in the still of the night

My grandmother's china, 4 a.m.

It's 4:48 a.m. and I'm baking banana muffins.

Some weeks just go like this. We start off all shiny and new, thinking of the things large and small we're going to accomplish. On Sunday night, we either have visions of success or trepidation. Does it matter which we expect, when the end result just seems to come to fruition on its own, a product of moon phase, cycle phase, life phase, sleep phase, what?

On Monday, I was swimming laps, in my happy zone place, thinking about the cool travel journal I'm going to make for Elan for our trip to Costa Rica, when suddenly I ran into something with my head. Very hard. My teeth clacked together from the impact. As I stood up, I heard the lifeguard blowing her whistle. Then I remembered that I had indicated in hand gestures "let's split" to the guy I was sharing the lane with. That was about 45 seconds ago. Which is clearly why I forgot and continued the circle swim, pushing off the wall into his side of the lane, and bashed heads with him. 45 seconds is a long time.

That night, I was feeling victorious for pulling together a healthy, colorful dinner in 30 minutes flat, while making grilled cheese for Elan (the only things he'll eat for dinner these days are grilled cheese and peanut butter sandwiches). Mikhail and I sat down with full bowls at 7:02 pm, which is an astonishingly together time for adult dinner in my household. I fed Emry a spoonful, then noticed that Mikhail was only eating the sprouts that I had heaped on the side as an impromptu salad. I took a bite and we looked at each other. "That's weird, the quinoa didn't cook at all," I said. "I don't think this is quinoa," he said. Yeah. It wasn't. It was millet. Which, in case you're wondering, I don't recommend at all as a quick, healthy starch to mix with your quick, healthy veggie & meatball saute.

I guess, given that start to the week, it's not a surprise that I'm sitting at my table at 4 a.m., Tension Tamer tea at hand, typing these words. Hoping to not burn the banana muffins like I burned the grilled cheese for Elan tonight. When I went to make him another one, I realized I had no bread left. I had gone to two grocery stores in the last two days, each time with two children in tow. I sat on the steps with my head down and thought about crying, but couldn't quite summon the energy.

We were in Trader Joe's (the second shopping trip of the two days), it was 5:45 p.m., and I was feeling very short-tempered and short-fused, generally like a small bomb about to blow up, and Emry had been in the Ergo on my back for what felt like hours, alternating between sucking his thumb and pulling my hair, and Elan was in the stroller because he insisted he was too tired to walk at all, and I was doing everything in my power to keep my back from tweaking yet again and also keep my impatience from flooding out my mouth and all over the floor like greasy undercooked-millet water. Elan was trying to get my attention again, possibly for another fight over whether Gorilla Munch could be considered a healthy dinner. I squatted down beside the stroller and said, "I am paying attention to you totally and completely. What on earth do you want to tell me?" I might have even said, "whadaya want now?" I might even have growled it.

"Sometimes I just really feel like crying," said the boy with the giant brown eyes.

If you have ever felt like you've disappointed someone you love, you probably know how I felt in that moment. Deflated. A little ashamed. And also like - Yes. You nailed it kid. Sometimes you just really feel like crying.

I gave him a hug (awkwardly, leaning into the stroller, with Emry tugging at my hoodie hood). I gave him a bag of those crispy, salty fried peas, which in my house qualify as a vegetable. Half the bag and a few blocks later, he felt better.

And then after I had burned the grilled cheese and sat with my head down on the stairs and wanted to cry but didn't, because my husband was away and I was the only Grown Up in attendance and Emry was throwing bits of wonton on the floor from his high chair and the children have been like barnacles lately, and dinner-bath-bed had to be finished soon, I thought about how, in a house awash with the tears of boys, sometimes I there is no room for the tears of a mama. So instead, there is an episode of Glee on the laptop in bed after they're finally asleep, followed by a 1:30 a.m. wake-up for the big boy screaming, a 2:30 a.m. wake-up for the same, lying in bed until 4 a.m. Finally hovering on the fringes of sleep when the little boy calls out Mama Mama and then goes back to sleep, but it's done nonetheless. I'm irreparably awake. I decide to just get up. Make the muffins, write the words spiraling in my brain. Damn the consequences. Sometimes weeks just go like this.

i want to write about

Another crazy morning with 2, April 2012

I want to write about having a full plate. How my current slate of two part-time paid grantwriting jobs, one part-time volunteer job at Elan's preschool, full-time mama/wife/runner of the household, and still trying to do that other writing, that creative work that feeds my soul, is too much for me. How my 2 days of full childcare, while I still feel their luxury, are eaten up in a flash. And yet I have chosen all these things, and they are all good things, and I either don't want to or don't know how to give any of them up.

I want to write about how I feel like I am driving down a freeway, at a speed just over my comfort zone, and I keep passing these exits. They are enticing, with names like "Rest Here" and "Take a Nap in the Sun," and all I want is to get off the fast road and drive along a tree-shaded boulevard, but the car just keeps on going, and whoops, there goes another exit.

I want to write about 18 months old, how it is full-on in a different way than babyhood.

I want to write about how the sun is glinting off the glossy leaves of the camilia tree out the window behind me, and the dappled sunshine is reflecting in my computer screen.

I want to write about writing blog posts and essays all day in my head while my hands are busy with my kids, and then sitting down to the computer and choosing to work on a grant proposal or read People magazine online instead.

I want to write about the process I'm in to relaunch this blog, how scary and confronting that is. How I alternate between Do I want to write a well-read blog? Do I want to expose myself and my family to the creepy people who lurk anonymously on the Internet? to What if no one reads it? What if I put myself out there and I fail?

I want to write about wanting to lose The Last 10 Pounds. My disappointment that, despite trying hard on the exercise front, it's not happening. And yet not really being willing to give up bread or sugar, at least not for more than a week or two.

I want to write about how Cheeseboard challah, warm from the oven, spread with Clover butter, is a slice of heaven distilled.

I want to write about how lucky I am - these healthy, beautiful children, this lovely little home, these wonderful friends, this loving family.

I want to write about how, once the children are asleep, I feel like I've run a marathon and the house looks like a tea storm came through and scattered the contents of my tea drawer over every surface, how I find tea bags tucked behind the couch cushions and in the baskets of clean laundry.

I want to write about how my old back injury keeps flaring up these days, about how I keep getting migraines that I don't know are migraines, how the four of us have had one cold after another since mid-February.

I want to write about how grateful I am for my health.

I want to write about how I hardly take pictures these days, except with my iPhone, because it's right there, while the camera is two feet away, behind a cabinet door and inside a case, and those appear to be fairly insurmountable obstacles.

I want to write about how Elan doesn't sleep through the night, even though we spent thousands of dollars and put all of us through the ordeal of surgery to try to fix the sleep problem.

I want to write about how maybe some things can't be fixed. Maybe my stomach muscles can't be brought back together behind my belly button, no matter how much Pilates I do. Maybe my son can't ever sleep more than one night a week without waking up screaming. How do we decide when to let go of something, and when to keep fighting toward it?

18 months, whales & earth day

Not 18 months yet, not at the beach, Emry, February 2012

I'm writing this on the other side of a migraine. Well, halfway to the other side, at least. Now that Emry's not nursing anymore, I should probably look into migraine medication. Of course, some people say, "if it were a real migraine, you'd be prone in a quiet, dark room." And I say, "how I would love to be prone in a quiet, dark room!" Who are these people who can drop everything and go lie down? They are not people with 18-month-olds, 5-year-olds, and multiple part-time jobs, are they? It's true, though, that these are not the worst migraines possible. They're either mild migraines, or else just really bad headaches that, once they come on, last 12 hours no matter what pain relievers I down.

But enough about my head!

Just shy of 16 months, he was still the one-tooth wonder, and on the edge of walking

I wanted to tell you about Emry's 1 and a half birthday. We went to the beach in Point Reyes, a foggy, chilly affair. But the beach was gorgeous and WE SAW WHALES. Close up! There were mother & baby gray whales just on the other side of the wave break, and they were doing iconic whale things. Like spouting. And spy hopping. And putting their tails/flippers in the air. And breaching, not a big breach, a little breach. Or maybe just a baby whale doing a breach.

I am sure I am using whale lingo incorrectly here, but with the head still aching in the background, I'm feeling too lazy to start looking up correct whale lingo online. I know what would happen. I'd start reading all about whales, watching whale videos, and - boom! - an hour would have gone by, and I'd have eaten no dinner and watched no Glee on hulu, which is all I can muster tonight.

In any case, it was a marvelous way to spend Earth Day. Elan saw the whales clear as day and reveled in the Sea World-esque show, as we all did, fingers pointing up and down the beach, everyone stopped and staring out to sea. Emry seemed to see them too. Who knows what he thought they were, these dark shapes breaking the surface of the water. He was pointing his teeny-tiny finger at the ocean, saying "Waaayyle" just like the rest of us. Even as we drove home, he kept saying "Mama, Waayle, Mama" which, roughly translated, means "I want it, whale, I want it." I kept imagining him grabbing a whale flipper and sticking it in his mouth, massaging those sore teething gums against cool, salty, rubbery whale flesh. Maybe that would feel good.

Don't worry, little one, Mama will find you a whale to teeth on

after the rain

Outside my house, April 2012

Hello, April!

How did it get to be mid-April already?

Hello, blog!

I've missed you. I have no good excuses for my absence. Just the normal stuff.

Trying to fit too many things into too few hours.

A spring trip to San Diego to visit my family (Hello, beach, you are good for my soul!)

Starting the process of redesigning and relaunching my blog - thrilling & scary!

Keeping everyone dry through weeks of rain. Here in the Bay Area, we had almost no rain until March, and it's been dumping rain regularly since then. We even had a thunderstorm the other night with 750 strikes of lightning (really! according to the experts) and thunder that shook the house. Thankfully Elan had just fallen asleep when it started, since I think it would have taken hours for him to fall asleep if he saw that lightning!

Keeping up with my little walker, previously known as Baby Em, who is now a full-fledged toddler, with teeth and many opinions.

What happens when you take a 1-year-old to Starbucks, March 2012

He stopped nursing, which just about broke my heart. It was sudden. I was not prepared.

More on that later, I just had to break my not-posting streak with a little Hello!

And a shot of my toddler {sigh, why do they grow up so fast??} -- if you look closely, you can see his beaver teeth making their way onto the scene.

Chillin at Starbucks, with 2 top teeth, March 2012

a book a month

Journal, March 2012

I don't make a lot of New Year's Resolutions. I like to look back, set intentions for the future, create possibilities. But I don't "resolve" to do many things for an entire year. This year, however, I resolved to read more. Specifically, these awesome things called books. Even more specifically, these even more awesome things called novels.

They say You are what you eat. For writers, they say You are what you read. I read a lot online, and while it's fun and interesting, and it can make me feel connected and keep me up-to-date on news both small and large, it's not Reading. Reading like falling into a new world. Being transported. Sinking into someone else's luxury or poverty so completely that, for moments, you forget your own everyday reality.

Yet reading for pleasure, reading to feed myself as a person and as a writer, is often crowded off my to-do list by other items, either more urgent or more in-the-moment. So this year I set myself the quite enjoyable resolution to read a book a month.

In January, I read The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin. In February, I read Save Me The Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald. My interest in Zelda Fitzgerald was sparked by watching Midnight in Paris, the Woody Allen movie. (If I ever had a daughter, I might name her Zelda. Of course, Zelda Fitzgerald had schizophrenia and died in a fire in a mental hospital at age 48. But I do still love the name.) This month, I read The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, a wonderful Gothic mystery, a literary page-turner totally worth a spot on your bedside table.

It feels so good to read novels again! Any suggestions for April?

what she really wants

Mural, Cartagena, Colombia, April 2005

What she really wants is a giant bed, white and high off the ground, layered in mosquito netting like the dream of a wedding veil, the covers tiered like a frothy white cake. A ceiling fan to stir the air. Windows open to sound of jungle, or waves. She chooses both. It's her fantasy.

What she really wants is a tray with fresh-squeezed juice and perfect baguette, creamy butter and tart-sweet jam. Red. Has to be red.

An infinity pool the color of the sky.

A nighttime walk through a jungle teeming with sound, but no strange biting bugs landing on her.

A waterfall to swim under. A secret cave, a hidden resting spot behind. Hot springs and bubbling lava - the lava from a distance.

She craves sleeping soundly and being awoken by tropical birds, watching the sunrise, then going back to sleep. Being lazy. Having it be okay to be lazy.

Smoothie at the pool at lunchtime, in smoothie weather. Fruity cocktails at night in icy glasses with marashino cherry stems sticking up from the pale-pink concoctions.

She craves color and silence. She craves snuggling in a big white bed. She craves rest - physical, mental, emotional. Especially emotional.

She craves the feeling of "here you are" that comes when you have enough time to look around and notice the scenery.

Costa Rica!

Riding the Tilden Steam Train, Berkeley, February 2012

We decided to take the leap into our first international travel with kids.

We picked Costa Rica because:

1) neither of us has been there and we both want to go;

2) it's Spanish speaking, and we miss speaking - and hearing - Spanish;

3) when I'm in a Latin American country I feel like I'm really away;

4) yet we've traveled enough in Latin America to feel fairly comfortable;

5) CR is developed enough and touristy enough that it doesn't seem too intimidating a place to travel with little ones;

6) it's got lots of cool nature, and we like nature; and

7) somehow we convinced our dear Irish friends, travelers extraordinaire, to go along with us.

8) Can you tell I've been writing a lot of grant applications lately?

If you've been, and especially if you've been with kiddos in tow, let me know -- Where would you go? Would you bring a stroller? And do you know any fabulous Costa Rican babysitters so that we can have some adult dinners that involve fruity cocktails and uninterrupted conversation?