The Wendy House

Artifacts of the Week & That Face

2009-07-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

~ The new issue of Lilith, in which my review of Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections appears (a great and personally inspiring book).

~ And (gasp!) is that a check? Written out to me? Why yes it is. Lilith pays their writers! What a blessing. In fact, this is the second paycheck I've received since Ben was born. The last one was from Lilith also. They have been good to me, and I'm writing some more reviews for them now. It has all inspired me to seek out more paying freelance writing, and I've been floating around some ideas...

~ The stick is from Grace Avenue Park. Ben has taken to bringing pieces of nature home after we've been out. It's a lovely habit, and I encourage it. Ben said this stick was a giant potato bug and we were supposed to go home and make a "raccoon" for it so it could turn into a butterfly. Gotta love the logic.

~ Up in the right-hand corner is a copy of The White Album borrowed from the library. We're very happy that Ben has started to listen to it. The early Beatles stuff is great, but I like the later, grittier stuff best. Oh man, we listened to Dear Prudence twice this morning, really loud. And Savoy Truffle blew me away. Unfortunately, Disc 1 is scratched, so Julia started to skip. But at least I heard the first verse, which brought tears to my eyes: "Half of what I say is meaningless..."

~ And buried under it all, a puzzle we picked up for 50 cents this morning. We also got a great train/number/color puzzle for $1. And yesterday we got a barn with animals, a tractor, a pretty farm girl, etc. that is compatible with Ben's Mega Bloks, which he loves loves loves...all for $5. Go yard sales!

Cut off at the top, yes, but look at that face. I think his eyes are settling on a grayish hazel. So distinguished.

A Day in Summer

2009-07-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

dress-up at home

then a walk to the park

a ride on the swing to soothe a broken heart (long story, but let's just say the bottled water wasn't cold enough)

trying new things (he climbed UP the side!)

home to paint the world outside, and dictate a new story to mommy

admiring the work as it dries

Solstice Week

2009-06-26T11:24:00.001-07:00

Ben had been getting so excited about going to the beach that we had to gather every shell and rock in our house and create our own "beach in a jar." It was my idea to put the shells and rocks in a jar, but it was Ben's idea to add water and call it a beach.

How happy and proud he was when it was done. (The small jar contains a rock he found in a pond; when he brought it home he insisted we put it in water so it wouldn't miss the pond too much.)

Visiting with our friend Genny, and admiring her garden. Looking for worms and ladybugs! Sheila's left leg, and baby Cole's cute little feet dangling on her belly.

And cozying up at home. Naked of course. Ben reading Pat the Bunny to his bears, Pink Bear and Car Bear (named Car Bear because he used to live in our car; we kept him in there to entertain Ben when he was a baby). Ben has been telling endless stories about these bears. They're 10; they like The Beatles, Max and Ruby, and Blue Clues; they sleep in their own beds; they don't have their mommy's milk anymore (no word on how old they were when they weaned). They go everywhere Ben goes, and he loves them "so much."

~Happy Summer, Everyone!~

A Rainy Afternoon Alone

2009-06-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

How grateful I am for this long afternoon alone. Rainy and dreary, yes, but all mine. This has been a stressful week or two -- nothing specific has happened, but every little thing seems to be setting me off. I've been feeling tender. Like I need a good, long cry. But who has the time to cry while chasing around and caring for an active, vocal, vibrant little two-year old?

Things are subtely changing, maybe that's it. Somehow my boy turning two-and-a-half seems big to me. He's still most certainly a baby in so many ways, but he seems more and more like a kid. It's not just that he's finding his voice (a gentle way of describing the notorious two-year-old tantrums). He looks longer, his face has lost some of its roundness. He doesn't need me to help him up and down the steps (though I stay close by). He has developed a new sense of empathy, displaying real concern over my tummy aches, seeming to really understand that it hurts his friend's feelings if he grabs her toy.

But anyway, back to my afternoon. I ate a bowl of food, lit a candle, and read the latest incarnation of my manuscript. (The title that you see some of up there is probably not the title.) I feel, for the first time, quite certain that I don't need to write anymore new poems. And for all the tweaking I do here and there with sections and stuff, I seem to always come back to the same order, the same arc. So that's probably what it is. I will certainly be doing line edits, and reshuffling the poems a bit, but I'm pretty certain I am done with the basic writing of it. That's big, and feels, too, like a new chapter of my life beginning. I have started a new folder on my computer for new poems. I have three in it so far.

Oh, and some nice news! I've been asked to do mini-reviews of three poetry books, which means that I will receive free poetry books. And a little cash for doing the reviews. They look like good books too. Now if only some of the journals reviewing my poems would get back to me. Rejection, acceptance, whatever -- I'd just like to find out what is going on. Why has it been taking so long lately?

Soon the boys will be home. I'm going to go look at my poems again.

Magic and Awe

2009-06-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

We found this CD player for Ben on sale for $5. He had been disappointed that he wasn't allowed to use our stereo, so we got him his own little stereo. He learned how to open and close it, handle the CDs very carefully, press play, go to the next track, and change the volume. And it went from there. All week, any free minute we had at home, Ben was situated in from of it, listening, of course, to The Beatles. It must be genetic. We've got strong Beatles-obsession genes on both sides of the family. And Ben is truly obsessed. He wakes up and tells me which songs he wants and in what order. He has requested songs in the middle of the night. He asked his "Mommy and Me" teacher to turn off the tape of nursery rhymes and put on "Can't Buy Me Love." And he asks us to "read" the CD booklets. He wants us to tell him which Beatle is which, the song lists for each album, and anything else of note. It hasn't always been pretty -- he has been known to flip out if the wrong song comes on, or if we don't find the right track fast enough (this is usually if he's tired or something). And it gets a little boring for us after awhile. The same songs over and over. But then I look at him, so totally absorbed, in music-heaven, and I am so proud and happy.

I wonder if all two-year-olds are like this. Ben seems to get so totally absorbed in whatever he's into, and doesn't want to do much else. It was like that with drawing, and then with making tents and tunnels on the couch. He's passionate. He wants to get to the bottom of each thing, learn as much as he can. Then he's over it, it's gone, and he's onto the next thing.

I love watching him learn, discovering it all with him. Sometimes the idea of him going to school doesn't quiet make sense to me -- he's so self-directed, and learns so much on his own, it's hard to believe school could give him the attention he needs. But he does love playing with other children, and the "teachers" we meet at his "Mommy and Me" classes have a great rapport with him, so I know it will be nice for him when the time is right. And there will still be time for him to pursue his interests his own way. But the magic and awe of his life right now -- I don't want it to end.

Ben's Beautiful Smile

2009-06-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

A year ago, I was worried sick over Ben's teeth. He had the tell-tale signs of decay: a light brown line across his front tooth that could not be scraped away. For three months, as I fretted, researched, called dentists etc., I saw that line spread like wildfire from one tooth to another until all four front teeth were affected. It was awful.

All the research I did, and each dentist I spoke to, suggested that breastmilk (specifically breastmilk consumed while sleeping) was the cause of this decay, and that prompt nightweaning was the only way to halt the decay. My gut instinct was that this could not be so. Humans were meant to nurse at night, into toddlerhood, and had been doing so for eons -- why would something so natural and wholesome be damaging?

And whatever the cause, how on earth could I nightwean my little boy? I can see it even clearer now: he was still such a baby, and was not ready to stop nursing at night. We would have, of course, survived (many people nightwean young toddlers gently and successfully), but it was simply not how I envisioned our nursing relationship progressing. It seemed to me that nursing to sleep was one of the seven wonders of the world, and it made me happy to give that to Ben. I remember one afternoon, walking and nursing Ben in the baby carrier, looking down at his warm, sleepy face, his soft flutter-sucks, his body drifting off into milky sleep. My heart ached. How could I let this end so abruptly, when neither of us were ready?

The research was sharply divided. Dentists across the board said breastmilk on the teeth at night caused decay, and recommend that "habit" stop as soon as a baby's first tooth appeared (how many babies would wean prematurely if sleeptime comfort nursing was taken away from them?). Breastfeeding advocates mostly said this was hogwash, and that breastmilk had little, if anything, to do with decay. This was supported by own experiences: all the breastfeeding toddlers I knew nursed at night and had no decay.

And yet, my instincts told me that even if breastmilk didn't cause Ben's decay, it must have played some role, as he consumed so much of it both day and night. I finally found an article (published by La Leche League) that made the most sense to me. Essentially, this article explains that breastmilk alone does not cause much more decay than water, but that breastmilk mixed with solid foods can be damaging to the teeth in certain vulnerable children. This made a lot of sense to me -- I knew we had been lax about cleaning Ben's teeth before bed, and that he had slept many nights with a mouth full of food particles mixing with breastmilk.

So I had a plan before me: keep Ben's teeth as clean as I could both day and night, and work on repairing the damage. My heart was still wracked with guilt, worry, and an enormous amount of uncertainty, but I decided to go with my instincts and not change our nursing patten unless this plan did not work.

The first dentist we took Ben to did not want to participate in my plan. "I know it will be hard," she said, with a sympathetic little pout in her face, "but I'm very strict about nighttime nursing." When I asked her if there was anything she could do to halt the decay, she said no, and that if I didn't nightwean, I would be giving my child cavities.

On the advice of a mom in my La Leche League group, we took Ben to a different dentist. Dr. Mercurio was not covered by our insurance, but she was gentle and soothing. She did believe that night-nursing had contributed to Ben's decay, but she also recommended dietary changes, increasing toothbrushing frequency, cleaning the mouth out after nursing to sleep, and a very conservative amount of fluoride to protect the teeth. She gave him a fluoride varnish as well.

We were very diligent with our plan. Ben protested, but soon became used to our routine of brushing his teeth three times a day. We were very strict about sugar in his diet. Xylitol had been recommended as a tool to decrease to the cavity-causing bacteria in the mouth, and we developed a routine of putting Spry, an indigestible xylitol gel, into his mouth several times a day. We reluctantly did the fluoride too, but were happy that the dentist recommend cutting out all fluoridated water, and using half a pea-size amount of fluoride. We also gave him a swig of water in a medicine dropper after he'd fallen asleep to clean out his mouth.

And (gasp!), things began to improve. Each time we came back to Dr. Mercurio, she said that the decay was stablilizing. After a few months, we started doing fluoride every other day instead of every day. We let him try ice cream and juice (both of which he fell in love with), and became somewhat more relaxed about occasionally missing a brushing. Eventually, I stopped giving him those nighttime swigs of water.

Now, one year later, Dr. Mercurio has declared the decay completely arrested. We're going to decrease the fluoride to once every two days, and the goal is to stop it altogether if things still look good in two months. I can't tell you how happy I am. I feel accomplished (and lucky -- this amount of tooth care doesn't always work to halt decay in young children) because I worked my butt off to take care of Ben's teeth, and my work paid off. But I am also proud that I was able to let my instincts guide me on this one. I was getting opinions left and right about what I should and shouldn't do, but I knew what I had to do. I wasn't sure if it was the perfect choice, but I followed my heart, and it all worked out in the end.

Ben has been brave throughout it all, sitting in the dentist chair month after month, being patient as we stick that finger toothbrush in his mouth over and over again. And yes, he still enjoys his nighttime and naptime milk. What a good boy. What a beautiful smile.

My Aquarius Streak

2009-06-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

Our apartment building faces the pool on one side (and a tree-lined street on the other side, thankfully). For the past few days, the maintenance guys have been getting it ready for the summer season. And Ben and I have been watching, Ben standing on his stool, me behind him. The first day they covered up the pot-holes and dents with some white goop. We remembered how the pool had filled with snow in winter. The next day they painted it sky blue. Then yesterday they cleaned it, and began filling it with pool water. This was, of course, the most exciting step. Now Ben needed to stand on his desk chair to see. It was like a giant bathtub with so many water spouts gushing water. Then it started to rain, and the apartment filled with the sound of that gushing water and the pitter-patter of rain. We listened through the wide open window.

I'd been having a lousy day. Lots of nightwaking (yes, we are still teething over here -- his very last tooth is half-through), and a queasy PMS-y stomach. The sounds of water as I walked in and out of the living room reminded me to relax. And I remembered a special moment during my labor with Ben. The doulas had just set up the birth pool, and my contractions were picking up, getting really intense. I was starting to feel entirely overwhelmed by them. Sarah was holding the hose over the pool, and Cori told me to listen to the sound of that water, that it would soothe me. And I did, and it did soothe me (I believed anything anyone told me during labor, which, in my case, worked to my advantage).

All this is feeding into my desire to live by the water, a desire which has been steading rising up in me over the past few years. It has something to do with spending my early childhood on Martha's Vineyard, and having my own child now. One day it might happen, but right now, I don't want to think about what I don't have.

For My Mom, Born Beautiful and Free on the Summer Solstice

2009-05-31T18:38:00.000-07:00

From my mom, who read my blog for the first time:

Dear Wendy, I read your I guess it is called blog. I loved the pictures of you and Ben, your writing and the feelings expressed . . . I will read more later. Love, Mom.

I love my mom. I love and appreciate her more since becoming a mom. She was the original "attachment parent" before they had a name for it. She wrote poems before I was born, and when I found them as a teenager, I saw deeper into her heart and into my own. I can't believe she raised two young girls as a single mom. She stayed home for almost three years with my sister even though she could barely afford it, and when I asked her how she did it, she said "I had no choice."

Two weeks ago, at the end of an exhausting week, Ben up all night, teething, tantruming, my body depleted, my mind fuzzy, I ran into my mother at the train station. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the rest of the day, and I was starving out of my mind (all night nursing can do that to you). My mother had apples and cheese, a bottle of cold water. I ate and drank and was cured. Then we rode the train together and looked out the window, Ben on my lap, my mother across from us, the train rocking past Little Neck Bay, past the town my mother grew up in, and onto Great Neck, where I spent my teenage years and where my mother lives now.

Thank you, Mom.

self-portraits, time alone

2009-05-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

I had a rare half hour alone in the house the other day. Housework was miraculously done, laundry folded, the boys had had dinner out, so that wasn't looming. Too short a stretch to get into writing. I was tired of surfing the web. So I did what I've done since I was a teenager and found myself alone at home. I looked in the mirror, tried on clothes, took my hair down, put it back up (as a teen, I would have experimented with make-up, but I have no real interest in that anymore). And as an added touch, I photographed myself.

Somehow, this is how girls connect and discover themselves. We are looking for a feeling in our faces, our raw selves, the face we don't show the world, the one we wish we did. Beauty, yes, the kind we see on TV and magazines, yes we want that. We want to find it the way no one else can. But we know beauty is mixed with pain, and we are looking for that too. All of it, there in the mirror.

And this time, I was looking for the mother in me. How has motherhood changed my face, my beauty, my pain? I see it for a second, and then it's gone, and it's just me, the same face I've had since I was a baby, and I was under the microscope of my parents' eyes.

Afternoons on the Couch

2009-05-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

Probably my favorite time of day is from 4-6pm. Mornings are usually spent out at playgroups, libraries, classes, parks, etc., and though these times are generally fun and satisfying they involve preparation and travel, both of which take more patience and effort than is often comfortable for a two-year old and his mommy. Then home for lunch and nap, one transition after another. He naps, and I regroup, glancing at my poems, surfing the web, dragging myself onto the yoga mat, breathing and moving, and probably snacking afterwards. Then he's up, and we're both refreshed, with nothing to do until dinner time.

It's quiet, it's just of the two of us, and I try not to make too many phone calls, catch up on chores, etc. I try to be there for him, let him guide me in play. A month or so ago, this was the time of art, Ben and me at the kitchen table drawing, painting, making stories. Lately, though, he wants nothing to do with art (or at least that kind of art). He has realized that what he draws doesn't really look like what he intends it to. Before, just the movement of his wrist and the explosion of line and color were enough. "That's a staircase! That's a big big Ben! That's a fair in Great Neck!" he would proclaim. Now, he's just frustrated. Recently, he wanted to draw an earth. "Oh," I said, "You know how to make a circle. That's all you have to do." So he made a circle and threw the marker down. "That doesn't look like the earth!" he shouted. "Mommy do it." And it went on from there: frustration each time he tried, so I stopped suggesting we draw, and he stopped asking. I figure it's just a phase, and he will pick up his pen when he's ready. I understand. It's like that for me with my own art.

The new thing is playing on the couch. Naked, of course. All he wants to do is make tents and caves with blankets, use the pillows to turn into turtles and fish. And he wants me to come inside with him, the two of us curled in the dark together. Or we'll read book after book, discussing each page in detail. And of course there's his CD player and headphones. He's got the whole Beatles catalogue of songs memorized. And let's not forget his monkey-body climbing all over the couch and me, standing at the top and jumping into my arms. We've got a room full of toys, but we stay on the couch, this soft little spot, this safe, cozy place.

Fleet

2009-05-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

A rough week, Ben's second-to-last tooth breaking through (yay! it's finally here), sleepless nights, early morning wake-ups, full-fledged tantrums on the floor. And me, usually a well of patience, cracking several times. I was hungry, I was tired, and every time I sat down for a meal, he would cry.

Some moments of beauty, though. Three new poem drafts for me, and a book in the mail, Stacie Cassarino's Zero at the Bone. Ben's new favorite books: Rosemary Wells' Yoko series, endearing books about a Japanese cat named Yoko. Ben's ongoing obsession with The Beatles, spending many long sessions listening to them on his headphones, giving both of us a needed break. And his brilliant idea: each time we read the Yoko books, we must start by listening to "Oh Yoko" by John Lennon. Does he know how incredibly cool he is to think of that, to want to do it each time?

I was thinking about these rough times. There have been so many of them these past two years: teething, developmental spurts, illness, and God knows what else. When I'm really in it -- awake for two hours in the night, holding his crying, taut little body -- it sucks. But I'm always quick to reassure myself that it will be over soon. Soon I will be gazing at his sleeping body, soon he'll be gazing up at me, smiling as he nurses. And soon he will be all grown up, off to school, off to college. I am quick to remember how brief this time in my life is. I am good at remembering that. Somehow, my age-old fixation with loss, with the fleetingness of life, has served me well.

Swelling, Spinning

2009-05-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

All week I have been working on the poem I started the other day. Actually choosing to work on it during my breaks. I know I have something good when that happens. It's about flowering trees and my father. Full of words like shed, scatter, disperse, flying, swelling, spinning, gone.

Yesterday was a good day. Me and Ben at the park looking for bugs. He was scared of the bug he found on our dining room floor that morning, but at the park, all he wanted to do was find more and more bugs. Ladybugs! Green bugs! Flies! Little tiny red dot bugs! I wish I knew more of their names. After nap, onto the library, where we checked out bug books, Rosemary Wells books, and Babar books (in preparation for a children's exhibit at the Nassau County Museum of Art that we want to go to). Besides bugs, his interest/obsession of the week has been The Beatles, so we checked out A Hard Day's Night and Yellow Submarine. Home, we ate pasta on the floor and read the books. Then we popped some popcorn and watched A Hard Day's Night, which meant fast-forwarding it to the songs, and watching Can't Buy Me Love 127, 573 times.

OK, one more look at the poem, then yoga. Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Blurry Photo of Me and Ben on the Train

2009-05-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

Faith

2009-05-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

I wrote a poem today after a dry spell. I'm not sure if it's any good, but it felt good to be writing, to go into that place. And I realized while writing it that I need to have more faith in my poems. I have to believe in them. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're poems I'd like to read.

I want to have more faith in everything. My poems. My decision to lend these years of my life to raising my children. My marriage. All the big things, I guess. Sometimes I worry that the things I love will dissolve before my eyes.

This year I have been paying attention to flowering trees. Magnolia trees have petals for a week or two. Already the redbuds are shedding their petals all over the sidewalk. It alarms me how quickly this beauty passes.

And now this post is turning into a post about loss. But maybe it's good to go there sometimes. Just to say it lessens the burden.

Week in Review

2009-05-03T14:35:00.000-07:00

Beauty.

Funny face, reminds me so much of Danny.

Listening to The Beatles on his new CD Player!

Each time he listened, how completely absorbed he became.

Working on his new picture/story: Girlfabee in the Water. The notepad where I wrote it down.

A Good Morning

2009-04-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Danny home, nowhere to go. Sleeping till 8:30, nursing and lounging in bed until 9:15. Into the living room, playing with buttons and pom-poms. Breakfast. Danny brings the laundry down. I start soup so it will be ready for lunch: lentils, garlic, onions, a zillion carrots because that's what Ben likes best. Danny and Ben watch Blue's Clues. Soup's done, mop the kitchen, clean the bathroom. Blue's Clues is over. Crying, wanting more. Consoling: more tomorrow when the sun comes up. More nursing. Ben's idea: let's draw a picture of Mommy and Ben nursing. I draw the people, Ben draws a tent around them. Now time to take out all the toys in the entire house (it seems). Stuffed dogs, piggy bank, stacking cups, pencils, books, marbles. Read Fox in Socks. Can't believe Ben remembers N-O-W spells "now." Soup's almost ready, add the alphabet pasta. Danny puts the laundry in the dryer. Sit down for lunch. Lots of talk about letters, the sounds they make. "Don't know what sound "W" makes," Ben says. Danny and I grinning from ear to ear. The table filling with "Wha" "Wha" "Wha"! Soups done, Ben asks for ice cream, takes raspberries as a substitute, thank God. I clean up, Ben plays with the metronome, TICK TICK TICK, his arms covered in raspberry juice. Danny picks up the laundry. More play, change diaper, light the naptime candle. More play, blow out candle, run run run to bed. Brush teeth, read Chicken Soup with Rice, get cozy, nurse to sleep, Danny and I lying beside our boy half falling asleep ourselves.

Naptime

2009-04-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it takes ten minutes, sometimes forty-five, usually somewhere in between, but after all the nursing and walking and stories, after his body is still, and his breathing is deep, I step away from the bed, turn on the baby monitor, and walk into the living room.

I know that in an hour or two the room will be filled with toys again, but for these hours of mine, I want the house clean and clear. So I put away the toys. I load the lunch dishes into the dishwasher. Sometimes I vacuum the carpet. I do it as fast and simply as I can. Then I get a mug of water or Roma (may favorite coffee substitute) and sit at the couch facing the window, computer open and ready.

Usually nothing. Usually reading blogs, answering emails, Facebook, the Mothering forums. Sometimes I'll look at a poem. Once in a blue moon I'll write one. It's quiet. Today the sounds of rain. I could write one. Each day I could. Maybe I'm storing them up. I'm afraid of getting cut off. It's my time, I think, the poems can wait. And they do. Mornings alone, an empty house, Danny and Ben on an outing.

Then yoga. I roll out my trusty green mat. Some days I'm so tired all I can do is breathe and move. Some days I open and open and tap into energy I didn't know I had. Some days my thoughts are racing so fast I feel like a fool trying to center myself here in the middle of my living room. Some days the symmetry of my body calms me. Some days (and they've gotten rarer and rarer as he gets older), Ben call me in to nurse him back to sleep. It's amazing how fast the milk flows when I'm in the middle of yoga. The interruption used to annoy me, but now I'm more aware of how fleeting these deep needs of his are, and how much I'll miss them as he outgrows them.

Then more computer. Maybe I'll give Danny a call. Maybe I'll open up a book of poems and read a few. But soon he's up for good. "Mommy come," he calls.

House

2009-04-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

I want a house. I've always wanted one. A garden, a porch, quiet, space. A house of my own. I have the family for it. I enough stuff to fill a house. But we live in a one bedroom apartment. It's cozy, it's easy to clean, and most important, it makes it possible for me to stay at home with Ben, and for us to live near our parents. You have to have a zillion dollars to afford a house here, and we're staying put, so who knows about this house thing. Usually I'm OK with it. After all, I've lived in apartments all my life. Sometimes I imagine house-living and I feel afraid of being too far away from everyone, of somehow losing the closeness we have now.

Usually I'm OK with it, but last night was one of those nights where I wasn't OK with it, and I lost some sleep. This happens every few months, when I realize that even when my kids are in school and I'm back to work, even when Danny gets his teaching license, even when our income increases, even then, we may never have a house. Neither of us want to work crazy hours, neither of us are in business. We both want time to do our art. And we happen to live in one of the wealthiest areas in the country. It's hard when you want it all.

But this morning, it didn't matter. There was rain outside the window, legos on the coffee table (which doubles as the toy chest), art at the kitchen table (which doubles as the lunch table, the writing table, the bill paying table), our plants on the windowsill, and the knowledge that life is long, complicated, and full of surprises.

Days of Red and Pink

2009-04-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

Small hands making pink.

Red shred of shirt.

Camouflaged copy of The Comstock Review, in which my poem "Milk Dreams," appears.

Mr. Ben

2009-04-07T08:47:00.000-07:00

Ben’s on a Mr. Book kick. He likes their small size and the goofy, but charming pictures. Danny was saying that these books appeal to the collector in kids, and it’s true. Ben and I spend a bunch of time looking at the back of the books with the picture-lists of all the different “Mr’s.” When we found Danny’s collection of Mr. Books in his mother’s attic, Ben was blown away.

Somehow, Ben tolerates the stories in the books. Some are better than others (Mr. Busy is the best I’ve read so far), but they’re kind of boring, clunky to read, and very predictable. They did inspire a little Mr. story from Ben, in which “Mr. Ben” and several other Mr. characters go to Home Depot to ride the elevators and look at toilets.

I’ve been rereading Victoria Redel’s two books of poems, Already the World, and Swoon. Both gorgeous books that I highly recommend. I was particularly moved by her poem “Where She Goes,” from Swoon. I’ve been thinking about divorce, single-mothering, and children, so it struck a chord.

Where She Goes

After he takes them for his Sunday and she is alone,
free, the envy of the married mothers,

the envy of herself all the fetch-them-home-
from-school days of the week—she rides the train

down to stores lazy with out-till-dawn girls
who call her Honey. She lets them dress her up.

These never-sleep girls declare her fierce
in a satin halter and pants. I’m someone’s mother, she says,

holding up softened breasts. Don’t even tell us, they say zipping
her into something once all too alive.

It’s one o’clock. She does what they tell her.
There are five hours left.

She waits all day to call the kids to say good night.

Write That Down

2009-04-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

Soon after his second birthday, Ben became obsessed with drawing pictures. I'd spend long stretches at the kitchen table watching him. To make conversation, I started asking him what he was drawing. He was so quick to respond: "star train track," "so many people in the rain," "people and ladybugs." I began writing his titles on the pictures and putting them on the wall opposite his chair. I remember one day after dinner, the wall now completely full of pictures, and Ben narrating, "There's the zoo train picture. So many stickers. There's Grandpa Les eating so much fruit. You made those pictures. Mommy put them on the wall."

Soon his pictures became more elaborate and I realized he was telling stories. So I began to write those down too. I asked him if he wanted to write a book, and he said "Yes!" It all made sense. He would get into drawing a certain kind of picture, and draw several of them. I would write down the "story" of each picture and staple it together.

Now he has three books: Les is Outside, Myla When She Was a Little Girl, and At the Fair in Great Neck. The process has been very rough, of course. There are days that I feel excited to start writing, and he's not into it. Or he wants to draw an unrelated picture, or "mess up" (in my opinion, of course) one of the existing pictures for the book. The best is when he grabs my notepad and writes his own "letters" on it, making it very difficult for me to read what I've written. But the best thing so far is when he began to request that I write something down. "It's spring and summer and Ben is squinting in the sun . . . write that down," he said one morning while I was making breakfast. I rushed into the room. I was breathless with joy.

My little writer boy. Who would have thought.

My Two Beauties

2009-03-30T11:52:00.000-07:00

The Blue-Black Light

2009-03-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

I wanted to blog again, but so much had changed. I didn't want to betray my old self, the poet-girl who taught college classes in NYC, lived in Brooklyn, loved the hustle and bustle, her morning tea, staring out the red curtains of her office window. So much had changed. So much has changed. It has taken me these past two years to settle into my new life. Now I can say it: all I want is this. Motherhood, mothering, mama mama. It is all I ever wanted, and I care little if I ever teach again, submit my work, write a poem. And of course, I have written, submitted. It's all happening, maybe better than before, maybe not. We live in Queens now, in a smaller apartment to save expenses, no office for me, no time at the morning window. And yet, and yet.

I wanted to start blogging again to record this life. Our hours together. The art, the books, the talks. I am listening to his poems, and I am writing them down. Then, after I nurse him to sleep in the blue-black light, I am writing my own.

All Day He is Making Art

2009-03-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

A Yellow Ben Going Down a Slide

Play-doh Snowman #1

Multimedia

Little Painter Boy, Thinking

Play-doh Snowman #2

Mother World

2009-03-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

Ben's universe is completely mother-centric. The cups he is stacking are little Bens and the big blue one is Mommy. Our plant is Mommy and all the buds are little Bens waiting to be born. We have a mommy penguin but we lost the baby penguin. Yesterday Ben said, "The mommy penguin misses her baby." Every baby doll in the house is named Ben. All the mommies give their babies milk. And not just the mammals, either. My mom told Ben that ducks don't nurse their young, but he didn't care. All the ducks, all the penguins, the lizards, the dinosaurs -- they all nurse, and I bet if I asked him their names, Ben would say "Ben."

I wonder when this will change. I wonder when he will sit alone on a tree like Little Bear, and begin to stare at the wide, wide world. Will find a friend like Emily? Will they play until summer is over? And after she leaves, tears on his cheeks, will he crawl into my lap for comfort, to rest awhile?