Not much to say today.  Bread is rising.  Baby is sleeping.  I am reading poems at the kitchen table and drinking milk from a small ceramic bowl.

Oh, quiet night.

Goodnight.

This weekend was a birthday weekend.  Last year during  Adam’s birthday, I was in my first trimester of pregnancy.  I slept a minimum of eleven hours a night and subsisted on little more than oranges and toast.  This year, I baked Adam’s cake during naptime and we toted Reed along to brunch with Adam’s parents. Afterward, my husband requested the two of us get a coffee all by ourselves. We did, and it was wonderful.

Twenty-six.  I like the number.  It seems warm and fun and steady.  I expressed this to Adam, and he said that he prefers twenty-five.  Either way, it is fun to watch him turn another year older.  So very very fun.   I love him and like him, and I am glad he is alive and growing older.

Endless cups of coffee.  Winter light.  Bowls of soup.  Tired, old snow.  Roasted roots.  Cold hands and feet.  A sun that sets later each night.

Actually, I don’t mind February.  I don’t mind it at all.  I’m glad it is still winter, and I am bundled up inside.  I am reading The Brothers K and taking a photograph every day.

Cheers, February.  I’m glad you are here.

Things it is easy to do with a little baby around:

1. Read. Oh, it is delicious the way I can devour books while the little one nurses.  One of the chief surprise pleasures of motherhood.

2. Walk. Not that I didn’t walk much before (I did), but carrying litle Reed around is a supreme excuse to haunt the sidewalks.

3. Wear kookey outfits. Because I’m too small for my maternity cloths and too big for my jeans.  What fits fits.

4. Dote.

5. Keep up with news and podcasts. Because he’s too little to say NPR bores him.

Things it is difficult to do with a little baby around:

1.  All things that use more than one hand. Most notably: writing, e-mailing, blogging, cooking, and showering.

rainy morning and windy evening. organized what will be the office while tomatoes roasted. blustery night means chicken and dumplings for dinner. after we supped, i walked down by the river. aren’t as many geese as there used to be. dusk and everything was blowing and blowing and blowing and my bare legs were cold. i liked it and stopped under the willows and watched branches sway and sway.

10 things I loved about this Sunday:

1. Watching This Old House over breakfast.

First off, let me just say that my due date is officially one month away.

Today was a full day.

an evening in tenney park

It’s morning and the fan is slowly blowing in the window. The table has flowers on it and piles and piles of books, waiting to be packed away in milk crates. There is sun and the leaves are dancing their slow morning dance. I know over the hill there is a market, and I will go later when the sun is higher.

Suddenly it is July.