Why I love November

A year ago today, I was just over 13 weeks pregnant with Lulu and things were looking up. We'd survived the tumultuous first trimester, which included one daily dose of Prometrium, two subchorionic hematomas, three weeks of bed rest, and no fewer than five middle-of-the-night E.R. visits.

A year ago, I was moving into the very brief sweet spot of my pregnancy, which consisted of the month of November and no more. The hematomas went away. I was let off bed rest. The nausea had abated and I felt suddenly, voraciously great. I felt so great that I tiled my kitchen. I found out at 15 weeks that I was having a girl, and J.D. and I wrote her name on the old linoleum floor before we laid the last tile, sealing her into our lives forever. We announced my pregnancy to friends and I basked in the glow of a thousand well wishes via loving Facebook comments. We rented a cabin in the Shenandoah Valley and made plans to spend Thanksgiving there--our first Thanksgiving alone, together, in seven years of marriage.

By December, it had all gone to shit again. I was diagnosed with cervical insufficiency and put on bed rest again, for the duration of my pregnancy. There was suddenly all this talk about cerclages, prematurity, birth defects, underdeveloped lungs. There was a lot of worry and heartache and stress. But man--November was awesome. I wish it could have been November for nine months straight.

Last November, I saw my baby's face for the first time. It was pretty much the awesomest November ever.


Except for this one.

New Tricycle

The Ideal

Yesterday, Lindsey wrote a beautiful post on the importance of fairy tales for children. This morning, I posted on Twitter about Joy curling up with her favorite book of fairy tales. I've been thinking a lot lately about various quotes regarding fairy tales -

Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticised elfland, but elfland that criticised the earth. I knew the magic beanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon. This was at one with all popular tradition. Modern minor poets are naturalists, and talk about the bush or the brook; but the singers of the old epics and fables were supernaturalists, and talked about the gods of brook and bush. That is what the moderns mean when they say that the ancients did not “appreciate Nature,” because they said that Nature was divine. Old nurses do not tell children about the grass, but about the fairies that dance on the grass; and the old Greeks could not see the trees for the dryads. -GK Chesterton

But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening. And, as I am always telling you, the most wonderful things happen to all sorts of people, only you never hear about them because the people think that no one will believe their stories, and so they don’t tell them to any one except me. And they tell me, because they know I can believe anything. -E Nesbit

Fantasy is hardly a way of escaping from reality; it's a way of understanding it. -Lloyd Alexander

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. -CS Lewis

And Chesterton again -

Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed. -GK Chesterton

I love fairy tales, and always have. I bitterly resented the stupid English prof in college who tried to convince us that they were all a result of suppressed sexual desires (he said that about EVERYTHING we studied in that class - dude had issues), because there is so much richness to be found in their depths, richness that is missed when you focus solely on the secret message of Red Riding Hood's red cloak.

I also get frustrated with people who are only familiar with the Disney-fied version of fairy tales, and judge them all based on that. Dismiss them, really. Well, sure, when the only message you get out of fairy tales is that you need to have big eyes and a tiny waist and win your prince to be happy, I agree that they're a load of crap and our kids shouldn't be wasting their time on them.

But the originals have so much more. Did you know, in the original version of The Little Mermaid, the sea-witch wasn't evil, the mermaid didn't win the prince, and her sister sacrificed their greatest beauty - their hair - in order to have her turned into sea foam instead of just becoming nothing? It is, at its heart, a story about love and sacrifice, both love between a man and woman, and love between families - and the message is, the love between family is the strongest.

Awesome.

So I give my littles fairy tales to read. I don't encourage them to dream of being princesses in pink frothy gowns and sparkly shoes (though Joy at least does really love her sparkly shoes), but I encourage them to think of things like honor and courage, sacrifice and love, honesty and nobility. These are the themes I have always found wound throughout fairy tales, the idea of an Ideal, something that can and should be sought and aspired to.

I have one full shelf on my bookcases of fairy tale collections, not just the traditional European tales I grew up reading, but Russian fairy tales, Japanese fairy tales, and more. Every time I see any collection of tales at a garage or library sale, I snatch it up. I was my girls to be able to experience the tales from many cultures, to learn without having to be taught what ideals are universal, and which ones are specific to cultures, and to learn about other peoples simply by the stories that shape them.

Disney? Not so much.

Unless we're talking Mulan or Belle. One fights in her father's stead, and one loves books. Now those are heroines worth emulating.

Joy showing me something in her fairy tale book this morning.

One word

This weekend, we had a lot going on. Family in town, Lulu's christening, the tail end of a fall clean... On Friday, I was sorting through baby clothes to send to Adrienne when I heard it. A small voice babbling, and then the babble resolving itself into two syllables that sent a jolt of recognition through me.

Ma. Ma.

At first I thought it was a fluke, but Lulu did it again, haltingly, and then again, growing more confident each time.

Ma. Mamamama. Ma, ma.
Mama.

I don't think she knew what she was saying. I don't think she was calling out to me or anything like that. Lu was playing with her toys, totally oblivious to me standing a foot away. But still, my heart was full. I'd dreamed my whole life of hearing some small creature say that word, and from the first moment I saw Lulu's face, when they handed her to me for that brief moment before taking her down to the NICU, I'd wondered how it would sound coming out of her own particular mouth. So when I finally did hear it, my eyes brimmed.

Not because of the word she'd chosen--well, not only because of that--but because it was the first real word she'd ever said, and when she said it, I couldn't help but think of all of the other words she'll say in her life. I like this. I want that. I love you. This word was the first in an impossibly long string.

I won't be privy to all the words she'll say in her life, but I was there to hear her first word. I was there at the start.

All weekend, as I cooked and cleaned and wrapped presents and laughed with friends and family, I kept hearing it, from across the room. Mama? Mama!



Each time, just in case, I called back, "Hi, baby. Mama's here."

Just a Happy Day

I half suspect we are going to have a very nasty and long winter. What other explanation is there for this glorious weather we've been having - in November of all months?

Sunshine and 60 degrees today, and enough leftovers from last night's supper that I didn't need to cook. What other excuse did I need to spend most of the day outside with the littles?

While Grace napped today, I dragged Joy's table and chair out and we did school outside. HOMESCHOOLING baby, oh yeah! You're not a real homeschooler until you've done school outside. True dat.

I even brought my tea outside. Black dragon pearl tea. The perfect thing to drink on a sunny and crisp November day, outside watching my girls play.

(With handwarmers I knit myself, by the way. And don't you like my nail polish? It sparkles. Oh yeah.)

After Grace woke up from her nap and we all had lunch we came back out - OH.

Wait.

Before I get to that, I have to tell this.

After Joy and I finished school, I came inside to make lunch. Joy wasn't ready yet, so after very carefully pacing out the boundaries in the backyard of where she could and couldn't go, I let her stay outside.

FIRST TIME EVER.

I mean, I've let her play outside on her own at my parents' house before, but they live out in the country, and there are usually other adults around to glance out the windows at her and keep an ear open. This is the first time I've been brave enough to trust her to stay in her limits and not kill herself or get kidnapped by some creeper swooping down out of the sky.

Of course, I compulsively crept from window to window to watch her, but I didn't let her know she was being watched, and she was pretty proud of herself. I was proud of myself, too.

And then, of course, she came to the door and said, "Mamma, I saw a SNAKE! And I said, 'hi, snake,' and watched it go off in the leaves. It was yellow and green and a BIG mama snake."

I gulped, told her she was good to stay back and not try to touch it or follow it, and then came in and Googled snakes native to NY state.

It was a garter snake. Phew.

Anyway, after Grace got up, we all came back outside, and I stood back and watched the girls play together. Lots of giggles.

Joy usually leads the way.

But never think Grace doesn't have a mind of her own.

Most of the time, Joy accepts that. With a few reminders from Mamma, of course (hey, I'm a younger sister, too).

It's been awfully generous of Mother Nature to give us these golden days now. We can pull out the memory of them later, in February, when it seems that the world has always been and will always be cold and grey and bleak.

Thank you, Mother Nature, dear!

ETA: so I wrote this post yesterday; this morning, Carl had to pull a tick out of my back. IF you are going to spend a happy day outside playing in the leaves, please make sure to check you and your kids all over when you're done. I erroneously thought the frosty night would have driven them all into the ground; obviously there are one or two still left in the leaf piles.

One less, now.

Four Years Ago Today

... I became a mother for the first time.

And the wonder of it has never left me.

Happy Birthday, my Joy! May you continue to grow strong and sweet and brave and truthful and all the wonderful things you already are. I love you, and am so privileged to be your mamma. Or mam-MO, as you sometimes call me.

But I Get Up Again

I love this series of photos. Not just because it shows my daughter loving something I also love (I dreamed of going to the Olympics for figure skating when I was a girl, but alas - I had no talent and no money) (ok, to be just, I am a decent ice dancer, but I didn't discover that until I was sixteen, too old to try to pursue it seriously), and doing it better than I could dream, but because it shows her persistence. Fall down, try to get up, stagger, keep trying, and then - Up on her feet and ready to go again!

She is determined, my Joy. She doesn't quit. Sometimes, like when she is doing something she oughtn't, this frustrates me, but most of the time, I am thankful for it. I am too prone to give up on things after a while - I get bored, or discouraged (usually discouraged) at lack of progress, or I look around at other people and see how much better they are doing at something, so why should I even try?

Not Joy. She keeps her eyes on the goal, and sticks with it.

And she looks stinkin' cute while doing so.

(Note for anyone concerned - when Joy starts taking skating lessons, i.e. skating on the ice without me or her aunt close nearby to keep an eye on her, she will wear a helmet. Her brains are too precious to me to risk! For right now, though, it's still safe. Especially since the very first thing I taught her after she learned how to move forward on the ice was how to fall safely. So please don't send CPS after me.)