a.rose

My friend Holly recently organized a busy bag exchange, and so I decided to make a little playmat.  The idea was for them to be small enough to be carried around in a purse or diaper bag, to pull out whenever you need something quick and entertaining, like at the doctor's office, or post office? driver's bureau? waiting to pick up big sister from school? So for my playmat, it was easy to find printable ones online that were for cars, you know, roads and whatnot.  I found a bunch like that, and then I found some that were like for jungle animals and dinosaurs, and that was cool too.  I printed off those, and then I thought of all the little toys we have that would work so well with a playmat like this (see below), all the little farm animals and people and I searched and searched for something that would work for that kind of creative play, and couldn't find anything. So I just made my own, even though I don't have photoshop and wouldn't know how to use it even if...

It's one of those things that I can't make up my mind about.  Part of me wants to talk about it, and part of me doesn't.  And part of me shrugs and admits that I wouldn't know what to say even if I did start talking about it. I don't even know exactly what it was, exactly, that hit me after Hazel was born, and the fog that I lived in that year.  I have wondered if it was postpartum depression, and I have wondered if that is why it is hard for me to talk about it. I still have trouble finding words to describe my experience, because I don't know any words heavy enough to convey how it felt in my head.  This, written a few weeks ago, is as close as I have been able to come. we dance and we are drowning in the flames, burning in the waves yet the sweet, sweet agony summons it is seductive, shrieking, screaming, the sounds of a pain so caught up in pleasure a mask of cocoa mist obscured by moss and blood and still we dance our eyes closed to the...

one hundred cornflakes all over the floor / little feet stepping / each time breaking / each flake / into / a hundred new flakes I sigh I bend down / and I begin / picking up each one by hand / it would be easier / of course / of course / of course / to use a vacuum or even the broom / but / of course / I don’t think of that until the job is  all but done / of course / but the job is never done / and there are puzzles and books and papers and crayons and dolls and trucks and bits and pieces of a life / in the middle of living / if archaeologists dug our / house out of the rubble of time / frozen exactly as it is now / they would know just how we lived / and what we wore / and what we ate / but they would not hear your laughter / your little voices calling / your feet padding / down the hall / en route to new adventures / they would not see / that spark in your eye / of creativity as you make / a paper towel roll into a telescope / of discovery as you learn you can hop on one ...

I left all of this behind for a weekend to go to Charleston, South Carolina to have some therapy and fun with some of my very all time, top of the list, holding nothing back because I know they love me, friends. I got on a plane and I flew across the country and spent the next few days just basking in the glory of beautiful places, good food, the silence in conversation that is only possible when there are no children around, and the people.  Yes, these people. The kinds of people who will do yoga on the beach with you, and just roll with it.  The kinds of people who will do crazy jumps, and wild dances, all on a public beach all while filming everything, just in case we wanted the footage someday.  This picture makes us look like any of the other tourists who were out there on that cloudy, windy day, but it doesn't show the wild antics that would follow immediately after.  It's no wonder that even in our 30s people kept thinking we were college kids on ...

Swimming lessons.  It's the sort of mundane thing a mom has to organize and do that terrifies me. I am afraid I am going to sign up for the wrong thing, and show up at the wrong time, and that my kids will have all the wrong things, and that everyone will look at me and know that I have no idea what I'm doing, that all along I've just been faking it, this job called "mom" that I try to do every day. So I signed them up, Hallie, Hanna, and Heather.  We have been largely unsuccessful with swimming lesson ventures in the past, for various reasons, but now we had a membership at the Y and I was going to just hold my breath, cross my fingers, and fling money at the people there hoping they would make everything right. I got an email reminding me to sign up, and as I had completely forgotten about the deadline and knowing that these classes fill up fast I jumped out of my chair and ran straight past go without collecting $200 dollars and started filling out the f...

I sleep through the night, and then I wake up and I feel so tired, and in my head I feel fuzzy and foggy as if maybe, am I still asleep? I lay down and take a nap and I wonder if I am resting, or if I am just ruining any chance of getting a good night's sleep that night, and so I toss and I turn and all I can think about is that I am so tired. And I wonder when this cycle will end. But it is spring and today there was sunshine and warmth followed by a thunderstorm complete with lightning. Big fat raindrops hurled through the sky at the roof and pattering at the windows, and I thought maybe I can wake up. Tomorrow is a new day, and maybe tomorrow I will wake from this living dream. Sometimes I think, the sooner I go to sleep, the sooner it will be tomorrow and I can test my theory for a new and better tomorrow. And so, good night.

I kiss your nose, your forehead, your cheek, your chin. I squeeze you tightly to me and feel your soft squishiness give. I look in your eyes and you look back at me and in my heart I feel a tugging ache I cannot fully define. I ache because you are my baby, mine to squeeze and squish. I ache because in this predawn darkness under the blankets we form a cocoon and every day you are closer to emerging out of it into the world. I ache because every morning you wake up you are my baby, but every morning you are a little less my baby and a little more your own self. I ache and I ache and I laugh at the joy it makes me feel to hurt this way. You look at me laughing and it makes you laugh too. It seems that this might have been your last time nursing.  It felt that way, how you kept your body unusually still as if you, too, were savoring the moment.  Your legs were carefully curled up, tucked tightly next to mine, your little hand free and tapping gently on my che...