goodbye, California...

Sunday afternoon we strapped Auden into the bjorn and went on a long walk in Los Penasquitos Canyon.

It was a typical southern California day: wide blue sky, golden hills, relentless sun. We spent most of the walk with our heads in the Midwest, though.

Jason was offered a post-doc position in Milwaukee, so come August we will be packing up and leaving the Golden State for good.


We are thrilled to be leaving behind high rent and the Santa Anas, and are looking forward to thunderstorms, seasons, Lake Michigan, and living much much closer to all the grandparents. Native Californians think we're crazy for voluntarily moving back to a region with weather of any kind, and I'm sure we'll wax nostaligic about 70 degree days in January when we're up to our eyeballs in fleece and scarves and scraping ice off the car, but this Michigan Girl also remembers a certain romance to the cold months.

And, selfishly, I want Auden to grow up shuffling through Autum leaves, going sledding and eating snow off crusty mittens, rejoicing at the first crocuses to poke through in Spring, and luxuriating at the beach in the long days of summer.



I wonder if he will see these photos of his first months and wonder about the palm trees, the impossibly clear skies, the hillsides electrified by purple and pink bouganvillea, and wonder why we chose the Hometown of Schlitz over Our Dreamy California life.

And we will say, You wouldn't have had any character if we'd stayed in San Diego. Also, you would think it's acceptable to wear flip-flops year-round.



Then he'll giggle gleefully and go back to shoveling the driveway.

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marveling

How can it be?

The days and weeks have been piling up, and suddenly Auden is more than two months old.

Already, the day he was born has retreated in my memory, overplayed, a story of words now rather than visceral sensations. He is plump, smiling, growing more familiar with the world. Things seem utterly normal now -- he wears socks! we go to the grocery store! -- where they used to feel terrifying and sacred. I dress him in tidy little ensembles that belie the messy and primal way he entered into this world; the way we all enter, wet and new and smelling like blood.

Is it not still a miracle? Are we not still close to the source, two months out? But it is less raw, less remarkable somehow. I feel silly pining for those first tender days, especially when there is so much brightness in him now and so much clever mischief brewing -- but I can't help it. I could tell my birth story a hundred more times and still be amazed by it: the way I became a portal, the way all women are marked by this event and carry it with them always. I had not known this, but now I see it everywhere... Older women smile at me and ask about the baby, we nod knowingly, exchanging a quiet pride. I see how they still remember their story, how it transformed them, how they still delight in seeing a new mother emerging, wide-eyed.

I watch TV shows about babies being born, and lord help me, I cry every time.

This, from Annie Dillard, about the Obstetrical Ward:

"There might well be an old stone cairn in the hall by the elevators, or a well, or a ruined shrine wall where people still hear bells. Should we not remove our shoes, drink potions, take baths? For this is surely the wildest deep-sea vent on earth: This is where the people come out."

May it never cease to be amazing.

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smiles

Robin: I don't mean to, but I've started saying everything in a cutesy voice and saying it twice.

Jason: Like what?

Robin: Like, "Let's change that diaper! Let's change that wet diaper!"
Robin (sing-song, to Auden): Don't I? Don't I do that?

Jason: Heh.

But really, with a face like this, can you blame me?

pound a week

Okay, I'm blogging at 8am on a Saturday to tell you that there's no way I can possibly tell you all the brilliant and blog-worthy goings-on. The days are still a blur. Auden is smiling now -- great gummy flirty open-mouthed smiles that light me up (even at 4:30 in the morning). And he slept for four and a half hours IN A ROW last night. I've heard stories about this much sleep! Can it finally be true?

I've been going to a breastfeeding support group meeting every week to get out of the house and shoot the shit with other new moms. An added bonus is that I can weigh Auden and see how much milk he's getting at each feeding.

Apparently there is a three-week growth spurt and a six-week growth spurt, where baby is eating almost constantly and gaining quickly. I think Auden never took a break between growth spurts, as it seems to be his style to eat every hour and to put on nearly a pound a week. (!)

The other day he weighed in at 12lbs 10oz -- that's five pounds since birth. I had to dress him in this cute stripey outfit before he busts out of it:



And my good friend Beth came for a visit last weekend. She cooked and washed and displayed great new holds for calming fussy star-bellied sneeches:



Hooray!

Time for coffee!

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the human line

From my mama to me to all of you:

The Human Line
by Ellen Bass

After I had carried her those nine months,
Those two hundred and eighty-four days, each
With its sheaf of hours, each hour fanned out
Into minutes, into seconds, as though time had been
Sliced thin as onionskin-

After I'd hauled this cache of cells as it swept
Through a kind of rough evolution, devising
Arms buds and sex buds
And the buds for twenty milk teeth-

And then birthed her, my cervix cranked open,
A rusty hinge. And the pain-
What a tree might feel when lightning splits it
And the two halves fall away-

Then I realized- I'm not proud
To admit this is what it took- that everyone
Was lugged in the sack of a woman's body,
A woman stretched past reason
Or slit with a steel scalpel.

Even if she left that baby right there
Without counting the pearly toes, thumbing
The miniature knuckles, even if she didn't
Look into the face, neutral as Buddha,
Before thirst even. If she was drugged
Or relieved and the baby whisked away, still

She gave this child every intricate bone of both feet,
The hollow vertebrae, tiny liver,
Lungs that fill with air for the first time
And begin, without a lesson,
Bringing this world in and releasing it.

Did Mary feel this when the angel came to her
Holding his useless lily? Not in the surfeit
Of gilt frames where she's poised,
Serene, but those few where the artist knew,
Had seen women already crushed, bowed.
I was standing in the long hospital corridor
When the knowledge entered me.
I didn't want it. It was grief-
Extending back through time
And reaching into the future, all these babies,
All these mothers with their hearts
Beating outside their bodies. And now
I was one of them, lashed to the human line.

*

lazy sunday

diaper free: an update

Since it's now May, I'm led to believe that the very long day and very long night that has elapsed since Auden was born has actually been a month. Happy one month, little bug!

So. I know the question on everyone's mind is: how 'bout that diaper-free? We jumped right in and started the diaper-free discipline within 24 hours of his arrival. We even managed to catch his first couple of poops in the potty -- which was an amazing and miraculous feat to us, the uninitiated (and to my mom, who said she'd have to see it to believe it). Since then it's been hit or miss, pun quite intented.

I'm just glad that despite my high expectations of effortless communication with my newborn, I did also invest in cloth diapers, sassy diaper covers, and more than a couple packs of disposables. We're more diaper-reduced than diaper-free.

Well, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it:




J drew up a score board so we can tally the results of "Potty vs. Diapers" every day. The diapers are unequivocally winning, although I think catching a poop at 4am as I have the past two mornings should be worth way more than one wet diaper.

Yeah, but that's not really the point.

I'm reminding myself that this is a process, and that it will take months... it's exhausting and rewarding, like everything else in this baby adventure. It is seriously gratifying when we get it just right, though, and I'd like to think Auden feels the same -- even when it's his bare bum in the chilly morning air.

[For those of you willing to take the challenge, allow me to recommend "Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene" by Ingrid Bauer, and also some helpful sites like http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/ and http://bornpottytrained.com/]

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