The tiniest update

Hello end of June.

Lots has happened between my last post here. We've accepted a job, Mike graduated from SAIS, we moved across the country, and we're (likely) within a week of meeting our sweet baby number 2.

Life was too nebulous and stressful to write about. Ada and my days consisted mostly of playing outside. Mike and my nights consisted mostly of long chats about what we want our life to look like, and budgeting, and loans, and if we should rent or buy, sell or drive, pack or store or sell . . . By the time I got around to choosing maternal care here in Salt Lake, I emailed a trusted friend, called up the midwife and scheduled an appointment. I didn't think twice about it. I was too burned out of decision making by then. And guess what? It's worked out really well. So maybe all my stressing over every other decision was all for naught. Who knows. (And who really cares?)

We're really happy. Mike is a 10 minute walk from his office. We're smack in the heart of downtown, living in a 5th floor apartment with a breezy balcony (or boufcany as Ada says) and TWO WHOLE BEDROOMS. I feel like I've finally arrived. Our own room! Without a child in it!!

No baby yet, but she's expected any day and if the amount of imaginary play is any indication, Ada is really looking forward to her sister's debut. We'll see how long the honeymoon lasts. . .

I'm hoping that writing will again take part in my daily processing. My blogging time was filled with painting, but that's going to be a bit messy for the next little while with a new one attached to me in one way or another most of the day (and—let's be serious—night).

And maybe I'll get around to posting all the half-finished drafts stacked up in my post queue. Just maybe.

Sacralization of space

I came across a line in a book Mike and I have been reading together that was this, "THAT'S IT!" type sentence; I immediately made a note to revisit it.

I have a hard time talking about my art. In fact, Mike walked me through writing the artist statement for my final show and all of the best lines people mentioned in the guest book could pretty much be attributed to him. He has a gift for taking in lots of information and spitting it back out in digestible bites. In the case of my artist statement, he took lots and lots of late night talks, recounted conversations with professors, secondhand critiques, and mostly lots of random bumbling from me (that nearly always ended in the phrase, ". . . I don't know how to say it, but you know what I mean?") and helped me synthesize it into a few beautiful paragraphs.

I just really love that boy

House of Bondmen, 12"x12" oil on panel

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So this line in the book. It stood there, answering the question I've had about my work for the last few months: "What is this about anymore?" The motifs I'm using are the same—pattern, shape, covering, revealing, repetition, meditative processes—but I can't seem to explain my work in the same way I did over 2 years ago. It's just not really about ancestry anymore. It's more about this: "The sacralization of space [that] usually results from a succession of holy events like repeated miracles, or from accumulated layers of worship and veneration . . ."

I have thought a lot about space lately—how physical space is tied to emotional or spiritual space, how the daily acts in my space affect the feeling of that space, how I can make my home a sacred space no matter where it is and what our budget. I love the idea of repeated acts sacralizing a space; that as we repeatedly pray, or love, or aid in the space of our homes, those acts make it sacred. I think about repetitious acts that can tend toward monotony but allow for a holy work to take place there. I think about temples. I think about motherhood and routine and divinity. I think about our hands and our hearts and what motivates us to use them. And as my baby grows and my belly swells, I think about creation and time and how space is shaped by both.

To think of another

This is where I want to start:

For a solid two years my world has been wrapped up in Ada's. We first discovered Florence together. She was my travel companion to Verona. We've spent hours exploring, hours on a train, hours pounding out journeys by foot, just the two of us. And even though for most of it she has been too small to express a single thought, knowing she was there was my comfort, my constant. Ada is my everything.

And that is why it's so hard for me to think of another.

Before my ultrasound a few weeks ago, thoughts about a new baby swung from overwhelming worry about what two kids means physically—an frenetic ball of toddler and a needy swaddle of baby—to grief that the time I've had with Ada is almost over, and that I'll never be able to spend this kind of time with my next child. There was joy and mystery and excitement sneaking through the cracks like sunshine, but I wanted to feel light bursts of gladness and the sort of wrapped-up enthusiasm that came with the news about expecting Ada. What I felt was more heavy, more solemn.

Don't get me wrong. It all sounds so gloomy compressed into a paragraph. This baby is going to be a bright one. (Tangentially, I am a second daughter and am sure that the time I spent with my own mother was less than she was able to devote to a single child. I have no delusions about this, nor do I think it's sad like my imagination sometimes wants to picture it. It's just one of those many Facts of Life that stand like pillars holding up what's ours.)

On the drive home from the ultrasound appointment, I was washed with peace and calm. All the thoughts about being torn from diaper change to nursing session to meal prep to clean up to art projects to building blocks—and will I ever paint again?—melted with the knowledge that I was carrying a daughter. Two girls. Nothing more perfect. A sister. It was the first time during this pregnancy I've had near-tangible reassuring feelings that this is going to be our greatest blessing yet.

Many of my happiest thoughts about what this baby means come in terms of knowing that she'll be a sister, and that she'll have a sister, Ada Louise, who I rank as one of the best humans on the planet. I know this next daughter will be the same way. To know what joy my own sisters have brought me creates an unbounded thought of gratitude when I picture my own daughters as sisters.

I feel her often now. She kicks and moves and lets me know all the time that she's forming and growing and preparing.

I am too.

I have to ready my heart and trust that a cavernous space I didn't know will be filled and make me full.

Fireballs and Ai Weiwei

Don't be jealous, but this morning my daughter dropped three Atomic Fireball candies into my bath effectively dying the water pink in a matter of seconds. And then demanded to get in with me. We were like a couple of pink Easter eggs when we got out. I'm glad she didn't get her hair wet. That wispy, dye-prone stuff probably would've taken to the Red 40 more permanently.

Moon boxes

view through the Moon boxes

Like one of our favorite storybook pigs, Olivia, on rainy days, we like to go to the museum. Today we visited the Hirshhorn. The Ai Weiwei exhibit is almost over and I would have felt seriously amiss had I not seen it while it was in town. There were enough odd-ball things to keep Ada interested (i.e. a giant snake made out of backpacks that wound around on the ceiling).

Ai Weiwei's "Cube Light"

The moon boxes were basically the best thing to happen to her since her birthday (I was just telling a friend that the post-birthday adjustment has been a difficult one. She's constantly asking for presents and balloons and cupcakes...oh my). We spent a lot of time looking through them from one end and the other. Security guards got a kick out of her. She reminds me so much of my little sister who would greet people with sticking her tongue out, or a raspberry, or some other charming salutation while a preschooler.

Ada greets people with a short grouchy squawk or a, "Noooo." What happened to my social girl? (To be fair, people are so weird. They ask questions like, "Oh my goodness I like your shoes, can I have them?" I might feel constantly violated/on guard too if I were a two year old and people felt the need to get right up in my business to have a conversation).

The simple color block paintings provided lots of color-naming practice. And shhh, don't tell, but one of the security guards told me it was okay for her to rub her hands all over them?? Sorry Ellsworth Kelly . . . Maybe they're reinforced against toddler hands because they know there's nothing so alluring as a giant green triangle within arms reach. That maybe have been her favorite things of the day. Besides the light cube. We circled that puppy a dozen times while Ada dutifully repeated, "No touching. Just look with mine eyes." It's becoming a sort of mantra at our house.

The visit wouldn't have been complete without singing the alphabet song while looking at the GIANT LETTERS downstairs

2 Years-old

It's amazing to me that my baby is two. What's more amazing is that she won't be my baby come June. There will be a new little face around these parts (I still am having loads of trouble wrapping my mind around this). In fact, my heart at once bursts and breaks when I think that Ada won't be my only child soon. Is this normal? I'm such a swarm of conflicting feelings. On one hand I can't wait to add another little person to the mix. I can't wait to see Ada as a sibling. I can't wait to cuddle and new warm baby and introduce it to the wonders I've slowly discovered the last two years with Ada. On the other hand, the thought of dividing my time further, of spending even less with Ada and Mike and art is a complicating and conflicting thought.

But back to my darling Ada girl. She knows her ABC's and can almost count to 20 unassisted. She can sing all the words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and knows several other tunes that she puts most of the words to (Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, Stars Were Gleaming, Mary has a little Lamb, Row, Row, Row your Boat, Elmo's World Theme Song . . .) She describes things with several adjectives, "Ada wants her purple ciucio with tiny, purple stars." Literally. She has said this to me on several occasions. She speaks in third person 100% of the time and often narrates everything she's doing or experiences. She mimics nearly every word I say. She picks up quickly on emotions. She loves to draw and paint and can do it for several hours a day. She loves Elmo. She seems to prefer book stacking to book reading these days (but perhaps it's because she's tired of our selections at home. . .) She can build the train track by herself but gets frustrated easily when the pieces don't line up on the first try. She loves wearing dresses and necklaces and hats but also loves to run and jump and climb, throw balls and play at the park.

She is a completely different baby than she was when we moved out here in August. In fact, I don't think she's really a baby at all anymore. This growing up business is even harder to watch from the outside. She's more and more fun by the minute (and often more challenging) but the phases pass so quickly and she's shooting up like a weed I'm not sure how much more growing I can take.

Can't we just put things on hold for a bit? A little bit? Please?

Ada, I love you so much my insides turn to pieces. You are the brightest joy of my life. Happy 2nd Birthday, sweetie.

On self-raising

For a few reasons, I sometimes I feel like I'm raising myself. There are moments in nearly every day with Ada that mirror home videos from my childhood so closely it's hard not to wonder if my mind has made-up said videos and replaced my own little toe-headed-toddler self with Ada.

She colors for spans of time equal to toddler eternity (thirty, forty-five minutes?! She can't even watch Sesame Street for this long) and while she does she often sings to herself, or narrates her drawings. If she sees one of her "pretty dresses" she insists on putting it on right that instant and then proceeds to "spin like a princess" before moving on to adorning herself in every necklace I own. Her mind seems to constantly be humming, processing, sorting information. Perhaps all toddlers in general seem a bit preoccupied because their little brains are taking in so much each moment. She easily collapses in frustration when she can't communicate like she wants or the moment she feels itchy (sound familiar, Mom?)

But I also feel like I'm raising myself (or, really, continuing the work my parents started). Being a baby having babies, there is still lots of room for self-raising. When I see Ada's tantrums I get so self reflective ignoring her behavior—waiting out her storm—is easy. But it makes me realize I don't take a lot of things well either. Is mothering always like holding a mirror up to yourself every day? People always say they learn more by having kids than by being a kid. And it's true. Because you see so much of yourself in them, moments of intense examination come all-too often.

My abusive boyfriend-child

I had a friend tell me that toddlers are like abusive boyfriends and we are like their low self esteem girlfriends. "We keep coming back to them, love them more and more each time."

It makes me feel like a crazy woman sometimes. How is she at once so endearing and maddening?

This morning I was over-the-moon in love with her. She was shirtless, doing a veggie dance and taking laps around the kitchen while eating "pock-warm" (popcorn). She would pause about every 30 seconds and stand back from her whiteboard to exclaim, "Oh my goodness! Look at THAT!!" She sang, "And everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went, Everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary Mary went."

My heart couldn't take it.

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In an obvious moment of deep contemplation Mike turned to me the other day and said, "Isn't it crazy that we have the capacity to create people we'll someday associate with?"

"Like, our children?" I had to clarify.

"Yeah. You know—don't have any friends? Have some babies."

So weird. Though it is becoming truer and truer. Ada is turning into my buddy.

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Most buddies of mine, however, don't take dry erase marker and scribble up and down the length of their shins before coming in to ask for forgiveness and wipe. (See what I mean?! Abusive. But how could I not love her even more after her obvious try at rectification?) Or throw themselves to the ground and start writhing because I filled their cup with water rather that milk.

When I put her down for a nap  she looked up and apologized again. "Sorry, Mommy. No, no color on pants. Color on paper!"

What was going to be a reluctant, guilt-inducing, not-so-motherly, begrudgingly bestowed kiss turned into a shower of smooching. She hated it.

I love her for it.

my two loves at the park on my 60 degrees, sunny birthday

Inauguration Day

The days leading up to the inauguration were crowded in DC. We went out to dinner for my birthday the Saturday before, and called half a dozen restaurants the Wednesday before that to get a reservation at a regular dinner hour. ("Hi, would you like a 4:00 or 9:30 reservation? Everything else is booked." "Um..." We ate at Tabard's Inn and it was an excellent—even romantic!—meal at a normal 6:00 hour.)

I got all sorts of emails about road closures and extra security measures to take (like, write your and your child's personal information on a note card and fix it to their person if you plan on taking them Downtown. Yikes).

The day of the inauguration, Capitol hill was eerily quiet. Either people were all already on the Mall by mid-morning or they were smart enough to sleep in, have brunch and take the day off. We were neither.

We opted to not leave the house at an ungodly hour and wait in the cold with our toddler just for a good seat, so at 10—and calling upon the strength of our pioneer stock—we left the house for the day with a tin of peanuts, a package of licorice, a PB&J and a few water bottles.

"We don't always agree with the President, but we always pray for him (1 Tim 2:1-4)"

I sort of regret not buying an "Official Inauguration" something. I'm so not a souvenir person, but it would have been fun to wave a flag or something. Right?

The walk down was a cultural slice of life. Being a non-ticketed attendee meant walking, and walking, and shuffling past vendors and closed streets and innumerable police men. The entrance at 7th Street (above) was close by the time we got there—minutes before the speech began. The group dynamic of being collectively rerouted was interesting to say the least. There was a collective sigh as people regrouped and figured out where to go. It was like being in a river of people. When a we came upon a roadblock, we trickled out in a dozen different directions and white capped on occasion. There were numerous frustrating moments when I questioned the authority of nearly every cop who said, "Sorry. This road is closed. Walk two blocks to the south and then over 5 blocks and up two more blocks and you'll be where you want to be." "Grrrr..."

Vendors lined the streets and back roads that snaked through the maze-like city. At one point Mike commented that maybe all this extra rerouting and walking was some secret part of Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign. I think he may be right . . .

Our view. I know. High quality photo.

We walked over 25 blocks down to the Washington Monument where we caught the tail-end of the inaugural address. It was actually nice to not be pressed up on by a thousand people like I heard the view a few blocks closer was. We heard enough, ate our peanuts and licorice, ran around a bit, took a few pictures and then started the mass exodus back east (when I swear even more roads were closed...) towards our house.

Hooray we made it!

Awesome mothering tip: give your kid licorice constantly and they'll be happy as a clown in their stroller all day.

 People have asked me, "Are you glad you went?" I answer, "Totally. It was a great experience...to do once." I don't think I'll ever have to make the trek again (unless I had awesome tickets and handwarmers).

There were moments that I don't think I'll ever forget, like watching the pride on a black woman's face as she glaced over a row of Obama Calendars, fixed her eyes on a picture of the First Lady and exclaimed over and over, "Michelle is gorgeous! Just gorgeous!!" I agree. She is. And I like her haircut.

Or the guy selling Romney and Obama condoms. Or the vendor who used the back of an old Romney/Ryan campaign sign as the backing to his sign advertising Obama inauguration gear. How resourceful.

Or Ada watching the horses before they took off for the parade. Or how sweetly she would ask for "More licorice, please." After getting reminded to use her manners 20 times first and "Ask nicely."

It was a 6 hour outing. Needless to say we stopped for a pizza on the way home.

So much trash every where. The can on the left is long before the ceremony actually began.

Inauguration porta-potties anyone?

Christmas kink

The day after Christmas we packed up and headed to Heber for two nights at a cabin with Mike's family. The cabin was beautiful and spacious. We rented snowmobiles that everyone was anxious to try the next day. We packed sleds and dufflebags full of gloves, scarves, hats, thermals, coats, snow pants and boots. It was to be 3 days of snow play, cozy fires, hot cider, games, and family bonding.

We arrived around 4 and had pizzas for dinner. After, the family all headed downstairs to play air hockey, watch the grandkids wrestle and play. Soon the kids were ready to watch a movie (or a moomie, as Ada calls them, though she's never sat through more than 10 minutes of one so I'm not sure what her fascination is...) I headed upstairs to make popcorn and before the microwave dinged Mike was carrying a crying Ada up the stairs.

She had climbed up to the second rung on the bunk bed ladder (only about the height of a kitchen chair), slipped, and taken the full impact of her fall onto the tile floor with her right arm.

(L) waiting at the Instacare, in the middle of saying, "It huuuurts." (R) Didn't hurt bad enough to keep her from using that arm to color with. She the bend in it? Her other arm looks totally straight by comparison.

It was readily apparent to me that something was more wrong that just a routine bump on the head. I noticed what I initially thought was swelling in her right arm right away as I held her, but had a gut feeling it was worse. I went to the couch, pulled up her sleeve and knew immediately her arm was broken. Her arm was very bowed and after comparing it to her left arm, I knew we needed to suit up, brave the snow and head to the hospital.

On the drive there was sang a few primary songs which calmed her down almost immediately. We drove 10 minutes the wrong way on Highway 40, too flustered to follow a map, before turning around and getting to the hospital.

Too happy to have a broken arm, right? Or just loopy because it was after 10 pm at this point.

The wait was more miserable for us than her. The x-ray confirmed it was a greenstick break in both bones so they paged the orthopedic surgeon to come and set her arm. We opted for sedation so we wouldn't have to listen to our screaming baby as they bent her bones back into place. She fell asleep, with her pants down, ready for her shot just minutes before the anesthesiologist came in.

Still coloring with her broken arm (after pushing the ER doc away with it...my little toughy).

They gave her a dissociative anesthetic that caused a temporary disconnect between what she felt and what she remembered. She tried so hard to talk through the whole thing.

Gradually as the drug too affect her speech became slower, more slurred, her eyes started ticking back and forth like she was in the car watching telephone polls zoom by out the window. Eventually she was catatonic and the orthopedic surgeon came in to set her arm.

I was at her side, watching the whole thing up close. Mike said he was surprised that the guys just grabbed her arm and with his hands straightened it all out. I found that particularly comforting, actually. Sometimes I feel like medicine is too removed from our bodies. Everything is done with machines and not much is left to intuition and personal care and trusting our hands.

As the doctor set her bones she let out the saddest, slowest moan I've ever heard, "Ooooooooooooooouuuuch-eeeee." I felt my heart break a little further every second she sustained her slow-motion-cry. As she came out of the affects of the drug, he began hallucinating. The anesthesiologist said adults who are put under this way often talk about strange hallucinations. Ada hallucinated about bubbles. She raised her arm and began popping the imaginary things. Minutes passed and she recognized me, wanted to talk about mommy and her cousins and daddy.

All was right. Except for her purple fingers. Oh, and her broken arm.

We went back a week later for the hard cast. Hot pink. She began crying the second we stepped foot in the hospital. "Gee-na car!" (Get in the car!") "Bye bye! Gee-na car!"

She basically screamed the whole time we were there. But she got a stale sucker and a teddy bear out of the experience so it couldn't have been THAT bad. Plus, now she examines her cast with pride every time she undresses and says, "Ada's cool cast. It's pink."

I asked her last night if she wanted to take it off on Friday. She immediately cradled her arm and said, "No take it off! No take it off! Ada's cool cast! It's pink!"

(With any luck cast comes of tomorrow!!)

Featuring an ugly red coat

The last few days in Washington were spent cleaning and packing and organizing so coming home from our holiday in Utah would be a pleasant, relaxing experience. Everybody knows you need rehab after a vacation. Somehow they often leave you feeling hung over from all the happy memories made.

We left fairly cold weather in Washington (with those mums still holding on for dear, numby life!) and arrived in mounds of snow in the frozen Utah tundra. Ada couldn't have been happier. I couldn't have been colder.

A few days after arriving she somehow got us all out of the house before 10 and on a sub-arctic walk around the neighborhood. There's a spot from one of our home videos growing up that has my sisters and I playing in the snow on the deck of my parents' Grandview home. My mom is playing commentator while we chase each other and catch snowflakes in our mouths. She says something like, "There's some sort of golden rule where the amount of time it takes to get ready to play in the snow must be twice as long as the time the kids actually play in it." I thought about it every time we got suited up to head outside. Did I mention that Utah is like an arctic subcontinent?

Ada walked off the plane wearing a sign announcing our big news around her neck. It was fun to wait and announce my pregnancy until we were there with our families in person. At nearly 14 weeks I felt super proud of our secret-keeping skills. It took everyone a little bit to realize what Ada was wearing. Seeing their faces was priceless.

I've been feeling relatively good, but more sick and tired than I did during my pregnancy with Ada. I'm sure half the fatigue comes from tearing after my toddler day in and day out and not having the luxury of sleeping in any more (oh the days of sleeping in!!)

We've drilled the phrase "Ada's going to be a big sister because Mommy's having a baby!" into Ada's head. I've heard her say it to her toys (and while she leaves out half the words it still never gets old). We're excited and hoping to build up how great babies are so Ada doesn't get too jealous when the little bundle arrives at the end of June.