Nearly New!

It is hard to believe this year is coming to an end and 2010 is so close on the horizon, barely peeking over the edge with its inherent possibilities and resolutions.

A recap seems fitting here, if only because I won't remember everything unless I write it down.

So, here's 2009 in a nutshell:

*First time since college without an employer and caring for a child (my child!) full-time. (Yep, it's not the same as being a nanny.) :)

*Winter/Spring was really tough. Too many doctor's visits and not enough hand washing.

*Summer was glorious. Gl-or-i-ous. Camping, hiking, beach combing, sunset watching, picnics, sunning, swimming, romping through parks. Deception Pass, Camano Island, San Juan Island (saw a beautiful pod of Orca Whales here), San Diego, Whidbey, Vashon, Bainbridge, Port Orchard, the Peninsula, ferry rides and car rides and a couple of plane rides. Lots of moments to stare out a rolled down window after a day in the sun. The best summer in a long time. Long days rule.

*Started running again! Woot! I'm excited to start again sometime next year.

*Started a novel. Still just 92 pages and counting.

*Lots and lots of restlessness. Put our house on the market (whew, that was a lot of work). Thought we'd move to an island, but didn't.

*Cora turned TWO. We partied with her animals for two months prior while listening to thousands of replays of "Happy Birthday."

*Got pregnant with #2. Yippee!

*Cooked up a storm. I love to cook.

*Rarely managed to stay within my food budget.

Which is a good intro to resolutions for 2010:

*Stick to a brand new food budget and still eat nutritious, organic food. (I am way too embarrassed to state how much we've managed to spend per month on multiple occasions; let's just say I am trying to cut it by 1/3 and eventually in half.) Consequently, I've been combing through online resources searching for the answers. I swear, I think I'm going to create an Excel file with all our foods listed out with prices next to them. No more impulse buying. No more dark chocolate and sea salt covered almonds just because they sound lovely. It has to be on The List. The Grocery List. The One I Will Hold True and Dear. I want the money we save to be a bonus, an unexpected extra amount we can reroute to other places--savings, debts, vacations, whatever. I like that we eat well; I don't like that it feels like our money gets eaten and thrown away.

*This means I need to be one of those extremely organized go-getters who makes menus and lists and shops for deals and buys in bulk and cooks nearly everything from scratch. Repeatedly. While I do cook a lot of things from scratch, the uber-organized menu-making diva thing doesn't come naturally, as I am sure I have stated before. This is not typically my personality. While I do consider price and budget, I like to browse and buy when it comes to food. However, I am going to do better. Much better. And so is Brian.

*Start a garden in our backyard.

*Invite people over more often.

*Start year 1 of our 4-1/2 year goal to become debt-free. For all you non-student-loan-bearing people, pat yourselves on the backs and be grateful. We are going to comb through our student loan debt and throw a big party in 4-5 years. I can't wait for that party. We'll serve over-the-top delicious food and beverages and give grand and glorious toasts. We'll wear top hats and sequins (ok, maybe not, but who knows?). We'll serve tiny little sandwiches and buttery crackers covered in salmon and watercress and creme fraiche and buy bottles and bottles of sparkly drinks. Our children will be 7 and 5, respectively, and we'll both be almost 38 years old, but for goodness sake, we won't owe anyone anything, except for this small thing called our mortgage.

*Maybe if I write about our budgeting/debt-paying experience, we'll have a better chance of sticking to our goals. Watch out, I might write about it here.

*Have a baby.

*Finish my novel.

*Start running again.

I feel very motivated. Spreadsheets and recipes and bulk foods, here I come. In these days of in-between holidays and New Year reflection, I am remembering how difficult it was last winter to reconcile myself to the fact that I was chopping off my salary and instead of portioning out thousands to their respective destination (nanny, mortgage, yardwork, savings), I needed to consider the dollars, the tens, the hundreds. It felt uncomfortable, pedantic and constraining. After a year of watching countless families suffer financial setbacks due to a recession and job losses, and experiencing everything I traded my salary for, I have a different frame of mind. I am so regretful that we didn't save every penny of my salary when we could, because lo and behold, we didn't need it. We just didn't know it back then. While I can't turn back time, I want to shake ourselves free of our student debt (oh what a mighty freedom that will be!), save as much as we can, continue to cook because we love to, and reap the rewards of being more conscientious about what we eat--and how much we spend on it. I want to simplify and prioritize. It feels like a new kind of freedom is ahead, one that is more directed and full of choice, less fractured by wanderlust and indecision.

Of course, not surprisingly, more than anything else this year, I am excited to meet our new family member in June. Will it be a girl? A boy? What kind of baby will it be? I've been imagining a bassinet by our bed, and the little form in there. Holy mole.

Lemon

I'm 14 weeks pregnant today and just read that the size of the baby is about 3-1/2 inches, close in size to a large lemon. I've felt it move for about two weeks, but only very intermittently.

Stretching, with Cookie--and Pictures

Cora just dropped off to sleep after many minutes of babbling and playing with her animals in her crib. Then she repeatedly announced "I'm all done sleeping!" until I went into her room and helped her settle down. This has become a trend the past few days. She waits for me to come in and rub her back until she's asleep. Soon her breathing becomes heavy and I creep out of her room.

Then I open this laptop and sit on the couch, enjoying the sight of our Christmas tree and the trees being buffeted by the wind outside our windows, and I try to get my brain moving. I eat a cookie. Or two. And sign into this blog.

Writing here is much more casual than writing a novel, for obvious reasons of course. I don't have to think about plot, or dialogue, or how to get from place to place. I'm not concerned about geography or personality quirks, or psychological issues. I don't get that hung up on grammar. Instead, I suppose I do a bit of what Cora does: I babble. This is my stretching session, I'm limbering up.

It's also my journal, or has become one. I used to write longhand in a journal every evening. I hope to begin that habit again because this isn't the same. No matter what, I know someone is reading this, and it's inhibiting. I don't feel like I can really go deep, explain my fears or vulnerabilities, the way I worry about the smallest things or can quickly be transported or made happy or upset by memories of moments that happened years ago.

So I decide to start small. Just write. And for the past several days I have started a writing session with the same sense of urgency and hope. Each day I manage to distract myself somehow--checking email, reading the news, checking favorite blogs. Today I made the grave mistake of looking at the Decade in Pictures slideshow featured on msnbc.com. Now I am so emotionally humbled by the images that I can hardly think. Once again I am reminded of the sheltered life we lead here in this house, the security and safety and calm, the daily focus on fostering happiness and love, of the teeny tiny little orb we fill on this rapidly changing planet. I am saddened and confused about how it's possible to be happy when so many are suffering. It goes against a connectedness I used to believe in as a child.

Tuesday

Until yesterday, it hadn't rained in 10 days. It was sunny and clear every day, and cold enough that everything was frozen. The air was crisp. There was clarity in the sky and air.

It wasn't until this morning that I looked out the window and realized how green it hasn't been without the rain.

The kitchen window is open and the sound of water pooling and falling is rhythmic. We don't have eaves; our windows get covered with water. I like to watch it hit the glass and merge into rivers. Rain is romantic.

I think I'm reaching a mid-Winter acceptance (appreciation?) of the rain. Does that make me a Seattleite?

I think it just means that going 10 days without something can help raise it back up to a romantic standard. I'll talk to you in another 10 days.

Cora's nanny share went well yesterday. She had a few breakdowns, mainly toward the middle and end of her three-hour stay, as she explained to me (in the third person) over lunch:

"Cora was yelling 'Mama! Mama! Mama!' but Mama no come knocking at the door." (Shaking head adamantly.)

That made me sad, but I was glad that she could communicate about it with me. I was also happy that when I arrived back at the congregation of cuteness (the three other girls in the nanny share are quite darling) she was more interested in staying and playing than leaving. She said she had a good time:

"We kicked the ball. Throw! Catch! Run run run! Ate snacks. Read stories. I went potty."

She's developed a small stammer the past week and seems to have the most difficulty with M, N, and D. It's very sweet ("M-m-m-m-ama sit d-d-own!"). I assume this is just one of the many phases of her speech, not a theme that will continue for too long.

Does parental worry ever end?

I started feeling the baby move about a week and a half ago. Last night I couldn't feel it at all and I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about it. I am sure everything is fine but it reminded me of the anxiety I felt during my pregnancy with Cora. It's amazing how stressful, joyful, incredible, and terrifying it is to have a person inside your abdomen.

I just felt it move. There you go. It's in there. It didn't just dissipate into thin air over night. It has legs.

Two

We celebrated Cora's second birthday on Saturday. It was a cozy morning party with friends. I spent last week remembering childhood birthday parties while thinking about the small details of Cora's party--things like cupcakes or cake, what sorts of brunchy things we'd serve, ways to get toddlers to dance, things like that. More, though, I was imagining picking Cora up in the morning with a full heart and a pronounced sense of my daughter's babyhood ending. I didn't feel that way; I was just so excited to celebrate her birthday--more excited, maybe, than she was.

The thing is, her birthday party wasn't on her actual birthday; she was born two years ago today. So I was a little surprised to feel all those feelings this morning. She sat across from us in the kitchen, spooning oatmeal and yogurt and wearing beads around her neck, and I stared at her while remembering pacing around the Seattle University's track near Swedish hospital, trying to get my contractions to speed up. And now she is a little person with opinions and stubborn behavior who is able to gracefully maneuver a spoon of milky oatmeal into her mouth.

She's growing up.

To make matters more oddly emotional, I dropped her off this morning at the new nanny share we're trying out Monday mornings for a few hours. I'm tucked away at a bookstore trying to get started on the next chapter of my novel, and a baby is crying nearby. A woman just walked by with her bundled seven-month-old who is placidly sitting on her hip and staring at everything she stares at--no squirming, no begging for down, no sudden launching into space and beyond with strong legs.

It's not that I am sad to see her grow. It's that the growth is sometimes astonishing, and I wonder if I'll ever get over the growing pains from the joy of watching her turn into herself.

Thumpityswish thump thump

We heard the little plum's heartbeat on Monday. There's nothing more thrilling; it gets me choked up every time. I am becoming so excited about this new little person.

We officially told Cora about the baby on Monday, too. While I feel quite sure she'd already figured it out from the peripheral conversations going on around her, we had a "real" conversation about it in the doctor's office and showed her pictures of babies in bellies. She heard her sibling's heartbeat, too. She's been wandering around the house the past two weeks periodically slipping a doll under her shirt and explaining it's in her tummy. When asked if she wants a brother or a sister, she gives changing answers--sometimes a brother, sometimes a sister, no a brother, no a sister. I'm glad she seems so flexible about the idea.

My ability to concentrate is generally nil. Writing? What writing? Time is slipping away and very little has been done. I find myself periodically searching for classmates' names on google and discovering their recently published piece of writing, or I see a sudden facebook update announcing an upcoming novel. Sometimes I worry that writing is just one of those things I'm fooling myself about. I become either melodramatic or realistic (we won't know which that is until my life is over, I suppose. See? Melodrama.). I imagine turning 50 (or dying at a ripe old age) and having nothing to show for my own endeavors except a bunch of cluttered piles of paper and unfinished manuscripts, and diary entries in spidery, arthritic script. When I'm feeling optimistic, it's arguable that I'm feeling way overly optimistic because I imagine the path opening up before me--the manuscript finished, edited, and rewritten very easily, and the publishing process a success.

It's easy to become discouraged when nothing is getting done. That said, I am feeling better. I don't feel the need to sleep away the afternoon, so perhaps I can take back a few of these afternoons for productive work.

I am, however, slated to spend at least the next 20 minutes trying to read my last chapter draft while imagining a BABY in my belly.