{my moses basket}

I had always wondered how Baby's Breath flowers earned their name. I now know that it is not because they smell like actual baby's breath; at least not my baby's. Avram's breath usually smells like rotten broccoli.

I walked past a bundle of said flowers in the grocery store the other day, and I think I figured it out. Those little white flowers look exactly like the tiny curdled milk pieces Ave outputs whenever he spits up.

Not sure I find the flowers quite as pretty as I used to.

To be completely honest I have good days and bad days. The good days I am at peace. The good days I can laugh and play all day with Avram. The good days I am a normal, functional human being. The good days I know the Lord is good, I know He is working this all out for good, I know the future will be good.

And then...then there are the bad days.

The bad days, I get mad. I get mad that there are teenage girls, wanting anything but a baby, getting pregnant every day and having perfectly healthy babies. I get mad at the women I see on the train feeding their kids Flaming Hots and Pepsi for breakfast and then telling them to "shut the hell up" every time they try to talk. I get mad at Avram for not walking and talking and solving math problems and playing the harpsichord already, because, come on, give your mother a little assurance already. I get mad at God for giving my baby so many challenges before he even stepped out of my belly and into a world that's scary even with all your ducks in a row. I get mad at Him for not giving us any answers or any way to prepare for the future or even a solid diagnosis, because that's the least He could do if He's going to drop such a bomb in our laps like this. I get mad that I had such a scary and scarring pregnancy and labor that I'm practically terrified to go through it all again. Then I get sad because who knows what kinds of things other kids will same to him in elementary school, and don't even get me started on the dark, evil abyss that is middle school. I get sad because this shunt is something he's going to have the rest of his life, and every time he gets a headache or feels nauseous he's going to worry that it's malfunctioning.

But these are the days that I have to put Ave in the basket and float him down the river. I have to swallow my pride and let go of my death-grip on the controls, and resolve myself to the fact that I cannot save him, or heal him, or always protect him. I have to trust that the Lord is the one guiding the currents of the stream, that He will be the one to see Avram through all the way to the end, that He is the one who has placed the right people along the banks, people who will help and encourage and support and pray for Avram. I have to put him in the basket and let go.

And when I do, the bad days become good days again. And day by day, inch by inch, the good days are outnumbering the bad days. The good days are winning.

{waving the white flag}

Well, I have just about had it with all this baby-schedule crap. This babe has his own schedule, thank you very much (Don't get me wrong, he is a wonderful sleeper. He's already snoozing 6- 7 hours straight at night--"Halle!", as my wonderful friend Missy would say). He definitely has his dad and Uncle Paul's stubbornness.

If you know Jason, this might be hard to believe. If you know my brother, on the other hand, it might not.

When Jason was little and his mom put him in his room for time-out, she had to stand outside & use all her weight to keep the door shut because he would try to get out. When he realized he was barricaded in, he would start chucking toys at the door Rambo-style like they were hand grenades.

When Paul was little and he was spanked, he refused to cry. He would grit his teeth, furrow his brow, and take it like a man. There was no way he was crying on anyone else's terms but his own.

When I was little, if you even looked at me like you were mad, I'd tear up and start to apologize. I am a peace-keeping, people-pleasing, everybody-get-along soul.

Not this tiny dude.

I've been trying to get Ave to be up for an hour and a half, then sleep for an hour and a half. Some days, he's totally game. Then, some days (who am I kidding, it's most days), when I put him down for his nap, he looks up at me and frowns. He doesn't cry: he makes a legitimate, upside-down-U, frown. Bottom lip totally puckered, sad-eyed like a puppy dog.

If I leave him, he enacts his fool-proof master plan of loosening his diaper so he can wet the bed and make me feel like freaking Hitler.

If I pick him up, I swear he won't look me in the face. It's like he's saying, "Well, once you apologize, we can play nice again. But not unless you mean it."

{why i love my husband}

FYI, this post will probably be really confusing if you didn't read the {small bits of light} post, or if you have never heard of this incredibly awful poem. If you found this poem helpful or encouraging, I don't mean to offend. It might have just been bad timing.

Yesterday I was having the crap-hole of crap-hole days. It may or may not have had something to do with the fact that my you-know-what finally started again and I am feeling like a hormonal Attila the Hun, or that I need to have parental control settings on our internet so I don't sit around Googling horror stories about brain abnormalities all day. Or that I haven't slept more than 5 hours at a time in over 2 months. Or that I spend 99% of my day entertaining a 2 month old.

Whatever it was, I was a royal disaster yesterday. As my friend Betsy says, it was a total emotional-wedgie day. When J came home from work, I was somewhere in between irrationally angry and thoroughly depressed.

"What's the matter? Are you thinking about that stupid poem?"

"Yeah. Wait, no. I guess. Maybe. I don't know."

"Well, don't. You know why? Italy was out of the Cup in the first round. The first round. And you know who's going to the finals?"

"No. I need ice cream."

"The Dutch! The Dutch are going to the finals. Who the heck cares about Italy? They can't even get their population to increase, I mean, how hard is that to do? The Dutch are DOMINATING."

And that, ladies & gentlemen, is why I love my husband.

{wednesday morning snippets}

After a much-needed trip back to Fort Wayne to celebrate the Fourth, we are back at home base. While it's nice to have the little mister back in his routine & to not be living out of our suitcase, it is a much more solitary life back in Chicago. 48 hours back and I'm already feeling a little stir crazy. I am seriously considering asking our mail-woman (Is that the PC way to say it? Mail-lady? Mail-mam? Mail-person?) to deliver our mail in small increments throughout the day. It would make life just that much more exciting.

I'm not gonna lie: I'm trying hard to mask my feelings of resentment towards the babe because he doesn't yet have his stuff together enough to go to the movie theater. I am dying to see Toy Story 3. Maybe if we top off his bedtime Bubba with a couple drops of Baby Tylenol he would stay in a euphoric state long enough (Kidding, people. Relax. But really.).

When we first came to check out this apartment for the first time, I immediately realized how much quieter it was than our old apartment. I thought, "YES, no more rap music blasting through cheap speakers at 2am."

Well, I was wrong. Sort of. Mostly only about the rap part.

I suppose I should be grateful that we live in a more culturally diverse neighborhood. Instead of solely TuPac & Beyonce, we now have Toby Keith, Coldplay, ACDC, & mariachi music for our listening pleasure. I guess that's something.

I think my cabin fever led me to terrorize a couple of pre-teen boys last night. It was 10:30pm, and the babe had been down for about an hour after a very sticky, sweaty day. The two of us had just lounged around in our underwear & took soak-breaks in his baby bath tub all day since it was so disgustingly hot. It was so nice to finally have a little break.

Then, right outside our living room window, bottle rockets go off. Mind you, we have no AC & all our windows have to be open. If I had been wearing more clothes, they would have torn into tiny pieces as I morphed into Hulk mode.

"HEY. It's TEN THIRTY and I've got a BABY sleeping.

KNOCK IT OFF."

One of them may or may not have soiled his pants as they took off running down the street.

At first, I let out a faint evil scientist laugh, but then I instantly felt like a cranky old bag. I guess it's payback for when I was 16 and thought it was super cool to drive around with my music blasting at 1am.

This morning, Ave & I took a 7am stroll to the grocery store before the heat wave rolled back in. As we were waiting in line to buy some homemade pizza ingredients, he stirred from his nap and started staring at his feet. For a solid five minutes his big baby-blue eyes just stared down those little butterball feet, as if he was saying to himself, "Holy cats, where did THOSE come from? They are marvelous!"

...maybe I don't mind staying home all day after all.

{i call back}

Each spring since I learned how to walk, I helped my father plant his vegetable garden in the southwest corner of our property. The springs and summers spent in the grass and sunshine of our half-mile stretch of land hold my fondest memories, and I call them back to my thoughts during dark, cold city nights while lying awake in bed.

I can call back the soft glow of morning's first light as it snuck into my bedroom through pink linen curtains, the fragrance of freshly picked lavender resting in a vase on my nightstand, the soft, curious sniffs on my face from our yellow Labrador as she greeted me with wet morning kisses.

I can call back the warm, organic smell my father had in the first hours of the day while still unshaven and pajama-clad, the monotone voices of National Public Radio murmuring on the stereo, the sizzling of bacon and cracking of eggs on the stove, the whirling and grinding of the blender as Dad created his famous concoction of blueberry, strawberry, grape, banana, and pineapple juices.

I can feel the cool, crisp morning air on my skin and the way it made my eyes water as we stepped out onto to the back patio and the sliding screen door snapped behind us, the dampness of the dawn's dew on the grass soaking through my tennis shoes. I can feel the roughness of the wooden fence on my palms as my brother and I raced to climb over it. I can hear the buzzing of mosquitos, the chirping of the crickets, the squawking of the birds, the humming of the locusts, the croaking of the frogs, the clinking of Gracie's collar as she ran ahead of us.

I can call back the crunch of gravel under our feet as we walked back to the old barn, the way the coolness of the shadow from the trees lining the road gave my arms goosebumps, the blinding light of the morning sun reflecting off the pond, the roar of ancient wood and metal as Dad slid the barn doors open and the aromas of horse hair, hay, and dust that came floating out.

I know how the metal tools hung neatly, high on the walls waiting to be thrust into the earth, how the wood felt solid in the palm of my small, willing hands. I know the smile in my father's eyes as he looked over what was then a plot of barren land and saw the harvest of autumn, the tenderness of his direction as he showed me how to space the seeds, the hope in his voice that his new method of discouraging weeds would finally bring success, the joy in his laugh as he caught Gracie trying to carry away his gardening gloves to bury.

I know the sensation of dark, moist earth seeping between the cracks in my palms and the spaces under my nails, the salty smell of freshly tilled dirt, the cold sting of water flowing from the hose, the creaking of the lever on the well pump, the sweat beading on my forehead and the back of my neck. I know the awe of holding a tiny-yet-powerful seed in my hand and wondering how it could ever grow into a luscious tomato, the wonder of setting it deep in a hole and covering it with soil. I know the exhilarating fear and surprise of meeting a garden snake face-to-face, the excitement of pulling a big juicy earthworm or tiny roly poly bug out of the ground, the satisfaction in chasing away lettuce-eating rabbits.

I know the cracking of corn husks as Dad pulled them off the stalks, the soft pearly touch of a ready-to-pick cherry tomato, the sticky skin of a zucchini, the pop of a green bean being pulled from its vine, the agony of carrying a giant watermelon in my arms for the long trek back to the house. I know the giant, steaming caphalon pots filled with green beans and the snapping sound they would make as Mom broke off the ends, the salivating mouths of my brother and me as we awaited fresh green beans and buttery potatoes for dinner. I know the rubbery film that would stick on my hands as I shucked fresh corn and the frustration of trying to remove every single wisp and thread from its rows, the sweetness of corn cobs cooked on the grill, the way my mother would laugh when my brother and I would stick corn kernels over our teeth to look like they were rotten, yellow, and misshapen.

I can remember the peacefulness of our backyard as the hot, sticky, summer afternoons cooled into dark, quiet evenings. I can count each tall tree and see each bed of yellow, dancing sunflowers and bright, white magnolias. I can hear my father laughing as he throws at old baseball to my brother, I can see the stars shining like thousands of fireflies in the sky, I can feel the warmth of the fire pit and the smell of perfectly roasted marshmallows. I can remember the clanking of glass as my brother and I searched the kitchen cabinets for the perfect jars, the thrill of spotting a large patch of lightning bugs, the sound of our laughter as we caught what seemed like hundreds of them, the popping sound saran wrap made as we punched little air holes for our new friends.

I can remember drifting off to sleeping staring at my new nightlights, the slight warmth my skin radiated after soaking up the sun all day, wrapping my arm around Grace as she settled deep into the cotton sheets. I can remember the quietness and soft creaking of our old ranch house when the sun went down, the soft light of the moon on my bedroom floor, the smokey smell of my father's pipe, the muffled sound of my mother's laughter.

{revenge of the nerdy mom}

This morning was big. I mean, monumental. I actually had the chance to get cleaned up (code for "brush my teeth"), get dressed (change out of my pjs), and go out on the town (the grocery store) for awhile. It was life changing. Jason is on a small break before starting summer school this coming Monday, so I was able to put Ave down for his nap & leave him at home. And leave the apartment. By myself.

It was exhilarating. I could hardly contain myself; I felt like a teenager sneaking out in the middle of the night to go tee-pee someone's house. I think I frightened some of the Dominicks employees with my eagerness to find Greek salad.

And...that's about as far as the teenager-analogy goes. I had to laugh at myself, because I used to NEVER leave the house unless I looked like I just stepped out of Seventeen, even if I was only running an errand. And I always had music on in the car, full blast, while talking on my cell phone. Today, I felt dressed up in a t-shirt and shorts, was excited to leave my phone at home, and wished the car ride was longer so I could finish listening to the story on NPR.

It made me wonder what kind of things Avram will consider dorky when he's a teenager. I know a lot of people my age who want their kids to grow up with land to roam, to take music lessons, to not have video games. They want their kids to be aware of the environment, of different cultures; they feel they somehow missed out on these things during their own childhoods.

I had to laugh because I often picture myself over the course of the next up-teen years as a parent, doing all the right things, molding Avram into this incredibily-interesting-and-intelligent-but-well-rounded-and-not-snobby individual: which, of course, means teaching him French & how to take pictures, identify trees, & play about 6 different instruments, going on camping trips, & not letting him watch TV. But obviously still enrolling him in public school so he doesn't become a social invalid. We just won't push sports like our parents did, you know, because athletes aren't cultured or deep-thinkers and don't grow up to be anything cool like movie producers or Peace Corps members or indie rock singers.

I know that inevitably there will be some things that he will wish I taught him, and some things I did teach him that he will consider super nerdy or irrelevant. Who knows, maybe he'll look at me thirty years from now and say, "Geez, Mom, how could you not think ice fishing would have been something I needed for my future? What were you thinking with mandolin lessons? I mean, come on."

{baby vs. naptime}

I'm a terrible mother.

I've been trying to get the boy on somewhat of a schedule, which means I'm starting to let him "cry it out" a little bit when I put him down for a nap or when he wakes up before he's supposed to. The last couple days I've been letting him whimper and wail it out for a little while, in hopes that he'll soothe himself back to sleep. Hey, he's 2 months this week. Time to toughen up and take it like a man.

But it never fails: whenever I resolve to be stern & not immediately go check on him, almost every time I walk in to find him lying there in a pool of urine. He just lies there, helplessly, looking up at me with this smug look of disappointment, as if he's about to shake his head at me & say in his cross baby voice, "Now...see what you made me do?"

I swear, as soon as I leave the room, he is purposely loosening the velcro on his diaper just for a chance to rub it in.