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Home again, home again.

Except we’re not, really. Returning to California feels like the vacation, our time in New England like home. I don’t know exactly when or how, but I’ve got to get back there.

It’s impossible to pick highlights, because even with all of the moving around and illness and difficulty, I had such a wonderful time being back in New England during a proper winter. So here are some fun shots of our time there, in lieu of highlights or a complete recap:

(Does this even need a caption?)

Jacob’s first snowman, shared with cousin Zachary and uncle Andrew. Yes, his features are made from car parts.

I got a few precious moments alone in a December fog while we were in Providence.

Jacob got to tote around a snowman more his own size, in Sturbridge.

Of course the best part was all of the time we got to spend with friends (related to us and not). 2007 was a difficult year, but we hope for better things to come in 2008.

Comparison

So far, Hanukkah and Christmas are running neck and neck. Hanukkah has singing books, which are pretty cool:

But Christmas definitely has better hats.

Welcome to Boston.

Time: 6:52 AM.

Temperature: 24 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dude’s scraping the ice off of his windshield in shorts.

(At least he was wearing a fleece vest.)

‘Tis the season

The holiday season is upon us. Hanukkah has started, and it’s much more enjoyable this year due to Jacob’s vastly increased ability to grasp the whole thing. “Happy Hanukkah!”, he shouts to random passers-by. “Hanukkah a HOLIDAY!”

He’s really enjoying the little safari animals we’re giving him this year, and it’s so much fun to see him play with them. “Mommy, Daddy Lion needs take a naaaaaaaap. Close eyes?” But the show-stealer so far has been the jigsaw puzzle. We upgraded to a 24-piece puzzle since the 12-piece ones no longer hold his interest for more than .02 seconds, and hooray! This one takes him a full five minutes to assemble. Blessed silence, how we cherish you.

He’s not so sure about the latkes, though.

Or the kugel. Or anything else I put in front of him. Oh, well. At least he doesn’t appear to be starving. Maybe he’s synthesizing food out of the air, somehow?

He’s excited for our trip on Monday, too. We’re trying to prepare him for snow. I’m not so sure he gets the “cold” concept, but he sure is having fun running around the house in hats and mittens.

I don’t know whether I’ll be able to blog in Maine, so in case I can’t, happy holidays to all of you from all of us!

Busy bees

Wednesday was a pretty good day. Jacob decided in the morning that he didn’t want to attend the Mommy & Me-type class we usually go to (”Jacob no go class today pleeease, Mommy?”), so we stayed at home and Jacob helped me work.

But my favorite part of the day was unwinding at the end of it, knitting next to Jon on the couch while he started a new video game. It’s so quiet, after 9:30, and I’m really coming to treasure that time.

Yesterday, hands-down the best moment was when the play Hanukkah set I’d splurged on for Jacob arrived. He’s been fascinated with dreidels lately, and he immediately picked it up and started spinning in the living room.

“Jacob spin just like dreidel, Mommy!”

It’s a Mommy day

Today was a good day pretty much all around. Jon and I had one of those Important Conversations, and it both went well (no fighting) and was productive (a plan for our future that we both believe in). I cast on for some fun new knitting projects. We figured out how to save a sizable chunk of money each month. And it was a Mommy Day.

It’s a well-known secret (to other parents, anyway) that one isn’t often the focus of one’s child’s attention. And especially with a two year old, when you are the center of their attention… well, let’s just say it can be not so pleasant. But today, I could do no wrong as far as Jacob was concerned. All day long, he snuggled his warm little hand into mine, gave me unprompted kisses, waved and said “Hi, Mom.”, and bestowed smile after happy, soul-warming smile.

Thanks, little man. I needed that.

Good things

I think it’s a good idea to try (at least for the next two weeks, before we head back east) to post a daily “good thing”. Just a moment during the day that I really enjoy, to try and balance out the bad I post here so often lately.

Today, it’s Jacob “reading” to himself. He barely even notices it when I get the camera out, he’s so entranced with the letters and pictures. He has good taste in books, to boot–this pic snapped while he looked at Silly Sally.

Thanks

A wonderful blogger recently prompted me to think about what I believe in–what rules I try to live by. If she’d posted such a query two years ago, I would have shared the following:

Life is good.
Be happy now.
Let it go.

I still like this, but it just doesn’t quite ring true for me at the moment. Life is always, clearly, better than the alternative. And we have a lot of control over how we react to whatever life is throwing at us. And of course, in the scheme of existence on this planet, middle-class white American is pretty goddamn far up there.

Still, after some thinking, I decided that right now, here’s how I want to live my life.

Happiness is one of our only true choices in life.
Regret is a waste of time.
The point of my life is to leave this world a better place than it was when I found it.

I don’t typically struggle with the second and third statements, there. It’s generally easy for me to learn from my mistakes and move on. I genuinely enjoy being nice to people and doing the right thing. But sometimes, particularly out here, particularly lately, it’s really tough for me to choose happiness. To look at the past few months and see anything other than enormous loss.

And let’s be honest–there has been enormous loss. Over the past four months, I have lost a baby, two grandparents, an aunt, and the illusion that we can afford for me to raise our kids full-time. I am 3,000 miles away from my entire support structure at a time when I badly, badly need it. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t bitter about this, and my only goal yesterday was to get through the day.

But it’s also true that I have much, much more than these losses.

I have a wonderful husband who is a partner in all aspects of my life. Who loves me, respects me, challenges me, and cares for me. I have the most fantastic kid in the universe, who makes my heart swell with pride and love every single day.

Even if they’re far away, I do have family and friends who love me and want to help. I recognize, finally, what a mistake I’ve been making by letting all of the bad overshadow that powerful good. So the question is, how quickly can I let it go? How quickly can I accept this mistake, learn from it, and move on to a happier existence?

I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

How do you choose happiness when times are rough?

Four.

My grandfather’s given name was Lewis, but everyone called him Tinker. When I was young, he was a tinkerer, a trader, a man who always liked to have some plan hatching or project going. He slowed down a lot as he aged, like everyone does I suppose. For the past few years, he mostly sat in his recliner and sucked on hard candy.

He left school after 8th grade, and married my grandmother when he was 21. They had ten children together: three girls (one stillborn), and seven boys. Whether it was his idea or hers I don’t know, but they named them all with names beginning with “D”. He saw three of those children buried. He was a very outdoorsy kind of guy–a fisherman, clamdigger, and seafood shucker by profession, and an avid hunter. His favorite kind of hunting was bow hunting. I think he liked the quiet of it, the evening of the odds between you and the animal.

Although he was always incredibly poor, when I was in fourth or fifth grade he managed to buy a couple of hundred acres and build a house. The land supported him later, after fishing stopped being anywhere close to profitable. He sold granite from the land, sold bits of the land. He loved walking the land, hunting the land, owning the land he could see from his kitchen window. Some of my favorite memories of my childhood are on his boat, or at the dock where his boat was. I felt shark skin, learned how to keep my balance, smelled the disgusting chum one uses for bait. I got sunburned and loved this man, whose accent I could barely understand, who was ornery until someone cracked a joke and he grinned a gummy grin, who was one of the few adults in the world that could tolerate my brother.

At night, he played cards with us around his kitchen table, smoking cigarette after cigarette after cigarette in a never-ending cloud, until he fell asleep in his chair. He was an early riser, smoking several more cigarettes over his morning coffee while he watched the sun rise through his window.

He was very respectful of book learning, although he didn’t choose to pursue it in his own life, and always seemed to me to be a little intimidated of what Jon and I did. Things seem harder when you’re not the one doing them, I guess. I saw less and less of him after we moved from Maine, but I really enjoyed talking with him when we visited. He’d ask after our jobs, and what it was like living so far away, and was it very different from Maine, and what was the price of fish “down there”. (California was also “down there”, by the way. He was stunned to learn the price of lobster here–we ate lobster because we were so poor, when I was a child, and sometimes got a little tired of it.)

As he got older, instead of actually hunting the deer, he’d ride his 4-wheeler down to the hunting spots and sit for hours, gun in his lap, watching them. In the past few years, his short-term memory started to seriously fail him. He would go downstairs, sit on his 4-wheeler in the driveway for a few minutes, and then come back into the house talking about the beautiful deer he’d been watching.

He quit smoking on his doctor’s advice, finally, and then couldn’t remember he’d quit.

He died today in his house. He was 73.

Me [looking blearily at Jon]: I’m starting to waffle on going to this new parent social event.

Jon: (nod)

Jacob: Jacob want waaaffle!

[Jon and Amy look at Jacob]

Jacob: Jacob want waffle pleeeeeeeeease!

Weekend Views

We had a house full of visitors this weekend, which is just the way I like it. I got to bake, which I don’t do very often, and made a cheesecake I haven’t made in years. It was yummy. Jacob had lots of playmates, there was Nintendo, there was a hike, great conversation, wonderful people. I pretty much couldn’t have been happier.

Jacob was pretty pleased to have a partner in crime. Asher, at this point, is old enough to want to play with Jacob and young enough to basically take dictation. :) So they had a good time being Team Toddler. Sunday morning, we stuffed both into backpacks and hiked around Jack’s Peak, a county park. I think the kids like the view from the backpack, if not the restricted movement.

We like this particular hike, which we’ve done a few times before, because it’s relatively easy and offers spectacular views of the Bay, Point Lobos, and Carmel Valley. It’s about .8 miles, without too many hills.

(Monterey Bay. It was a little hazy on Sunday, but still sunny and clear enough to be lovely.)

(Point Lobos, to the South. One of the most beautiful places on earth.)

(A misty Carmel Valley.)

Jon got some numbers back from his blood work that were a little concerning, and I’m all fired up to lose “those last 10 pounds” (which might actually be more like 15, we’ll see) in the two months-ish before we’re clear to try for baby again, so we’re starting the South Beach diet again tomorrow. I’ve had excellent luck with this way of eating in the past, although I do always seem to head back to the sugar eventually. The first few days are kind of awful, though, so wish us luck!

Happier thoughts

Though it has been pretty gray and foggy for the past week, I snapped this shot of our new backyard when it was sunny. And since it seems like most people I know need some sunshine in their lives right now…

I’m still working a lot from home, here, with a babysitter. It looks like this is going to be the status quo for quite some time, so I’m starting to consider morning preschool for Jacob. It’s a hard topic to think about, so I avoid it when I can, but the reliability of the babysitters we’ve had in leaves quite a lot to be desired. And it would be nice for a full week to pass when I can work the number of hours I need to without having to cram it into naptime or bathtime.

I’m not sure how Jacob will feel about it. He loves the class we take together in a preschool-like environment, and he’s not very clingy anymore, but it’s still hard to think about putting him in childcare when one of the whole points of moving to this damn place was so that I could stay home with him. Bah.

We played hooky for a day and went up to San Jose to visit friends on Halloween. At first, Jacob was having nothing whatsoever to do with his costume. (Which, by the way, we’ve been unable to get off of him for the last month.)

Eventually, though, peer pressure prevailed. Asher was wearing his dragon costume, so Jacob had to put on his Tigger costume before he could eat his candy corn.

He was pretty fond of the whole candy thing, and eventually had a lot of fun running around shouting “Gwick n GWEEEEEEEEET!” at full volume. He was (predictably) less fond of the door-to-door thing and more fond of the answering-the-door thing.

I’m really looking forward to next Halloween, now. I think he’ll actually get it, next year. This year, we let him gorge on candy on Halloween itself and then tossed the rest since he’d already forgotten about it by Thursday. Next year, I doubt we’ll be so lucky.

*****

We’ve got our first overnight guests staying with us since the move this weekend, something Jon and I both are really, really looking forward to. We’ve actually cleared all of the boxes out of the house, so here are a few random afternoon shots, for those of you who are curious (*cough*DAD*cough*).

There are basically two sides to the downstairs: one side has the kitchen and tv/playroom, separated by that bar. This is my favorite because the kitchen is nice and because it has built-in, toddler-height storage for all of Jacob’s toys. When he goes to sleep, we put them away and it actually looks like adults live here, by god.

The other side has a tv-free living room and the dining room. This is also where I work.

The dining room looks out onto the back yard and when it’s nice out, like it was the day I took the picture, it’s totally sun-drenched and my favorite room in the house. On gray days, not so much. We really like it here, overall. It’s drafty and chilly, because Californians apparently don’t know insulation and double-paned windows exist, but it’s bright and spacious and really fits life with a toddler well.

Three

My father’s sister Terri passed away Sunday afternoon in her home in Brewer, ME. She was 60. She is survived by her husband, children, and two granddaughters.

What that doesn’t tell you about my aunt Terri is that she made the best cream puffs this side of the known universe. My dad’s family got together every summer for a “feed” until the past few years, and I’d wait practically the whole year for those damn cream puffs. I don’t know how she made them, and I kind of don’t want the mystery spoiled. They’re mythical cream puffs, better dreamed about and savored once a year. Except, of course, not anymore.

I could be distracted from my cream puff dreams by her Chex Mix. Salty, a little spiced. Perfect for munching by the handful.

One year at the reunion, she walked through Lynn’s screen door. We were all standing in the dining room talking, and she was going outside for some reason I forget. She turned around and walked, realizing too late that the screen was shut, and went right through it. She was embarrassed to say the least, but the rest of us thought it was pretty funny.

Terri, more than any of the rest of us, inherited her mother Lois’ ability with crafts. I’m sure she could knit, crochet, sew clothes, and the like, but what I remember most about her handiwork were the… You know, I’m not sure what to call them. Objects? She could make anything. Little snowmen, complete with small hand-created brooms, coal buttons, rosy cheeks, on a snow-covered base. Dolls. Bears. Painted tins. She’d go into a craft store like Michael’s and know what to do with all of it, and be able to actually use all of it well.

She worked for decades in a legal office (I think?), through carpal tunnel before I’d ever heard of it before, through Lois’ long set of illnesses, through a serious illness of her own this year that was (to my knowledge) unrelated to her death. It probably never occurred to her to stay home.

I wish I’d known her better. I wish I knew what she was like as a girl, as a young mother, when she relaxed after a long day at work. I wish I had more than these small vignettes to share with you. She lived a couple of hours away from me, so we didn’t see each other very often. I remember her at holidays, at our annual reunion. I remember her food, and her smile, and her quick tongue, and her loving touch with her children and grandchildren. I remember her taking care of everyone else, over and over again, and I hope she is at least having a peaceful rest while someone else cares for her, now.

Our house

(Is a very, very, very fine house.)

Things continue to improve and we’re all settling happily into our new home. I don’t know quite how to describe it, but this house has such a lovely, lovely feel to it. It’s light, and spacious, and has enormously high ceilings with exposed beams, and even though we’re not quite done unpacking yet, I just love it.

Jacob loves it, too. The floorplan is great for a toddler, right down to the window seat that he can perch on while watching out the window for passers-by.

My favorite part? The kitchen is open to the family room/playroom, and is freshly redone and gorgeous, so we’ve been doing some baking. Jacob loves to help, of course.

There’s not really much to say, here–I just wanted to thank you all so, so much for your kind words on my last post. Things are really, truly getting better. Our children will be spaced further apart than we thought, but we’re all healthy and together, and that is a wonderful thing.

(Oh, and the earthquake was barely noticeable way down here, and we’re fine.)

Catharsis

I went to sleep on the 16th pregnant, filled with excited thoughts of the baby I’d seen in ultrasound a week earlier. Heart flickering, little proto-limbs flailing. I was weeks further along than I’d thought, but the doctor assured me that it looked perfectly healthy and my spotting was nothing to worry about. Come back in next week and we’ll get a better handle on your dates, he said, but it seems like you’re somewhere between 8 and 10 weeks.

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.

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