a real studio--gratitude #5

ever since we've been making a living by our wits (i.e. running a work at home dyeing business) i've envied the studios of other artists in the wah biz world. i saw pictures of joyce/elliebelly's studio and shed real tears about a year ago. i must admit that was a bit melodramatic, but at the time i was feeling especially like we were a ragtag, by-the-skin-our-teeth operation--dh was making stained glass in a corner of the attic that was inhospitably intemperate for five months of the year, and i was dyeing on a spot on the kitchen floor near the back door, between the washing machine and the dinner table and the door to our bedroom. every time a child or the dog needed to go in or outdoors, or someone needed to go in our room, they had to catapult across my mess , and many many bottles of dye were upturned in the process. then i was processing the tie dye in the kitchen sink, which meant moving dirty dishes at the worst of times and forcing food prep to wait on me at the best of times. feeling the depth of the envy i might have for something like this yet?

but that's all behind me now. i am the proud owner--ok renter--of a space that is well-lit, warm, and keeps everything in one place... namely, and most importantly, out of my home proper! our studio is in our building, so we can work while the kids are upstairs without worrying too much, and i must admit that when i go down there i feel like i am leaving the shackles of house-drudgery behind and putting on the gossamer wings of an artist. and it makes me so happy to see dh working on...let's see...either five or six different projects here with glass. the white squares on the big table are glass, and have lights below--so we can put a piece together flat and see how it will look with light coming through. very cool!

the right space can make a huge difference in one's productivity. come to think of it, that's what i'm trying to accomplish with this gratitude exercise over 30 days--get my head right about realizing how lucky i am, an effort i hope will have a real benefit in my life. but even if that doesn't happen, i still have this great studio. i'm not going back to the kitchen floor for anything.

oh, and in case you are wondering--the poster on the wall is inspirational in nature. it's ani difranco, and the text says "up up up goes the spire of the steeple/but god's work isn't done by god, it's done by people". it reminds me that the more i whine and bitch and envy, the less i accomplish--and there is so very much to do in this world.

gratitude, take 4--gifts of love

is there anything that warms the heart more than a purely selfless act done for you, without you even asking?

we have a frigid bathroom. it has no heat, and adjoins a freezing cold part of the building. which means it's always cold, except in the middle of the day.

i love to take a bath at night before bed. but i hate being cold. the tub is so arctic that it literally *sucks* the warmth right out of the hot water that you put in about as fast as you can do so. now add to this dilemma that we have a small hot water heater. a truly satisfying bath requires a heater being brought in, and a big pot of water heated on the stove. and did i mention the tub needed cleaning? all these factors conspired to make the likelihood of me getting a relaxing soaker of a bath infinitesimally small. this also means i've been forced to take showers of late, which isn't a relaxing experience to me--just business.

this is what i walked into the bathroom to see tonight, without even asking--i just mentioned earlier that a bath would be great but it was too damned cold.

he's scrubbing the tub, this man who *always* takes showers. that's the heater you can see he's brought in, near the toilet. and in the kitchen, i found a gigantic stew pot of water boiling. epsom salts and calendula are laid out on the bathroom counter too.

it's stuff like this that makes you see how people can stay married forever, warts and wrinkles and all. this is true love.

thank you, dear husband. i hope i sometimes make your life as easy as you so often do mine.

one mama-gratitude #3

i have a mama crush. an utterly virtuous one.

it's tara. she's like a tour de force of the art of mothering. a shoo-in for the mama hall of fame.

i really don't know her that well--i'm sure, if i did, i'd have something mundane to say like, "she whips up her fantastically whimsical sewing creations one stitch at a time, like you or me". but i really only know her a little, and so i can just gush instead.

she is a wahm, and she owns this eclectic, artful, small-is-beautiful business. makes the kind of kid's stuff you remember from your own childhood, if you were the bookish, magical type. she makes these amazing velvet pants with patchwork side panels and lusciously usable mama bags. but listen to how she describes this one--

The woman who inspired this set was someone I glimpsed for just a moment--sitting windowside in a London coffeeshop, her glossy brown hair pulled back in a chignon, sipping from her mug as she looked out at the dreary, rainy day. Her clothing was chic, funky, and made from luxurious fabrics. I was inspired by her style in the face of such gloomy weather, and that, along with the designs in the fabrics of this bag, remind me of her.

now i ask you, does that not make you want to buy a "metro bag", whatever they are, whatever that particular one looks like? by the way, it was "simply sublime: cocoa brown, pale peach, sparkling aquamarine, sage green. The inner print is a swirling, stylized floral, and it is perfectly complimented by the thick cotton velvet aquamarine outer."

her blog is infinitely inspiring, of course. she is unschooling her son, which means he mostly directs his learning and she provides the opportunities and resources that will allow him to do so. i read about their projects and outings and i feel like every person on the earth deserves a mother like her--she's interested and involved and bright and energetic and positive. and yes, for you empath mamas, i am feeling a little envious. just a little.

they go to museums and walking in the woods in the rain and she's figured out how he can take a beginning astronomy course from UC Berkeley's streaming site. it seems like an idyllic learning environment and when i'm feeling in the doldrums about homeschool i check out her blog, read a few random entries, and walk away determined to put my shoulder to the wheel a little more elegantly.

that's another thing about her. she's just so classy. she looks and acts like a beautifully educated and lovely person. she's one of those moms you'd love to meet, but would feel slightly nervous about so doing.sometimes i think about particularly productive, talented people as bearing fruits. if so, tara's work, and the tiny glimpse of her life i have seen in her online sharing, is like an orchard. i get the impression that she's eating, breathing, practically swimming in talent and it's obvious how her whole life, and everyone in it, is sustained by it.

i'm grateful for her. she reminds me that despite the drudgery that life at home, mothering, can sometimes seem--what with its thousand thankless tasks, the Sisyphean work of keeping the relationships in a family growing and healthy, and the difficulty of always being the one who keeps it together, no matter what--this life always, also, holds the seeds of what we need to truly flourish. and look elegant doing it.

the gratitude project: in appreciation of online mothers

i had no idea how much i appreciate the support for mothering (the pro-natal sentiment, my thesis advisor would say) that exists on the boards i frequent, mama-drama and amity mama. today i had a chance to see how wonderful those online mamas are--and why.

today i started what will be a once a week ritual until i defend my thesis--which has been *almost done* for some time. every friday, when latt is off work and able to be home with rowan, i'll drive in to the university, where i've spent so very much time in the last four years, and where i've always felt so very at home. friday will be the day i work, uninterrupted for requests for oranges to be peeled, stories to be read, and glitter glueing to be supervised. today i worked for about five hours and got quite a lot done. (i'm really almost done with my thesis now, and am just running some analyses of data i gathered and entered from about 2,000 attachment parenting mothers about six years ago. the printers at school never run out of ink, and as i already mentioned, no one there needs my help tying their shoes or needs help wiping. or makes such a mess with that atrocious moon sand that i need to take an hour long break in order to clean it up properly.)

at any rate, i walked into that building today confident, ready to work, and excited to see professors and fellow scholars that i haven't seen since finishing up the classes needed for my master's degree last august. and i walked in glowingly, bloomingly, pregnant. obviously pregnant. that was the only difference from the last time i walked in, last fall.

i set to work alone and it wasn't until the printer needed more paper that i took the opportunity to go up to the sociology department and say hello to the faculty and staff while i got another ream.

the oddest thing happened when i got up there. no one mentioned my being obviously pregnant. i am far past the awkward stage of "is she with child, or just putting on weight? maybe i shouldn't say anything! what if i'm wrong?" instead, i appear to have a basketball under my shirt and haven't gained anywhere else. i spoke with two secretaries, the department chair--not a glimmer of recognition that i was gestating. i stopped in to say hello to the graduate student director--and when she asked how the thesis was coming and i said i definitely planned to get it done before the baby arrived, she oh-so-innocently asked, "oh, are you expecting?"

it was as if i had a grotesque growth on my face, and everyone was far too polite to mention it, lest my feelings be hurt. they pretended, instead, that everything was business as usual. as if my round belly was an embarrassment, or a handicap.

i couldn't help but feel this was the perfect metaphor for the general anti-mothering sentiment i experienced while i attended classes in sociology. when i spoke passionately about the importance of mothering and breastfeeding and in-arms care, and talked of my research on a group of women who chose intensive mothering, the cool smiles and amused looks baffled me. and when i went further, when i decried any so-called feminism that denied or demeaned women's right to choose mothering as an empowering, joyful act and instead defined that choice as oppressive, i was always confused as to why there was such an outcry of negative feedback from the women professors and even my fellow students.

but this helped bring it all into perspective. they did see motherhood as a handicap and an anachronism, and must have thought it strange when i spoke of it as a revolutionary, creative act. and here i was, with its mark upon me as clear as day, and all they could do was pretend i was still "normal". as if to call attention to my state would shame me.

thank you, mothers. thank you for asking for belly pics, for doting on me and every pregnant woman in our midst. thank you for creating an environment where gestation is considered a state of grace, a blessing. thank you for noticing that i am with child, and for lifting *us*, me and this little creature, up, as a miracle.

Good Food Gratitude

tonight i started off this gratitude endeavor right. my dearest fixed me a delicious meal--light, because i was feeling a bit crowded after eating earlier in the afternoon. it's got almonds, a greens mix, romas, and our dehydrated home-grown tomatoes. and the asparagus was perfect.

a simple, well-prepared meal is often the highlight of my day, and i always feel grateful, because i rarely am responsible for fixing it.

i am grateful that my husband is one of those people who understand naturally that food is a blessing to us and that it is one of the most potent ways to show love for others. i am almost as grateful that he takes joy in doing so, and makes food for our family that is not only healthy and usually whole, but with a flourish that speaks to his inner, indefatigable style and natural elegance.

About Gratitude

i have been thinking about this for a while. i feel better and i do better when i focus on gratitude.

then i started reading about gratitude after we moved out here to terra (where a major artistic theme is actually the "gratitude statue" that the matriarch here makes. one waits in the center of both labyrinths here on the grounds. my dd is loving on one she calls "my friend" in my sig, btw.) anyway i found out there's a whole body of research on gratitude and it's really amazing and delightful. it's just as you'd hope. being grateful makes you happier and healthier.

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/labs/emmons/

Gratitude Interventions and Psychological and Physical Well-Being

* In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

* A related benefit was observed in the realm of personal goal attainment: Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.

* A daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) with young adults resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others). There was no difference in levels of unpleasant emotions reported in the three groups.

* Participants in the daily gratitude condition were more likely to report having helped someone with a personal problem or having offered emotional support to another, relative to the hassles or social comparison condition.

* In a sample of adults with neuromuscular disease, a 21-day gratitude intervention resulted in greater amounts of high energy positive moods, a greater sense of feeling connected to others, more optimistic ratings of one’s life, and better sleep duration and sleep quality, relative to a control group.

[B] Measuring the Grateful Disposition[/B]

* Well-Being: Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.

* Prosociality: People with a strong disposition toward gratitude have the capacity to be empathic and to take the perspective of others. They are rated as more generous and more helpful by people in their social networks (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).

* Spirituality: Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer reading religious material score are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others (McCullough et. al., 2002).

* Materialism: Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of wealthy persons; and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons.

i used to journal. my life has moved on in a big way since i sat on a porch swing with a nursing baby and my just sharpened #2 eberhard-faber and my notebook. now i have a blog and so do a bunch of my friends online, and i thought it would be nice to journal/blog daily on a snippet of gratitude from our lives for 30 days. i hope to get myself a habit started in that time. :joy:

sometimes the things i am grateful for are easy to spot. tonight dh made me a delicious meal and i don't know what exactly but he's got a handmade dessert in the freezer. we're having a low-tech, no-cost valentine's day, and i'm just happy as can be about it. but many days i'm stressed, mad, hurt, bored, or overwhelmed. it's those days i especially want to find gratitude in. and now i have to.

anyway...if you wanna join me, please do! id love to read others' thoughts on this matter--and i'd love to hear what others are grateful for.

life is just not fair OR going, going, gone

13 should not look like this. it just shouldn't. it seems like it was just last month or so that i took that pic of jack with the praying mantis. he was 9 i think. and now he's practically out the door. shouldn't he need my permission to grow up this fast?

18 weeks 5 days

which means i have 150 days, or thereabouts (probably a bit more, given my other pregnancies), to go.

i've been feeling the baby kick and twirl for a few weeks, but day before yesterday jack felt it too. such a delightful expression on his face. latt has trouble feeling the same thing, and rowan doesn't have the patience to wait silently and still.

i've gained four pounds (looks like more, doesn't it?) and my appetite is increasing finally. i feel good.

a dear friend sent her midwifery kit--she is not practicing right now--so that we can do prenatals here at home for now. latt has learned how to take my blood pressure and use the doppler to hear the baby's heartbeat, and we measure my uterus to see how the baby is growing (i am measuring a couple weeks ahead of expected right now--nothing out of the ordinary though). i also have strips to test my urine for protein, glucose, nitrates, etc...and a kit to test my blood for hemoglobin (iron levels). i do want to see a local midwife as i get closer to term, to ascertain the presentation (position) of the baby, in case we need to turn it. i don't mind having a breech baby here at home but i'd rather avoid that adventure if possible.

the plan for the birth is set, barring unforeseen circumstances. kristena and kim will come as friends to support me. i'm excited about birthing again...i've been blessed to have wonderful, positive experiences with both my children, which means birth is an experience i associate with great joy and great power.

branching out

is anything more satisfying than taking on a new crafting project and succeeding wildly? this is some licorice twist yarn i just dyed up. latt had the brilliant idea that the colorway should be called gingerbread house. it's 560 yards of merino yarn, 7.8 oz.

the licorice twist is a neat yarn. one of the plys take dye more deeply than the others, which creates an interesting variation--almost a tweedy effect. this is supposed to be self-striping, but i'm honestly not sure if that's true or not. i did lengths of color about four feet, so some items, knitted up, will stripe, while others won't. at any rate, the colors turned out very well.

and balling yarn is a new favorite pastime--very meditative!

sea change

how am i?

lazarita is in the process of rising from the dead.

i've been in a very serious funk (mind you, not the funkadelic or funkalicious version) since finding out i'm pregnant. i had a hint of what depression must feel like and now know that's a foreign language i never even want to hear spoken, much less do an immersion learning schtick in.

i was a sad sack for a few weeks, y'all. plus i was nauseated every freaking day, which i think had a lot to do with the pall of gray-green that washed over the whole world. i didn't leave the house for several days straight, and only then when i absolutely had to. then i got the flu. which resolved itself into a sinus infection. YUM! that helped the nausea!

anyway...this week i am scrabbling up out of the grave and the first trimester, leaving fingernails and a shroud of tattered, snotty kleenex behind. sporting a baby bump and some very bodacious ta-tas, might i add.

i can handle smelling food be cooked, and then eat it and actually enjoy doing so. you just forget what a blessing that is until eating is a miserable torture. i am giggling. i can actually imagine having a baby. i've been dreaming about delivering her warm wet head into my hands after a lovely, short birth. i can agree with dh that we might actually be able to stay out of the poorhouse if we just keep plugging away, and that we can do it with home-grown, hand-made panache, as usual.

does that answer your question? you asked not a day too early i tell ya.

a new beginning

we're expecting a new baby. in early to mid july.

family snapshots

despite my most fervent wishes, my children continue to age. sigh. rowan will be five this month, and jack is oh-so-13 and a half. he's playing football for the first time this year, and really enjoying it. he's doing well in school and he's in two pre-AP classes--English and Social Studies--which of course makes my humanities-minded heart so happy. he and girls, previously ships passing in the night, have made contact and he spends a lot of time on myspace and the phone, talking to whoever is the friend girl du jour. he's a happy kid, and funny as hell. but growing up too damn fast.

rowan is just a delightful child, 99% of the time. she's in love with learning, all kinds of animals, stories, pretending, and especially "terra terra" as she calls it. we're cooperatively unschooling her since we are both home a lot now. she's just past the birthday cutoff for kindergarten, but she's ready, so we are working on kindergarten skills now.

here she is looking especially fierce, in playsilks,



















and doing "life science" on crawdads in one of the small ponds. we can often be seen, seine in hand, looking and learning about the ecosystem and food web of small bodies of water. everything is awe-inspiring to her, so she's an ideal student. i'm so happy to be sharing it with her.

























there's so much to do here that the kids stay busy--swimming, ping pong, tennis, racquetball, a pool table, a sauna, all right in our building! we really enjoy going for walks in the gloaming, and seeing the stars come out--they're amazing here!

gratitude

i have absolutely no excuse not to start writing here again. i am out of grad school--that death march (no offense to people who have been on real death marches, of course)--and i have plenty of time on my hands.

we've moved to an artist's colony, Terra Studios (more here).

this place is hard to describe; easier to show. there are ponds and bluffs and springs and labyrinths and gnomes and dragons and a bevy of trolls. here are some pictures (and a few more) that show the things about this place that i love, and my little brood in the midst of all this magic.

we have only rent, cell phone, insurance and student loan bills now. next month we'll have an electricity bill too, but all the other utilities are part of our rent. even wireless, which is so nice! what this means for our lives is that we have more time together, as a family.

the theme here is GRATITUDE. the statue you see rowan loving up, above, is an example of a type of hand-made icon that's prevalent here--gratitude statues. the matriarch of terra, who helped her husband make this tiny fantastical world out of pasture and woods in 1975, still lives over the hill on this 110 acres, and she comes down and works in the pottery studios several times a week. she talks about buddhism and psychedelics and serenity and cats. it's impossible not to love her, especially since she looks just like one her peaceful, joyous works--all bright eyes and an almost visible halo. her children live here, or close by, and work and play here too. it's a real community. just what we've been searching for for so long.

i'm so so grateful to be here.

first, do no harm

it is truly difficult for me to articulate my distaste at the odious and demeaning article that follows. the author is a pediatrician who is flabbergasted *and* preachy in response to the surprising news that some women may want to give birth naturally--yes, without anesthesia. read the whole thing here:

the mother lode of pain from the boston globe

here's an excerpt:

STILL, THERE WILL ALWAYS be people who want their pain. When I was a teenager in New Jersey, I endured an optional religious challenge called the atthai, an Indian Jain custom of fasting for eight straight days. The idea is that the people should dissociate from the material world, even from something as elemental as food. Accomplishing the painful challenge is something of an ego rush; the hunger artists are honored as members of a holy community. (I look back on this now with agnostic disbelief.)

Like prolonged fasting, enduring labor without anesthesia attracts notice. It casts the mother as a struggling heroine who - by sheer mental force - gracefully keeps her body under control...

In this setting, the pain of unmedicated labor offers up a formidable, if artificial, trial that precedes entry into a highly selective sorority. It creates drama. It captures attention.

Yet pain in the end is an utterly primitive thing, a vestige of insect and reptilian brains. It evolved primarily as a way to change behavior without need for thought - to force one's hand to pull away from fire or tend urgently to an injured limb. Thinking beings, in some sense, have evolved beyond pain. (Some pain reflexes continue even in brain-dead individuals.) If anything, reliance on pain to create meaning during childbirth indicates a constricted imagination.

now, when i read someone write about how we've evolved past pain i get edgy. cause i did read brave new world and i am not convinced that being pneumatic is all that grand of a promise. and you couple that with a man comparing the pain of labor to that of a hand in a fire or a broken bone, and i really am starting to think this guy is a pompous ass who hasn't figured out that telling women what they should or shouldn't do in birth went out with the beehive hairdo.

the startling dis-ease with which "western rationality" views the body, it's mystery and its raw primal power, especially in birth, comparing it to a pathological or crippled state, truly amazes me.

and i didn't realize they were still teaching misogyny in medical school.

both my births have been unmedicated. my first, i was a teenager in a hospital, and my last was at home, unassisted by any professionals.

to me, going unmedicated (and this REALLY is the case with my UC homebirth) is about respect for the process. why do runners choose to feel the pain of a marathon? why do tribal peoples have vision quests and rituals to mark life's changes? why in the world does anyone ever climb a mountain?

ritual/process are extremely important to me. we live in a world that tells us we can't do anything without help from something external to us (usually something we need to buy): medications, diets, new clothes, devices, etc. etc. etc. all developed by EXPERTS. i believe we are being crippled as a race by these messages and our startling willingness to acquiesce to them.

birth is just one example of how we have nascent, hidden, sacred knowledge and abilities planted like seeds in our physical bodies by evolution, and if we listen carefully and respect that ancient primal knowledge we can experience the transcendence possible in birth.

there is no telling a woman who has had a natural birth that she "can't" do anything, ever again. because she knows better. that in and of itself is a mighty good reason to suppress such experiences, from a male-dominated medical mindset.

for a brisk flurry of retorts, may i recommend this discussion at amity's by the derogated group in question--mothers who have experienced and actually advocate for natural birth?

http://www.amitymama.com/vb/amity-mama-market/318874-mother-lode-pain.html

and a longer thread where women share their feelings about the value of unmedicated natural birth is there too.

http://www.amitymama.com/vb/amity-mama-market/318958-spin-off-unmedicated-childbirth-what-did-mean-you.html

sibs

in these pictures jackson is reading rowan the card he made for her, which entailed an invitation to go to his dad's house (like mecca to her) with him and without me or latt, to jump on the trampoline and play together.

he was so tender and kind to her on her biorthday and he even let me take some pictures of him doing so.

she positively *delights* in him.

jackson really looks older than 12, and i love how he's trying
to smile a bit (at my request) since i said this picture was
going to be for rowan's scrapbook. it was rowan's birthday
and she's in one of her many fancy dresses and she just adores jack. they are both growing up far, far too fast.

my relationships with my brothers seems a world apart from the ones my kids have. first, i was 6 years younger than rob, 7.5 years less than brent, and 11 years younger than scott. they moved in a sphere of reference almost completely segregated from my own. although the difference between rowan and jackson is 8.5 years, they have spent far more time together--even with jackson spending about half his time at his dad's.

i love how different my kids are. jackson is constantly looking for ways to get around, over, or under the rulebook--and rowan sees it as her duty in life to lead him back to thew path of righteousness in all things. he's shrewd and acerbically funny and smart in an out of the box kind of way, as stubborn and as strong as an ox, and she's always working for harmony and making connections and making compromises and dramatizing, and giving affection and love. they are both bound for happy lives but they are, as this picture shows so well, like light and dark sometimes. the interaction with someone so different has to be good for them both.

a time to wean

i nursed rowan for 3 years, 364 days, and 15 hours, and it's over.

she nursed for the last time as i laid down with her the night before her fourth birthday. we had been planning this weaning for a while, and i had my fingers crossed that everything would go smoothly. what i wanted was an agreement between her and me--not a coerced weaning. so far, there have been no tears. for that i am so grateful.

it's been this way with both my kids now--jackson nursed for a couple moths past four, and weaned with no fanfare. i didn't even note his last time at the breast, and that was one reason i wanted to celebrate and document this milestone with rowan.





some pics from our last nursing. i told her how happy
i was and how grateful too to have mothered her and nursed her as a baby and toddler, and how excited i am to get to enjoy watching her growing into a little girl.

a time to be born

Four years ago at this time I was in labor with Rowan. I thought I'd continue my time saving device of re-posting stuff and this is her birth story, written a few weeks postpartum.

Her birth was a great one. Very different from my first birth of my son 8 yrs before (this was harder) but still a good birth. It was my first homebirth/waterbirth, and was unassisted--by which I mean there were no health professionals present. The birth process was much longer than with my son. I had false labor a week before she was actually born for a full day. Then I started having contractions one Thursday morning, had them all day, and called friends (who were three hours away) at about midnight to start to my house, as contractions were at four minutes apart. As soon as they got to my house, contractions just fizzled. We all went to bed, thinking they would wake me up as they got strong again and that i needed rest. Woke refreshed and without contractions at 8:30 the next morning (Friday) . Cntrx were off and on all day, at times hard and coming closer together. Everyone left during that day and while they were gone I had great, strong, steady cntrx. Which fizzled away when visitors returned. Had some more good contractions that night. Then I got a good sleep and woke up again without them Saturday morning.

How frustrating!!! Had I been in a hospital I bet I would have been pressured to have some interventions. After all, my first birth (natural, vaginal) was only 18 hours from first bloody show until son was born, with textbook cntrx and progression through stages--10 hours of easy cntrx, six hours of hard work, and two hours of pushing.

I was so frustrated Saturday. I had one internal check with the help of my friend that afternoon...baby had moved way down and I was FINALLY dilated somewhat (though only between three and four--after 2.5 days of off and on cntrx). Everyone left again that afternoon and it finally hit me. I was having good cntrx when me and dh were together and touching each other but not when others were around!!! Duh...of course I should have noticed that by then but just hadn't. So we really worked together during that afternoon, just enjoying our last few hours of togetherness without a baby between us. Lots of massage and holding and sweetness. Just like magic...things really started moving.

My birth pool had been up for a week now and had been filled and emptied about ten times! Finally I got in it about 7 pm. I stayed there until the baby was born at 6 am the next morning.



Labor was very hard. Felt like she was sweeping very sharp fingernails inside my cervix, back and forth. I had a distinct feeling of this sharp swishing as I felt her move. She was still moving a lot even as she descended. I'lll never know but I guess there was some difficulty there...maybe she had her hand up by her face for a long time, or was posterior. Anyway the last five hours were extremely hard. With my son I was zen mama...meditated through transition and never made a sound. Not one. Thought I'd be the same way this time! Not a chance--I was moaning and groaning, very loud. It just felt good. My two girlfriends went to sleep about ten and that's when things really cranked up! I didn't want dh to touch me anymore and I was counting the stars on this Indian mandala tapestry I have, just to get through each cntrx.

I had dh wake my friends at about two, as I was starting to need more support and things were going very fast it seemed (not really). Finally about five am I was feeling very "pushy" and I reached inside (hadn't done that since getting in the pool) and I could feel the bag of waters bulging! As I had my hand there they POPPED like a cork out of a bottle. Everyone said my expression was priceless! After that things got a bit overwhelming. I could feel her head and within half an hour she was crowning. I just didn't feel like I was stretching! I wasn't having the experience I had seen so often in squatting births (I was up on my knees in the pool) where the vagina sort of telescopes or tunnels out as the baby's head is emerging. Instead it felt like I was open about three inches across and I could feel her head pushing down everywhere. I just felt she was way too big and I wasn't opening enough! I was scared for the first time during labor and it hurt like hell and I DID NOT WANT her head to come out! I just really believed I was going to tear from top to bottom. I was crying and saying I couldn't do it (to which my very wise friend said "you *are* doing it" in this awesome calm voice...) and that the baby was too big for me (to which the same friend said, "no, it's just the right size for your body"). There I was in the pool with my hands down there on the head and really making a lot of noise and arrayed in front of me were my two girlfriends and dh, who (poor thing) has never had a baby before and has never seen me say I couldn't do anything!!!

I just remember crying out, "OHH-HH," in this pitieous way to my friend, with this very beseeching look on my face--like take this cup from me! as I was trying to push. That was my most forlorn and desperate moment ever. Then I was feeling the head and those ridges on the top of it from being squeezed in the birth canal, and I actually thought I was feeling the cord! I knew it couldn't get pinched and restrict the baby's oxygen, so I just thought to myself, dammit, just push this baby out and you can get sewn up afterwards--it doesn't matter if you tear, just get this baby here safe! So I pushed like mad and the pain was MANY-HUED but there was the head, out at last! Then I just breathed and waitied for the next contraction, and out came the little slippery body quite easily, as I remembered with ds, and I lifted her above the water.

I still didn't know it was a girl b/c the cord was a bit short and I was holding her so I could only see her back...afraid to turn her over or put her to breast for fear of tugging the cord.The placenta came out with the next cntrx and then I saw that she was a she and put her to the breast and she was pink and so beautiful. I had thought I would call ds (8.5 yrs) in to see the birth but I was so crazy during pushing that i didn't want to. His dad (my ex) was spending the night there at our house to be Jack's special person...so they came in at this point and everything was so happy and wonderful.

Rowan Ts'eh (pronounced "say") was 21 inches, 8lbs. She is named for the Rowan tree, which in pagan lore was the origin of the first woman on earth. Ts'eh is a nickname for a character in Leslie marmon Silko's wonderful book Ceremony. In Pueblo myth, she is the grandmother spider who weaves the world by spinning her web of storytelling.

r & r

we took jackson to play tennis for the first time and he really enjoyed himself. my favorite thing about these pictures is how perfectly they capture the *constant* motion that jackson really embodies. it was a pleasure to watch him on the court, because he has that kind of natural althletic fluidity and agility that usually i associate with kids i went to school with who hung out at the country club. i'm not sure i have ever seen him perform poorly at a sport, and it's like a miracle that the child of two dexters like me and his dad could have somehow produced such a specimen.

he was grinning in almost all the pictures i took.

he's taking boxing now too although there's no real contact between any of the kids until he's much further into learning all the mechanics of the sport...poses, moves, etc. i like that he's involved in a sport that is co-ed. there are two girls in his class.

we were hoping that the recent chilly night we had here would herald bug death day. but no such luck. the good thing about mosquitoes hanging around until it starts to get cold is that you have more skin coverage by way of clothing.


we played with daisy for a while with the huge inflatable ball that she chases and herds like a sheep, which is pretty entertaining. then we cleaned up the garden and put a lot of green matter into the compost, which was great since we've been putting mostly brown stuff (like leaves) in lately. a good mixture of both is essential to optimal compost apparently.


then latt started blowing the gigantic bubbles and daisy
went nuts chasing bubbles and rowan was just delighted to be there. such a sweetheart.