Going for a joggle

Before school started, we spent one last weekend on Isle of Palms. My mom is leaving the country in a few weeks, so this was our last chance to see her without having to cross an ocean. My brother, Adam, flew out from California and my grandmother came down from Baltimore.



We slept, played on the beach and talked until late. We celebrated upcoming birthdays and arm-wrestled. Adam, Eric and I (still sometimes referred to as "the children") watched Don't Tell Mom, the Babysitter's Dead. We visited the Piggly Wiggly (always a favorite) and gave in to the boys' pleas to drive the golf cart. We even met a talking bird down the street. (I was walking along and heard a squawky "HELLO!" from the front porch!)

Sunday morning found us at my mom's church downtown before driving west on I-20 back to Atlanta. That's a joggling board that the kids are sitting on...




There is something magical about the Lowcountry. We'll miss it this year while my mom has her Turkish adventure...

They warned us about the crowds...

...so we took up our positions in the air conditioned comfort of Eric's office. It was a pretty good place from which to watch the fastest member of our family participate in one of Atlanta's most celebrated traditions: the Peachtree road race. It's the largest 10K in the world!


Here's the star of the day- posing for a pre-race picture in front of a bunch of his maniacal scribblings on the whiteboard....

He preferred to hang out with the faster runners and avoid the beer-guzzling, cartwheel-turning, body-paint sporting back of the pack, which meant got up reaaaaaally early. Look at those puffy eyes....


Brigham and Marley stayed home with a good friend (good enough to come over at 5:45 A.M.- that's good!). Eric Jr. and I passed the time taking pictures and going from window to window, trying to spot Ryan Hall and the other super-stars runners leading the pack. Oh, and Eric, of course! Sadly, we were too high up to be able to pick him out of the sea of bodies....I suggested that next year he do something conspicuous, like paint himself gold.

Here they are approaching the turn to the finish line....


Good race, good fun!

Numbering the days

I was racing against the mercury this morning, rushing through my routine in an attempt to squeeze in a run before it got too hot for the girls to be outside. I paused to send a quick email to my mom about our plans to visit next week. When I looked up, Marley was buckling her baby doll into the swing-o-matic.

What is it about a newborn that makes you want to stop time? As Eric blessed Ellie on Sunday, I opened my eyes in surprise at the word woman. It was a reminder that my days of holding her limp, sleeping body against my chest are numbered.

But Marley, her baby doll, and my email reminded me of something: that when all of this is over- when I've read No, David for the last time, and had the last underwater tea party, and pushed my heavy-laden jogging stroller up the last hill....when the last lego has been stepped on, the last scout badge earned, and the last Halloween costume made...when the last prom dress has been altered, and the last college essay proofread....when all of that is behind me....


There will be grandchildren.

Scenes from the Northwest

Lessons from the quiet

Before I got pregnant with Eleanor, Eric and I had planned a trip to the Northwest. Neither of us had been back in the six years since we'd left for North Carolina, and it had been two years since we'd seen Eric's parents. Plus, it was Eric's fifteenth high school reunion. (Who goes to their fifteenth high school reunion? I could care less about mine, to be honest. But apparently when you go to a crunchy granola school in Portland with 40 kids in your class, you care. And apparently Eric was one of three who didn't show up at the tenth, so he needed to redeem himself.)

Soon after we planned the trip, I found out that June 2011 would not be a good month for me to fly across the country, as I would have a new tiny friend in tow. (Actually, let me be honest: my tiny friend would have been fine. I'm a terrible sport about traveling in the best of circumstances, and with all that post-partum sweating and hair loss going on? I didn't even want to think about it.) I also didn't want to think about being left home alone with a toddler and a baby, so I told Eric that if he still wanted to go, he had to take the boys and Marley with him. He agreed, and that's the story of how Eleanor and I found ourselves alone together for the past seven days.

I took naps everyday. I cleaned the house and it miraculously stayed clean. I had dinner with friends, ran errands, wrote thank-you notes, watched The Food Revolution and folded laundry. I remembered to take the trash out to the curb. I threw away old toys. I kept the house at 80 degrees. I took up the entire bed. I snuggled my baby. It was kind of amazing.

Except at night, when I would call to get the day's report from Oregon and remember the chubby cheeks I wasn't kissing, and the crazy comments I wasn't laughing at, and the little backs I wasn't scratching. That's when I would remember that those things are my real life, and this is just a brief vacation- a chance to catch my breath and gather my strength for a summer full of noise, mess and fun.

Still though- I've learned some things in the quiet moments of the past week:

1. No matter how many kids you have, they all need periodic time alone with you. And YOU need it! This time with Ellie has been incredible. I really, really need to do this with all my kids.

2. What I do each day is hard. Wow is it easy to keep a house clean with one immobile child. And to keep everyone fed when one of us takes all her meals in powdered form. And to run errands with no hands to hold as I cross the parking lot. The absence of children has helped me appreciate the very real burden that each one is. I need to remember that and give myself credit for invisible work I do each day.

3. I need breaks. I'm not holding my breath for another week-long hiatus like the one I've just had, but I think I've just figured out the solution to the fact that everyone in my family likes camping except me.

4. I love my family. Without them, my life is quiet, calm, and kind of empty. Real happiness comes from the bonds that form through service and sacrifice......and folding laundry.

Their flight lands in an hour. The floors are clean, the beds are made, the fridge is stocked, and every article of clothing has been folded and put away. I give it until ten tomorrow morning before every bit of it is undone.

And for once, I'll be glad:).

I remember...

...your earliest days as a father. Racing home on your bike in between classes, you would take your infant son from me. Breathing hard from your ride, your cheeks red from the cold, you would plead "open your eyes...open you eyes...".

Can you believe that newborn is nine years old now? And that you stare into the eyes of a different newborn?

Thank you for nine years of holding, feeding, singing, playing, protecting, teaching and giving your whole heart to these four children of ours.

Eleanor's birth

Eleanor was born at home. I guess the pictures of her on my bed, only hours old kind of gave it away. It was a very personal decision for us, and one that we didn't share with many people before her birth. We researched and read, then pondered, prayed and searched our souls to find that a home birth was the right thing for this baby and this mother. Uncharacteristically, once our decision was made, I never had a moment's doubt that everything would be great, and it was....


On Sunday, May 15th, Brigham was baptized (and I'll write that story soon!). We'd had an incredibly busy weekend, to end an already packed month. Little Eric ran a local kids 3K on Saturday morning, beating the little girl across the street by a hair's breadth, to his very great relief. Then we headed to the bowling alley for Brigham's birthday party- cake and icecream getting ground into someone else's carpet- worth every penny. In the evening we put on our best and sent Marley across the street so we could attend the Atlanta Boy Choir's spring concert, featuring (he was the main feature to us, at least:) little Eric. So after the baptism on Sunday night, I said to several people, "Phew! Now I'm ready to have this baby."

Sure enough, soon after going to bed Sunday night contractions began dragging me from sleep. About 2 A.M. sleep ceded the battle and I got up to check email and let it sink in that our baby was finally on his or her way. At 3:30 I woke Eric up and we passed the wee hours of the morning tidying up the house, doing laundry and making lunches for the boys. At 6:00 I called Claudia, our midwife and told her I was in labor. She must have thought I was a little too calm, because she said she'd call me back after her shower and coffee. I was worried about traffic, and on that second call I was a little more firm, telling her, "I really think you should come".

She got on her way while Eric woke the boys up for school, telling them they would have a new sibling by the end of the day. They came into the living room, sleepy-eyed and bewildered. I'm not sure what they were expecting, but they seemed relieved to see a normal-looking me lying on the couch, smiling. Claudia arrived just as they walked out the door to school.

I moved to my bed while she set up shop and Eric got Marley up and ready to go next door. He lifted her on to the bed and she gave me a gentle hug and kiss. Claudia checked me and I was dilated to 5 cm, which disappointed me, because I felt like I'd moved past that point. But I reminded myself that sometimes the body takes a while to register the work it's been doing, and I'd probably get to a 10 pretty quickly from there.

Claudia's assistant, Audrey arrived and, per my wishes, the two of them sat in the living room and read while I laid on my side in bed and breathed through contractions. Eric was there next to me, looking appropriately concerned and jumping up to get me whatever I asked for. Mostly, all I wanted was quiet, calm and him. Claudia and Audrey would come in every thirty minutes to check the baby's heart rate. Claudia told me I needed to let her know when a contraction began, because I was so quiet and still- I silently thanked my hypnobabies training for that little ego boost:).

Sometime after 10 I called for Claudia to come in the room because I felt like I might be wanting to push soon. She checked me and sure enough, I was 9.5 cm dilated and cleared to go ahead whenever I felt the urge. Urge is not quite the word to describe what I feel when having a baby- it's more like an all-encompassing compulsion the strength of a thousand boa constrictors. I pushed gently through a few contractions and mistakenly though that maybe I'd be able to "breathe the baby out", as they advise in hypnobabies. That hope was crushed by the next contraction, which was long and accompanied by some sort of howl that I'm sure all the neighbors heard. I felt that old familiar burning and heard a sudden commotion as Claudia, Audrey and Eric (who was holding my leg) all realized the head was about to come out. I was urged to "slow it way down" so I wouldn't tear, so on the next contraction I did my very best to breath and not push so hard, which resulted in more interesting sound effects for the neighbors, but didn't stop the baby's head. Right away I heard a cry, and everyone started laughing, saying, "That's what you call a 10 on the the apgar scale!" Another huge push and suddenly I was holding my purple, slippery, angry-looking baby. Eric told me it was a girl, and I just couldn't believe it. TWO DAUGHTERS!!! A SISTER FOR MARLEY!!! In that moment I felt like I had everything I could ever ask for.


Once the placenta was out, Eric walked over to the school to tell the boys they had a new sister. They both wanted to cut the chord, so they held the scissors together and did it in sync- a sweet moment. While Audrey examined the placenta, she explained to them what it was and how it had kept their sister alive while she was inside me. Some people might think that's gross, but I loved seeing that my boys still had that wonderful curiosity intrinsic to childhood and didn't seem to notice the gross factor at all.


It was....perfect. That's all I can think to say about it.