I woke up on the 17th ready for my ultrasound. Ready to get the worry behind me, ready to get on with the rest of the pregnancy, ready for the end of the spotting I’d had for over a week. As I was walking out the door, blood. So much blood. Panicked, I stuffed some toilet paper to preserve what could be preserved of my clothes and sped to the doctor. Amid my worries that I’d bleed all over the chair, an ultrasound confirmed the worst. Our active little bean was floating peacefully in the amniotic fluid, his/her little arm buds perfectly still. No hopeful flickering of a heart. No hope.

I went to sleep that afternoon, empty of everything but the vicodin/valium cocktail they’d given me for the procedure. I’d lost the baby, I’d lost my long-planned trip east for a fiber festival, I wanted nothing but sleep. I slept for four hours with no dreams.

I woke up feeling surreal. I clearly wasn’t pregnant anymore–the causeless anger/random weeping combo I’d been dealing with for over a month was gone. I felt almost chipper. I walked around the house in a daze while Jon and Jacob finished their nap. I needed to get away for my weekend as I’d planned, figure out how I felt about things, try to get some perspective again. After securing the okay with my doctor, I threw things into a suitcase, rushed out the door. I don’t remember if I spoke much to Jon or Jacob, or what I said. I fell asleep on the plane dreaming of a weekend of escape.

Boston’s morning fog gradually lifted into a crisp, sunny fall day. The leaves were riotous with color, the air smelled clean. I felt, like I always do when I return to New England, at home. More at peace. More hopeful. I filled the weekend with enjoyable distractions, took some space to feel like myself again, actively tried not to think of any of my problems. By the end of the weekend, I felt like I was actually capable of returning home and getting things back in order.

So, I’m back. We’re partly unpacked in a new house, our finances haven’t been closely maintained in a month, internet is still spotty, the months until we can start trying to have children again seem interminable, my aunt has just been diagnosed with fairly advanced cancer, I’m behind on my work. But thanks to a break, I’m here, with my son and husband, slowly picking up the pieces. And that’s all that really matters.

Uh, sorry about that, rest of CA. Just to show how wrong I can be, we’ve had below-freezing temperatures at night for what seems like FOREVER (but is at most two weeks). Houses here just aren’t built to handle the cold. Single pane windows and zero insulation means brrrrrrr.

Jacob doesn’t mind, so much. We’re still walking during the day, and we have finally gotten off of the waiting list (*boggles*) at the local Gymboree-type place. So we’re also going to the Padded Room of Toddler Heaven a couple of times a week. It’s called “Tots in Motion”, and it’s basically a big open space filled with padded little tubes, ramps, mazes, and trampolines. He has a blast, and I’m meeting other mothers. It’s really, really nice.

I’m generally not much for new year’s resolutions, but this year I’m striving for a better balance between being mom-Amy and me-Amy. When your “job” is with you 24-7, it’s surprisingly easy to lose sight of everything else, and I struggled with that a little bit last fall. I’m spending a lot of time knitting, and meeting other adults through that, which is really nice. And I’m getting more serious about photography, which I hope to turn into a small business. If you’d be willing to be a model for some sessions (or loan out your kid for same) to help me get better at portraiture, please let me know!

…and I leave you with a cute picture from our trip back east. Here’s me and my nephew Zachary, the other absolute cutest kid in the universe.

Hope you’re well!

dadadadadadadadadadadadada…

…DaDaDaDaDaDaDaDaDaDaDaDa…

…DADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADA!!!!!

(Got that?)

*****

Anyone who has shown even the slightest willingness to let me whine at them over the last 6 months knows how tired I am of nursing. At the same time, I appreciate how important it is to Jacob and I don’t want to simply stop without any give and take. So over the course of the last three months, I’ve tried out several weaning strategies and attempts.

We started with “don’t offer, don’t refuse”, which didn’t really change anything at all. Then came offering the sippy cup instead, which worked about half the time. After a month (?) of this, I realized that what really made me loathe nursing was the impact it had on our sleep. We (mostly) night-weaned, and things got a lot better. Recently, I stopped the ’snack bar’ approach to nursing during the day and established set nurse-times for Jacob: first waking, nap times, his bedtime, our bedtime, and usually around 5am I’d give in to his pestering so that I could nab another hour of sleep. We went to Jacob’s 15-month wellness visit recently, and the doctor said “absolutely not” to sleep-feedings because of increased risk of tooth decay. So one week ago, we cut out the nursing at our bedtime. Tonight, we cut out the 5am.

And I have to say, going through all of this structure, all of these attempts, really seems to have brought into relief what nursing does for Jacob. It’s his security blanket, in a nutshell–he doesn’t suck on a pacifier, have a lovey toy or blanket, hell, he doesn’t even feel the need to stay within sight 80% of the time. But when he’s feeling crummy, when he’s in a new situation, when he’s waking up hard from a nap and is all disoriented, he asks to nurse. And when I let him nurse at these times, it’s like I’ve been visited by the magical nursing fairy in all of those Dr. Sears books. Jacob snuggles into my lap, cuddles his arms around me, and hangs out for 5 minutes or so while nursing. Then he gets up and does his own thing.

It really is one of the sweetest feelings in the world. And after all of the nursing elimination we’ve gone through, it’s incredibly lovely to have the final few nursings per day be these cuddly bonding experiences. And this leaves me in a place I would never have predicted two months ago: Am I desperate to cut these last few feedings out and wean Jacob entirely? Not at all. I’m even feeling more relaxed about the “only at naptime” rule during the day.

Color me shocked.

We then went to dim sum for the first time, which was lots of fun–Jacob’s favorite by far was his sesame ball, but he humored us and also tried a little egg tart, soft tofu, sticky rice, and roasted duck.

After lunch, Neil let Jacob help him rake leaves.

Well. Help is putting it a little strongly.

Then Stacy and Neil, saints that they are, watched both children so that Jon and I could escape alone for an hour or so. We went to a local, quaint little downtown and walked around, sipping latte (me) and talking about this and that (Jon) and generally enjoying one another’s company. It’s the first time we’ve been really without Jacob since we arrived here, and it was incredibly refreshing. It filled all of our reserves back up, both for one another and for Jacob.

To make the weekend even nicer, Jon took his Veteran’s Day holiday today and we spent a quiet domestic day at home.

And right now I’m listening to the rain drip outside, and all things are quiet, and I’m in awe of how lucky I am to be in this life. I hope it’s going as well for all of you.

Telling and hearing stories about my mother seems to help. The stories act as roots, give me something to grasp, to struggle with, to help me know who she might have been. I hope that if you knew her, you’ll share a story with me in the comments, email, or some other way.

I remember her in a rust-colored fair isle sweater and 70s polyester blue slacks, snuggling me and rocking me when I was upset about something. The wool was scratchy, her hands were small and cool as they stroked the hair on my forehead. She hummed to me, and made me feel like we were the only people in the world.

I remember her sitting in our living room knitting things for me and my brother. Hats and mittens out of scratchy acrylic yarn, with a string attaching one mitten to the other. I remember her excitement once when she got some “pure wool”, what I know now to be a fairly rough wool/mohair blend. She made a free-style sweater out of it that I still have.

I remember her good-naturedly telling us we could cook our own dinner, as we good-naturedly ribbed her about her “cornflake baked chicken”. She was a terrible cook, with the exception of fried fish, lobster stew, and piecrust.

I remember her strange combination of guilt and joy when she bought a fancy dress for the Christmas party at my father’s work. It’s the only time I remember her buying clothes for herself. It was very in style at the time, in the mid 80s. It was royal blue satin flecked with kelly green, and it looked fantastic on her.

I remembered her quiet happiness when we left our house in Woolwich to move closer to her family in Phippsburg.

I remember going to the beach with her, when we were all very young. My brother and I (and sometimes the neighbor kids) would play in the sand and the waves while she rubbed olive oil or sun-oil that smelled like coconut on her skin and baked in the sun to get tan.

I remember her returning from her brother’s funeral, red-eyed, in a tan linen skirt, and going immediately to her room. My brother and I played with my dad’s relatives. It’s one of the only times I remember her really crying.

I remember her and my dad throwing small parties at our house in Woolwich, AC/DC blaring out of my dad’s ancient stereo while us kids lip-synced and danced. She’d dance with us sometimes, too, as she cooked or drank her beer or whatever. She loved to dance, but my father hated to.

I remember that they fought over my dad drinking with one of his friends, once. She stormed out the front door and kicked a bucket across the lawn and ten minutes later, took me and my brother to my grandma’s house so that we wouldn’t be around when they had the fight.

I remember her rocking and humming and soothing the babies she cared for in our home. She loved all of the children she cared for, but especially the babies. She stroked their small heads, danced around with them, sang to them. She seemed sad when they left, every day.

I remember one afternoon in Phippsburg. I was perhaps 12 or 13 and I was getting ready to go out for the afternoon. I asked her if I looked okay, and she put down her coffee and cried a little bit and told me that she knew some daughters and mothers stopped getting along when the daughter became a teenager, and could we please never do that. We hugged, and I said of course we would never fight, and I would always love her and she was my mother. It totally baffled me. I understand it, now.

I remember that she drank gallons and gallons of black coffee. She taunted my father for creaming and sugaring his.

I remember how happy she was when, later in our lives, she started working for LL Bean. She kept spiral-bound notebooks of notes and thoughts about her job, things she wanted to do, things she learned. I think I remember her taking classes of some kind through them, but I don’t really trust this memory.

I remember driving with her to pick up my brother from Junior High and going to the humane society to get a puppy. We got a black lab mix, named him Bryer, and he was a wonderful family dog. During the ride home, my brother and I both sat in the back seat of our Subaru station wagon (“The blueberry”, she called it) giggling and laughing with the puppy and his slobbery kisses. I remember seeing her repeatedly look at us through the rearview mirror and smiling.

I remember her never questioning my choice to go to college in Los Angeles, my conversion to Judaism, my choice of boyfriends. I don’t know why she never second-guessed the big things, but it’s one of the many parenting choices she made for which I’m grateful.

I remember how like a different person she was by the time I could get back home, my senior year of college. I remember her thin, gaunt face and hands, her yellow eyes, her enormous bloated stomach. I remember holding her hand when they finally inserted a catheter to keep her comfortable. I remember knowing the night she was going to die, and going home instead of seeing her off. It’s the only regret of my life. It shames me.

I remember her cackling and drumming her feet on the floor in glee when she’d win at card games with our family, especially when she beat her brothers.

I remember hanging around her mother’s house. She and her mother and sister would gab, drink coffee, sometimes smoke, make fun of the “outta staters” buying up all of the land in our town, play cards, cook, bustle. It was ordinary, we were all loved, nothing could ever happen to change it.

But something did. I miss you, mom. I love you.

1. Triscuits are not an interior design element.
2. Egg salad is not a fashion accessory.
3. When you are so exhausted you can no longer walk, the solution is not ‘try to nurse, talk, and do acrobatics on the bed all at the same time’.
4. The solution is to cuddle up with me and sleep.
5. Water bottle caps are not food.
6. The world will not end if you stop smearing the floor with yogurt.
7. I neither desire nor require assistance when cleaning your ass.
8. Nursing is, in fact, a stationary activity.
9. This laptop does not belong to you.
10. I am never trying to poison you.

Love,

Mom.

Jonathan has recently accepted a position as an Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. This will allow Jon greater research freedom and me the ability to stay home with our children. We’ll be moving there in mid-August.

Given that this move will take us far away from our families, I’m starting this blog as a way to keep in closer touch. Look to it for news updates, thoughts on our new locale, movies, and pictures. Check back often!