ho ho, the pain. And puking. And Jason calling the clinic at 9pm because should my wife be this sick? Still? And then Zofran to go with my Percocet. And frozen peas on my face. And changing of gauze masks, and trying not to sneeze, and breastfeeding a newborn while seriously compromised. For days. Until I figured out it was the Percocet making me so sick, and finally I could get by just on Tylenol. But I think the doctor seriously underestimated how much IT WOULD HURT.

I had to remove the packing myself, the day after the surgery, a event that made me feel like a grotesque clown, pulling out the handkerchiefs, you know? Because wow, that was a LOT of cotton up there.

After a week or so, I went back to the doctor for a follow-up visit. She used a little suction hose to remove the stalactites that had formed, and then deemed me fit and cured. By that time I had caught a whiff or two through my left nostril, but nothing through the right. She told me it was still healing, but it looked fine and should probably clear up.

It did not clear up.

*

One more installment, here.

bones

2010-11-28T20:35:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why, but November is always a good month for me, creatively speaking. In the last couple of weeks I've been spending more time at the art table, even if it's only for 10 minutes at a time.

I worked some more on the B500 bone piece:

Covered up the weird green color that I didn't like on this double lumbar bone piece:

And dabbed some more muted colors on these bones pieces that were already in the works:

I feel insane sometimes trying to make time for this in the midst of non-stop baby wrangling -- Auden's yapping at my heels as I type, cementing my authenticity -- but I just can't NOT make art.

*

9 months

2010-11-24T14:41:00.000-05:00

Isla, sweetness.

Okay, I guess technically you're closer to ten months, but I'm too busy (with you) to write (about you) in a timely way.

But I'm saying nine months because you really did start walking at 9 months, and no one can believe it because you are so tiny. You clear the dining room table as you gleefully stagger through the room. Your preference is to be holding something in your hand while you walk, especially if it makes noise. You love to be chased, which is hilarious because you can't run, and you can't even walk faster, so you just flail your arms out in front of you and giggle madly when I'm on your heels. You show the same utter delight in climbing the stairs.

You have discovered that the adults keep anything worth having up on high shelves, so you demand to be picked up, and then you point with your tiny finger at everything up there that you like, huffing excitedly with your mouth in a perfect "O".

You love to tumble. We have to have at least one good wrestling session per day, and it's preferable if we also do some contact improv on the bed. You love it when I push you with my head; you laugh so hard you give yourself the hiccups, every time.

You love reading books. I feel guilty now that I waited so long to sit down & read with you, because it's face-meltingly adorable how you growl at every picture of a lion that you see. Auden never had the patience you have; you like to read them again and again and again.

You love eating, too! You would probably subsist entirely on Goldfish Crackers if I let you. But you like vegetables, too. And I'm not sure, but I think you deliberately signed 'milk' today.

The sleep issues are marginally improved -- now you're only waking once or twice a night. I am no longer tearing my hair out, determined to DO SOMETHING about it. It helps that I don't mind letting you cry a little. I have reached the Grim Acceptance phase of this struggle, and am just counting my blessings that you nap well. I can put you in your crib, sing a song, and then walk out of the room. Compared to the excruciating rocking-strolling-singing routine required to get Auden to sleep, and the expert ninja moves I had to do to avoid creaking floorboards that could disturb him when he finally was asleep, well, I still feel like I've won the baby-sleep jackpot.

It's weird to feel already like your baby-ness is slipping away. Today I saw a new-born at the library, and felt momentarily wistful for that time. You're so feisty now, so busy and so determined. It's pure joy to watch you learn and show me what you know. Just don't lose those yummy squishy thighs anytime soon, they are like desert to me.

What's next, cartwheels?

I love you, baby girl.

love,
mama

*

deviant, part I

2010-11-17T11:41:00.000-05:00

I may have passed the statute of limitations on this story, but unless I tell it you're not going to appreciate what I mean when I say I haven't stopped blowing my nose since April.

Besides, April in baby-time is, like, yesterday.

So. Because I am totally changed and recovered, I can tell you my Confessions of a Mouth Breather:

I have never been able to breathe properly through my nose. Every so often, like on a cold day or, weirdly, on an airplane, both pathways would clear and I'd get a few minutes of uninhibited nasal breathing. But most of the time it was like sucking air through a straw that's been chewed and flattened. And knotted.

I thought maybe I just wasn't trying hard enough, like my nose was a lazy muscle and needed a stricter regimen of exercise. Before bed, lying flat on my back, I'd concentrate on long slow breaths through my nose. Inevitably I'd get that panicky feeling of NOT ENOUGH AIR in my lungs and would give up entirely, resigned to another night of dry mouth.

I was extremely self-conscious about it: ashamed of sounding perpetually nasal, chewing with my mouth slightly open, snoring. But I didn't think there was anything I could do about it, so it just got added to the list of Things That Make Me Different (below "hate onions" and "cry in front of the mirror").

Oh, the things you normal people take for granted! Keeping your lips gently pressed together at all times while you breathe!

And I probably would have gone on like this all my life, not knowing it was only structural and could be changed.

Then one day the lovely woman who facilitated the mama's group I went to in Milwaukee told us she'd be out for surgery & recovery the following week. When she got back she told us all about it: she had never been able to breathe through her nose, she said. She'd had sinus surgery; now it was fixed.

I tell you what, I know I'm prone to exaggerating, but damn. A light positively dawned on my head. Aimed at my nose.

Of course, right at that moment, I was very newly pregnant with Isla, so surgery for me would not be an option for another 81/2 months. BUT. Just knowing that there was the option of one day breathing through my nose, and not to mention the fact that we had health insurance through Jason's post-doc that would cover the procedure, was a light at the end of a very long nasal tunnel.

*

(keep reading here)

not a belated Halloween picture

2010-11-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

Just photographic proof of my costuming skillz:

And I made that kid, too! I AM creative!

*

art hour

2010-11-03T20:08:00.000-04:00

Last week I had an abbreviated "art day." It was "art hour." I managed to do a couple of swabs of gesso in a collage journal I'm keeping. I unpacked some canvases. I looked at the notebook of ideas I've been collecting for a year or more. I "showed up," as they say. I tried not to expect too much.

But I thought I'd post some pictures of the progress I made on the bone pieces last time I worked on them, and then at least to you guys it will seem like I'm still an artist!

When we left off, I was enamored of my new overhead projector, and starting to get the contour drawing situated on the canvas. One piece looked like this:

I wanted to rough it up a little, but still keep the paint strokes looking dynamic.

Then I realized I had to bring the bone form forward a little more, so it didn't get lost in the scumbled-up background.

It's hard for me to be at a standstill at this stage. Based on the pictures, I like the first layer the best. It's like watching your sweet innocent newborn turn into a wily unpredictable toddler. On one hand you're like, my kid's grown so much and he's so smart and complicated and learning so much about the world; and on the other hand you're like, why can't I go back to the simplicity and ignorance and bliss of pure baby-dom? But then later you'll be like, ahhh the toddler years were SO EASY compared to this hooligan teenager! Enough of that metaphor.

The other painting looked like this:

I got it looking nice and safe, which I can't stand, so then I went all botched skin-tone miasma* on it. Not in a good way:

*credit to Jason for that official art term

I think I follow a fairly predictable arc, don't you? Tip the scales one way, then the other, then whooooaaaaaaa, back the other way, quick! Damn. Crazy artists.

So, it's got some more interesting wash-y layers, which I like a lot, but no real focus. I'm hoping to do a little more texture in the background, and then bring the bones to the foreground again.

I do this thing to myself where I want all kinds of haphazard layers and pieces of things all jumbled together, but then I find some area I like and try to protect it. That causes the whole composition to seize up, and then I stall out, forcing things to fit where they don't. Then I sit and contemplate for a while.

Just kidding, who has time for that!

Stay tuned for the next layer!

*

mmrrpjhhhhgg

2010-10-17T21:34:00.000-04:00

And it turns out I do keep functioning after two months of the worst sleep deprivation of my life -- even after days of getting up at 5am, even after nights of waking up EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR, even after weeks and weeks of not more than two hours at a stretch -- which is really kind of a shame because I want to make good on my threats to Go Off the Deep End. I think Jason won't take me seriously until I stop combing my hair and go a little twitchy-eyed.

But I was going to write a bunch of stuff and now I forgot what it was, so "functioning" is to be interpreted liberally, I guess.

Isla is nearly walking. WALKING. She's not even nine months old yet. She doesn't even have any teeth yet. The other day she was jamming on the "demo" buttons of Auden's keyboard (which is her favorite toy EVAR), and she raised herself to standing and then started doing a little booty-shake to the music. Of course the minute we whipped out the flip camera to document, she went all Warner Brother's Frog on us.

Auden decided to start calling me mamblah today.

...?

Oh! And I finished making Auden's costume for Halloween. I accomplished this in five-minute increments over the past six weeks. You, too, can ralize your dremz!

And, zzzzzmmppphhhhtttt.

*

the answer is yes

2010-09-13T13:12:00.000-04:00

Usually the first thing I do when I get a break from my kids is to read blogs by other people about their kids. So the irony of taking Auden and Isla to a babysitter so that I can write about them is not lost on me. But if I don't do it now, you will not hear from me until they are away at college. And by then, this story probably won't be as funny:

Isla has been the kind of baby who can go days without pooping. When she finally goes, it's... dramatic. A friend once told me about a diaper blow-out that was so bad that she cut her son's clothes off of him. Now, I'm too much of a frugal mofo to just waste a onesie like that, but I have spent precious after-explosion seconds contemplating that option. Because how -- where...? this...? this MUCH? in the HAIR...? -- do I even begin to clean it up?

So, because there is no comic justice (until later, just WAIT), Auden has been having poop issues of his own since we moved. He's pretty regular, but he just forgets to tell me that he has to go. Consequently there have been altogether too many poopy-pants episodes lately. The good news is that he's responding favorably to bribery, so I think we're on the up & up.

But on this fateful day, when I decided to go to the zoo, with both children, BY MYSELF, there was no way to know what a perfect storm I'd created.

This was back when I was too proud to admit I needed a double stroller, so I had Isla in the bjorn, and Auden in an umbrella stroller, and for a while everything was dandy. We spent ages in the pen with the pygmy goats: Auden heaping hay into their food dishes, and Isla grabbing their rough fur in both hands and screeching with delight. Then I had to go to the bathroom, and I figured Auden did too.

And as I packed us up, I realized Isla had issued her weekly address.

Into the narrow bathroom we went, and lo, out sprouted two extra pairs of arms so that I could wrangle Auden as I wiped Isla's every crevice and executed a complete wardrobe change. I had to put her in Auden's stroller as I tended to him, though, where she let me know in no uncertain terms just how hungry she was, now that she had all that extra room in her guts.

These potty breaks always take fourteen times as long as you think they will, and you become that mom in the bathroom saying things like, No don't put your hands there! Or THERE. Don't pull on that! Don't aim your penis there! Or THERE. GAH.

To my own credit, though, there was a mom in the next stall over who was losing it way worse than me, cursing at her son NOT TO TAKE OFF ALL HIS CLOTHES, JESUS CHRIST ALREADY. So I felt like I was doing pretty good, even with Isla bawling in the stroller and Auden leaning over me to flush while his pants were still around his ankles.

By the time we got out of there, I had broken a sweat.

We stopped in a shady spot that was partially fenced in, so I could feed Isla and keep an eye on Auden. I gave him his sippy-cup and hoped he'd be entertained by a wheel-chair ramp and a couple of stairs until I could finish nursing. And he was, until he stopped and got that far-away look in his eye. You know that look. It means, I have to concentrate on this. It means, this is happening now and I cannot stop it.

"Are you pooping?!" I yelled. Even though it was obvious enough.

"Godddfrrrhhjgpphhhmmmppzzzztttttt," I muttered, not swearing.

I plopped Isla back in the stroller, much to her chagrin, aaaand back to the bathroom we went, to clean poop out of pants. Yet again.

When it was all over, and we emerged twice cleansed, and I was resuming my station at (er, AS) the milk bar, I saw a young girl walk by wearing a bright pink shirt with that loathsome and overused "Got Milk?" font on the front, only her shirt said:

Got Poop?

And I kind of couldn't believe it. Because who would wear a shirt that says that? And how could her timing be any more perfect? And how could god be so cruel as to mock me after that epic shit-storm? I was actually annoyed. I took offense.

YES. YES, I GOT POOP. Are you happy?

And there was comic justice for all.

*

catching up, now with pictures

2010-08-27T13:14:00.001-04:00

this post brought to you by my mom who took the babies so I could complete a sentence for a change

Well!

It's now exactly one month after the move, and I just had my first moving anxiety dream. It was remarkably similar to the move itself: packing the truck to its gills and looking ruefully at the pile of stuff that had yet to be packed. In the truck. That was already stuffed. Like, take-the-paper-towels-out-of-their-package-and-cram-them-into-the-few-remaining-spare-inches kind of stuffed. So, duh, subconscious mind, that one's not hard to de-code. Funny how there's always a lag-time with dreams, though. I heard a story once about a guy who was paralyzed in an accident, but had walking dreams for 11 more years.

I even managed to cram houseplants into the cab, ask Jason!

I know moving is not exactly trauma, but throw in a toddler, a baby, a stay of unknown duration at your parents' house, a future of uncertain job prospects, and the dramatic hyperbole of an underslept mother, and wheeee! It's a close second!

Auden was the age Isla is now when we first moved to Milwaukee, and like she is doing now, he elected to start crawling during that major transition. It seems fairly obvious, looking back, that a move on top of a major developmental milestone WOULD throw him off kilter for a while, further fragmenting his already-fragmented sleeping habits. So, I kind of? Knew? To expect that? Again? But still, after these four weeks of multiple night wakings and nap schedules full of holes, I'm feeling punchy.

We thought Isla was teething, what with waking up every two hours some nights, so we tried dosing her with baby tylenol and swabbing her gums with baby orajel, just in case. To no avail. I would have thought the second time around I'd feel better prepared, more magnanimous, more tolerant of what will surely be a BRIEF DISRUPTION in the big scheme of things. But no! I'm just as ornery, just as prone to 2am second-guessings and giving-in to feedings. Isla, you were supposed to be my good sleeper! Blowing raspberries in your crib at 5am is NOT OKAY.

One can only imagine what she and Auden are dreaming about.

On the bright side, though: we've been spending weekends at the lake

Grandparents are manna from heaven

We get to have date night now

We stayed out until 9:30!

And my new best friend, a hip mama I met at the Children's Museum (what? moms pick up other moms at parks the way hipsters pick up other hipsters at alt-indie-margin-outlier-rock shows) is lending me her double stroller which is VASTLY preferable to the pack-mule configuration I was assembling, righteously, before.

Gateway drug to minivans!

Also, there is much cuteness: Isla pulls herself up on everything

She loves being manually rolled and tumbled, and does a fearsome jowl-shaking strong-man impression where she threatens to bend the very bars of her confining sassy seat. Auden knows all the lyrics to "Book of Love," by the Magnetic Fields; the opposite of "opening" is "closening"; and girl is pronounced gee-yul.

Coming next -- God Does Have a Sense of Humor: Poop edition.

Hope you're doing well! Hope you're not moving! Pray for me!

*

dispatch

2010-08-17T13:35:00.000-04:00

"I'm driving you bonkers!"
"Yes, you are."

"I'm driving you bonkers right now!"
"I know, I want you to stop driving me bonkers."

"I'm driving you bonkers again!"
"Indeed."

box man

2010-07-29T21:26:00.000-04:00

I like to think of this blog as my own personal answer to the Slow Food Movement. Like, really slow.

Because hot damn, I've got THINGS TO SAY, a whole backlog of 'em, and it's just not going to happen until we switch sides of Lake Michigan. Departure is set for Sunday, cavalry is coming tomorrow in the form of grandparents to corral the children, and you'll just have to imagine that our moving truck will be festooned with palm fronds and marigolds and ripe pomegranates and little swamis chanting good-luck mantras. Because I'm not going to post any pictures.

Hey, you should try this mixture of no-sleep, stress, and hormones, it's groovy!

So, Auden. Bless his little heart. We saw a contortionist at Bastille Days a few weekends ago, and he has been OBSESSED with the part of the act where the big tall man in a neon-green leopard print bodysuit folds himself into his tiny box. He calls him Box Man, and has been compelled to re-enact the routine at home. Like, all the time. And box man wears cool shoes, and box man does a funny dance, and box man walks LIKE THAT MAMA, MAMA WATCHING YOU?

He dumps out the recycling bin and crouches inside, he dumps his trucks out of their plastic bin and eases his butt down into it, he squeezes both feet into his potty and hunches over it, exclaiming, I'm a BOX MAN! He can do box-man in just about anything.

Fortunately for him, there are lots and lots of boxes. Boxes everywhere. Everything boxed. We are a Box Family.

After we move: video proof of these shenanigans, Isla crawling, and a story about a surgery from all the way back in April! With before and after pictures!

And I'll make 75% more sense!

Milwaukee, we'll really really miss you.

*

the hair

2010-07-05T21:47:00.000-04:00

I was going to write something, but I don't think I have to.

*

happy father's day

2010-06-20T14:35:00.000-04:00

four months

2010-06-08T16:07:00.000-04:00

Dear Isla,

You are an exquisite creature.

You are four months old, and you have filled out deliciously. You are plump everywhere: rosy and glowing and sweet. I cannot stop myself from nibbling your cheeks, your neck, your thighs, your fingertips.

You coo and squeal and laugh. You regard me with a gaze so intimate and straightforward that it stops me short -- you are more than a cooing squealing laughing baby, you are a tiny god of infinite gazes, sagacious and wise.

You are a prodigious sleeper. Do you know how glad I am of this? I don't even know how to measure the gladness. It's a lot. When you wake up in the morning you don't even cry, you just murmur sweet little baby sounds from your bassinet and get happily tangled in your blanket.

You are rolling over now, which is hooray for you, but beginning-of-the-end for me. We won't be able to negotiate this, I can tell. You can't help yourself. But I think you like the rolling better than the resulting belly position, if your bellowing into the rug is any indication.

You have a sudden and urgent need for toys, and will grab for things with your whole body. Also, the hand-mouth reflex? OBJECT DETECTED IN HAND! OPEN MOUTH! CONSUME! CONSUME! Cracks me up every time.

I understand it, I want to do the same thing to you, you yummy baby.

You love Auden. You follow the sound of his voice; you giggle when he jumps, you guffaw when he rolls on top of you. I don't think he's quite as enamored of you, especially now that you are a threat to his monopoly on toy ownership, but I know he has his own fondness for you. Hidden under impulsive smacks to the face. Okay, forget it -- boys are jerks, it's time you learned.

You love music and singing, you are ticklish on the chub of your upper arms, you are fascinated by the pattern of the couch upholstery and greet it eagerly when I'm trying to feed you. You'd rather stand than sit, and I foresee some frustrating days of crawling ahead before you can run. I guess your papa and I are not capable of making babies that sit still and cuddle.

I'm watching you unfold with the same bittersweetness I felt with your brother. Can't you just slow down a little? Am I allowed to be wistful already for those blurry early days of you? There will never be another time like this, so I'm paying grateful attention to most every minute.

I continue to be under your spell, kissing and goofing endlessly to make you smile.

love,
mama

conversations

2010-06-04T16:00:00.000-04:00

"Mama chase you?"
"I'm not going to chase you right now."
"I chase myself?"
"Yeah, I'd like to see that."

"I see excavator!"
"Do you see an excavator?"
"I ride it?"
"No, you can't ride on it."
"I ride it?"
"Nope."
"I ride it?"
"Uh-uh."
"I see another excavator?"
"Maybe."
"I ride that one?"

"Baseball!"
"Oh, there's the baseball stadium."
"I play baseball!"
"Sure."
"I try it?"
"Okay."
"Mama try it, too?"
"Yeah, I'll try it too."
"Papa try it, too?"
"Sure, papa too."
"Auden try it, too?"
"Yep, everyone will try it."
"Isla try it, too?"

"Red light!"
"Yes, the light is red."
"Red light, go!"
"No, silly, red light, stop."
"Red light, go!"
"No, red light, stop."
"Red light, go!"
"You're headed for a crash if you drive that way."
"Kablooie!"

"We go this way?"
"Where, to Kohl's?"
"Yah! Shopping toys?"
"No, not today."
"Kohl's?"
"Nope."
"Kohl's?"
"Nope."
"Kohl's?"
"No, honey."
"Kohl's?"
"No, we're not going to Kohl's."
"Kohl's?"
"No, we're going home."
"Kohl's?"
"Mrrphmmgghh."
"Kohl's?
"AGHHHHRRMMPPPHHHHGGGGGGAAAHHHHHH!"
"... ?"

grandma jo

2010-05-27T17:19:00.000-04:00

Ach.

I've been on the fence about whether to post this. But it feels like a gaping omission if I don't.

My lovely grams died last month, at age 92. We drove to Michigan in time to see her alive one last time, and I had the honor of doing this sketch a few hours after she passed:

The image isn't complete without this this poem that my cousin wrote, which she read at the memorial service.

My Grandma's Arms

Babies cradled, flowers tended
Arms made strong with years of stirring, kneading
Hands that spent years caring for others

Fingers and hands composed many cards and letters
Arms that prepared delicious meals
Hands that created blankets for children

Loving arms that kept us close
Many years of work and wear
Now held in her Lord's arms.

-Rachel Redman (April 30, 2010)

Grandma Jo, we love you and miss you.

*

technology vs. dinosaur

2010-05-26T14:52:00.000-04:00

Cars face off with dinos.

Dinos attack from behind!

And win!

(Uncle Mike, dig the Lamborghini)

*

mother's day

2010-05-09T15:13:00.000-04:00

You know this is what you really feel like doing on mother's day:

But you don't, because your kid wouldn't make good turtle food, and the turtles are too cute, anyway.

*

crafty

2010-05-06T23:28:00.000-04:00

I'm more than a little obsessed with footwear for Isla. I've thrifted plenty of cute shoes for her, and STILL I can't resist making things like felted cashmere booties and these darling kimono slippers:

Auden is also benefiting from my sudden craft craze. I made him a little tote bag with some fabric cast-offs from Grandma Danely:

It has fancy satin lining inside:

So far he uses it to go grocery shopping (with all his plastic food) and to deliver the mail (maps and take-out menus from the bottom drawer in the buffet).

I've been inspired by all the great projects on this blog, and it's made me think about making more stuff. Which, GREAT, now I have like ten more projects to add to my pile of artistic ideas. I can't focus on anything for long, so we'll see how that goes, but hey, at least the creative energy is going somewhere. And Isla gets to be the Imelda Marcos of babies.

*

three months

2010-05-03T15:29:00.000-04:00

Oh, Isla.

Last year at this moment you were just a spark, just a bright cluster of cells. And now look at you! A much bigger cluster of cells! But much cuter.

*

not nothing

2010-04-14T15:17:00.000-04:00

A sketch I did in five minutes counts as making art, right?

two years

2010-03-29T14:01:00.000-04:00

Dear Auden,

Everyone keeps asking me how you're doing and my response is usually, Well, he's two. This gets a knowing nod. We all know what TWO means.

You can certainly be obstinate and assholish. (Which, I have to say, I now understand as the inevitable consequence of your wee human ego, budding and flourishing as it must, and not the result of bad parenting) You like to run away when it's time to put on your socks and shoes, you like to shuffle your feet and flop on the couch when it's time to clean up. You are loathe to interrupt any activity, especially if it means having to come inside, having to eat, having to go potty, or having to take a nap. You like getting what you want, exactly when you want it. If I take too long getting your milk or if I attempt to linger over the newspaper at breakfast, you will let me know. You issue constant and varied cries of MOMMY, to the point where I'm starting to suspect you of using a highly sophisticated kind of toddler Morse code: mommy mommy MOMMY MOOOOOMMMMMY mami-mami-mami MAHHHHH MEEEEE. Mah. ME. Mommy.

(Sometimes 'mommy' doesn't have enough syllables, so you yell MOMMMIE-AHHHHHH)

If I could decipher the meaning of it, perhaps it would not threaten to unravel my sanity on a daily basis. No, that's not true. Obviously, I understand all too well: you need attention, my love. You need a running commentary on your important attention-worthy actions: Are you driving your dump truck? That's a big dump truck! What goes in the dump truck? Rocks? Where are your rocks? Wow, that's a lot of rocks. You are strong!

You especially need attention when I am dressing Isla or nursing Isla or holding Isla or paying attention to Isla.

But.

There are many many more moments of the delightful variety, when you impress me with tenderness toward another child, or use a word I didn't know you knew, like 'fixing'.

Or when you lift your shirt to nurse your giraffe, or when you deliberately fall off your push-car and ask yourself, "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

You are totally potty trained, which, even though I was present for all the messy work that entailed, seems like it happened magically and all of the sudden. It's awesome. I'm disproportionately proud of you for wearing underwear, especially since a two-year-old in tighty-whities is among the cutest things in the world.

For a while, Papa and I kept a list of all the new words you were saying. But now it seems like your vocabulary increases exponentially every day and involves whole phrases and imperatives and plurals -- as in, "one bus! two buses!" You are SMART, kid. You count to fourteen. You know the whole alphabet. We can't keep up.

You keep up with us just fine, though. Maybe a little too well. As I rummaged in the fridge one day, I bemoaned the lack of anything to have for lunch, groaning arrghhhhh.

"Dammit!" you chirped, helpfully.

Today we were reading a book and in it was a person wearing a mask. "Mask," I said. "Mak," you said. "Mask," I repeated. "Hard one!" you said. Yes, sweet boy. That's a hard one to say. But it doesn't slow you down AT ALL. You talk about everything, nonstop, and each expression gives me another peek into the kaleidoscope of you.

Kid, I knew you liked trucks, but now that you have entire truck books memorized and are talking about jack-hammers and I-beams, I can appreciate just how intense that passion is.

I want to always make room for the spark in you, whether it's rascal or genius. You are an amazing puzzle. You are two. Happy Birthday.

love, mama

who needs sleep when you have cute?

2010-03-20T20:00:00.000-04:00

That last post took a lot of time and a lot of brain power -- and you know I have neither of those things to spare. So instead of more words... here, a clip of my delicious daughter in the morning:

How did I not eat her for breakfast? Nom nom nom.

*

the way of Isla

2010-03-05T15:51:00.000-05:00

Well before this labor began, I had been telling and re-telling myself the story of Auden's birth in a hundred different ways -- with all my hope and expectation and fear and and pride. I knew it would be different, and yet my poor rational brain struggled to gain footing by casting about in past experiences. It makes sense, right? But now that it's over, I am struck by how very different Isla's story is.

Here we go:

I woke up to contractions at 4:00 on Sunday morning. They came and went sporadically until 7:00, then stopped entirely. I was a bit miffed about the false start, but more annoyed that I hadn't been able to sleep at all. We got up and went about the day, though: brunch with some lovely friends (made possible by the fact that my mom was also there and could entertain Auden so that Jason and I could finish our sentences), a walk with Auden down to the river where it was sunny enough to stay a while and throw chunks of ice into the river, and home again for an attempt at napping.

As soon as I lay down, the contractions returned. They got regular by about 1pm, coming every ten minutes and lasting 45 seconds. Early stage. I was heartened to find that rhythm, though, and remembered to enjoy the part where you're excited for things to get going but not so tired and out of your mind with pain that it still can be enjoyable.

We brought Auden over to a friend's house by 3pm, and spent the rest of the afternoon reading the paper and watching movies. Aside from being just a tiny bit incredulous that it was taking so long -- like, where's my super short six-hour second labor? -- I thought it was a perfect way to spend the day. During this stage, Jason and my mom dutifully kept track of the intervals and duration of the contractions, which, after 12 hours or so, not only takes up several pages of legal pad but also starts to seem kind of beside the point. I called my awesome midwife to let her know it would probably still be a while.

Things picked up a bit by 1am, meaning the contractions were about five minutes apart and lasting a little longer. I didn't get any sleep that night, either; I think I took a bath at some point. Jason and my mom were right there with me all the while, same as when I was in labor with Auden. We employed the "horse lips" technique much earlier this time, THANK GOD, because it not only spared me my vocal cords, but it actually really helped. The contractions were becoming intense, but not crazy, and I felt strong and completely capable. Just make it through three breaths, and then it'll be over, I was telling myself every time, and instead of trying to get away from the pain, I stayed very focused on getting that much closer to meeting my baby.

We settled into a routine: when a contraction started, I'd reach for Jason's hands and clamp down while we locked eyes and horse-lipped at each other through the length of it. At first it felt kind of silly, like I was a spoof on every lamaze class and hee-hee-hoooooo-ing laboring lady in the movies, but it worked so well that it became necessary to do it the exact same way every time. I was surprised at how calm I felt, and how relaxed I stayed in the rest of my body.

I was starting to get antsy by 7am, though. I was pissed that I was taking so long, AGAIN, and that nothing had changed since the day before. I decided that walking around would surely ramp things up, so I paced furiously throughout the house. Which made the contractions stop. I lost my cool and went full-bore into whining IT'S NOT FAAAAAIRRRRR before I realized I needed a pep-talk from my midwife. I called her and kept whining about how discouraged I felt, and how tired and unhappy. As I was voicing my self-pity, I felt another contraction coming on, so I held the phone away and moaned through it. Afterward she said, "You've been having contractions like that since 1am? I'm coming over."

I was instantly relieved, and by the time she showed up and started getting everything ready my contractions were regular again and I was getting a second wind from the flurry of activity. We kept going in our hand-clench-eye-lock-horse-lip pattern for the next few hours, until I decided I wanted the midwife to check my dilation. I was worried that I hadn't made any progress and that I'd be looking at another 24 hours of THIS: AAAHHHRRGH. But she checked and announced that I'd made it to 5cm, at which I whooped and said THANK GOD. I rallied, and elected to take another bath.

Not much later, though, I started to hit the wall. The bath was good, but the contractions were getting harder and my energy was flagging. I'd made it to 7cm by the time I got out of the tub, and when I got settled again on the bed, I hit transition.

So, with Auden's birth, I'm not sure what magical force allowed me to coast through transition and pushing WITH NO PAIN WHATSOEVER, maybe it was a merciful god deciding I'd already worked hard enough. But this time? No such magical force.

When we decided to do a home birth, Jason and I joked about how we'd make a shirt for him that said, in a Barry White voice, "I'm Your Epidural, Baby." And I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I think that ended up being true. Not in the way that his mere presence was a nerve-block obliterating all unpleasantness, but in the way that looking at his face, in his eyes, I saw the reflection of all the calm and encouragement and determination I'd been feeling up to that point. I saw I AM DOING THIS and I felt powerful. That confidence made it possible to ride out all the contractions with grace and focus. Until transition.

Let me just say it again: TRANSITION.

I was lying on my side and the contractions were one right after the other and the horse lips just weren't cutting it anymore. There was a new and raw and searing edge to those last contractions, and it was like I needed to convey to everyone just how painful they were, so my nice quiet calming horse lips unraveled into screaming. My perfect routine with Jason was coming undone and wasn't helping any more -- I started to pull away from him. Not physically but mentally. It was like I was pulling back into myself, into a dark tunnel.

My midwife and my mom were telling me how close I was, and that I would be able to start pushing soon. I would've thought at the outset that this would be great news, like with Auden, AT LONG LAST it's time to push! But as soon as I started involuntarily bearing down I thought, OH NO, no way, I'm not pushing. HELL NO. And suddenly it felt very wrong to be on my side like that, so I struggled to get upright into a semi-reclined position. Jason got behind me and supported me, which felt better, but really, there was no "feeling better." I felt panicked.

The steady rhythm we'd built was broken into jagged pieces and I felt unmoored and lost and I didn't know what to do. Was I supposed to push? Hold back? What did I do before? Shouldn't someone be telling me what to do? I think I remember the midwife saying something like, "Let her show you," meaning Isla, and meaning Easy Does It, Mama. But I was in this dark tunnel, this chasm, that I hadn't planned on, and couldn't fathom.

Then something huge took over -- a surge of animalistic power -- and suddenly I snapped out of that dark confusion and decided to charge like a bull at my target. I roared and screamed and spat fire; I thrashed like a frantic beast; I pushed into a burning pain so intense it felt like my legs were going through a shredder.

I was so oblivious of the outside world and so totally inside myself and inside the tunnel and inside the fire that I wasn't paying attention to what the midwife was saying. Then my mom was saying it too, and then Jason, and all their words were like a blur until Jason said it over and over in my ear: "Don't push, just wait. Don't push. Don't push. Just wait right there, and let her ease out."

I thought, you have got to be kidding me.

Actually, my first thought when he said that was, I thought you were on my side! I could not reconcile his instructions with the momentum of the train barreling through me at that moment, it seemed utterly ludicrous. Why and how would I STOP? I WAS CHARGING AT MY TARGET LIKE A BULL AND BULLS DO NOT STOP.

Somehow, though, I figured out how not to push, and the midwife pried my hands loose from where I was clutching at my thighs to bring my hand to the top of my daughter's head, which was crowning. It was soft and wet, pulpy and strange. It reminded me what was happening. And before I knew it that head was sliding all the way out, into my hand, and then the rest of her in a slippery gush.

Instantly all the pressure was gone. All the pain and the fire and the hours and the clenching and the counting -- in one delirious second she came rushing out, and my whole body went slack.

They lifted her to my chest and wrapped us in blankets, with me crying and Jason laughing and Isla, scrunched and tiny and perfect, finally born.

*

in the meantime

2010-03-04T14:44:00.000-05:00

I'm working on writing out Isla's birth story, but for SOME reason it's taking a lot longer than I thought. So that you're not twiddling your thumbs in want of something new to look at on Fingerfold, here is a slice of hilarious from the Danely household:

First of all: Jason shot this, which is good because I would have been dying of laughter on the floor.

Secondly: Naked in packing peanuts. OMG.

Third: Remember the intro to "Duck Tales" when Scrooge swims in his money?

*

the past few weeks have been a blur

2010-02-23T20:49:00.000-05:00

chronology of this little lifetime

2010-02-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

Auden got sick first. Then I got sick. Then I went into labor.

Then a beautiful baby girl arrived, all scrunchy and tiny and perfect.

Then we entered that bleary realm of the 45-minute sleep cycle, and stumbled around the house attempting complete sentences and creative ways of burning off the natural energy of a cabin-fever-ed toddler. Who was also on food strike because of the sickness, and whining with every exhale because of the Mommy No Longer Available At All Times.

Then Isla, all of 10 days old, got sick too -- a harsh phlegm-y cough that sounded like she's already been smoking for 20 years.

Then our heat went out. And the oil-delivery people don't deliver after 1:30pm. So our landlady put us up in a hotel for the night. Which could have been like a fun winter stay-cation, except that it was a crappy business hotel with no frills and the fact that 3 out of four of us were sick and one of us was a 10-DAY-OLD BABY. Jason dubbed it Family Togetherness Night anyway, and we stayed up way too late eating bad pizza and watching junk-food TV. Ugh.

Then there were lots of episodes of projectile spitting-up, with multiple costume changes.

Then we got a nebulizer for Auden. At first I was sure it was going to take a baby straight-jacket and some wrestling holds to get him to hold this thing to his face for 6 - 8 breaths, but no, it turns out chocolate chips are a sufficient bribe.

Then Jason found out his book will not be published. At least not this year, and not by the folks he had hoped would publish it. And his job search continues... where will the Danelys be come July??? It's a cliffhanger for you AND for me!

Then, once, while clinging madly to my leg and screaming MOMMY MOMMY MOMMYMOMMYMOMMY for the jillionth time, Auden also inadvertently wiped his snot all over my leg. When I finally pried him loose he stepped back and saw his handiwork, correctly identifying it as "booger!" Which I had never heard him say before! What a big boy!

Then I found out Isla also has thrush.

Which I think brings us to today. I may have left out a few night wakings and some eating of peanut butter directly from the jar, but you get the drift.

These are your first two weeks, Isla! They have been nuts!

But oh, we love you to pieces and we promise things will get better. Because that was promised to us, by people who have Been There Before, and you can be sure I'll... give them... SOMETHING... BAD! if it's not true. As soon as I get at least two hours of sleep in a row. Ahem.

*

she's here

2010-02-02T17:41:00.000-05:00

Isla Faye Danely
arrived February 1st, 2010
weighing 6lbs 10oz and stretching to 18.5 inches
after 24 hours of awesome labor

Auden approves.

(He had several of his dinosaurs kiss her, which is a high compliment)

Welcome, sweet girl!

*

40 weeks

2010-01-28T14:56:00.000-05:00

It's not just my imagination... compared to four weeks ago, this bowling ball has descended significantly and is now resting directly ON TOP OF MY BLADDER.

non-plussed

2010-01-22T21:13:00.000-05:00

It's not like I needed any more reason to love my midwife, but now I have several.

I may have already mentioned that I'm measuring a bit small for my gestational date, a concern relayed from my midwife to my back-up OB to a perinatologist, who did two ultrasounds and a biophysical profile to determine that either A) she's just a small baby or B) the placenta isn't delivering the goods. So far it just looks like she's a small baby, but he recommended that I go in for non-stress tests twice a week anyway, Just To Be Sure.

At first they seemed like lovely little windows of enforced vacation: reclining with a funny book, a cup of iced juice with a straw, and listening to the tide-like gallumph-gallumph of my baby's heartbeat... why, let's do it three times a week! Each time, we'd pass the test with flying colors, with baby poking a heel or an elbow out at the monitors for dramatic effect, and they'd send me on my way.

After a few of these, though, I was getting bored. I met with my OB again to ask if we really needed to continue, seeing as how she's super active and nothing amiss was detected in either ultrasound. He said yes, Just To Be Sure. I did a mental shrug and thought, At least he's not pushing for induction, which is something the perinatologist had alluded to. I didn't feel like all the monitoring was warranted, but neither did I want to be too flippant. They really get you with those "off" chances.

So I went in on Friday for the latest test, got cozy in my seat while the nurse hooked me up, and finished my book while baby did some back-flips and body-rocks to my gastrointestinal soundtrack. I'd just eaten a huge bowl of oatmeal, and was sucking down some apple juice, so her heart-rate was in the the high 160's, and plus it seemed like she was doing some extra groovin' in there just to show off. The nurse said everything looked great, but when she came back from consulting the OB, she said he had read the dips in the chart as decelerations and wanted me to go over to perinatal assessment and have a Contraction Non-Stress Test, Just to Be Sure.

I kind of grumbled to myself and wanted to say no thanks, I've got to get my husband to work and my toddler down for a nap. I wondered briefly if the OB was actively searching for something to be wrong.

Jason was a sport, and agreed to take Auden to Whole Foods while I sat for another half-hour of monitoring. I forgot that things NEVER go as quickly as you plan, and I also forgot to give him the cell phone.

The second test looked much like the first, and even better when baby calmed down enough to establish a reasonable base-line in the 130's. The nurse said maybe the doctor had just read all the previous accelerations as baseline and that's why the dips looked so low. This is all German to me -- I'd have just as much luck reading a seismograph -- but she seemed positive about it, so I was ready to get out of there and get on with my day.

But she wanted to induce a few contractions to see how the baby dealt with those (hence the name of the test): if baby stayed constant, we'd pass go and collect $200; if her heart-rate dipped, it could mean some kind of distress and they'd be wheeling me over to L&D.

At that moment it stopped being about non-stress for the baby, and started being about an adrenaline-pumping limb-limpening dose of stress for me.

Intuitively I knew nothing was wrong with baby, but sensed immediately and acutely how little that would probably count. Like, would I be able to refuse to go? Would they threaten me? I mean, of course I could refuse to go, or could at least say Let me call my husband and my midwife first. But I was sufficiently impressed with how inevitably things unfold at the hospital, and how intimidated I was in the face of it.

So, great, let's stimulate those nipples and try to bring on some contractions!

The nurse helpfully brought out some gel-lubricant, and a sheet for modesty, and kept watch over the monitor for upwards of 45 minutes while I suffered through a potent combination of performance anxiety -- do I need to THINK stimulating thoughts, too? because this is waaaaaay worse than what it must be like to produce a sperm sample -- and downright indignation at being strapped to a hospital bed WHEN MY TODDLER NEEDS TO TAKE A NAP DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT HIS NAPS ARE???? I tried calling Whole Foods to page Jason to tell him no I'm not having a baby, at least not yet, and IS AUDEN SLEEPING? and dammit I should've just told you to head home and I'd take the damn bus.

If they'd had a tread-mill or a stair-master in the contraction non-stress test room, I'd have been able to give them three contractions in five minutes, but with lying down doing nothing but worrying, it took over an hour to be done with it and to prove, according to their seismograph, that my baby was Just Fine and for the doctor to agree. I forced smiles as I thanked everyone, including the perinatologist who noted brightly that I did in fact look bigger than last time! And even though I don't need to take it personally, and don't really hold it against him personally either, I left there feeling angry and totally annoyed by the whole experience.

Because it felt like none of it had to do with my actual baby -- it was all about their monitors and how they interpreted the numbers.

Perhaps you're thinking, "Oh sure, Doctors are all well and good when the advice is to sit around and eat and rest and have someone else do all the housework, but when you have to sit strapped to a hospital bed hour after inconvenient hour it's Bad Bad Medical Establishment." But honestly, it's more that... Hmm. Actually, now that you mention it, that's what I'm thinking too.

Jason reminded me that it's easy to gripe when you spend all day at the hospital only to find out it's GOOD NEWS.

Okay, fine, but I'd still rather be done with fear-mongering monitors, and I'm still pissed that Auden only got a 20-minute nap in the cafe of Whole Foods.

*

home visit

2010-01-20T14:26:00.000-05:00

Have I sung the praises of my midwife yet? Allow me to present pictorial evidence for how much I prefer this to a doctor's office:

And Auden gets to help, too.

You may not be the type who wants to hug and kiss her doctor out the door, but I am, and I get to. Yay.

*

projecting

2010-01-11T22:19:00.000-05:00

I was just saying to Jason the other day that I really wanted to get an overhead projector and where on earth does one even start looking for one of those? The last time I saw one in person was in my 8th grade Algebra class (any other City High Pegasi want to weigh in on that? I actually have fond memories of it!). Actually now that I think of it, I 'm pretty sure my obsessive-compulsive hoarder of a boyfriend in the San Francisco days probably had one in his meticulous stacks of rubble, but I was too unnerved by the claustrophobia to put it to use at that time.

But I'm past that now.

So not a week after voicing my desire did I find one for sale at an artist's rummage sale. She herself hated to part with it, because she was moving to Europe and couldn't take it along and where on earth would she even start looking for one over there? But hey, her loss is my fortuity! Er, I mean, I know a good deal when I see one, and was only too happy to lighten her load.

Auden likes my new toy, too:

Really, the possibilities for these things are unlimited, but I knew I wanted it specifically for the latest bone pieces, which I started here. I wanted to project the contour drawings to be able to fiddle with the composition, and let me tell you, I totally dorked out on fiddling with the composition. For hours. It was magical.

They're still evolving, and I have a sneaking suspicion that very little of what you see here will remain in the final product... because this is acrylic paint and try as I do, I just don't love the quality of it the way I love oils. I think more layers are in order, but I'm on that precarious edge of wanting to push the piece forward without overworking what's fresh and fluid about it.

For the time being think I'll go project drawings of bones on some other stuff, just because I can.

*

a needlessly wordy update, with tangents

2010-01-04T21:31:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh.

We're back in Milwaukee after a lovely holiday in Michigan, where although I had ample free time I was constitutionally incapable of blogging. I got fed and pampered, Jason got to take a break from job applications, and Auden got to go sledding for the first time -- in deep fluffy snow, as opposed to the frozen crusty inch tenaciously clinging to the grass over here.

He is also potty training like a champion, something that I am still incredulously shaking my head about. I guess the stars aligned and something clicked... I'm fairly sure it has nothing to do with the Sisyphean effort that was Elimination Communication -- although, hey, don't knock it until you've tried it, and I mean REALLY TRIED IT AHHRRRGHHHH. I just think he has the cognitive and verbal skills now to put two and two together. It helped that we had lots of time, both parents, no schedule, and grandparents who don't mind a naked butt at the dinner table. There were very few accidents, though, and some incredible moments of showmanship. What this kid will do for an animal cracker!

Yes. So. I've been under doctor's orders to Take It Easy and rest and eat as much as possible because there is some concern that this baby is measuring small. As delightful as this mandate is, I find it excruciating to just sit back and let people do things for me. I know, crazy right? Part of me totally needs it, and the other part of me is saying Ehhh hehhhh, but the bathroom floor is FURRY and the laundry and that phone call and do something stimulating for Auden QUICK and oh no dinner GAH. And on and on. So it's hard to slow down and say No You Do It... it's all part of a very carefully cultivated Mother Martyr thing. And you either know what I mean, or you're the one whose butt is gettin' wiped. Okaaaay? Word.

But it was definitely easier to let everything go while away from home. Now that we're back I want to return immediately to my usual juggling act, and it takes near-constant reminders from Jason to Sit Down and Chill, Damn. Can I say, too, that he is awesomely doing tons of cooking and washing of dishes and plying of increasingly needy toddler? Yes, yes. My husband is good.

I'm approaching 37 weeks, and entering the science fiction phase of pregnancy. I look down at my belly and see the whole thing quaking or writhing or a little heel pressing out and think, Weeeeeeirrrrd; or I look at myself in the mirror and even though I'm measuring small, I feel HUGE and bullet-bellied and my belly button is stretched beyond human imagination and I think, Weeeeeirrrrrd; or I'm going pee for the ten-budzillionth time that day and the baby presses down on my bladder WHILE I'M GOING and I think, Let's share this vessel amicably, shall we? YOU WEIRD ALIEN CREATURE INHABITING ME????

And then I remember that this is all part of the plan: that if it didn't get this weird and uncomfortable, I might just want to stay pregnant a liiiiittle longer -- to preserve the calm-before-baby-storm and all the adoring attention I get out in public. Oh I get all bittersweet about time passing, like every New Year's when I'm all, Another year, can you believe it??? Sigh and sigh. But the gears are shifting... I'm starting to gaze googly-eyed at all our tiny baby clothes and I'm organizing and making lists of things and getting so excited to meet this one. And excited about the prospect of putting on some zipper-fly jeans, I'll be honest.

In the meantime, I have some couch-sitting and ice-cream-eating to do.

*

36 weeks

2010-01-02T15:34:00.000-05:00

multi-purpose

2009-12-24T15:07:00.000-05:00

My "studio"

(Which doubles as the dining room and the office and is also a place for Auden to drive a tractor) This photo is so sweet that it's going to make me recall this work-space fondly and romantically, so let the record show that I need twice as much space, twice as much light, and five times as much shelving as I have now. Until then all this restriction makes me a better artist, right? RIGHT?

Merry Christmas, everybody! Happy New Year! Here's to 2010, may it be full of creativity and space.

*

breakthrough

2009-12-11T13:58:00.000-05:00

No time to write... Here are some pics of a recent burst of activity:

31 weeks

2009-11-29T14:42:00.000-05:00