OMG how has it been nearly a month since my last post? Well, I'll tell you how. I am busy. Ca-razy busy. But in the best possible ways: working more hours so making more $, running after an ever-more-mobile Gwendy, and in a show for the first time in forevers!
So yeah, the busy, but also the fun, fulfilling, rich life that makes me sink into bed each night with a contended sigh. I swear pictures this week, and hopefully a more detailed update when next I carve out a spare 15 minutes!
8.24.2010
7.27.2010
Of Fishes and Funnel Cakes
We had a brief break in the humidity (HALLELUJAH!!) and took advantage of it by going to Coney Island for the day. We knew it was close to us, but woah!, it took us literally only 15 minutes from our doorstep by F train and you were smack in the middle of the Boardwalk, sun, beachy goodness, and the New York Aquarium. A kick-ass day ensued:
7.22.2010
The Night Watch
When you first bring your baby home, it's a little like someone telling you, "Look, we are entrusting you with this fragile vase made by Jesus that contains the cure for cancer which happens to be molten Pegasus tears and can never be replicated. But we're sure you can handle it... ". Like, they just give you this 2 day old human, like a library book, and trust that things will be ok.
And part of you knows they will be. Part of you recognizes that mothers have been having babies since the dawn of time and is also pretty awestruck by the tremendous force of maternal instinct that has swept through you in the past days, making it impossible for harm to come to this baby while breath was in your body (you figure out pretty fast, for example, that you will NOT roll over on the baby while napping- you just wont.).
But another part of you is, to be frank, scared shitless.
Which brings me to my point. During Gwen's first months, there would always be a moment (or five) when I would wake up in the middle of the night just to look at her sleeping in the bassinet next to our bed, to make sure she was still there and breathing and warm. I would lay my hand as lightly as a snowflake on her tiny, boney chest and feel the faint but steady rise and fall of it. And I would pray silently and fervently that I didn't screw anything up too badly.
A year later, I still sneak in for a quick peek at my girl. To be sure, it's a comedy of errors to get into her room- our house is at least 70 years old and it seems every single floorboard squeaks like it was rigged up in an old-Hollywood horror movie. I mince along the hallway on the balls of my feet, trying to find non-creaking patches of floor to tread on and finally slip through her door (which you must open very quickly to prevent additional squeaking). Then comes the gauntlet of crossing her bedroom floor, which makes the hallway seem like it was paved in feathers. Seriously, every step sounds like someone ripping apart a head of iceberg lettuce whilst eating a bag of Frittos.
But then I'm there, next to her white crib and she's my baby. And she's got her arms flung out all funny and one bare foot (with such funny long toes like my own in perfect miniature) out of the covers, and she smells like Johnson's Baby Shampoo and her own lovely baby-smell. And I lay my hand on her little back to feel that familiar rise and fall- not because I'm scared these days, but because it is an anchor in this very uncertain world; knowing that your child is safe and warm and so incredibly alive and spilling over with potential, and that for this brief window of time she's all yours to love.
I remember those nights when I would wake just enough to know my own mom was there, fixing covers and pulling books out of my bed. I remember smelling a whiff of her perfume and then back down to dreaming, secure in how utterly safe I was- that fleeting feeling of being completely parented.
And so now I am united with all parents somehow, as we make our rounds and guard our gifts, committing all these sounds and scents and breaths to memory for when they, rightly, leave us to sleep under their own roofs. And, perhaps, to start a night watch of their own.
And part of you knows they will be. Part of you recognizes that mothers have been having babies since the dawn of time and is also pretty awestruck by the tremendous force of maternal instinct that has swept through you in the past days, making it impossible for harm to come to this baby while breath was in your body (you figure out pretty fast, for example, that you will NOT roll over on the baby while napping- you just wont.).
But another part of you is, to be frank, scared shitless.
Which brings me to my point. During Gwen's first months, there would always be a moment (or five) when I would wake up in the middle of the night just to look at her sleeping in the bassinet next to our bed, to make sure she was still there and breathing and warm. I would lay my hand as lightly as a snowflake on her tiny, boney chest and feel the faint but steady rise and fall of it. And I would pray silently and fervently that I didn't screw anything up too badly.
A year later, I still sneak in for a quick peek at my girl. To be sure, it's a comedy of errors to get into her room- our house is at least 70 years old and it seems every single floorboard squeaks like it was rigged up in an old-Hollywood horror movie. I mince along the hallway on the balls of my feet, trying to find non-creaking patches of floor to tread on and finally slip through her door (which you must open very quickly to prevent additional squeaking). Then comes the gauntlet of crossing her bedroom floor, which makes the hallway seem like it was paved in feathers. Seriously, every step sounds like someone ripping apart a head of iceberg lettuce whilst eating a bag of Frittos.
But then I'm there, next to her white crib and she's my baby. And she's got her arms flung out all funny and one bare foot (with such funny long toes like my own in perfect miniature) out of the covers, and she smells like Johnson's Baby Shampoo and her own lovely baby-smell. And I lay my hand on her little back to feel that familiar rise and fall- not because I'm scared these days, but because it is an anchor in this very uncertain world; knowing that your child is safe and warm and so incredibly alive and spilling over with potential, and that for this brief window of time she's all yours to love.
I remember those nights when I would wake just enough to know my own mom was there, fixing covers and pulling books out of my bed. I remember smelling a whiff of her perfume and then back down to dreaming, secure in how utterly safe I was- that fleeting feeling of being completely parented.
And so now I am united with all parents somehow, as we make our rounds and guard our gifts, committing all these sounds and scents and breaths to memory for when they, rightly, leave us to sleep under their own roofs. And, perhaps, to start a night watch of their own.
7.09.2010
In the Summertime
Well let's see- we had a spectacular 4th of July. Went to Kevin and Joy's out in the Hamptons and took their new boat out for a spin in Sag Harbor. Aint we swanky? Gwen was not into going in the water (big bodies of water kind of wig her a bit) but loved being on the boat. And I got to jump in the ocean for the first time in like, forevers. And then BBQ and hangin' out and the Southampton Parade and all that good 4thof July stuff.
In other news, it has been as hot as first 8 circles of hell here as of late (isn't the ninth one where the devil is like freezing himself in place w/ his bat wings? Dante? Can you help me on this one? Oh, sorry, you've been dead for a really long time so no, I guess not). I honestly don't mind heat the way I mind cold, what with our little window ACs doing their bestest, but I am ready for this junk to be over. It makes me sleepy and depressed and that's no way to be when there's a Gwendy around, demanding games and snacks and "UP! UP! UP!".
My lovely inlaws took Gwen for some official-type portraits for her one-year birthday. Below are the lovely results, as well as some birthday highlights.
Elmo was introduced to make her smile. I should have known he'd become the center of her universe for the next half hour and she'd refuse to part with him...
"As God is my witness, I will never be without Elmo again!"
First thing she did when cake prop was introduced: rip that little "1" right off.
"Fools. I am surrounded by fools, and God help me, I like it."
And now, candids:
In her Queen Bee hat at her party, kersplashing in her water table.
Reading "I Am A Bunny" with Grampa. A lot less dark than "I Am Legend", lemme tell ya.
In other news, it has been as hot as first 8 circles of hell here as of late (isn't the ninth one where the devil is like freezing himself in place w/ his bat wings? Dante? Can you help me on this one? Oh, sorry, you've been dead for a really long time so no, I guess not). I honestly don't mind heat the way I mind cold, what with our little window ACs doing their bestest, but I am ready for this junk to be over. It makes me sleepy and depressed and that's no way to be when there's a Gwendy around, demanding games and snacks and "UP! UP! UP!".
My lovely inlaws took Gwen for some official-type portraits for her one-year birthday. Below are the lovely results, as well as some birthday highlights.
Elmo was introduced to make her smile. I should have known he'd become the center of her universe for the next half hour and she'd refuse to part with him...
"As God is my witness, I will never be without Elmo again!"
First thing she did when cake prop was introduced: rip that little "1" right off.
"Fools. I am surrounded by fools, and God help me, I like it."
And now, candids:
In her Queen Bee hat at her party, kersplashing in her water table.
I made the flower and bee cake and it was great. Until I cleft the pink petals in twain to serve them and they looked like cake-vaginas. True story.
The yellow center was all for Gwen. And she did love it.
Part of the photo series "Gwen Feeds Everyone Cake"
Reading "I Am A Bunny" with Grampa. A lot less dark than "I Am Legend", lemme tell ya.
My Birthday Girl
6.24.2010
From June to June
How is it that in a brief 365 days my little girl could go from this: 
To this:
??? I don't know, but I stand in "adoring awe" of this child.
June is sort of our juggernaut month- Gwen's birthday, father's day, our wedding anniversary, and my birthday all fall within a couple of weeks of each other so I have been lax in blogging. I have a bizillion pictures to post from Gwen's first birthday party and Gramma and Grampa's trip out to New York to see her, but I just wanted to make sure I marked this momentous time in my mind (and on this blog!) while it's fresh.
So here is the world of Gwendolyn Joy in June of 2010. She surprises us every day now with new words, actions, abilities, and displays of affection. She started singing last week "Ahh Bahh...Emenemo" for the ABC song. She dances with an incredible rump-shaking movement she learned from only God knows where. She crawls up to you and demands "UP!" with an over-pronounced "P" sound so you know she means business. She pats Daddy's hair and gives Momma kisses and cuddles upon request (barring a bad mood, of course:). And, she ADORES this hairy freak :
beyond the telling of it and refers to him as "Eh-mo!" She can say Emmy's name and stroke her fur and giggles through Percy's sloppy kisses. She loves any source of water and happily splashes until pruney in the bath every night. In short, she is a person now, not just a baby, and it both exhilarates me and breaks some small part of my heart as I feel her hurtle ever onward towards needing me less. And that is being a parent, and by God, it's pretty damn awesome.
5.26.2010
King of the Hill, Top of the Heap
When you are a momma, you get to hear your child fling forth adorable attempts at English (ducks, books and socks are all "Gocks!" right now), and see their cute little dimpled bums after they've had a bath, and sniff that incredible, rejuvenating scent that lingers in their hair. You get to hear them sigh in happiness when you pick them up at night, and sometimes they just gently stroke you arm as if to say "You are a really, really great person. And I heart you."
In return for all of this, however, you have to cart around a staggering amount of crap to go anywhere and do anything.
Case in point. If I want to get on the subway (which I have to do if I want to be anywhere other than home, Shoprite, or the cemetery next door), I have to bring at minimum the dipes, wipes, snacks, paci, toys, sunhat, and also a 20 lb child in a stroller in addition to whatever I might want to have for like, myself. Ya know, like money and ID and lipstick. And I have to somehow get these things up and down at least 5 flights of steps, depending on which station I'm headed to.
And lemme tell you, it makes you pretty mercenary about choosing just how badly you need to go out. The bookstore in Park Slope? Not really worth it, unless you toss in meet-up w/ Ash and Lu in the play ground and lunch at Smiling Pizza . Manhattan? Nothing doing unless I have my big strong hubs to help with the stroller, or there's some REALLY cool thing going on.
But sometimes we must go out, and so this week, on a muggy day, I decide to venture into Park Slope to pick up my paycheck. Gwen and I walked (well I walked, she was pushed in her sedan chair like Cleopatra) to the F train station and I huffed and puffed up the first ginormous flight of stairs, hearing the train approaching. Of course my Metrocard took it upon itself at this moment to find the deepest, darkest part of my purse and set up housekeeping there, so by the time I got through the gate, I was already missing said train. And out of no where, this nice youngish man says "Can I help you?". I was just desperate enough to say "Yes. Please." and he grabbed one end of my stroller and got us up the stairs to the platform, missing his own train in the process. I thanked him profusely and he brushed it off and went on his way.
I got on the next train, and got ready to do my transfer at 4th Ave, which involves, I'm not even kidding, 5 flights of stairs into the bowels of Brooklyn. And lo, a teenage girl, surrounded by her gum smacking friends, offered to help me get the stroller downstairs!! I only let her do one flight, cause the whole enchilada would have been a serious commitment and I doubt she knew what she had bitten off, but...just... WOW! And this day is just one of many where I have witnessed small kindnesses being casually passed around New York like lunch menu fliers.
My point (if there is one. I sometimes don't know and I'm the one writing this crap) is that New York of all places besides, say, Kabul, has this reputation for people being rude and completely disinterested in their fellow man. I am here to tell you that is bull. Yes, we have our jerks. And maybe even more of them than the average city- I mean, you try living on top of each other the way we do and see how sweet you are all the time. But there also exists a richness of spirit I have found lacking in some of the other cities I called home. This is the city mind you, where a man literally layed his body over that of a stranger to keep him from being hit by the subway a few years back, and only this week had a man who didn't even stick around to take any credit push another stranger out of the way of an oncoming train (seriously, can everyone please stop falling in front of the subway??). It's a city that is fierce in it's loves and hates, and sometimes that comes off as kind of rough and brash, but really it's just bald-faced honesty. And I really, really freaking love that. So thanks New York. I am glad I came back to you.
And now, pictures.
Ok. I know she's mine and all but God help me, I think she hung the moon.
In return for all of this, however, you have to cart around a staggering amount of crap to go anywhere and do anything.
Case in point. If I want to get on the subway (which I have to do if I want to be anywhere other than home, Shoprite, or the cemetery next door), I have to bring at minimum the dipes, wipes, snacks, paci, toys, sunhat, and also a 20 lb child in a stroller in addition to whatever I might want to have for like, myself. Ya know, like money and ID and lipstick. And I have to somehow get these things up and down at least 5 flights of steps, depending on which station I'm headed to.
And lemme tell you, it makes you pretty mercenary about choosing just how badly you need to go out. The bookstore in Park Slope? Not really worth it, unless you toss in meet-up w/ Ash and Lu in the play ground and lunch at Smiling Pizza . Manhattan? Nothing doing unless I have my big strong hubs to help with the stroller, or there's some REALLY cool thing going on.
But sometimes we must go out, and so this week, on a muggy day, I decide to venture into Park Slope to pick up my paycheck. Gwen and I walked (well I walked, she was pushed in her sedan chair like Cleopatra) to the F train station and I huffed and puffed up the first ginormous flight of stairs, hearing the train approaching. Of course my Metrocard took it upon itself at this moment to find the deepest, darkest part of my purse and set up housekeeping there, so by the time I got through the gate, I was already missing said train. And out of no where, this nice youngish man says "Can I help you?". I was just desperate enough to say "Yes. Please." and he grabbed one end of my stroller and got us up the stairs to the platform, missing his own train in the process. I thanked him profusely and he brushed it off and went on his way.
I got on the next train, and got ready to do my transfer at 4th Ave, which involves, I'm not even kidding, 5 flights of stairs into the bowels of Brooklyn. And lo, a teenage girl, surrounded by her gum smacking friends, offered to help me get the stroller downstairs!! I only let her do one flight, cause the whole enchilada would have been a serious commitment and I doubt she knew what she had bitten off, but...just... WOW! And this day is just one of many where I have witnessed small kindnesses being casually passed around New York like lunch menu fliers.
My point (if there is one. I sometimes don't know and I'm the one writing this crap) is that New York of all places besides, say, Kabul, has this reputation for people being rude and completely disinterested in their fellow man. I am here to tell you that is bull. Yes, we have our jerks. And maybe even more of them than the average city- I mean, you try living on top of each other the way we do and see how sweet you are all the time. But there also exists a richness of spirit I have found lacking in some of the other cities I called home. This is the city mind you, where a man literally layed his body over that of a stranger to keep him from being hit by the subway a few years back, and only this week had a man who didn't even stick around to take any credit push another stranger out of the way of an oncoming train (seriously, can everyone please stop falling in front of the subway??). It's a city that is fierce in it's loves and hates, and sometimes that comes off as kind of rough and brash, but really it's just bald-faced honesty. And I really, really freaking love that. So thanks New York. I am glad I came back to you.
And now, pictures.
Ok. I know she's mine and all but God help me, I think she hung the moon.
5.12.2010
A Cockeyed Optimist
The emotional see-saw that I have been on lately must have had something to do w/ my hormones as breastfeeding begins to taper off (we are down to only 3 or 4 feedings a day) and my body gets back to being...well, my own again, I guess. In the past few of weeks a fog of melancholia had settled about me like a musty grey shawl.
And then, like someone opening a window, things just started getting better this week. I attribute this to the following:
1. A quartet of guys got on the subway with us last week and harmonized beautifully to "The Lion Sleeps Tonite" as Gwendy and Lulu beamed on.
2. I saw three pre-teen girls in private school uniforms help an old lady carry her rolly-cart up the subway steps.
3. This rose has been blooming it's fool head off in my yard all week and there are buds all around it to indicate this will be a common occurrence this summer:
(Please excuse badly framed photo as was holding baby whilst taking picture and attempting to keep said baby from nomming camera)
5. I had my very first mother's day.
7. And finally, this is my husband:
(yes, those are "fangs" made of chicken bones)
And then, like someone opening a window, things just started getting better this week. I attribute this to the following:
1. A quartet of guys got on the subway with us last week and harmonized beautifully to "The Lion Sleeps Tonite" as Gwendy and Lulu beamed on.
2. I saw three pre-teen girls in private school uniforms help an old lady carry her rolly-cart up the subway steps.
3. This rose has been blooming it's fool head off in my yard all week and there are buds all around it to indicate this will be a common occurrence this summer:
(Please excuse badly framed photo as was holding baby whilst taking picture and attempting to keep said baby from nomming camera)4. Gwendy has (finally!) begun to crawl, in an adorable awkwardly thumping manner that has me laying all kinds of "bait" (cell phones, jewelry, mail) to entice her to move towards it and make me laugh.
5. I had my very first mother's day.
6. I got a few ideas for a new play. I think I will try my hand at writing it whenever I get two minutes to rub together.
7. And finally, this is my husband:
(yes, those are "fangs" made of chicken bones)8: And this is my daughter:
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