Not the Best, But Still...

Since becoming homeowners a few years ago, we have been big fans of thrifty grocery shopping. Always generic brand. Always what's on sale. No more giving into hummus cravings (unless it's on sale, of course.) Lately, as we're looking to buy again, we've become even more strict.

First was the day old bread bin, then came the rack 'o dented cans. And last night, we found ourselves picking through the produce aisle's version of dented cans. I think we actually may have bought these apples for the sticker alone:

The Weekend

It's quarter 'till eleven on Sunday night and I'm shaking my head. This was not a weekend. It can't have been. Aren't weekends supposed to be, I don't know, relaxing? Or at the very least, a least a break from the monotony of the five days pressed between them?

Sure, sure, children didn't have school and teachers didn't have to teach and most 9-5'ers didn't have to punch the clocks. Even my father was puttering around the house in his standard weekend attire (saggy jogging suit that's thinning through at the knees and elbows circa 1987 and tube socks) and my mother was busy cleaning things that have since been crumb scattered and fingerprint smeared by my son. So, yes, I concede that this was a weekend for most everyone else.

But for me? This was not a weekend. And I blame my husband.

After much loving encouragement (or nagging, depending on who you ask), my husband applied for a promotion within his company and was (as I assured him he would be) quickly accepted and promoted. Two weeks ago he began his wonderful new job, with the wonderful new salary (and the wonderfully longer commute), and a new schedule to settle into.

This new schedule requires him to work at least one weekend day most every week of the year. Or, as was the case for these past two weeks, *both* weekend days.

I understand that there are sacrifices to be made, and I understand that this is really the result of my prodding him to "move up" and away from his comfy, predictable position where he had hired someone to work the weekends for him.

It's not that I regret my nudging him forward - it was a shift that was inevitable in the long run, and when better to do it than at a time when we are homeless and could really use the money? But still, for me a weekend just isn't a weekend without having him in the same space as me, whether it be in a car, a house, a hotel or a trailer (which is becoming an even more appealing option the longer we stay at my parents house. The jogging suit is really not pretty.)

And...Exhale

We have a heartbeat.

A strong 157 bpm.

We're still not out of the woods that is the first trimester, but I finally feel as though I can be open about what's happening in my life without sounding like The Girl Who Cried Pregnant.

Now, with this weight off of my mind, I hope to start carefully laying down all of the sweet little moments I've been hoarding for the past few weeks. More to come.

But for tonight, it's me and my bed.

157.

What a great number.

Boo

In response to LJ's gentle nudge (Ok, Mella where ARE you?), I suppose it's time to pull back the covers on this blog-thing and see what unfolds. I've been here yet not for weeks now. Going on a month. Not only here, this small sliver of blogdom where I hide spectacularly ordinary tidbits of my days, but everywhere. Dishes have been left to my husband. The Boss has been tugging harder and harder at my sleeves and pants, desperate to pull me down from the couch. My inbox has been filling daily, read (mostly), but rarely responded to. My cellphone hasn't been charged in weeks.

I've been absent. Moreso, absentminded.

It's not that I haven't been inspired (often), or that I haven't been going through the motions of socializing and cooking and revising stories and enjoying life - it's just that there's been too much I've been unable to say. And, since I have eschewed the luxury of anonymity here, I simply stopped. I thought I would step away until I could return completely open, rather than focus my (limited) energies on carefully constructing little entries about the things floating in my periphery.

Like how my son has become increasingly independant, and an avid climber. He wrestles from my hugs in favor of chasing after the cat with a ball, or to climb on top of his toychest and bang on the windows, (terrorizing the birds nibbling on the feeder.) But just as I start to feel dejected and unwanted, he'll toddle over with an outstretched hand and a twisted look on his face, tug on my pants and push whatever unwanted thing he's put in his mouth out for me to take care of. And I do, gladly, wipe the stale cheerio or mushy cracker from his lips, so happy to still be needed.

Life's been like that for the past few wordless weeks. Little moments lurking around this larger, unspoken lifeforce.

Tomorrow we go to see if this lifeforce has a heartbeat of it's own. And then, whatever the outcome, I'll be able to breath (and write) easier.

A Day at the Park...

...is better than therapy.

Something's Awry

Something is confused. The sky perhaps? It's a dismal gray, though the lake is thawed and flowing and the thermometer is hinting at spring. A dozen crows have descended on the lawn. Their inky black feathers look shiny and wet, but there is no rain.

It's a Friday that's carrying the deadweight of a Monday. The very day is confused. Fitting for my mood.

A decade ago, her son was a brother to me, as much as she was a mother. Today he's sleeping on a futon in a friends trailer, hiding from the wife who stabbed him with scissors in the middle of the night. The woman who roped him with a child three years ago. The woman who beats him, then herself and blames him when the police come knocking. The woman who told him not to bother getting her anything on Valentines Day, because her boyfriend would take care of it.

This is how my dearest cousin has come to wake up, shivering for want of a blanket on a futon in a trailer.

This is how I've come to question where the sun is on this dreariest of Friday mornings.

I'm not saying...

That I can't sleep or eat or think or write. Or that I'm exhausted from running this old race. The one I know by heart, even by the twists of gravel beneath my feet.

I'm not saying that the sky hasn't been blue or that the sun hasn't been yolk-yellow-round and warm on my skin. (Though I may not have had time outside myself to notice.)

And, I'm not saying that we haven't been moving forward. Because we have. Oh, we've been ducking through houses, sticking our noses in other people's bathrooms and scrutinizing the size of their kitchens, all the while wondering if the bedroom is big enough to fit our amoire.

I've been there. Pointing at the cracks in their floor and breathing their cigarette haze.

Oh, I've been fully there.

But also not.

One Lap.

I'm not saying that my days haven't been busy - that I haven't been wiping cat vomit up with Bounty sheets and praying that the wet warmth of it in my palms doesn't make me gag. Or that I haven't been pacing laps around the living room with my son's precious head in the crook of my neck, smelling like cereal, always.

Or that we haven't been building worlds with toys and blocks. We stack them together and he destroys them - always with gusto. Bravado. And a solid shriek of satisfaction.

Oh, yes, I've been busy.

But not enough.

Two laps.

For all that I'm not saying. That I can't say.

Know that I'm here.

And yet not.

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes. ~Theodore Dreiser, 1900

The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. ~Ray Bradbury

It's late and I'm flipping through quotes online to satisfy my hunger for words strung together just-so.

I'm sitting in my in-laws family room, avoiding bed and writing and the college basketball game that has entranced my husband and father-in-law. Too tired to write. Too tired to sleep (clarification: too tired to untangle the clump of thoughts that pesters me each night as I attempt to sleep.)

Mostly, I'm regretting that I neglected to pack a book.

Revelations of a Stay-at-Home-Mom

It occurred to me today that I might be a more interesting person now that I spend my days at home practicing toddler-talk and cleaning diapers than I was when I dressed nice and worked forty-hours a week in an office.

My life before meeting The Boss was a simple routine. Wake up (grudgingly), start coffee, take shower, commute with the husband to my soul-sucking office job (to "pay the bills" -darn you "Communication Arts" degree and double-darn you, Sallie Mae.)

After work, we commuted home, occasionally stopping off at the local grocery store for a loaf of fresh bread, but otherwise, it was directly to the condo for an evening of dinner/tv/treadmill/sit and watch tv until one of us was jolted awake by a commercial and dragged the other to the bedroom. Homework fit in there somewhere, but I can't honestly remember where.

Riveting.

I'll be the first to admit that my first few months of being home were abysmal. I'd just had a baby, survived the holidays and started graduate school in the span of two weeks. My body and my brain were in shock. I spent the majority of the first month alone in the condo with the baby and VH1/Food Network/OnDemand keeping me company. It was January in New England, too cold to leave the condo and I was too tired and sleep deprived to do much of anything in the condo. (Including, laundry, dishes, showering, getting dressed...pretty much anything. Not a pretty sight.)

In the past year though, I've grown more comfortable in this stay-at-home skin. Each day lived outside of an office is filled with just as much work (moreso, perhaps, considering the amount of effort I expended for a paycheck, compared to what I do now for free), more eye-opening experiences, more time for writing, and just as much to talk about. Even better, our conversations carry more weight than office politics or gossip or discussions around whatever the talk-radio host said on our commute home.

The television remains off during the day and we listen to music. It's not so much that I worry about the brain-sucking effects of that glowing screen - it's more that I have just found myself so utterly bored with it. Aside from a very select few programs that my husband and I watch after The Boss goes to bed, I don't watch it.

Reading books. Writing (here, there and elsewhere.) Cooking. Raising my son. This has been what I've been doing for the past few months.

But, I've come to the realization that this is short - this part of my life. This momentary freedom, where I'm not tied to offices or classrooms and I'm able to write. Able to spend time with my son. Able to read during a naptime.

Life moves quickly, and I will need to be back at work sooner rather than later. But, there's much to accomplish before then. There are stories to be written, to be submitted (published, perhaps?) A son to explore with. Hopefully more children to carry and cuddle and adventure out into the world with.

Oh yes, there's plenty to do, paycheck or not.

Better get to work.