My little boy is almost five months old, now.  It’s cliche, I know, but, my! they grow up fast!  The first month or two had an almost fever-like slowness to it.  The days were still and long and hazy.  It was beautiful for that, a lot like the first trimester of my pregnancy.  But, now, the days are unraveling with a beautiful speediness.  And, wow.  It is FUN, this speediness.

I think the thing I love most about being a mom is watching Reed open right up to the world.  I loved watching him unfurl his little ball of a body.  I loved watching him watch people.  I loved watching him begin to reach out to the world with his fingers- touch things and hold them.  I loved watching him learn to coo, to smile, to babble, to laugh.

When Reed was a very small baby, I liked to read James and the Giant Peach to him while we rocked.  He didn’t seem to understand stories then, but I read to him anyway.  I have taken up reading to Reed, again, but now it is so different.  I have been reading him books from his bookshelves, gifts from so many wonderful family and friends.  I sit with Reed on my lap and he listens to the words with great care.  His little hands will occasionally reach up to touch the pages, wanting to take in every bit of it.

I didn’t expect him to be so captivated, so drawn in to the world of books at such a young age.  Reed is a wonderful, surprising person.  As he opens up to the world, I find more and more things he already has such a great preference for: cool gadgets (like flip cameras and otoscopes), reading, the outdoors, and a bit of quiet.  I am looking forward to getting to know him better, this boy of mine, and watching him getting to know the world.

And I am looking forward to years of plopping him on my lap and reading book after book after book until my voice gets coarse.

My family and I are just getting back into the swing of things after a big wonderful wedding weekend (such big adventures can be tiring for tiny boys!).  Upon returning home we ate some lazy meals, watched a movie or two, went hunting for our camera (we left it at my parents house), and got the house somewhat in order again.

And now the week begins.  I love Monday mornings.  I love the return to the day-to-day routine, the fresh beginning of a week spread out ahead like newly tilled ground.

I love Monday mornings.  I love my work, and I believe in my work.  Caring for a child.  Buying food from people who care well for the land and its creatures.  Praying.  Praying to learn generosity.  Praying to learn thankfulness.  Practicing the craft of thrift.  Practicing the art of sales resistance.  Making mistakes.  Making yogurt.  Trying to keep the dishes done and the floor clean.  Trying to keep up with correspondences.  Failing often.  Nursing.  Knitting.  Tending my body and this tiny patch of earth I inhabit.  I believe our small, daily acts such as these are the truest form of activism.  I believe they are a vocation.  I believe they are my calling for this time and place.

I am reading Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community by Wendell Berry again, for the fifth(?) time since I bought it just over a year ago. I often think about that passage I quoted in that post about using the health of one’s community to chose.  People are usually surprised that I don’t use a breast pump (which in itself says a lot).  Aware that it is a very personal decision, they usually don’t ask why, and I am grateful for that.  My choice not to pump came after reading this article passed on to me by a coworker (I hadn’t thought much about it before).

I think having the option to breast pump is a wonderful, wonderful thing.  It gives so much freedom to women who love their work and can take care of their family (and themselves!) best by working away from home and providing good care for their babies during the day.

But what about the women working at Woodman’s who can hardly afford to take their much needed, but still unpaid, maternity leave?  What about women who can afford neither quality day care nor staying home to take care of their infant themselves (Imagine how different this country would be if all women got nine months paid maternity leave like women living in Norway recieve)?  Pumping is not a substitute for paid maternity leave or on-site day-care.  Giving mothers the ability to work is good, but that allowance often turns into requirement.  And those bearing the brunt of that are the low-wage workers.  I wish it weren’t that way.

So I breastfeed.  And on very rare occasions of great importance (for example, standing up in my best friend’s wedding), I use formula.  I know that this decision doesn’t make any difference to policy makers or CEO’s.  But that small act of saying no to something that makes me pay dearly (not just from my wallet) for what I already have (the ability to feed my child), seems very good.

If you have any thoughts about small acts, sales resistance, motherhood, pumping, breastfeeding, comment away.  I hope this fresh week ahead begins very blessed.

-Lindsey

February 19, 2007

Just one dollar (two for both of us) bought an afternoon of summertime, canaries and orange trees.

(thanks for the suggestion, Bri)

Today, Reed took an honest to goodness nap.  A real nap.  A nap longer than half an hour.  A nap at home.  Not in the car.  Not on a walk.  A nap outside of my arms.  Off the rocking chair.  Just him sleeping.  On his own.  Two (two!) hours.

I made a pot of tea and pulled out my journal.  I sat and wrote and then wrote some more and edited my novel.  What a treat it was to sit down and write with the sun on the streets and quiet in the house.  It was like having coffee when you haven’t had it for a while and you really really want coffee.  Coffee tastes so good when you really really want it.  So does writing.

It’s a shame no one will likely ever read this book.  I am growing to like it.

Today is snowy.  Not December snowy: the sort of snow that makes you want to strap on a snowsuit and jump and run and roll in it.  It is February snowy: the sort of snow that you want to watch from the warm side of the window with some cinnamon rolls in the oven.  It is a perfect day for books, baking, and baby’s cheeks.  It is a day for afghans, for balls of wool yarn, for poems and journals and making Reed laugh.  I am so grateful for days like today.  This is a good life, and I am thankful to be able to stay home most days and care for my son.  It suits me, the quiet, the simplicity, the walks and pots of simple food.  Money is tight (as usual) but especially on days like today, with plenty of coffee on the stove, a fridge full of nourishing food, a well-rested body, and a happy, healthy baby, I don’t think I could be any richer.

Here’s a bit of a poem I have been enjoying:

…But harmony of earth is Heaven made,
Heaven-making is promise and is prayer,
A little song to keep us unafraid,
an earthy music magnified in air

-from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997 by Wendell Berry

The library is at its best when the sun is just beginning to set and the houses aren’t quite sure whether or not to turn on their lights.  It is busy there, quiet and busy with kids home from school and adults home from work.  People aren’t lingering, they are moving and making nice noises: walking, turning pages, zipping backpacks, scanning books.  Sometimes, I go just to hear it, with no intention of checking anything out.  I go and walk the aisles with Reed strapped to my belly.  We just watch and listen and run our fingers along book jackets while it grows darker outside and more houses turn on their lights.

95% of the time I love being a mom.  I mean, the entire act of motherhood.  I love  Reed’s face in the morning.  I love watching him get stronger and bigger and wiser.  I love watching him watch the world.  I even love the less shiny things:  rocking back and forth with him as he cries and cries while the sun comes through the window, waking up with him in the night, washing diapers.

The other 5% of the time it is usually cloudy outside.  Adam is gone.  And Reed probably hasn’t had a good nights’ sleep.  And then he most likely didn’t stay asleep for more than a few minutes in the morning.  And then by afternoon he is so tired all he does is cry.  And in the evening, it is more like screaming.  And I still love being a mom, I guess, in that 5%.  But I am irritable and grumpy and just want to wash my hair.  Reed, please let me go wash my hair. And all I can do is pray the prayer that has been finding its way to me since day one, “God, please teach me to be a mother.”  It’s a prayer that God always seems ready to answer.  God is also a mother.  But despite all prayers and answers, I am still irritable and grumpy and frumpy.

But, eventually night does fall.  Even on days like that.  And the babe does sleep.  And within a few short hours of quiet, I have forgotten the endless crying and yelling and and rocking.  And I’m just looking forward to his smile in the morning.

January 23, 2007

I am back in Madison and my laptop’s power cord thing is busted. Or so Adam tells me. (note: I am so grateful for my Madison boys: Adam who knows how to fix things and the definitions to obscure words and Eliot my little warrior-mouse-catcher-man and purrbox. What would I do without them?) This is why I haven’t written about vanilla sugar yet or my first day of classes or reflected on Norway or how great Madison is or posted the pictures of that amazing amazing snow or whined about how much I spent on bloody books (I spent around $350 on bloody books…and counting!) or gushed about how great my bloody books are. All in due time.

I returned to the States five days ago and a lot has happened since. At first I spent hours and hours kissing Adam and looking into Eliot’s eyes and telling him how hansom he is. Eliot is so hansom. Adam and I also went shopping, and the boy spoiled me by buying me zillions of Penzey’s spices and the greatest pepper mill ever (which I’m using for the grey sea salt from Penzey’s) as well as the second greatest (I’m using that one for the pepper). He also bought me vanilla sugar. And my life will never be the same.

I’ve had vanilla sugar before, but never such delicious vanilla sugar in such a handy little shaker. It is lovely and wonderful and I don’t intend to live without it. Yesterday, I made too much rice for lunch, so as a sweet afternoon tea treat, I sprinkled it with vanilla sugar and drown it all in milk. And it was so so lovely. And then last night I put it in my hot chocolate and I bathed in it this morning and would have brushed my teeth with it, but that might give me cavities.

2nd great food discovery: Trader Joe’s carries crumpets. And it turns out I like crumpets. I like them a lot.

Yesterday was my first day of classes. I’m taking five this semester and had all of them my first day: 4th semester Norwegian, History of Western Culture: 1300-1850, The African Storyteller, The African Autobiography, and Creative Writing: Fiction and Poetry Workshop. I was worn out by the end of it (and still am recovering from all that brainy stuff moving in my head). But I love my classes. I love love love them. I wish they were food so I could mix them together to make blueberry pie and sit down with a fork and gobble them. I have a feeling that these classes are going to be a lot of work. There is a lot to read, and I’m actually going to want to read it all and not slack off. It may be the death of me. It’ll be great.

Speaking of reading, I better get to it! I hope you’re having some sweet days and I hope you by some vanilla sugar and sprinkle it in your coffee.

*Oh. I almost forgot food discovery #3. Adam and I went on an obscure madison market tour and bought pocky sticks and green tea mochi balls at a little Asian market. After enthusiastic consumption of the mochi ice cream and a deep longing for more, we discovered that Trader Joe’s carries them. Adam bought one of every flavor. I heart mochi.*

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This was written just five days before Adam proposed to me.  About five days before this post was written, I had silently decided that I wanted to marry Adam.  Those might have been the longest 10 days of my life.  Thank goodness for that vanilla sugar (I wasn’t exagerating, I really did put it on everything!).

I think I will buy a couple vanilla beans one of these days and make some vanilla sugar of my own.

“Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.” -Wendell Berry

I caught wind of 101 in 1001 from Patricia and Brooke.  The idea is, write a list of 101 things you want to do in the next 1001 days.  It’s like an extended sort of new year’s resolutions, and I like it.  Because I feel to rushed with just one year (I hate feeling rushed), and I can’t quite grasp anything beyond three years from now (who knows what I’ll want to do then!).

Here is my 101 in 1001.