Tuesday, September 8, 2009

3-second rule


If she stops, it is over. I am running on that mode at the moment. 13 semester hours in motion on a path that is constantly colliding with the revolutions of a two-year old. If I pause even for a few seconds, I might find myself upright, book in hands, rudely interrupted from my sleep by the rising sun. It won't hold still for me either.

Monday, September 7, 2009

The face of two

quietly contemplating
wildly dancing
day illuminating
ball kicking
picture painting
loudly laughing
piano banging
mommy kissing
closet sleeping
couch climbing
bed jumping

hand clapping
karate chopping
perpetually moving
song singing
doll pushing
car digging
dirt slinging
Chinese speaking
and always on


...until not

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Double-take


If life at two means balloons two days in a row, she wants to turn two every other day. And if mommy could, my precious joy, she would let you. [details to follow]

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Yesterday


[the boy that loves the ocean as much as his momma]

Also known as today, tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that.


When I told Vada that we attained a house on a private beach with white sand and crystal clear water, she said that she fears the older kids and I may never come back. I said, "Of course we are coming back. School starts on the 24th." I'm sure the reassurance of my commitment to education is precisely what she was seeking.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Storyteller

Vada, she may have your genetic strand, but we have a shared vocabulary of body language and a love of my red shoes. I challenge your sharing of gene HCL1 on chromosome 19 to elicit as much charm as her spellbinding tale of footwear.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Sisters

What you do not see in this photo is the people to the left hanging out in the water with their children in floats. This same water. A shade of toxic green. Under the freeway.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Diptych Thursday

Life is full.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

A note to my wife

video

Happy anniversary, my love.


Music by Mazzy Star, "Rhymes of an Hour"

Monday, April 13, 2009

Re-education

I would like to be writing how far we have come along unpacking and remodeling the house and that I have loads of pictures to show you, but then my nerves would be less frazzled because I would be living in an aesthetically pleasing environment that was both clean and organized and who, really, would prefer that option over a garage full of boxes, paint cans lining interior room floors, and old toilets and appliances in their backyard? Our new sofa turned into 2 new toilets, a dishwasher, an electrician - his services, not his person - a master bedroom that still has carpet, and a trillion trips to the local hardware store. BUT, we are all alive, we haven't failed out of school (yet), and Kahlo has mastered eating in front of the television set because we are excellent parenting examples like that. Allow us to babysit and your 18 month old will too know how to get cereal out of the pantry on their own and eat breakfast from a box. We take cash or check.

We are still undergoing a little culture shock from not living in the city. Our 8th grade daughter was actually asked in her new school if she had ever seen anyone shot. We told her to be proud that she wasn't as naive to believe living in the city equated to gang life. We associated it with being surrounded by the arts, museums, and an active liberal community, whereas here it is associated with Gomorrah and cars without McCain/Palin stickers. That same daughter outed all of us to the neighbors within the first few days of living here, a process which I had been dreading. A wise friend of mine had just been out to the house and urged me that we should hold our heads high and out ourselves to the neighbors immediately to get it out of the way. While we were inside the house discussing such things, all of the kids in our culdesac were in our front yard talking with our kids and two moms came over to introduce themselves when one of the little kids asked about a dad and our daughter replied, "We don't have a dad at this house. We have two moms." The kid was confused so my daughter took it upon herself to explain it to her. One of those two moms still waves hello.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

A new direction

When my eyes are open, our toddler at the very least is in my periphery. I think this is why the tone of my blog is magnetized to her, you know… those three times I was ever able to write. As the two of us were sharing leftover strawberry birthday cake for breakfast this morning (like all good mother’s do), I was wondering how I will ever find the time to blog again or take photos. I’m taking 10 semester hours of classes this semester while Vada is taking 9. Over the next week we have to close on a house, paint the entire inside of it, pack up our house, and move. Then - and this will be the longest process - we have to make it ours.

If you ask what kind of home we dream about, we would tell you a modern glass house with loads of steel and white concrete floors. We are the ones you visit and can never be comfortable unless you have perfect posture – everything is straight lines, hard, and in solid white, and our home is purposefully stark. As minimalist modernists, this makes us happy. Now, if you ask what we bought, we would say a late 70’s brick contemporary house whose previous owners tried very, very, very hard to make it traditional. It isn’t what we hoped for long-term – there is no steel nor any walls of glass and there is a large amount of Saltillo tile flooring that will have to remain for a very long time because of our budget – but it has a great floorplan, workable bones, and is actually in our price range so we will just have to tone down our dreams a bit for now. Reversing the previous owners’ “reparative therapy” will reduce my mother to tears. The things she loves about the house are the ones that are on the top of our list to undo. Immediately. We will be tearing down crown molding and lighting fixtures, filling-in bead-board, removing a mantle and loads of traditional built-ins, ripping up bedroom carpet, and slowly making it “us.”

My new plan is to post pics of our progress on my blog. Maybe you will cringe like my mother. Maybe you will have a front row view of a mental breakdown or two. Maybe your comment will serve as a tie-breaker to a house decision. Either way, you will get to be a voyeur after Friday when we become homeowners, not renters.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

A sign we need to expand our circle

[A serious discussion regarding guardianship of our toddler in our wills]

Participant 1: "[shrills of excitement] He is the perfect candidate! He shares our values, our beliefs, our desire to raise her in the city, he would encourage her to do the most with her education, he absolutely adores her, and I cannot imagine him bringing anyone or anything into her life that would contradict these things."

Participant 2: "How do we go about making an 11-year old her guardian if we both die?"

Thursday, December 25, 2008

How to handle trust

I imagine our Christmas Eve has been typical. Baking, eating, chatting, driving around looking at Christmas lights, eating some more, stuffing stockings, assembling a playhouse, and doing what any other married couple would do when the in-laws take the baby shopping with them leaving us alone in our house for the first time in months - inconspicuously trying to unwrap the gifts to us that were already under the tree! We even made bets on what we got. Not sure what constitutes winning and what is losing in some cases, but we were grinning like little kids at Christmas and I cannot help but highly recommend this bonding activity. Tomorrow we will smile and say thank you, but today I gained a new reverence for my wife as I watched her carefully peel back the tape without tearing any paper in order to slide a box out while I took guard duty at the front window.

I hope your holidays bring you childish cheer and a good bottle of wine. We will press on with both tomorrow.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Sneaking a peek at freedom


Last night we listened to mariachi Christmas music, saw Santa riding a great white shark, ate funnel cake, and jived to some blues. It is after days like this that I re-find my suppressed love of living in the South. It revived me after such a long semester that for the first time in my adult life, I actually did not replace the toilet paper roll in our bathroom today that was a sheet or two away from baring it all. Nope. Thought maybe it was time to let someone else in this house do it. One more final exam to go and then maybe I'll go wild and not drop off our glass recyclables. Until then, I'll be chasing Kahlo at the zoo tomorrow where we are meeting some of our friends so that she can pull hair in the petting zoo and I can go slightly more insane trying to remove all of it from her carseat in the weeks to come.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

A letter to the author

Dear wife,

If you truly have fears that I will someday leave you and our family without waiting for you to further explore our world, I implore you to reconsider the events of today and, in a less than graceful gesture, grasp the significance that I will indeed still be here when you return home.

It wasn’t the flea bite I incurred in our own home this morning. Nor was it when the dog bit me for sending her outside. It wasn’t from withholding the numerous loads of wash piled on our kitchen floor to re-wash the previously white duvet covers and sheets time and time again in hopes of somewhat saving them. It wasn’t the thought that our son is breathing a highly contagious vomiting virus into our stagnant home. It wasn’t even the pet stench emanating from our less than cloroxed kitchen. It was the artistic sense of our other small child who was “napping.”

I laid her to sleep as always, tucked beneath her blanket. I left the room. Silence. I knew she was ready for her nap because nothing satisfied her. The timing on the clock was right. I went about some chores but I kept hearing what I thought was a chuckle. Is that her? No, it must be outside. I worked around the house for quite a bit longer until I heard it again. I opened the door and she flipped on the light at that very second as if to say, “surprise!”

Let’s just say I’m currently using safety pins on her naptime diaper, she has been bathed, the crib has been finely detailed, the tub has been sterilized, the walls have been washed and there is another load of laundry to burn. Forever.


I’m sad to report that you missed her first very fine piece of artwork, and with an interesting medium, I might add, but I hope this lays your other fears to rest.

Signed,
Your wife

P.S. I bought Christmas cookies. I think a whole box will pair nicely with a glass of wine.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Bingo!

Palin Bingo, that is! Many thanks to Robin Reagler of The Other Mother for twittering the Palin Bingo card link. Palin Bingo provided a positive and enjoyable occupation of our hands during the Vice Presidential debate that otherwise might have been defenestrating our precious belongings. Next time, I'm creating my own card complete with all "Ums," "Mispronounced name," "Gave wrong name," "Redirected question without answering" or "Did not answer the question at all" squares.

Friday, September 12, 2008

A peak into my mind tonight

In the last 24 hours, the ratio of my priorities has shifted significantly in ways that has surprised even me. I've lived in the deep south all of my life and my family never blinked for a hurricane. Did I somehow forget that I grew up in a brick house on a concrete slab with many safe interior rooms? Not that it matters, but we now live in a hundred-year old house peering out equally aged glass and none of it is officially attached to a slab. Nope. It is raised in traditional historic style on... I don't know what they are called... beams? blocks? I just know that what looked to me like a charming, slightly raised home with a cozy front porch flanked on the east by two equally aged gorgeous climbing oak trees looks today like one giant roof for a wind tunnel in-waiting crouched beside two towering and rickety wrecking balls with eight arms each. That was a mouthful.

And what did I learn about myself tonight? When discussing at 2:50 AM with Vada in the hallway - our only interior room, aka "emergency central" - what our exact plan should be if the roof or windows are compromised, she is discussing tarps and air mattresses and I kept thinking - and the food! We got to Whole Foods Market early enough today to get the good stuff. Forget our rain-proof box of vital records - I want the foccacia bread and the balsamic dipping sauce, ooh! and the yummy stuff to grill those pizzas outside when we have no power! Forget the tarp and flashlights. Should you or should I be the one to grab that last smile inducing bottle of wine on the table? Oh, there is room for only one car in the garage? You're asking me which one it should be? Definitely the decade old gas-guzzling SUV. I hate the air conditioner of that damn car we have owned for less than a year. Do you know I was actually sweating today while driving around town to run errands? S-W-E-A-T-I-N-G. That damn car gets parked under the two gorgeous giant wrecking balls flanked to the east.

I was going to write it off as a conversation at 2:50 AM. I am exhausted. I almost have no voice and equally no reason why I almost have no voice. I just read 2 chapters in a textbook so I could take an exam on-line at 2:30 a.m. I am surrounded by people who have never experienced a hurricane in their lives and are worried and stressed. I just had some temporary delusions in judgment. That is all. But... 7 hours earlier... "I know, love, that we ran all of our errands earlier so we could be safely tucked away at home tonight, but the library downtown is open for one more hour before it shuts down for the hurricane and, hey, the drive runs opposite the evacuation traffic..."

I now have seven books discussing America's policies, sanctions, and failed embargo against Cuba. And damnit, they need to be in the hallway too.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Dear one-year-old girl,

Sometimes I feel your smile from another room.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

When the sin is soaked in good

19 semester hours of classes between us started last week. 19 semester hours in addition to Vada's full time job, my duties as launderer, housekeeper, chauffer, shopper, and part-time cook, and parenting our 3 kids. 19 semester hours of foreign language, art history, geology, another history, and two writing intensive courses. Yet, here we are, behaving like it is still the summer lounging at our local organic coffee house discussing politics and hanging the monkey by her toes. pics from iphone



































Sunday, August 10, 2008

From the curve of my back

It is hot. I can feel sweat running its fingers along my collarbone and choking my throat from within. I need a jarritos, some musica mexicana, and our fan.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Glowing

Today my wife turned 33. There were lots of festivities, great food, and 33 reasons she is special hanging from our ceiling.

Vada, you are very loved. Happy birthday.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Another windblown morning


Making the bed might be one of our favorite events of the day.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Rebellion, meet Kahlo




























...you have much in common. though i sometimes forget, i wouldn't want it any other way.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The last month in summary

The two older kids left. My wife’s mom had surgery. I started therapy. The one-year anniversary of my dad’s death came and went. I spent a day in the ocean. I chopped off my hair. I hated my hair. Our baby learned to stand. I bought new shoes. I loved my hair. My wife and I had a day and night out with no baby and went to Pride. I felt old – and liked it. Another woman flirted with my wife in front of me. I ate ten cupcakes in two days. I hated my hair. We went to a few art shows. My wife used “LOL” in a text message to me – I watched her closely for any other signs that alien pods had infiltrated her body. The two older kids returned. My mom’s heart stopped but started again. My wife's heart hurt and I took her to the emergency room and she was hospitalized. Life was horrible. Then my wife came home. She is not allowed to ever go back. Our baby dances. Our baby dances to chewing sounds. Our baby dances to chewing sounds at a picnic while waving around her cracker. An abnormally large squirrel almost pounced on our baby during a picnic. We became addicted to the Green channel. We started a compost. We bought a reel mower. We bought solar outdoor lights. We are switching from g-diapers to all-cloth diapers. We got rid of all plastic toys. We kept our television sets. I spent another day in the ocean with our two older kids. I beat my wife during our dance-dance-revolution family dance-off. She is in denial. Our baby learned to climb onto the sofas from the floor. I am blogging again but am now on sofa-watch.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Things that are not fun

I don't understand why people choose to cough, have a fever, blow their nose until the skin around it cracks, and skip work just to complain for a week that they are dying, they can't breathe and even their bones hurt. I don't understand why this joy must be shared simultaneously with the baby, who opted to take things further with a double ear-infection. What is fun about these things? Nothing. And you know what else is not fun about these things? Giving it to me. Now that you feel better. And are back at work. Yep. Those things. [I'm glad you feel better, love]

What makes a splitting feverish head that feels too heavy to hold up still spin? A baby that is determined to walk. Everywhere. Yet quite cannot. Help.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Waiting

Her big brother left today for a full month. I don't know what she is going to do... I don't know what he is going to do, either.

We were concerned how our son would handle the dynamic change of adding a baby to our family. He had always been the baby. The night his baby sister was born, he saw her and bawled. Bawled. He has a baby sister. We are pretty sure that in his little boy brain he didn't grasp the reality that there would be this tiny new human in our lives that we got to bring home and keep. He is her favorite playmate, her second voice, her narrator. Their faces illuminate at the site of the other. He announces to her and us all of the things he is going to teach her to do - count, multiply, throw a baseball, drive. They have already mastered spitting, ba-ba-ba'ing and high-fives. He tells her all of the things he is going to buy her when he becomes a professional football player. We assure him that what she'll need more than anything is some of his time and lots of his love. Before he was picked-up today, he was noticeably sad. I asked him about this and he said he was sad because of all of the changes in her he would miss over the next month.

I now know that by having her, we helped make him a better person.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Introducing our new MacBook Pro

We might be a little bitter.

As a side note, there is now yet another twelve year old girl that cannot pass a mirror without smiling into it. It feels good to see her happy.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

A moving story

A baby shared our bedroom. A crib was in a corner. A baby could be wakened accidentally by the creaking wood floors when getting out of bed at night to pee. We slept with our legs crossed. A baby could be wakened easily by the sound of my wife talking in her sleep. We slept with sharp eyes directed at my wife each time she dared to utter sleeping sounds. A baby could waken herself out of spite to make our lives harder. We walked into walls out of lack of sleep. Then one day, we moved the crib to another bedroom in our house and everything was right in the world.

And now this.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Fallen face

Today was the first day of basketball camp. There was trouble going to sleep last night. There was nervous anticipation of whether he would prove himself the next pro player to a high school gym of boys ranging in age from 8 to 13. There was a dream of actually learning to slam dunk by the end of the week. There was a call less than thirty minutes before camp started this morning to inform that there would be no camp. Period. A face fell.

Many hugs and held back tears later, we trekked to the local batting cages for mommy band-aid time. There is a new participant in indoor baseball camp tomorrow. There will be trouble going to sleep tonight.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Faceless

I noticed that I don't contribute stories or pictures of our two older children. I find myself protecting them even in ways they do not need to be protected, mostly because of their private other-family lives.

Our oldest daughter (pictured on the left) will be 13 this summer - a teenager! Vada keeps asking me if I feel old being the mother of an impending teenager. I feel old for many other reasons - the fact that I will be the mother of a teenager isn't one. Our daughter never invites friends over - but she has plenty. Just ask her why she lost cell phone privileges both at our house AND at her dad's house! Vada and I asked her if she would like to plan something with her friends this summer to celebrate this big birthday event - she said no, that she would rather go out to eat at her favorite restaurant and invite some of our adult friends and immediate family. She vehemently denies it, but I think it is because she lives in a two-mom household. She had a friend at school last year who was the daughter of an out-lesbian in our local city government. When I mentioned to our daughter that her friend also has two-moms, she was shocked and said that the girl never told her. Of course, now that girl is at a private school this year. I mentioned to her that there is a local gay and lesbian parenting group in our city that holds events throughout the year including beach trips, picnics and bowling. I told her that we had joined the group and would become active participants this summer. I suggested that perhaps she would meet some friends that also live with same-sex parents that she liked and felt comfortable around. Her face lit up. Here's hoping there are other pre-teens and early teens in that group!


Our son (pictured on the right) recently turned ten and very proudly hugs his two moms at school and his school teacher even requested a photo of his baby sister for her classroom wall that his other mother delivered within the first weeks of school. He is oblivious that someone may not be his friend because of his family dynamic. When he grows up he plans to be a professional basketball player. If you ask about back-up plans, he will settle for being a professional football or baseball player or working at Best Buy because they can play video games during their breaks.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

As fast as she can


Finding autonomy, she is moving and touching faster than light. I blink and she is across the room.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Happy anniversary, my love















"tables turned again, you, my friend
you and i face each other time in and time out
i know it's sometimes hard, but knowing just that
we will get along until we are old and gray
and hubbled up
and doubled up
we'll sit and laugh of times were hard
and laugh of times, when we thought all it would end, it all was over
then again
and believe you my whole life
my friend
it will be you until the end with me
always..."

wedding day photo by our friend Bruce O'Neal
words by David J. Matthews, Listener Supported

Friday, May 2, 2008

Not a picture story

It has been 11,953 days since my last public confession. I have breast implants. They were a valentine’s gift a decade ago. Seriously. A valentine’s gift. Unsolicited. And the plastic surgeon actually performed the surgery knowing it was something I never requested. The confession part is what a spineless obedient sham I was to not just say no.

I worry about everything, and by everything I mean if there is merely a slight remote possibility that something could occur that would make my life one eighth of a degree worse, I focus on it until said remote possibility passes, assuming it could ever pass, and then I focus on what other possibilities could occur that might incur that very same horrible result. It is tiring. After my implant surgery, I read that there is this very rare occurrence where the skin between the breasts can un-attach from the chest causing a tent effect between the breasts. I focused on this for days and was positive I felt some pulling in that very spot. I unwrapped my ace bandage and gauze just to stick a sock between my swollen new boobs in hopes counter pressure would prevent me from developing a uni-boob. I think I might be the only person on Earth who has ever done this. It was especially fun explaining to the plastic surgeon why there was a sock between my boobs under the bandages I was supposed to never remove when I went in for my post-surgical follow-up visit. I think he actually said, “Seriously?” and then muttered the aforementioned comment about me being the only person on Earth... But you know what? I have TWO boobs now. He cannot be certain I would have otherwise.

Ever since I quit my job to stay home with our baby, losing extra family income and my health insurance, I have been convinced one of my implants is going to rupture for no other reason than I would not be able to afford to fix it and would die. I will have to stuff that same sock into one side of my bra since toilet paper would be wasteful, I will develop gangrene and a high fever and delusions, and my wife will want nothing to do with me as she is very clearly a breast woman and has been all of her life. I might add that during the surgery I suffered some significant nerve damage to my right nipple. A decade later, if anything slightly brushes up against that nipple, I still have this tuning fork effect of nerve pain that vibrates deeper and deeper until there is this odd feeling that something very cold is dripping inside of me. This dripping feeling is fun paired with my fear that something will rupture and then drip inside of me.

So, this morning, our baby wakes up at 4 a.m. I am exhausted as this week I have final exams so I have been staying up later than usual. She is teething and cranky and having difficulty sleeping. She pushed through a tooth this week – making it number five – with the sixth tooth trying hard to make it through her unhappy gums. Frozen bananas are her favorite teether, but she will bite on anything that will make her mouth feel better. I pick her up and bring her to bed with us, snuggling her in close to me, and just as we are both drifting back to sleep, she chomps down on my boob – MY BOOB – the boob of the mommy who has never breastfed her as that is momma’s job – my nerve-damaged boob with her JAWS OF STEEL and her FIVE VERY SHARP TEETH. I don’t think I can fully communicate the severity of this ferocious attack - it wasn't a rough attempt to suckle milk, it was to MAIM. The annoying all-caps does make me feel better. Before I can remind myself that I should in fact breathe as oxygen is necessary to sustain life, our sweet little monkey flips over wrapping her delicate little fingers around my arm and goes straight to sleep. I, however, cannot move or even swallow. Is my boob even still there? And then I feel the drip, drip, drip… I reach over and palpate its size. Is it smaller? Do I feel an internal gush when I push on it? Drip, drip, drip... I feel for the other boob in the dark to have something to compare it with. Drip, drip, drip... This was an all-night internal loop complete with no more sleep.

Just so you know, I am the same way about my teeth. They are all original, but I am always worried about one breaking or chipping now that I do not have dental insurance. I blame this book as I never worried about it before reading about a character named Giles. I found the book vile and unintelligent and I sold it to Half-Price Books as soon as I finished reading it - just to note this is not a book recommendation.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Sleep deprivation is the best

[out-of-the-house working bio-mom/wife runs into the room]

wife: "You won't believe it! She just crawled across the rug for the FIRST time! She finally put it all together and is actually CRAWLING!"

[now jumping up and down and smiling largely]


stay-at home mom/me: "Oh yeah... she has been doing that this week."


Recreating this situation is not recommended. It lacks things such as happiness and fun.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Because it feels good


I cannot imagine whose child this is. It cannot be mine. You see, I was forbidden to put my daughter’s hair into pigtails before she turns one year of age. Seriously forbidden – as in receiving a verbal warning from my wife that I better not even put them into pigtails when she isn’t home just for the sake of even one picture. Ever. I was even warned of this more than once. I will say that just this past weekend my wife was also telling me how much she misses my passion. My passion has been sucked dry with my nonexistent energy levels. On this blah lifeless passionless day, I may or may not have decided to visit the other side to steal some of that passion. In my defense, the two seemed to contradict.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

A defrost symphony



We consider ourselves lucky that our lil’ monkey loves being outdoors and have tinkered with the idea of performing ritualistic sacrifices to ensure this trend continues. It is the only place to thaw out as our very old house somehow thinks its destiny is meat storage. This arctic climate collaborates well with Vada’s swell of post-baby hormones. Not mine. This picture is for her, as taken INSIDE our house on a warm spring day. I love this fuzzy hat, but am glad ninety-degree summers are coming so we can pack it away for the next kiddo. Notice the smirk on our wee one’s face – that, love, she gets from me. pssst... it is NOT fur.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

A circle of sorts

Last year, our youngest child was 9 years old. Vada looked like this:
















It was a quick transition between the thought, “let’s go sit outside our favorite coffee house” and sitting outside our favorite coffee house. We would grab the keys. Now, there are barrages of questions and preparation moves to merely entertain such an idea… Will the baby be difficult? Let me clarify – has she had a nap, in say… the last half hour? Okay, really, define "for a few minutes." Is the sling in the car? Is her bag stocked? Do we have a snack to bring? And some toys? This kid can perform gravity-defying maneuvers to reach for our coffee and chai, thus, distraction is required. And more importantly, has anything at all about her mood changed since we first dangled this idea between us? Dining out delves into a darker place involving the possible deafening of other patrons which I won’t discuss without an assurance that Monterey jack sauce and fresh guacamole are in my immediate future.

I adore our baby – it is pure joy to feel her smiles, watch how she learns and physically see the woman I love with all of me shining out of her, but many times I catch myself focusing on other sides, like how I will never again sleep in our bed alone with my wife. But on Friday night, my mind and I were alone staring up at the stars from our front porch, and after questioning myself if I was talking in my head or using my outside voice, I focused on how many wonderful things have returned to us, my sanity excluded.

When Vada and I first fell in love, we would spend an entire weekend never leaving her house, shifting from her backyard where she painted and I shot photos or lay out in the sun to indoors where we ate amazing meals which she prepared, danced barefoot to old country songs on her wood living room floor, and talked the night away. Now we spend weekends outside as a family, I find myself dancing barefoot on our wood floors with our baby, and on weekends when our older kids are away and the baby is down for the night, we are again enjoying lingering nights gazing at each other across our dining table with great food, an occasional glass of wine, and talking the night away …all things that faded away somewhere in between.

Then there are the things that have never changed, like L-Word season which means new Sunday night episodes and dessert in bed, even with a baby between us. And there are new things, too. We are growing our own organic tomatillos and cilantro and squash and a few other things for the first time AND they are still alive and getting bigger. I will submit pictures soon for proof. We are buying our produce from a local organic co-op which we are also using to make our own baby food. Our quest for imaginative, non-toxic, modern wood toys has led to Vada migrating into her workshop and studio – also referred to as our garage - to create some of her own to add to our collection. And our new business! I am looking forward to using our creativity toward a shared venture.

Seven long months of no sleep, a whining baby and academic papers has left me very worn on the negative side, with a development of under-the-breath Tourette’s. With the return of the sun and days outdoors and more consistent sleep, I’m searching for the return of my more upbeat gentle side. If I get off track, dear reader, slap me.

Monday, April 7, 2008

One of my favorite things




















She has her momma's hair.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Under the same sun

Two years ago last month, I traveled alone to Honduras. In the corner of my mind, I had been planning this trip since I returned from Costa Rica that same summer with my best friend, but Vada and I had developed into an us and were planning our wedding soon after my return. I remember lolling around Vada’s house on Alexander Street for days begging her to come with me. Self-induced torture followed over whether I should just cancel my trip because I didn’t want to spend time away from her, but Vada assured me that I should go. Her concerns seemed more about my safety – diving with sharks and shunning populated resorts, or, say, the horror of my being in the ocean without floaties. I prefer to experience the culture where I travel and escape unnecessary means. The hammock on the porch of my cabana was my favorite place to sleep. I ate dinner outside every single night. I dove with reef sharks and nurse sharks and puffer fish and schools of blue tang in the bays that surrounded my cabana in Roatan, I fulfilled my childhood dream of snorkeling with whale sharks during a trip to the island of Utila, and I made good friends with the locals, even traveling to the island of Guanaja with a local family who were visiting their extended family. And again, Guanaja. I cannot adequately express… I heard it changed soon after I left – unspoiled land now home to a few resorts. The Guanaja I remember is where I had to climb a ladder to reach my second-level accommodations and hope a goat didn’t knock the ladder over before I made the return trip down, where I ate meals prepared by an old woman who told me she had met one other “gringa” before but that I would be the first for her grandchildren, where we went out to the only bar on the island – a bar where you actually checked your machetti and other weaponry at the door and retrieved said items on an honor system when you left, where I developed my craving for a pop called Link, where I became hooked on watching Spanish soap operas in a diner with no air conditioning while not understanding a word they spoke... Vada still comments how thick the air is in our house at times and I know it is my reluctance to turn on the air conditioner because of those memory associations.

I found so many pieces of myself in Honduras that leaving felt like denying what I found. I wrote my most vulnerable piece on that trip, and I’m still realizing what a difference that experience made on my life and how it has affected my wife. Unlike other trips, I cried for weeks after my return, feeling engulfed by concrete roads and multiplying high-rises. It wasn’t about vacation. I’ve taken countless vacations. Maybe it wasn’t even Honduras, but about valuing something different in life - inhaling the sun, breathing the wind, feeling the shade of the ocean. The people I met were about creating and sustaining life, not having more than everyone else or living beyond their needs. They grew, they fished, they ate, they laughed. They were satisfied walking on dirt paths and didn’t require instant gratification.

My wife has recognized parts of me still gone today, yet I am blinded by my own contradictions because I also remember that trip reaffirming my desire to grow old with her. Before her, I never wanted to be married again. I only dated people for fun and was brazenly outspoken about it. I never had an intention to plan my life around anyone, but something was different with her and I knew it long before I left. While away, I was only able to keep in touch with her over a few emails because of shoddy internet connections and people awaiting replacement computer parts – waits that often take months there. Here I was experiencing everything I had wanted out of life ever since I was a small child, yet it didn’t feel complete without her to share it with. I could not wait to touch her face, feel her hand on the curve of my back, hear about her days, watch her smoke while losing herself in her painting, tell her my stories and fall asleep in that bedroom on Alexander Street. In so many ways I have been acting out because I cannot have both.

She promises me that one day when our two older children have left for college, we can take our baby and move to Honduras or anywhere else we want. An artist, she has talked about getting her art degree ever since I have known her. Now that she is almost there, she instead speaks of getting a teaching certificate so she can find a job and offer something to the community wherever we move. She insisted I quit my job and stay at home with our baby while getting my degree in anthropology. And on Monday, she starts a new job at a fortune 500 company - a job that only a few years ago she would never imagine taking, a job that will require more time, more stress, more personal sacrifice, all for a more secure life for our family.

The moral of this long-winded, winding story: Vada, I do not deserve you. Thank you for being so patient, understanding, giving, and loving. I am in awe to be your wife. I know between the baby and kids and family and school and the house we end up so tired. Just know that I’m here to hold your head when your head won’t hold on, and you are the only one I want doing the same.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Our baby, as the day lights up with her eyes























You are 7 months old today, my spit bubble blower. Let's go eat baby mum-mums on momma's side of the bed and then pass out in a full-belly stupor!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Post dinner notation

Dear Robbie,

Writing academic papers about the diastema of the Australopithecus africanus and the effects of solar irradiation and orbit alterations on Mars' ice caps sucks, much like tofu.

The end.