colorful weekend

this is a three parter (and long; feel free to skim): a one-year birthday party in autumn colors (for me, mostly harvest haze), the color purple on stage, and the rainbow of emotions behind the little zygote actually turning the big numero uno.

birthday party: well, i went with autumn as the birthday "theme" basically cause i had no theme and wanted a reason for the yellow sprinkles i happily shook onto all the carrot cupcakes. yellow...carrot...whatever... i got little pumpkins for the kids. we had homemade chili and split pea soup, my chocolate-chunk pumpkin bread (slathered in brie, yum!) and assorted other breads and cheeses, and sparkling drinkables in pomegranate, apple, and cranberry. all this, and a cute autumny orange vinyl tablecloth from ikea, was all the theming i could manage. not bad, huh?

i think the party was fun. of course, even with all the colorfulness, it was just a murky haze for me, as are most parties i give. i don't know why i always have out-of-body experiences while entertaining, but i do. i talk to people, and i don't remember. i move room to room and outside and back in with no memory of what just happened. i do know leo and clyde had a blast (nothing else really matters, i suppose) playing with their cousins and friends out back. running, jumping, wrestling, and leo stuck it out like a big boy. it was a beautiful day! i know i was in my body for the birthday song because my eyes welled up with tears over my big one-year old and my big almost-five-year old singing his heart out to his little brother (this picture makes me cry even now). and then once the candle was blown out, i landed again and started to enjoy myself, and, of course, that's when everybody had to leave. will i get this entertaining thing down someday?

the color purple: yesterday, i took my mom to san francisco to see the color purple musical (her bday present). we spent the drive on some much-needed, much-longed-for chatting and then shopped and ate our way around the ferry building: amazing chocolate-filled bombolini (=donut heaven) at i preferiti di boriana, roasted chicken, mac & cheese, and roasted rosemary sweet potatoes at mistral rotisserie provencale, and warren pear samples and chocolate chip, cherry, walnut cookies from frog hollow farm to sneak into the theatre. but enough about food...

the color purple was the most amazing show i've probably ever seen on stage. from the minute they lifted the golden parchment screen scribed with celie's words: "Dear God, I am fourteen years old. I am I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me" and let us peer just for a second on the outline of her and nettie doing their hand-clapping game against the dream-like, purple-lit sky, tears were tumbling down my face (and my mom's too). i know, at least at first, i cried because it felt as if oprah and her team looked inside me, captured what i felt about this story, and then perfectly translated those feelings into something i could experience with eyes, ears, and heart.

you don't get to say that every day.

i absolutely love alice walker's book. it's one of those books i feel like i know backward and forward. i feel like it's a part of me, of my coming of age, of my years spent in women's studies classes and in grad school, of my now, of everything. so much goes back to that book (like my understanding of love and self-love), and it touched me in so many ways. years ago, the movie just made my love for the book even better, which never seems to happen. and then yesterday, the musical, which burst forth and pulled us into the most richly colored set and heart-opening songs just made the whole experience of celie's tale that much deeper for me (although much too light on the celie/shug romance again! what's up? they fell is LUH-UV, people!).

i "came to" several times during the production and my face was either stretched into an enormous teeth-showing smile or i was wiping my eyes and holding my chest from the explosion of feeling leaping out from inside. lovely, lovely, lovely. heart wrenching. heartwarming. full-of-happy funny at times. a set that blew my mind. songs that opened my heart. the perfectly cast celie (jeannette bayardelle). and sophia (felicia p. fields). and harpo (stu james). and one little leaping boy (anthony williams II) who sang with such open-mouthed enthusiasm in the finale i thought i would die right there. of love.

now i just want to fly to nyc to see fantasia perform it. wow.

as my mom and i left the theatre, red nosed and happy, we passed the most beautiful color purple. and it just kept the day's perfection swaying in the breeze.

on the drive home, because we needed to end our night with a little more woman love, we made an impromptu stop at my great aunt's house and took her out for pie. her 89-year old love and grace always the thing to ground me and help me keep my eye on the prize. she has always been such a wonderful supporter of my writing urges. "sheri," she said after i hugged her goodbye, "when you get a little free time...write..."

on leo actually being one: holy crap. what can i say? one year ago today... the journey is all just a little too surreal to try to put into words, especially when i've already been doing my best to put it into words all this time, as it has come. i'm not far away enough yet to look back. i still don't really know anything new. so read this post instead, so i don't have to go there, okay?

happy birthday to my last little zygote that could. i'm so glad you did!

the mama focus photo contest

excited to announce a new photo contest focused on mamas. win a free SONY digital camera yo!

the mama focus contest is sponsored by The Little Zygote That Could, mamazine.com, and Picture This. we want interesting and unexpected shots that give us a peek into real mamahood—pictures with a fresh, unique perspective or that capture a moment, convey a feeling, or tell a story.

the contest starts Thursday, November 1, 2007, and ends Friday, November 30, 2007. read on for contest rules and information.

oh yeah, and the grand prize, graciously donated by SONY, is a SONY DSC-W55 Cybershot Digital Still (black). awesome!

the joy of housecleaning

want to learn to love housecleaning?

send your kids away for the day while you clean top to bottom (including that one shelf that has not been dusted since you moved in. SEVEN years ago...). thanks mom and dad!

want to hate it again?

let them come home.

enough about me

so tell me...

+ where do you live?
+ what's the last best thing you read? (here's mine; thanks, H)
+ what's the last best thing you ate? (mine was yogurt, granola, pecans, & banana)
+ what's the last best thing you watched? (here's mine)

and a couple of links:

• mama merit badges
• heidi and spencer are total freaks (via mamapop)
• totally downloaded almost this whole playlist just because i secretly want to see the world like miranda july does

oh, and about that weaning thing

i guess it's getting to be time for me to wean. i just can't let it go!

maybe it's early onset empty nest syndrome. or something. or maybe it will officially mean my babies are gone. no more...

believe me, this is not about leo anymore. he could care less. he's totally in love with the bottle. however, i cannot let go of that final, early morning feeding. of course, it's all i can bear because i STILL have a painful little infection that won't go away (yes, i got it checked out after reading an article about a woman with four friends under 40 with breast cancer and one of those cancer's showing up as sore on the nipple! the NP is not worried about my probs. apparently anything that gets a mouth on it every day is just never going to heal).

anyway, the biting that occurred yesterday morning is going to help, i think. i'm not really liking that at all. once they get into the bottle who lets them do any god forsaken to thing to its nipple, they forget about kindness to nipples. they forget about everything they learned in the breastfeeding etiquette class.

anyway, in the mean time, doing the count down (freak out) to one-year old (less than a week!) when we can give cow's milk. looks like he will be getting it a few days sooner though cause i'm not buying one more can of $27 organic formula. why organic when i don't absolutely insist on EVERYTHING else being organic (but i give it a good try!)? oh, because that's one of my little parental freakies. so let me have it, okay?

sorry, gotta run and FREAK OUT about the upcoming party. parties are just vestibules for freak out. you can't really do anything in advance, including clean your house, so really all you can do is freak out (and rearrange your walls). or maybe normal people just save the freak out for the day of and act normally until then. are there really people like that? normal people? oh wait...i'm married to one...

however, i wonder if these so-called "normal" people aren't married to freakers, who do all the freaking for them, do they then become freakers (about things like "hey, we didn't really plan any kiddie food for this kid party; whoops!)?

talk amongst yourselves.

i keep accidentally catching so many good things on NPR; nothing better!:

• Foo Fighters' David Grohl on Fresh Air (totally downloaded his new tune "Home")
• Interview with and music from Jesca Hoop
• Amazing story about two men who met in an Alzheimer's support group. I only caught the last half and now can't find it. Anyone?

things got done today

well, the week lulled a bit with a little sad ugh, but i'm feeling better. you know, as things (and creative things) get accomplished ever so slowly.

we have the one-year birthday party next weekend, so we tried to get a few things done (nothing like entertaining to force completion). of course, the day after we had a big donation pickup (and i only managed to get together two small bags), clyde decided to go through his toys and get rid of things. three big bags worth out of the boys room. but now where to put the bags.

ed finished painting around the front door we installed over a month ago. i also begged him put the cupboard doors on our built-in. my dad cut them out for us, um, several years ago and we've had new hinges for the whole thing for a few months. whoops. but hey, they're on, not closing really, but on...

i finally dismantled the bassinet that leo hasn't slept in for like eight months (and our room is OURS again). i also did the art wall above the bed that i've been dying to do. i've had an in-progress stack in my office for months and months and today (inspired by this) i finally put them all together while leo took his morning nap. isn't it funny how long you can put off things that you can kick out in a single naptime?

plus, i love it!

(clockwise starting on left): 1) a drawing i got in budapest (frame from great aunt betty), 2) grandma's embroidery (oval frame from great aunt ede), 3) painting by ed (frame from great aunt ede), 4) painting in frame from great aunt ede, 5) watercolor by clyde (frame from yard sale), 6) painting by ed (oval frame from great aunt ede), 7) wallpaper print in frame from great aunt ede, 8) botanical print in frame from great aunt ede.

and don't worry. this is not going to become any sort of wannabe design blog. trust me. that project was it for the year or maybe for two.

later today i will tackle at least the very big weeds in the garden. well, maybe tomorrow... and we'll clean some other time before guests arrive on our doorstep.

some things i'm not worrying about TODAY:

• money (or the cost of a birthday party or a trip to san diego for thanksgiving)
• the fact that clyde is almost too long for his toddler bed (what will we do???) there's NO room in there for a twin bed AND a crib...
• that i'll never ever again get to write anything but web copy that is optimized for search engines...awful...
• the calories in the loaf of this chocolate-chunk pumpkin bread i'm currently mowing through

other good things this week include:

• this friggin' adorable sink and this ceiling (hell, the whole room!)
  
• these gorgeous paintings (via lena corwin)
  
• e.t. — it's on tv right now and GOD i love this movie. so sweet. so pretty in the dim, grainy yellow light of elliot's house (i also love when elliot insults the mean boy by calling him "zero-charisma"). plus, it's clyde's first time. he is gripping me as i type (little does he know that he'll be consoling me and my sobby weeping in a few minutes).
• chicken carne asada tacos. my favorite family dinner.
• leo is walking, walking, walking all around. so much today!
• so many yellow leaves to love.

sad today

the thing with sadness is that even with all life's burdens removed, you are still compelled to take part in the sadness.

i guess, some days you just got to be sad, right? i'm feeling really bogged down with work and the basics of living right now. but even if, say, you took away the work and the chores and all the meal-making and cleaning up, i think i would still be sad. the work and the chores just make for easy containers for the sadness.

some days are just heavy. getting up with the boys (in the cold pitch black of morning!), getting them fed, getting them dressed, getting clyde off to school. those simple basic things, i did them, but it felt like i was wearing a 100-pound backpack the whole time. now i am sitting in front of this computer staring off into the blue sky that is framed in millions of yellow-orangey leaves. mockingbird and scrub jay are here too. black phoebe even came for a visit. what's to be sad about (besides the work projects and menial tasks that have to be done!)? really? what is the sadness?

everything but really nothing, and that's the saddest part of all.

edited to add: dancing with the baby helped a little (blood flow to sad brain!). as did my little simple lunch of wheat walnut bread, double creme brie, edemame, and holiday breakfast blend tea. *sigh* oh and actually DOING some of the work instead of just thinking about it...

still life

sharing this poem with my new friend shari and always with pwadj. it makes me happy tonight when i am so, so, so, so tired.

Still Life
by Louise Glück

Father has his arm around Tereze.
She squints. My thumb
is in my mouth: my fifth autumn.
Near the copper beech
the spaniel dozes in the shadows.
Not one of us does not avert his eyes.

Across the lawn, in full sun, my mother
stands behind her camera.

From The First Four Books of Poems
The Ecco Press
Copyright © 1995
All rights reserved.

our first "kid trip" to the e/r

i've been to the e/r more times than i care (or my mother cares) to count. for me. me, as the patient. so it was a little surreal being there the first time for my clyde (who is absolutely fine, by the way, just to end any initial worrying).

i remember being jealous of my brother's minor bike crash and mild concussion when he was about 8 or so and later (or maybe earlier) when he got his tonsils out. he just sat in that cool remote-powered bed getting cookie monster stuffed animal gifts and banana popsicles. so rough. i had only gotten to go in once. for a fever and a bladder infection in the middle of the night when i was like 4 or 5. so boring! but i more than made up for it later in life.

let's see? have i had to go five times? let me think. 1) the childhood fever and bladder infection, 2) the peppermint schnapps overdose, 3) the big mac food poisoning incident, 4) the dui car accident, and then 5) the second miscarriage. yep, five times. for all that i put my parents through, i'm majorly afraid of the karma that's going to come back around on these. i just hoped it would come back around in a different form. one that punished just me and had nothing to do with my kids. but alas, clyde fell off a stool in my parents' garage on friday and bonked his head.

clyde and my dad were working on their exciting new train layout when he took a tumble onto the concrete and bonked his head pretty good. my dad doesn't think he got knocked out or anything and gave him ice and TLC. when my mom came home a bit later, she took a nap with clyde (worried, you know, about the sleeping after head bonk thing) and all went fine with that. when he got up, though, he complained of a headache, so my mom gave him a little tylenol. a few minutes later he threw up.

that's when my parents called me and we called kaiser and they said to bring him in. leo and i met my parents and clyde there. on the way, clyde threw up again in my parents' car (sorry! and about your couch too). the first vomit made us worry. the second made us extremely freaked out. ed was, of course working in the bay area that day, as he seems to be every time something vital happens (like the time he almost missed clyde's birth), so we were keeping him in the loop via phone.

the e/r took clyde right in, and i was happy to see him looking his normal self. he was trying to wink at me and my mom while the woman took his vitals. my mom left to the waiting room to be with leo and my weepy dad (oh, he was so worried! the big sweetheart).

in the bright white hall, on the big gurney, i talked with clyde and rubbed his getting-long legs. i stripped him out of his barfy sweatshirt. he looked so small on that big bed. it was surreal not being the patient for once. i don't think i've ever really taken in the e/r like that before (especially since twice i was drunk out my mind). but mostly, it was surreal having my boy in there. simultaneously worrying about him and relieved to see that he was really okay.

i said, "isn't it weird that you're in the hospital?" and he said, "no, we're not." "yes," i explained, "we're waiting to see the doctor." and then he said, "mom, am i going to have a baby?" and i laughed and laughed. the only time he's ever been to a hospital that he remembers is when i had leo almost one year ago. wow, how the time goes by but how each moment sets us so firmly back into our shoes. and then it is gone again.

the doctor took him in, had him tell his story, watched him walk, felt his head and arms and legs, checked his eyes and ears, asked if this or this or that hurt. but just his head did. a little bit. the doc didn't even think it was a concussion and told us to take it easy and whatever we did, NOT TO HIT THE HEAD AGAIN.

so here's the part where i become a very bad mother. on the way home, i called in a pizza because we had no food and it was getting late and we were all starving. while there, we ran into clyde's preschool friend and his parents. the boys were, of course, giddy and bouncy with excitement to see each other, but i tried to keep clyde calm and said goodbye and left them to their dinner. our pizza took awhile and by the time we were leaving with the pizza, clyde's friend and his moms were leaving too.

clyde was already in the car when i stupidly said, "do you want to give your friend a hug goodbye?" and so he did and off they went running around while i chatted with his friend's parents about kindergarten and the whole nine yards. of course (you see it coming, don't you?), in minutes, clyde falls and slams his head onto the pavement. hard! i think i cursed out loud and ran to him, threw him in the car while the moms said, "oh no! we're so sorry!." i felt nervously stupid and freaked the whole way home. why had i let him out of the car? why didn't i stop him from running about? i mean, god, if we had to go back to the e/r...if he really got hurt this time... clyde was crying and saying, "i know, mom, i know what the doctor said!"

and the nightly news headline? this time it was: "child's head injury somehow turns mother stupid."

luck was on our side though. clyde was fine at home. confined to the couch, he ate several pieces of pizza and didn't throw up the rest of the night or again.

giant, giant sigh of relief.

with two boys who are also kids (and my karma), how many more trips to the e/r are in my future?

and mom, i am very sorry for all that i put you through back then. i think i have just an inkling now, and god, i am sorry... really really sorry!

he-ee-re, baby, baby!

it has been FOUR days of me alone with the boys while ed was off at "work." hmmph. this is work. that is staying in a quiet hotel room and eating out every night. so what if he had meetings all day. i'm sure they were catered. it does not even compare.

i have been so tired. this morning i woke up very unwillingly. i just didn't want to do it all again. the changing, feeding, cleaning up stuff and then riling up some energy for work in between. the dread always starts with the feeding. ugh. the preparing and the feeding and the cleaning it up. i actually contemplated putting a bowl down on the floor in the kitchen and filling it up with O's for leo and going back to bed.

i didn't do it. i fed him a real breakfast not on the floor. he had some O's and oatmeal and diced up pears. i didn't do it, but please tell me you think this way sometimes.