Listen to the rest of the interview here.

Mr. WILDER:  I like writing now much more than I do acting only because well, partly because the scripts that are offered are junk.

I don’t say all of them, but the ones that are offered to me, I say I don’t want to do that, explosives and special effects and $200-million budgets and things like that. And so I’d rather, unless something else comes along that’s wonderful, I’d rather write at home with my wife, Karen, and go into my study after breakfast and write for maybe an hour and a half, two hours, come out, get a cup of tea, go back in, write a little more, come out, have a little lunch, give my wife a kiss, go back in. And maybe at 4:00, 4:30, I stop writing, and I say that’s enough for today. It’s very comforting.

CONAN: That does sound like a nice day.

Mr. WILDER: Well, it is a nice day. You should see my wife. You’d think it’s even nicer.

I am not good at making things look good.  I have never been good at making things look good.  I was never good with coloring books.  My posters for class projects were never great.  I’ve always lacked skill at folding clothes.  Don’t even get me started on my hair.

As a kid, I would always try to make things look tidy like the other kids.  I would try to color in the lines like my cousin and write in a neat hand like my friends.  I tried to smooth my wild hair with blow-dryers and round brushes like the other teenage girls.  But my hair rebelled and my hands rebelled and I just didn’t know what to do with myself (such is the story of adolescence, right?).

In time, I learned myself.  I stopped trying to write in tidy, cutesy letters, and developed a handwriting that was sloppy and sprawling, and kind of nice to look at.  I ditched layers of sheets and blankets (did I mention how bad I was at bed-making?) in favor of one simple down comforter.  I got messy haircuts that look great air-dried.

In other words, I learned to be myself.

I started thinking about baby books shortly after I found out I was pregnant.  I love documenting things!  I would look at the baby books in bookstores, and they were so cute!  And tidy!  And I knew the second I touched them I would mess them up.  And then I would quit.

So, I followed my gut and got a plain, blank sketchbook.  And I started filling it.

And it is messy.  And it is full of mistakes.  But every time I sit down to work on it, it is a pleasure.  And it is my very favorite baby book.  It is full of treasures.

When it comes to baby books (and motherhood), be yourself.  Get a cutesy, tidy baby book and fill it with your cutesy, tidy handwriting.  Get a sketchbook and draw scenes from your days with the little one.  Do the scrapbooking thing with all the jazzy paper and what-not, if that’s your style.  Or maybe just write things you think or notice about your baby on index cards, date them, and stick them in a shoebox.  But for goodness sake, enjoy yourself!

What does your baby book look like?  What are the baby books like that you made for your kids?

It’s almost my birthday.

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.

Yesterday.

Today.

This is March in Wisconsin.  And I like it.  I really do.  Cross my heart and kiss my elbow.

I didn’t spend much time with babies before Reed was born.  And, to tell you the truth, I didn’t really care to.  So, I am surprised by many things about life with a baby.  But what surprises me the most often and the most extravagantly is what good company such a little person can be.  He can’t play with sidewalk chalk, is less than fascinated by bubbles; he can’t run or tickle or dress up like a pirate.  But, it turns out, you don’t really need all that when you have a quiet, happy house, blue skies, and two people that enjoy each other as much as we do.  I can’t get over it, really.

Today, we went on a walk together, babbled together, sat on the sunny patches of the floor together, scoped out the garden together, and even ate some oatmeal together.  It was the first day Reed had eaten solid food.  And it was nice to sit there at the table, me with my bowl of oatmeal, he with his.  I felt that sense of camaraderie more than ever.  He’s my buddy, this baby of mine.  He’s one of my favorite people.

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.

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.

Shortly after Reed was born, we filled our freezer with half a hog.  It was a beautiful sight, all the crisp paper parcels stacked in the deep freeze  ready to feed us through the winter.  The shoulder roasts vanished first.  Then, during a split pea soup craze, the hocks.  We made the belly into home cured salt bacon and quickly gorged our way through 2/3 of that.  Even our seemingly endless reserves of pork chops dwindled.

By February, the majority of what was left were “project cuts.”  Pork livers for pate (do I even like pate?).  A giant bag of fat (that’s right, a giant bag of fat) to be rendered into lard.  And the ham.  The 25lb fresh ham ready to be thawed, cured and hung.  But 25 lb hams are kind of intimidating.

This afternoon, Adam and I got that ham (#38) all boxed up in salt and injected with brine.  It was pretty fun, sticking such a boulder of meat with a giant needle.  For the next 40 days, I’ll be tending the ham like a tender little plant.  And then we’ll hang it for months and months and months.  If all goes well, we’ll have a gorgeous ham to hack beautiful slivers from come Christmas.  Ham failure, I hear, smells quite putrid.  Either way, I’ve been having a blast.  The meat is beautiful, and I have really enjoyed working with it.

Working with meat used to intimidate me.  I hated the factory farm meat industry (still do), and didn’t really know how to go about buying it.  So, as a single lady, I probably ate meat once a month.  If that.  After I got married, Adam and I together began to figure out our ways, and I got more comfortable with meat, incorporating it into our dinners once or twice a week.  But I still didn’t know a chuck roast from a flank steak.  Then, last summer, I got this book.  I read it cover to cover and carried it with me for weeks.  I ordered half a hog from a responsible local farmer, butchered, but otherwise untouched.

We’ve been learning as we go.  And not all of our “project cuts” have turned out perfectly.  But it has been incredibly satisfying, and, truly, a good deal easier than I anticipated.

If you live in Wisconsin, you can find sources for local meat here.  Let me know if you have had any interesting experiences with meat or making things you never thought you could make.

It’s now all wrinkled happy from being worn well, but #36 is completed.

It has been busy.  I would write more, but I will take this small sliver of time after the boy is asleep and before I am to work on 2 and 10.

March is one of my most favorite times of year.  Happy spring, friends.