At long last

I think I've met a new record for longest time between posts. Sorry about that, although I can proudly say we've been living life to the fullest and not spending too much time (any time) writing about it.

We took a family vacation at the end of June to Westport, which is little fishing community on the coast of Washington. We went with two other families and their daughters, who are both Sasha's age. Here is a great picture of Sasha playing in the sand with Hazel, Stefanie and Mike's daughter. Sasha and Hazel were born only a few days apart.

Spending a few days with two other families was a blast. There were plenty of adults to make dinner AND watch kids AND some adults left over who could (gasp!) relax or go get donuts and coffee for the adults who were doing the heavy lifting. All this communal task sharing made me think more seriously about the benefits of communes, kibbutzes, and polygamy. Well, until I started reading Under the Banner of Heaven, that is. Rosy images of having a few co-wives around the house have forever been banished.

While none of us are headed for communal living, we did all agree that the weekend was a success and we're ready to make another go at it in several months or so. We're thinking about Whistler in the winter maybe.

Sasha continues to grow at astronomical speed. She recently had her 18 month checkup and pretty much has the body and brain of a 2 year old. Yikes! I expect her to start to slow down at some point, but until then, we're running along just trying to keep up. The girl is packed full of energy and spirit and definitely has a strong opinion about most things, as is evident here:

When she's not telling us what's what, she loves to dance and sing and her moves are getting more evolved over time. She does this fantastic little head wobble that makes me think she has a future in Bollywood. She is eclectic in her musical taste, enjoying everything from alt country to dancehall reggae to jazz to gangsta rap.

Sasha also has a friend, Nadia, who she is quite fond of. Tonight, in fact, they had their first phone conversation which consisted of, "Bdasouwlere, Nadia!" "Sasha!" "Saoeruaeldfu, bye Nadia!"

Every one of our days is peppered with the name Nadia. Sasha even calls her Daddy "Nadia" when he walks in the door. Either she is very confused or just pretty sure that one of these days it actually will be Nadia walking through the door.

Here's Sasha and Nadia a month or so ago enjoying some kind of snack.

Billie, Nadia's mom, has a video she needs to edit and post of the two girls post-bath chasing each other around the house wearing nothing but hooded towels. They are pretty darn cute together (and apart).

Sorry to make it so short after not posting for so long, but my evenings are brief these days. I'll try to do another one soon.


In the meantime, I leave you with a final image:

Something to lighten the mood

Sasha in her "Girl Power" T-shirt.

Oh Mother, Where Art Thou?

I'm not sure where my mother is. More accurately, I don't know exactly where my mother is. I know she is in Florida. I know she is most likely in St. Petersburg. I know she is living on the streets. I know she is alive, as of last week when she called my aunt and uncle in Vermont. Apart from that, she is like this loose thread that begins at my heart and travels out from there until I can no longer see the end of it, but it catches on me as I move throughout my day and I am reminded of the vague absence of her.

My relationship with my mother has been unraveling (again, those loose threads everywhere) for quite some time. The reasons are complicated, having to do with the old and familiar stories of alcohol and abuse and all the burdens they bear.


This Mother's Day was beautiful, for all the reasons I mentioned in my previous post, but there came with it a weight. I couldn't call my mother, or even write to her, to tell her how much I love her. To let her know, despite any pain her troubles have caused me, that she is my mother and without her I am missing a part of myself. I want to share with her my own journey as a mother and I can't do that. I want to thank her for the ways in which she gave her love to me pure and true. I want to tell her I remember the nights she sang to me on her guitar. I remember the time she took, despite being a single mother working full-time, to make me special breakfasts each morning. The journeys she took with us to the mountains, the ocean, the desert - the ways in which she showed us the world and made it beautiful.

I want to take the little girl in the picture and smother her with kisses, lift her up in my arms and hold her close to me, as I do my own daughter. I don't know what happened to that little girl. Whether the pain and illness to come was inevitable or self-inflicted or inflicted upon her, or all of the above.

I hope she can feel my love wherever she is. I hope that somewhere the other end of my thread is tugging at her heart. That even though her thread unravels off into a somewhere she can not see, she knows that it's my heart attached to the other end.

Mother's Day Belated

This was hands down the best Mother's Day yet. Granted, it's only our second one, and the first was a pretty tough contender. Still, the sight of Sasha running up to me with a flower in one hand, a handmade card in the other, with her arms open wide for a hug - this definitely pushed this year's Mother's Day over the top.

What can I say? Becoming a mother has given me existential whiplash and I'm loving nearly every minute of it. The minutes from between 12am - 5:30am - not so much. But, even then, when I'm soothing my daughter back to dreamland, even then I'm so glad to be right where I'm at in life.

A coworker recently commented me on my calm demeanor in the workplace. I told him that motherhood has taught me a great lesson about priorities. Nothing is more important to me than my family. I may love my work, and get satisfaction from the daily responsibilities, but the stress that comes up or the fires that need to be put out occasionally - well, it rolls off my back a little more easily now. As long as Sasha and Jay are safe and happy, everything else is icing on the cake. Compared to my family's health and safety, the stress of work feels diminished.

Sasha has made me a stronger person. I owe her for who I have become in the past year. She teaches me patience, determination, the power of being present. I look forward to what she has to teach me as she grows and learns and brings new joys and challenges to our lives.

I love you, sweet girl. Thanks for choosing me as your Mommy.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

This morning Sasha was dancing to Depeche Mode "Shake the Disease". Will there still be goths when she's a teenager?

Up, Mommy!

Sasha's uttered her first "sentence" today, "Up, Mommy!" It sounded a wee bit unintentional, but I'm still counting it as a first. Every day her vocabulary expands and I'm amazed at what she can communicate. I think I may still be the resident linguistic expert on the language of Sasha, but I know that she intends each and every one. Some of her favorites:

"Eeef" = leaf
"Cheee" = tree
"Nun"= sun
"Tuck" = truck
"bat" = bath
"bed"

Well, it goes on quite a bit. She's also totally grasped the rituals and routines we have around the house. When she's ready for bed, she'll sometimes grab her blanket, wrap it around her shoulders, and say, "Shhhhhh..." because this is what I say when I rock her a bit before bed. It's always great when she does this because I know it'll be an easy night of going to bed.

She's also very into the great outdoors. I think she would be happy if we spent every waking hour "out tide." When she wants to go out, she grabs her coat and tries to put it on and then grabs her shoes and tries to put those on. Of course, she can't get them on by herself, so she gathers everything up, stands by the door, and says, "out tide, out tide!" She gets very upset when we don't go outside. I have been meaning to scour craigslist for some outdoor play toys, as there isn't much going on in our back yard. I did get her a little pail and shovel, and she does like playing in the dirt, but we need more options.

She's still enjoying school, but the late afternoons have become trying for her. She has caught on to the ritual of parents arriving to pick up her classmates, and has begun crying for me when other moms come to pick up their kids. Her teachers say it's normal for her age and should go away in the next couple of months. It pains me to see her crying when I get there, or to think of her getting sad when another parent shows up and it's not me. Still, she's easily soothed and she clearly likes being at school for the most part.

There is a lot on my mind that I would love to blog about, mainly regarding some recent postings on my parents' list serv that have been so inspiring and brave and thought-provoking. I'll have to save my thoughts for another time, though. I've been enjoying my cozy time in bed with a book and we have to get up early tomorrow to go to Olympia.

Until then, good night.

a quick update

From a letter written to Colleen this afternoon:

First, she has come up with so many words. I don't know how they happened, but suddenly, there they are. She says "ghen" for "Gwen" - it's so funny to hear her say it, too. I mean, usually we are saying it with a slight (or not) tone of admonishment in our voices, and she is able to match us tone for tone. "Ghen!"

What else is she saying? "Whoa!" is huge right now. And, although "hot" was one of her first words, she now uses it to describe pretty much anything she is unsure of, especially a particularly odd texture, like a bumpy rock. I guess more than words is what she is able to understand. She puts things away when we ask her to and she puts them in the right place! And, the other night, she pulled out a shoe from my closet and put it on my foot, indicating that she'd like me to put it on. I asked her to get me the other shoe, and she went and pulled out its exact match, even though the shoe was upside down in a pile of other shoes! She then went on to do this with two other pairs.

And, she loves shoes, especially her red shoes. They were sitting on the couch last night, and she got up and put them back on the side table where we keep them - moving each, one by one, until they were where they are supposed to be. My little organizer!

A funny thing: this morning I was trying to get her to brush her teeth with me. She was sitting outside of the bathroom, watching Jay get out of the shower and get ready. I asked her to look at me so I could brush her teeth. She ignored me. I said, "Saaashaaaa. Let's brush our teeth." She refused to look in my direction. I tried a few more times to get her attention, but she knew what I wanted and she was having none of it.