The Lemon Tree

Every winter, just down the block, in a glass store front, a lemon tree blooms. You walk by day after day, and then suddenly, lemons--fat and heavy--and you wonder when they appeared; you wonder how the plant could have flowered and become fruit while you were doing little more than knocking ice off your boots and longing for spring. And one day, you just stand there; maybe your baby is in your arms or you're holding your love's hand or maybe you're alone, happily alone, and you can almost smell it, and you just know that if you were behind the glass you'd become absolutely intoxicated with the scent, heady with the citrus, and lemons, you say, right here in Brooklyn, and you hope you keep noticing them; you hope that every time you walk by you remember this feeling that's rising inside you and that the lemons won't disappear--that you won't let them disappear--as suddenly, and desperately, as they appeared.

Day 60: Batteries Not Included

My mother says that in the last days she and my father were together he gave her some of the best advice she ever received. He was talking about me, still so very small, and Mary, he said, she's not a doll. You can't just take her down and play with her when you feel like it. Of course I thought of this on Monday when--after a very failed movie attempt with friends--we came home to play dress-up. Yes, my father's advice is sound advice, but can't a girl have a little fun?

Eva as 1950's pull-my-string doll:
"ma-ma, ma-ma."
Can't you just hear it?

Eva as groovy Peruvian my other-car-is-a-snowboard doll:
Eva as preppy jock doll:
Eva as ballerina-bird-with-bow doll flying through the blue, blue sky:

While she may not be a doll, she sure does look like one.

Tits Only

Wandering around the breastfeeding store yesterday, I saw the onesie: "TITS ONLY," it read, and hmm, I thought, wow, tits only. That's one way of putting it.

I must admit that in the past eight weeks I've felt like little more than a gigantic boob. Baby crying? Give her the boob. Baby gnawing on hand? Boob time. Baby licking her lips? Pass the milk, please.

And maybe it's just me (like when you buy an El Camino and then see them everywhere), but I also feel like breastfeeding is all over the news. It's apparently no longer allowed to post breastfeeding pictures on Facebook (as if I want Tom Ford from eleventh grade English seeing that much of me. Sorry Tom!). Then there was the whole pumping story in the New Yorker which gave fodder to intellectual mom's groups everywhere. And just yesterday, on cnn.com, a whole slew of "ireporters" were giving their two cents about breastfeeding in public.

It's funny because in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, you're more likely to be looked down upon for pulling a bottle out in a restaurant than a boob. Really. Everyone gets very sanctimonious about breastfeeding, and while I know "breast is best," I can't help but look in the mirror at my formula-fed self and over at my formula-fed husband and around at my many formula-fed friends and wonder about all the hullabaloo. I know women who put themselves through inordinate amounts of pain (the woman who had her inverted nipples "sucked out" before leaving the hospital comes to mind) and still feel self-conscious about not being uber-feeders.

I could go on and on (but baby needs boob!). Anyone want to shed a little light on this? How do you feel about breastfeeding in public? Breastfeeding on Facebook? Breastfeeding in general? I know your formula-fed minds are IQ-deficient but surely you can think of something!

New Mom Porn

Man chopping vegetables while holding baby.
Does it get any sexier?

Day 55

And just like everybody else in Brooklyn, she dreams of spring, even though she's never known it, even though all she's ever known is winter with its crunch of snow and screaming tea kettles. I try to tell her about spring: how the layers peel off and the birds go wild, how the cherry blossoms explode and the sun never seems to set, but she wails, inconsolably, so certain it'll be winter forever, so sure we'll be sitting in this house staring out the windows until we're as old and gray as the sky. How can you believe what you've never known? Sunflowers, I tell her, as big as your head! And tulips--everywhere--the streets littered with their petals. But she is tired and unbelieving, so I bounce her, rock her, bounce her. Hush, I say, and over and over I tell her, spring will be here soon, hoping she believes me, hoping I'm right.

What the Doctor Said

Doctor, doctor, I said, it hurts when I do this.

Do what?

Do this, doctor. It hurts so bad. So bad!

Doctor says, Well, don't do it.

Such was my conversation with the gyn yesterday. And what, you may wonder, was I referring to? Getting on the scale! Oh that lousy scale!

But doctor, I said, I have to!

No, you don't.

But what about the Amanda Carona Challenge, doctor? What about the millions of Blue Pitcher fans out there who are a Twinkie away from falling off the WWagon?

They'll live, she said, or didn't say, but might have said. Actually, all she told me was to stop weighing myself. Give yourself a break until the birdie's got wings. Woman, I wanted to say, I've got wings!!! Have you checked out my triceps lately?

And such is my dilemma. Here, in my winged-Bovine state, I'm wondering what to do. Anyone wanna weigh in on this ridiculously vain topic?

Shout-Out for the Future

Weigh-In Monday

Okay, so yesterday, i.e. weigh-in Monday, I was not doing my usual jaunt down to WW. Nope, I was sitting in Joy's Country Skillet about three hours outside of New York watching through a greasy window as the snow fell and having this conversation:

Hubs: What do you think is worse--a Waffle with two eggs and bacon or a grilled pastrami and swiss with fries?

Me: Worse?

Hubs: You know, the most points.

Hmm...Meanwhile, I was wondering if the meatloaf was made with lean meat. (Don't worry--I didn't ask!) So...there are no weigh-in results. I seemed a bit down on my own scale (I opted for a bowl of Beef Barley & a Greek Salad), but, I've never been one to count my chickens (or maybe I am: about a point an ounce), or for that matter, my chicken fried steak (about a million points an ounce).

In other news, Eva and I have a giant playdate to watch the inauguration today. Yes, it's true: one can simultaneously breastfeed and watch history unfold. And here I had started to think of myself as a one-trick pony!

Day 50

(All love and sleep and diapers and eating and smiles
and love.)

Catch

Makes me wish I didn't throw like a girl.
From here.

The Visitor

She buzzed twice. Of course, she buzzed; she hardly knows me; she wouldn't know the buzzer's broken. Then, she knocked. Hard. I finally answered, wrapped in a bath towel, holding a screaming baby in my arms. I'm a few minutes early, she said, and it was true, just three minutes, but early. I imagined all I could have done in that three minutes.

I handed her the baby and went upstairs to put on clothes. Make yourself at home, I yelled. She's nineteen weeks pregnant. I wanted her to meet the bird, wanted to show her how easy it can all be. On the computer, on a yellow sticky, were notes for an essay I've been working on, an essay on class and money that chronicles the week's news stories and interweaves them with my own life. The news stories were as follows:

Sold daughter for beer
Virginity for 3.7 million
Crashed plane for 4 million

I hadn't realized. She was looking at the sticky when I came down. Eva had settled. I looked at the sticky, laughed. For a story, I said, and she nodded. Some guy in California, I explained. It's not like I'd sell my daughter for beer. I sounded ridiculous, sounded like I was lying, like I was a six-pack away from child slavery. Nor, I said, kissing my daughter on the head, am I a virgin!

Maybe this is what happens when you're tired and trying to write, trying to act like you're still the person you were before your life got totally turned around.

I wanted to bring flowers, the visitor said, and a gift. I'm a wreck, she said. And then, it was out there, and it was good: we were both wrecks, absolute wrecks. So we sat in the kitchen on the cold winter day, and we ate watermelon, and then we danced around with the bird singing You are my sunshine, until finally Eva slept and the visitor said goodbye, and I was left with my computer, trying to make sense of this new world that I have somehow--albeit very sleepily-- woken up in.

A Ten Dollar Bet & A Dream

So, thirty-five years ago today, my love was born. His dad bet his mom ten bucks he'd be a boy, and even though rumor has it that his mother never paid up, I sure am glad he was right. 7 pounds, 11 ounces. When Eva yawns, she looks just like him, and when I look at her feet, I think about how his feet were once that small. This time last year, we were newlyweds, and I couldn't imagine loving him more. Now, even when I'm half-crazed from no sleep and bouncing the baby up and down so she won't cry, even when I'm standing in the kitchen hooked to the breast pump and haven't showered in at least day, I feel such an intense love for him that I can't remember my life without him. So, happy birthday, my love. I sure am glad you don't read this blog because I know how you feel about sap...

Weigh-In Monday

Hot dog!!!
(Actually, make that: Hot-98-percent-fatfree-beef-franks!)
Mama's down 1.6.

You?

Until Next Christmas

Goodbye beautiful ballerina princess!

Now, to haul the dead tree down the block for mulching...

Day 40

Your feet, Eva, are the length of my thumbs, and your eyelashes are pale as snowflakes, and your breath is all sweetmilklove. Your cry, Eva, a rare bird--heartbreaking; your fingers, elegant fish; your eyes, deep sky.

Forty days you've been with us.

Forty days and forty nights, and this morning, I stared down at you, and my throat caught my breath, like it does these mornings with you, and the afternoons, the evenings; caught it like one of those pretty dreamcatchers I used to hang over my bed, and, in that moment, I wanted only that moment; in that moment, I knew of nothing else that would ever make me feel so utterly complete.

Lovely, Lovely Letters

Check this out.

Things I Thought I'd Never Do

1) Call my husband "Daddy."

2) Sit in the backseat with the baby.

3) Write Thank-You Notes in the voice of the child.

Dear NaNa,

Thanks so much for the pony!
I can't wait to feel the wind in my hair
when I ride it!
I love you. Come to Brooklyn soon.

Eva Jane

(Alas, motherhood seems to be getting the best of me...)

Back on the WWagon

WWell, WWell, WWell, it's that time of year again: time for the annual Amanda Carona Challenge. Who, you may ask, is Amanda Carona? WWell folks, she's the woman who, on the night of my senior prom, almost two decades ago--after a trip to the Steak & Ale, a boatload of Purple Passion and some awfully awkward slow dancing with a boy I thought I could love--showed me the ultimate high school kindness: she held my hair back.

And now, Amanda has seventeen pounds to lose, and I've got a stack of baby weight to shed, and Holly wants to rid herself of the last 42 pounds, and Erryn's ready and willing, and I'm sure there's a whole nother slew of you out there who dipped a little too far into the cookie jar, so this is your chance to make it known.
In twenty minutes, I'm making the long slow walk down Court Street and hopping on the Weight Watchers scale. A point will no longer be something scored in a football game or a specific idea I'm trying to edge into a conversation; instead, a point will become a complex calculation of calories, fat and fiber, a number given to every imaginable food by the powers that be over at Weight Watchers.

Every Monday, I'll post my progress here (& on Amanda's blog), and every Monday, I hope you will too. I'm starting at X, and I'm hoping in fifteen or so Mondays to be at X-15. Use a pseudonym if you wish (i.e. BabyWeight44), but please people, let's do this together. I don't care if you have two pounds to lose (you'll still have to maintain!) or two hundred; we'll have a Monday accountability group. It's not about WW; it's about posting our progress. All this time in cyberspace: it's time we started getting a little something back from our virtual world.

So who's in?

Outings

I've been taking Eva for long walks. We wander around to the flower shop where the Italian men marvel at how small she is and slip me pink boxes filled with silver saints to protect her, then we go past the diner, and the old ladies warn me about how time will fly, how before we know it Eva will have abandoned me, and I'll be sitting with them sucking back stale coffee and supping on soft toast.

Yesterday, huge flakes of snow fell, and we strolled past the Brooklyn Casket Company and along the Gowanus Canal then through Park Slope, passing shops that sell only cupcakes and shops that sell only cards. Eva was wide-eyed, and I told her stories about snow, how her daddy loves it, how he makes pancakes the first snow every year, how some people go their whole lives without seeing it and some have a hundred words just to describe it.

Once the wind picked up, we ducked into the tea shop to meet Zoe and Anna, and it felt good: Anna, just nine days older than Eva; Zoe, just as tired as I am. On the way home, Eva slept, and my fingers got cold, and I sang This Little Bird of Mine. The silver saint, tucked in my pocket, knocked against the walls of the cardboard box, and I wondered what it would protect us from, hoped it would protect us from griefs we would never have to know.

Still Life with Cabbage Roses

Looking through pictures from the hospital, I found one of Eva where her head is smaller than a cabbage rose. Already she looks so different, already I've thrown out those roses and washed the vase and put in lilies and thrown those out too.

Yesterday, she cried inconsolably for what seemed like hours. Finally, I just sat on the bed and cried with her. It was dark, and C. came in and took her from me.

Now, You are my Sunshine pours from the speakers, and it's the second day of the new year. Seems we're all a little tired around here, and while a whole sea of steeped cinnamon tea won't change that, I still find myself brewing cup after cup. Surely it doesn't hurt.

Hello?

(Can you hear me now?)